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JOHNSON CITY & KINGSPORT – Cloud Wise Academy announced today a new local marketing and e-commence workshop, Amplify Our City, to teach local business owners how to best use the internet’s capabilities. The workshops will be taught in partnership with the Kingsport and Johnson City chambers of commerce. Amplify Our City is a three-step workshop to attract more customers online and in store. In this workshop, business owners will learn where to start and how to use online tools, free local marketing tactics, when to spend money and what savvy marketing peers are doing. Participants will learn how the internet favors local companies, how to market on a small budget, and how to avoid costly mistakes. “In today’s post-pandemic world, social media has become a key means of retail purchasing,” said Bob Cantler, President and CEO of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce. “Learning tricks of the trade to maximize your business’ exposure will certainly enhance sales across the board.” “I don’t care what kind of business you have; one of the most important assets to your business is your web presence,” said Aundrea Salyer, senior business counselor for the Tennessee Small Business Development Center at ETSU Kingsport Affiliate Office. “That means making it easy for your customers to find you online and to shop online. I get asked all the time whether a business should invest in a web site or leverage existing social media platforms. I’m very interested to hear how Joe addresses this.” The two workshop sessions will be held in partnership with local chambers of commerce this month. You do not have to be member of the Chamber(s) to participate. Kingsport Chamber of Commerce: April 21 from 8-10:30 is an online webinar available to the public regardless of geographic location. Attendees must register in advance: https://clients.tsbdc.org/workshop.aspx?ekey=10420014 . Johnson City Chamber of Commerce: April 22 from 8-10:30 a.m., at the 602 Sevier St., Suite 101, in Johnson City. Attendees must register in advance: https://cca.johnsoncitytnchamber.com/EvtListing.aspx?dbid2=TNJC&evtid=105727&class=E The course is taught by Joe McKenna, founder of Cloud Wise Academy , which specializes in e-commerce training. “Many companies are surprised to discover that the internet favors local companies. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to put the internet to work for your company instead of against it,” said McKenna. By providing the workshop through the chambers of commerce, McKenna hopes this will broaden the education of citizens of Kingsport and Johnson City and help local businesses grow. For more information, email McKenna at joe@cloudwiseacademy.com or call 530-515-9851.
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – (April 4, 2022) Grow your career or business by learning valuable search engine marketing skills. According to 99 Firms, 46% of all Google searches are linked to something local, so it is crucial to learn these valuable skills for yourself, your business and our community. This spring, Cloud Wise Academy, an East Tennessee State University Innovation Lab affiliate member, is hosting a "Local Search Engine Marketing" course aimed at local companies that want to rank better on Google and marketing professionals who want to learn valuable skills. "Students will learn the pros' skills and tools in search engine marketing," said Joe Mckenna, founder of Cloud Wise Academy. “Many companies are surprised to discover that the internet favors local companies. Around 93% of all web traffic is via search engines. Search engine marketing is the lifeblood of every company. We'll demystify it and teach you the valuable skill you need.” The workshop begins May 16 and runs through June 22, with classes on Monday and Wednesday nights from 6-8 p.m. In-person participants meet at the ETSU Innovation Lab, located at 2109 W. Market St. in Johnson City. The class may also be taken synchronously online. Registration fees are $350 per participant, and participants may use the code "early50" through May 1 to save $50. “This class will teach aspiring SEO professionals the ins and outs of local search engine optimization,” said Chauncy Haworth, course instructor. “With hands-on support, you will learn how to alter an existing website and properly create online profiles that will get search engines and local customers attention.” "We are pleased to have Cloud Wise Academy bring search engine marketing opportunities like this to the Appalachian Highlands," said Liz Bennett, assistant director of the Innovation Lab. "We've heard great feedback from previous students and are excited to see more classes like this offered in the area. We hope that students, community members and entrepreneurs will take advantage of these types of classes that help bring new business opportunities to this area." Learn more and register at www.cloudwiseacademy.com/seo-course . For more information about Cloud Wise Academy and future courses, visit cloudwiseacademy.com , or reach Mckenna at joe@cloudwiseacademy.com or at 530-515-9851. The ETSU Innovation Lab is a high-tech business incubator that assists aspiring entrepreneurs from concept through commercialization. For more information, visit etsu.edu/ilab or contact Dr. Audrey Depelteau, director of the Innovation Lab, at depelteau@etsu.edu .
