Apprentice to jeweler Marraccini makes a name in Augusta, GA

Charlottesville native Margaret Lane, former jewelry apprentice to Lee Angelo Marraccini, designer and proprietor of Angelo on Charlottesville’s downtown mall, now makes her home in Augusta, Georgia. C-VILLE’s sister publication, Metro Spirit, writes about her in this week’s issue.

AUGUSTA, GA - Margaret Lane is a woman who clings to life with her bare hands. It’s the way she makes her art and the way she lives and learns. Right out of high school, Lane knew what she wanted and how to get there. And she followed a path to her art that was more traditional than people might imagine.

Even though the University of Virginia was right up the road in her native Charlottesville, Va., Lane skipped the college route. Instead, she began apprenticing with Lee Angelo Marraccini, an award-winning contemporary jewelry artist in Charlottesville who is known for his strong but playful designs …

CATEC Job Fair to be held Saturday, January 26th

The Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center (CATEC) will be holding its 6th Annual Job Fair and Expo on Saturday, January 26, 10 am to 5 pm, at the Charlottesville Fashion Square Mall.

The Job Fair portion of the event includes area employers from many different industries ranging from health care to construction to non-profits. Business sponsors will be recruiting on-site for new personnel as well as providing information to the community about their respective services. Current employers accepting applications include the following: UVA Health Systems; UVA Facilities Management; Martha Jefferson; Crutchfield; North American Energy Services; Nursefinders; and many more. Post-secondary institutions, including PVCC, National College, and Sylvan Learning Center will also be available throughout the day.

The Expo features instructors and students from each of CATEC’s programs, giving demonstrations of their classroom experience and providing information on registration for the 2008/09 academic year. Parents and students are welcome to attend and experience first-hand the range of choices CATEC offers students in the Charlottesville-Albemarle region.

Business feedback on the upcoming overhaul of the Downtown Mall

Brian Wheeler posts on the Charlottesville Tomorrow blog about MyDowntownMall.com, the City of Charlottesville’s website related to the upcoming overhaul of the pedestrian Downtown Mall.

He notes the City’s release of their Business Impact Survey Report [January 15 - PDF] — highlighting the following comments from restaurants and art galleries found within the report:

• “Everything and everyone comes through the front door: people, deliveries and trash. If the mall is disrupted in front of us, we will close.”
• “Any disruption or closure of the patios will hurt us. Also, any loss of electric or gas for any amount of time.”
• “The loss of the patio in the spring or summer will kill our business.”
• “If they disrupt 5th Street, we are screwed.”
• “We need to have a strong public relations campaign to combat negative media attention.”

The Downtown Mall reconstruction is expected to start no sooner than January 2009. If you have comments or feedback for the City on this plan and process, you can make your thoughts known here. Links for their On-Line Survey and Business Impact Survey are still available as well.

Monticello Names Ann H. Taylor Executive Vice President

Ann H. Taylor, executive vice president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in the late 1990s, will return to Monticello with the same title but new responsibilities, effective Feb. 15.

Taylor most recently was executive director of the Darden School Foundation at the University of Virginia, a position she held from 2004 through August 2007. There, she was responsible for all financial, operational, development, alumni, and external relations for the foundation, which supports the Darden School of Business Administration.

Foundation President Daniel P. Jordan notes, “Ann served with great distinction here for almost 13 years, and her contributions were truly consequential. Recalling her many talents and her genuine passion for Monticello, we are thrilled by her return.”

Upon her arrival at Monticello, Ms. Taylor’s priority responsibilities will be overseeing completion of the under-construction Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center.

Call for Nominations: CYFS Family-Friendly Employer Award

Children, Youth & Family Services is seeking nominations for two awards to be presented at its annual Community Breakfast in April, 2008. One of those awards is the 2008 CYFS Family-Friendly Employer Award. This award honors an employer with practices that instill a family-friendly work culture. You must be an employee of the organization or business in order to nominate it for this award and only organizations, businesses or other employers are eligible.

Is Your Employer Family-Friendly? Visit www.cyfs.org to download a nomination form. Deadline for submission is February 15, 2008.

The second award is the 2008 John L. Snook Child Advocate Award. This award honors an individual who has demonstrated over time a continuing commitment to the well-being of children and families in the community and to the advancement of children’s issues through volunteer or professional services and/or public advocacy.

CBIC Workshop Jan. 15: “Culture Is King”

On Tuesday, January 15, the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council (CBIC) welcomes Steve Delgado, President and Group Publisher for Portico Publications, Ltd., in Charlottesville, VA. Mr. Delgado’s workshop-presentation is entitled, Culture Is King: How A Small Media Company Uses Culture to Outmaneuver and Outperform the Big Guys.

Portico publishes weekly newspapers in the southeast, including the C-VILLE Weekly in Charlottesville, Free Times in Columbia, SC and Metro Spirit in Augusta, GA, along with other special publications.

Time: 7:00 - 9:00 am
Location: UVa Darden School, Room 50
100 Darden Boulevard
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Sponsored by Robbins Staffing Solutions
Fee: CBIC Members, free; Non-members, $25.

Business processes trends to watch

This interesting piece picked up from the Jackson Blog, Stanford Graduate School of Business. Happy New Year:

McKinsey Quarterly reports eight new ways of doing business that will shape the economy in years to come. These trends fall within three broad areas of business activity: managing relationships, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways.

Here are a few highlights:

1. Cocreation — company harvesting talents of innovators working outside corporate boundaries. For example, the Linux operating system was developed over the Internet by a network of specialists. It is estimated that roughly 12% of all labor activity in the U.S. economy could be transformed by distributed and networked forms of innovation.

2. Consumer as innovators — for instance, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is created by its distributed customers. Another example is Threadless, the online T-shirt store that asks consumer to submit new designes for T-shirts to be voted on by the community at large.

3. Outsourcing — companies parcel out work to specialists, free agents, and talent networks. Topcoder, a company that has created a network of software developers in order that companies can access this talent pool instead of employing experienced engineers.

4. Extracting value from interactions — companies invest in interactions may find smarter and faster ways for individuals and teams to create value that is difficult for their rivals to replicate.

6. Unbundling production — Amazon.com, for example, has expanded its business model to let other retailers use its logistics and distribution services. Unbundling enables the supply side to raise asset utilization rates and therefore their returns on invested capital. On the demand side, unbundling offers access to resources and assets that might otherwise require a large fixed investment or significant scale to achieve competitive marginal cost.

Reported in December 2007 issue of McKinsey Quarterly