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I’m currently visiting Chicago for Social Dev Camp (#SDCCHI). I’ve also been across the country in the past 6 months from Seattle, to Iowa, I live in Minneapolis, visited Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, and New York. Do you know what a common question is in all those cities? “How can we keep great jobs/talent in (fill in your city).

How to attract Great Talent
Great talent wants a career, money, a team they love, and a position that offers them a sense of purpose. Talent will follow companies doing great things, unless they are reserved to stay in their current city to be near family and friends.

How to Get Cool Companies to Come to Your City
Companies simply need to be somewhere with enough great talent to help their businesses thrive and grow. Now considering that last paragraph said talent follows business you may be thinking this is a vicious cycle where no one wins. Wrong. If you think you have talent you can start your own company, blog, or freelance to attract companies to you. Prove yourself.

Companies also need a foundation. I’m not talking about a building foundation, those can be bought, leased, or built. I’m talking about clients, the core of a company is their clients and team. Your clients sustain paying for everything else. If you live in a ghost town it’s going to be hard to attract companies, but not impossible. Either way incentive is necessary.

I may not have the cure to a down economy, and I can’t tell you how to prevent companies from offshoring or outsourcing to India or San Francisco but I can offer some advice:

- Be talented. Never stop learning. Be the greatest at what you do.
- Offer something unique. It’s a doggy dog world. The competition is talent, smart, and savvy. Offer that little something extra to raise the ante.
- Be accessible. Write a blog. A blog is upping the ante because if you and your competition are equal in every other way, but someone can find and read how talented you are- they may never get a chance to see that someone is smarter then you.

I’m going to leave you with a quote from Field of Dreams, “Build it and they will come.” Why wait for the next big thing, your dream job, or dream company: BUILD IT.