The Redding Record Searchlight recently ran a piece about a young Redding Workforce finding avenues to good jobs. This piece is on the forms of non-college education people engage in to find the technically skilled jobs that make up today’s economy. Cloud Wise Academy, and Chris Webber, a graduate of our school, were both featured in the article. The Local organizations Several local organizations were showcased in the piece, all trying to make a difference for young people entering the job market. For instance, the Shasta Union Fire Academy, which teaches high school students the skills and procedures they need to become fully-qualified firefighters. About 80 percent of graduates of this program receive job offers from state and federal firefighting agencies. One firefighter, Alex Golden, expressed his deep appreciation for the training, saying “I would have been lost without the academy.” Golden has received a job offer from a local fire station. The article also mentioned the Career Technical Education Pathways program, which helps students gain first-hand experience in many different professions, Reach Higher Shasta, Shasta College, and Cloud Wise Academy. Cloud Wise Academy in the News The article discusses how Chris Webber, a navy veteran, was having trouble finding good-paying work after leaving the military. An injury sustained in the navy forced him to abandon gunsmithing after it provided too physically taxing. Around that time, he was contacted by Joe Mckenna from Cloud Wise Academy, who wanted him to take the very first coding class. About a year later, Chris Webber supports his two daughters with his own web-building business. He describes the process of learning to code as much simpler than he thought it would be, and a skill that’s very much in demand. “There’s so much coding work to do, and not enough people to do it,” he says.
The Redding Record Searchlight recently published a video showcasing people who found local jobs out of high school through paths that were somewhat out of the ordinary. They interviewed Alex Golden from the Shasta Union Fire Academy, and Cloud Wise Academy’s most famous graduate, Chris Webber. Shasta Union Fire Academy His junior and senior year of high school, Alex Golden attended the Shasta Union Fire Academy, which allowed him to become qualified for all state and federal firefighting jobs by the time he graduated. After graduating, he found a job with “I decided to go into the workforce before going to college because I discovered nothing made me happier than being a firefighter,” he says. Alex Golden has been offered a job at a local firefighting station. Cloud Wise Academy Nathan Solis, the reporter from the Record Searchlight, also talked to Chris Webber, a graduate of several Cloud Wise Academy classes. “After I got out of the Navy,” Chris recalls, “the job market was horrible. I went into gunsmithing for a few months, but my injuries got so bad I had to quit doing that.” Later on, he says “Joe from Cloud Wise Academy asked me to take the first Cloud Wise Academy class and offered to pay for the whole thing.” This was in June of 2016. Approximately a year later, Chris now owns his own web design business. “Because of my medical conditions,” he explains, “I wasn’t really interested in working for anyone. Especially because of time restraints, medical restraints. So I decided to start my own company and here I am.” Watch the full interview with Alex Golden and Chris Webber.
August 3rd, 2017 – Redding, California – In a short ceremony held at the Shasta Regional Community Foundation offices, Cloud Wise Academy received a donation from the Leadership Redding Class of 2017 . This money, paid to the Cloudwise scholarship fund, is intended to help female students take Cloud Wise Academy’s accelerated technology courses. The goal is to encourage young women to succeed in the increasingly important field of technology. Cloud Wise Academy Cloud Wise Academy held its first class in July of 2016. Since then, it has trained approximately 100 students in the high-demand technology skills that matter so much, including WordPress, HTML, and Search Engine Optimization. The classes are accelerated – from three to six weeks – and teach only the skills that employees might need, cutting out theory from the curriculum. These classes are also taught by professionals in web development and other technological fields. Since the inception of the school, many graduates have gone on to launch prosperous careers in technology. For instance, Chris Webber, became a web designer after taking several Cloud Wise Academy Classes. “The goal of Cloud Wise Academy is really to help Shasta County, by making sure we have the type of workforce we need,” said Jake Hinton, as he accepted the check. He is the Project Manager at Cloud Wise Academy, and a former student of the program. Leadership Redding and women in tech Numerous important individuals in the community attended this event, including the Shasta County District Attorney, Stephanie Bridgett. There were also representatives from many local businesses. Megan Conn is the development manager at Turtle Bay and a member of the Leadership Redding class of 2017. “Every year, Turtle Bay sends someone to be in Leadership Redding – I’m lucky that this time it was me,” she said. Conn described the team’s decision to fund a Cloud Wise Academy student this way: “Every year, the current class of Leadership Redding does a project,” she says. “For ours, we decided to focus on a problem we heard about throughout the year, at all the different events we attended: Low educational attainment in Redding and Shasta County. We wanted to help with efforts designed to keep young people there and to develop better paying jobs. During our economic development day we attended an event called Amplify, and many of us were very interested in the speakers from Cloud Wise Academy.” “We talked it over,” she continued, “and we thought it was a valid and wonderful alternative for people in terms of career paths. Also, we noticed there weren’t quite as many women speaking at Amplify that day, so we decided our project would focus on that aspect as well. The money for the donation came from the pockets of all of the students in the Leadership Class, who were really inspired by the work Cloud Wise Academy is doing and wanted to pay it forward.” The donation to Cloud Wise Academy is only one part of the project. “Later in the year,” Megan explains, “we’re going to be gathering some professional clothing to donate for job interviews at the career day for Pioneer High School – which is the continuation high school in Redding.” As Cloud Wise Academy is a private company, rather than a non-profit, the Shasta Regional Community Foundation administers the scholarship fund. The scholarship completely pays for student classes – many of the students who were most successful in the program were able to attend because of a scholarship. Cloud Wise Academy was founded in 2016 to teach “learn to earn” skills that workers and company owners can use to succeed in today’s e-commerce economy. Classes are purposefully held in the evenings so people with jobs and families can attend conveniently. Courses are taught by experts in the field, who use those skills in their own professions.
