Join us for this week's episode as Blake Woolsey has a conversation with Dave Shideler, Chief Research Officer at Heartland Forward, and Justin Burch, National Director of Workforce Development at Rural LISC about the the latest report from Heartland Forward, Most Dynamic Micropolitans.

Join us for this episode of Meet us in the Middle as Blake Woolsey, chief communications and development officer for Heartland Forward, has a conversation with Wendy Guerrero, president of the Bentonville Film Festival and BFFoundation.

Simply put:  The Bentonville Film Festival is a research-based and commercially-focused film festival with the primary mission of championing women and diversity in all aspects of media. 

Save the Date for 2023 BFF:  BFF is going to be celebrating its ninth annual festival will take place in Bentonville and the Northwest Arkansas region during June 13 – 18, 2023 with on-demand streaming through June 25. This will include selections of competition title (narrative, documentary, animation, shorts, episodic) alongside exciting work across all festival sections; featuring panels that challenge industry norms, and conversations that emphasize independent artists in the art of film, storytelling and technology; and curated studio spotlight films with celebrity conversations. Festival passes and ticket sales will be announced.

More about Wendy:   Wendy is not only the current president of the Bentonville Film Festival, but she is also the CEO and co-founder of the production company, Publicly Private, which she founded with Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern. They are currently developing a TV series tentatively titled Crankshaft in conjunction with Billy Crystals’ Face Productions. Wendy is in pre-production on a coming-of age film titled Coast. Staying true to her goal of promoting diversity, she served as a producer for A Country Called Home, a film that incorporates stories from people of all walks of life, starring Ryan Bingham, Imogen Poots, Mackenzie Davis and June Squibb which premiered at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival. You can follow Wendy on Twitter @wkguerrero. 

Stay in touch with BFF:  Please visit Bentonville Film Festival at www.bentonvillefilm.org. If you have questions on tickets or passes? Email [email protected].

Join us on this week's episode as we have a conversation with Phil Graves, CEO of Wild Idea Buffalo, about the vision of regenerating the prairie grasslands, while improving our home planet and our food supply, by bringing back the bison.

Changes in technology and communications over the past 20 years have transformed labor markets around the world and made online job searches the norm for most firms and workers in the US. Just look at the growth of LinkedIn, an American business and employment-oriented online service. More than 25% of US adults are LinkedIn users today, according to Pew Research Center. It is a social media platform available in 200 countries, and LinkedIn states that “100 million job applications” are sent each month. Thus, scrolling on-line for a job has become almost expected.

Julie Trivitt, senior economist at Heartland Forward, has done a deep dive into rates of job ads and resumes that were posted from July 1, 2020-June 30, 2021. While the answer is not crystal clear on how to close the gap, there are some trends business leaders and policymakers can consider for potential employees who are looking for jobs online. The patterns and characteristics identified in the data can help business leaders and policymakers more accurately assess their labor markets and make decisions likely to foster economic growth.

To read more of Julie's work, you can find it here:

Julie also has quite a career before joining Heartland Forward. To learn more about Julie and her background, you can find her vita here. 

Who met in the middle for this episode?  Maryann Feldman, Ross DeVol and Daniel Goetzel share the stage in this podcast talking about a report Heartland Forward released at the 2022 Heartland Summit called Research to Renewal as well as discussing the National Science Foundation's announcement of a new program called Regional Innovation Engines. 

Situational Awareness:  Creating new knowledge to infuse into private industry to yield an economic return on an investment is important to regions and our nation overall. Facing global competition for talent and leadership, the U.S. must expand its innovation capacity by leveraging resources, creativity and ingenuity that exists across all geographic regions of the country. 

What's the connection? The Research to Renewal report and the announcement of the bold, new U.S. NSF initiative both acknowledge that robust partnerships rooted in scientific and technological innovation to positively impact the economy within a geographic region are critical, especially to address societal challenges and keep us competitive nationally.

Drilling down to top performers: If you are curious and want to see an index of the top performing universities at tech transfer and commercialization by research expenditure, region, private v. public institution and medical school presence, a map can be found here.  

What a great conversation between Ross DeVol and Richard Florida about Richard's latest report on heartland talent. Specifically, they discuss how heartland metropolitans are changing the map of talent in the U.S. When you listen, you'll hear the friendship and respect between these two gentlemen that spans decades.   Enjoy!

About Richard Florida, Senior Fellow, Heartland Forward, and University Professor, University of Toronto

Richard Florida is one of the world’s leading urbanists.

He is a researcher and professor, serving as University Professor at University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management and a Distinguished Fellow at NYU and Florida International University.

He is a writer and journalist, having penned several global bestsellers, including the award-winning The Rise of the Creative Class and his most recent book, The New Urban Crisis published in April 2017. He serves as senior editor for The Atlantic, where he co-founded and serves as Editor-at-Large for CityLab.

www.creativeclass.com

Publications:  

About the Ross DeVol, President and CEO of Heartland Forward

Since joining Heartland Forward in 2019, DeVol has raised the profile of Heartland Forward through media engagement with quotes in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Economist and Axios and op-eds in the Dallas Morning News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Chicago Tribune and Des Moines Register as well as TV appearances throughout the heartland. DeVol is a former chief research officer for the Milken Institute where he spent nearly 20 years, an economic think tank headquartered in California. He oversaw research on international, national and comparative regional growth performance, access to capital and its role in economic growth and job creation and health-related topics. He has been ranked among the “Superstars of Think Tank Scholars” by International Economy magazine.

www.heartlandfoward.org

Join us for today's episode on innovation and entrepreneurship and why it is a key pillar for Heartland Forward. 

In this episode of Meet Us in the Middle, Blake Woolsey speaks with Matt Wadiak, Founder and CEO of Cooks Venture. 

In this episode of Meet Us in the Middle, Angie Cooper speaks with Heartland entrepreneurs Margaret Boyce and Jamey Gresham, co-founders of Southern-based handbag brand J. Lowery.

In this episode of Meet Us in the Middle, Angie Cooper sits down with Andre Fowlkes, President of Memphis-based venture architect firm Start Co.