Webinars Newswire Stories

The COVID-19 pandemic taught Iowa companies many things about their operations, but perhaps the greatest lesson was the need to develop more resiliency to better handle business disruptions regardless of their origin. To help companies with preparedness, CIRAS hosted a series of business resiliency webinars last spring on 19 topics ranging from building resiliency in … Continue reading Webinars Address Need for Resiliency

Government contracting can be an excellent path for a business to diversify its customer base and build a stable source of revenue. But the pool of available opportunities can expand dramatically when large prime companies team with small businesses. How do companies of different sizes with complementary capabilities find each other? To help with that, … Continue reading Virtual Matchmaking Session on April 8

Food manufacturing is complicated. Wouldn’t you like a place where you can get a little help?

We thought so. That’s why CIRAS next month is launching Food Talks, a new roundtable discussion to give food manufacturers a place where they can collaborate and exchange ideas.

This month, the Iowa Lean Consortium is offering you a week’s worth of intensive learning – and you won’t even have to leave your desk.

Written by Tracy Schuster
ILC Program Director

The ILC’s 2021 Webinar Week begins on January 19 – the day after Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday – and includes four days of intensive presentations covering various aspects of Lean. The webinar topics will include:

What does COVID-19 have in common with influenza? The foundation for keeping both from overwhelming your workplace starts with education, regular disinfection, and keeping a close eye on your employees so you can spot any outbreaks quickly.

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That was the message to Iowa manufacturers in November when Emily Law, infection prevention coordinator at Mary Greeley Medical Center in Ames, spoke to participants in the weekly CIRAS Roundtable for Iowa manufacturers.

A major CIRAS tool for helping Iowa companies get the most out of their internet marketing efforts is moving permanently online. The Internet Marketing Strategy Boot Camp, a popular CIRAS event that has existed for roughly eight years as a two-day deep dive into topics such as search engine optimization and web analytics, was repackaged … Continue reading Internet Marketing Boot Camp Moves Online

More than 40 people from 32 companies now have taken part in the CIRAS Food Safety Collaboration, a series of intensive three-month classes that were created last summer.

CIRAS project manager said the classes, which were developed as part of a nationwide effort to improve the way companies are taught about food safety, remain popular with small businesses. But they’ve also developed a new following as training for managers at larger food companies.

It’s been six months since COVID-19 forced CIRAS to temporarily halt in-person educational events. Since then, we’ve been working hard to meet your educational needs in cyberspace, opening up roundtable discussion groups and hosting more than 80 webinars involving thousands of people.

Recently, to help you better, we made some changes in how we’ll handle webinars and roundtables going forward.

See you (in person) next year.

As a response to COVID-19 and the still-spreading pandemic, CIRAS has decided to cancel all in-person events through the remainder of 2020. We simply don’t believe it’s practical to schedule face-to-face events in the current environment.

However, that doesn’t mean we intend to stop educating Iowa businesses.

There is no getting around it – the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound and far-reaching effect on all of us. 

The way we interact and do business has been forced to change with very little notice. One of our mantras at CIRAS is “working at the speed of the customer” because we truly do care about everyone we serve. To accommodate our unexpected new environment, we “re-calibrated” as quickly as possible to best meet the evolving needs of our clients.

Government contracting is about relationships. You have to know which government entities are in the market for the particular product or service that you provide, and they have to know you – where you are and exactly how you’re capable of helping them.

But how do you get in the game if you don’t understand the players?

For 33 years, Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs) have helped expand the number of small businesses that successfully compete for and win federal, state, and local government contracts. This month, PTACs from around the country are coming together for one special day to celebrate the success of the tens of thousands of small businesses who have benefitted from training and technical assistance delivered by their local PTACs.

Are you showing potential customers the best version of your company?

Capability statements are a key component of any government marketing plan and should be one of your main marketing materials for government customers. Capability statements act as a resume of your business, including all important information that a potential government customer would rely on for market research.