Thursday, November 17 – Redding, CA – When 1st District State Senator Ted Gaines visited the Shasta Venture Hub recently, he found himself “very impressed with the sophistication and collaboration in the community.” He explained, “If you’re a new startup you can get help from angel investors, and you can access the necessary skills to start your business – all under the same roof and all at an affordable price.” He believes that the efforts of the Shasta Economic Development Corporation, in association with the Chamber to help startups flourish, could provide an “opportunity to see good-paying jobs in the Redding area, which has seen setbacks as logging has reduced over the decades.” He also referred to Cloud Wise Academy, which is also located in the Shasta Venture Hub, as a “very innovative idea. It’s an opportunity to give skill sets to locals to transform their careers, and allow them access to a whole new world. They can start businesses with their new knowledge and skills, and hopefully hire even more people.” An alternative to Silicon Valley Senator Gaines represents the most rural district in California. Recently, rural areas have struggled with changes brought in part by the technology that has made globalization possible – the Internet. Yet Senator Gaines sees the Internet as the key to rural salvation as well. “A whole new world has opened up for people all over the nation, but especially for those in rural areas,” he says. “These areas can now offer an alternative to Silicon Valley.” “Silicon Valley is a tech hub,” the Senator continues. “It has all the ingredients for creating new startup companies: The knowledge, the capital, and the geographic location. These are huge advantages. But the people who have been in Silicon Valley are starting to look at areas where they can actually afford to buy a house, where they can have a little slower lifestyle and less traffic, and where they can raise a family. That’s Redding.” Senator Gaines is not just an elected official – he is also the owner of an independent insurance agency. He knows full well the steps business owners need to take to adapt to changes in technology. “We’ve seen that the Internet is now an interactive version of the Yellow Pages,” he explains. “If we want to communicate with individuals who are looking for insurance, we not only need to have a website, but we need to make that website friendly to customers. Last year we made our site mobile-friendly, and we did search engine optimization. The phone started ringing! It’s really amazing what you can do with the right tools.” Business is not the enemy As a staunch fiscal conservative, Senator Gaines maintains that it is the responsibility of business owners, not the government, to grow the economy in a community. “If I own a business in Redding, it is to my advantage to make sure we are creating jobs, making the economy as a whole grow, and bringing in an infusion of youth. That is the next generation that’s going to bolster the economy locally.” The responsibility of elected officials, he holds, is to “get out of the way.” As a member of the state legislature and a business owner, he admits he has been frustrated by the legal red tape in California. “We put up barriers that make things a lot more difficult,” he remarks. “We’ve got small businesses who are now going to have to be looking at increasing this minimum wage every year until it gets up to 15 dollars an hour. Are they going to be robust enough that they can sustain that hit on their bottom line? You can also look at the amount of litigation that occurs in California. That is another expense, another cost, another barrier to entry for small businesses.” “Not to mention the regulatory environment,” he adds. “Not to mention the very high taxes. I try to remain ever vigilant on the issue of keeping taxes as low as possible in the state of California.” “Business is not the enemy,” Senator Gaines concludes. “Business is the driver of the economy. It’s what fills the coffers. It’s what fills the treasury so government services can be provided. We want a government that works side-by-side with business. Every day I fight for the rights of small businesses, and every day they’re being diminished. It’s been a real struggle.” Pockets of optimism Regardless of these obstacles, Senator Gaines is highly optimistic about some areas of the state. “There are pockets of optimism in rural California, because I think the local government ‘gets it.’ They can provide incentive packages, they can regulate in such a way that it’s easier for a start-up business to get going. They can provide micro-loans for new businesses. There’s a lot of opportunity in places like Redding. And we have a huge market here! While it’s difficult to do business in California, we have a huge market to sell to.” Shasta County, in his estimation, also has unique advantages in its journey to become a powerful, competitive tech hub. “Shasta County is a beautiful area,” he says, “with the crystal-clear Sacramento River running through it. Great agriculture, attractive rural flavor. And it has the I-5 Corridor right here! The infrastructure is here to easily transport materials. It’s got an airport. A lot of successful folks from Silicon Valley have second homes in my district.” Overall, Senator Gaines is looking forward to the future of areas like Shasta County. “We have to remain ever-vigilant about the cost of doing business in California. But there’s a lot of opportunity there for growth and opportunity for small technology startups that began as just an idea to flourish and transform the community. It’s really exciting.” Cloud Wise Academy was founded in 2016 to teach high-demand technology skills. The Academy works closely with businesses in the area to make sure that the courses teach skills that companies are hiring for. Cloud Wise Academy is also related to Project Hometown, which helps Shasta County businesses sell their products online, and the Cornerstone Marketing Center, which helps businesses diagnose and resolve their web marketing conundrums. www.cloudwiseacademy.com