Copy of Program 2020 | SoVermont Zone

Southern Vermont Economy Summit

Preliminary Program

Featured Speakers

Power In Numbers: Using Economic Data to Understand and Shape our Future

Keynote Speaker: Josh Wright, Community Insight Division at Emsi

Sponsored By the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development

Josh leads the economic and workforce development team at Emsi, a leading source of labor market data for communities, colleges, and companies. Emsi's mission is to use data to inform and connect people, educators, and employers.

Josh writes and presents on the subjects of data best practices and emerging trends in economic development and regional workforce analysis, including recent work on analyzing regional skills clusters to market and match talent to local companies. Josh and his team look at the best way to diagnose and treat regional supply and demand gaps and help people find the right career paths.

Small stories. Just the right size for our wonderfully small state.

Keynote Speaker: Bill Drew, Founder and Chief Storyteller at Kipling Road

Sponsored By Stevens & Associates and MSK Engineering

Every day, we try to get our teams, co-workers, bosses, clients, vendors, partners, contractors and prospects to listen to us, understand us and ultimately follow us. And in many cases, buy from us. We are all in the persuasion biz. Storytelling is the simplest and most direct route to persuasion. To be more specific, small stories. Creating a big library of small stories is the key. Most of us have little or no training in how to get better at storytelling. The good news is, everyone is a born storyteller. So we start from that spot and build up. Before you know, you’ll be better at persuasion because you will become better at storytelling. Small stories, that is.