While attending a conference recently, a couple of friends from Louisiana gave me some friendly grief, telling me how they are "kicking some Yankee butt," or some such.

Amused, I inquired, "What are you talking about?"

They then proceeded to remind me how a few months ago, Gardner Denver Inc. decided to move 230 manufacturing jobs out of Sheboygan to Monroe, La.

This decision prompted Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is believed to be one of the frontrunners for the Republican Party presidential nomination in 2012, to say, "Today's announcement follows a recent trend - since early 2008, leading companies have announced moves of their headquarters or other significant operations to Louisiana from states, such as California, Georgia, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin. We expect to see even more of these moves in the future as national executives become increasingly aware of Louisiana's recent progress with ethics reform, tax competitiveness and workforce development."

That's a great campaign sound byte (aside from the "progress with ethics reform" part), but let's look a little closer at this Baton Rouge two-step.

Read Jagler's full column

-- Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.

Labels: Steve_Jagler

To Tweet or not to Tweet? That is the question. Perhaps more generally, the question every business must ask itself right now is whether or not it wants to engage the company and/or its people in social media.

As the cover story of this week's BizTimes Milwaukee documents, many southeastern Wisconsin businesses are delving into social media networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Some are finding ways to actually make money out of their social media connections. Others are building their networks and planting seeds for future relationships and -- hopefully -- new business.

Like many of the issues we cover, BizTimes Media LLC also has been grappling with the same questions are readers are pondering. With regard to social media, we made the strategic decision a month or so back to just do it.

I've instructed our people not to obsess over it. It's just another emerging tool, and for now, we just need to be in the game.

I do not consider myself a technogeek. Nor am I a technophobe. Maybe just a slow adopter would be the right description.

Fortunately for me, we have a staff of Gen Y folks who are fearless when it comes to technology. So, they just decided to take us where we need to go.

Click here to read the rest of Jagler's piece.

-- Jagler is executive editor of BizTimes Milwaukee.

Labels: Steve_Jagler