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American Community Network:
ACN was an online subscription service for
economic development information introduced by Towery
Publishing (Bob Towery), Memphis,
TN, in the mid-1990s. Towery, a supplier of community-oriented publishing
services,
was later acquired
by a Chicago holding company and shut down. ACN moved
to Vulcan Publications of Birmingham, AL, where it became ACNOdyssey.
In the process of going out of business, Vulcan passed ACNOdyssey on
to FieldMedia of
Alpharetta, GA. Marc
Bailey, the original developer of ACN at Towery, ended up working
with FieldMedia. The entry below offers additional details and resources.

bizMiner:
Among its other business research and information development
offerings, BizMiner includes
limited community profiles, for example covering demographics
and overviews of local enterprise vitality. BizMiner sells research
guides for small businesses. Services are marginal in terms of the
definition of location
data supplier in the .network glossary. Jon
Brandow of Camp Hill, PA owns the
operation which was brought to our attention in the early days of The
Network by Business
Know-How ... small business website for home offices
and small businesses. Owned by Attard Communications, Inc. (of Centereach,
NY). Enterprise
developers will likely be more interested in the two
websites mentioned here as opposed to site
selectors looking
for community
profiles and local economic
development data to support
comparative
analyses.

bizsitesData.com:
ACNOdyssey was
acquired by Doug Field.
He apparently attempted to go along with the creation of site
selection standards but was shut out from the Development
Alliance that created them. FieldMedia formed
a
working
relationship with Plants
Sites & Parks magazine. The ACNOdyssey was changed to bizsitesData.
At last check www.bizsitesData.com was not accessible and an associated
website,
Bizsites.com, was for sale as a domain name.
While ACNOdyssey was online it published a sample page
of its interpretation of site
selection standards. Although the
page is no longer online, the information from it was salvaged and is
reprinted below with links to additional information available in .network files. The following quote is from www.acnodyssey.com/ID_Boise/index.htm,
another webpage that no longer exists.

A committee composed of economic developer associations
and site selection consultants developed the industry standard for
economic development data. According to this task force, every community
needs to have a certain set of data to help prospects in their decision
making process. After three years of study, the task force finalized
the Site Selection Data Standard template. ACNOdyssey has expanded
upon the Site Selection Data Standard template, providing data that
is critical to site selectors and economic developers. ACNOdyssey has
licensed the required data from the industry's leading data providers
and named this product ACNDataPoints. ACNDataPoints averages 2,500
data elements, per community, ranging from demographic data to union
information.
FieldMedia attempted to go along with the creation
of site
selection standards but apparently it and PS&P example of
one of its webpages using so called site
selection standards set forth by the Development
Alliance. A summary of the ACNOdyssey data points
is provided below as a reference,
although the page itself is no longer available. The
Resource Report,
2000.3 has more information about the various data
elements of the site selection standards.

Examples of location data elements taken from an ACNOdyssey webpage:
| community colleges defined |
| four-year institutions defined |
| vocational/technical colleges defined |
| air pollution (see ambient) air quality defined ambient air defined |
| health care defined air pollution defined |
| housing defined |
| corporate income tax defined |
| incentives defined |
| personal income tax defined |
| sales tax defined |
| unemployment insurance defined |
| worker's compensation defined |
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Conway Data, Inc. of
Norcross, GA, is known for the association management services it provides
for the Industrial Asset Management Council (IAMC)
and its predecessor organization the International
Development Research Council (IDRC) as well as the World
Development Federation (WDF). CDI is also known for its publication of Site
Selection magazine. In addition the firm provides specialized online media
services which include acting as a location
information broker, if not directly,
indirectly through the associations. The CDI website states that
... Conway Data launched SiteNet, the first electronic network for the
economic development industry, in 1983 and continues to pioneer with the
Site Selection
Online Insider, Development
Alliance, and other leading edge online media
services.
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The
Site Selection Network (SSN) is administered by Location
Management Services, Mission Viejo, CA for the National
Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in the US. Location
Management Services is a consultation firm operating SSN
services as a location
information broker of sorts. NAM offers SSN as a benefit
for its members. Apparently, other associations, such American
Hotel and Lodging Association, American International Automobile
Dealers
and the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors (SIOR),
are invited into the program through Location Management Services.
The SSN focus is on real estate sites
and available
buildings with ancillary location
data offered for a fee that
is either a direct or portion of a dues payment
as an association benefit. From the quote below it appears
that the information available is limited to only those who
pay to provide it, suggesting that an enterprise
developer wanting a thorough, unbiased,
site
search would need to hire the consultant.

Site Selection Network members
(economic developers, utilities, state departments, regional
groups, rural electric coops, and
real estate brokers) pay an annual membership fee for the opportunity
to respond to SSN searches ... (source
of the quote).

The
Network you
are now using has a program within its Site
Selection Directory that allows enterprise
developers and site
selectors to announce
their projects online for free. The cost effective end result
from using the service is exactly the same as that which
comes
about
from
using, say, the Site Selection Network. The
quality of services provided through the Directory
and SSN
are the same. The
Network is not in the information brokerage
business.
No are fees charged for
use of the Site
Selection Directory for those who qualify. As far as experience
is concerned, there are twice the number of years of providing
site selection services behind the Site
Selection Directory as those claimed by
the SSN. Most important, perhaps, is the
fact that
what
the
Site Selection
Directory publishes
is open and free to all. This means that it is truly nonpartisan,
a point reinforced by the search
promise of The
Network.
Site
Selection Directory services
are available
that make it
possible
for uses to protect confidential
plans
and activities, even withhold their identities, while
reaching out to a targeted group or a geographic region to
collect location
data and proposals. The Directory
especially appeals to small
businesses and fast-growing
companies with a desire for cost
effective site
selection.
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