Balancing technology and tradition: How Tri-Cities chambers serve small businesses in the modern age

Last week, Tri-Cities area Chamber of Commerce leaders shared thoughts on how their organizations have changed and advanced with new technologies and programs.

This week, we take a look at how they try to include all businesses — with the emphasis on explaining the value of membership for small businesses with small budgets that sometimes turn to their own social media platforms for marketing.

A modern Chamber of Commerce views its role in the business community as a marketing aid, as well as a place that can help employees, educate business owners about new technologies, introduce them to various programs and support groups, and generally help them solve problems.

Still, it is not unusual to hear a small-business owner question the value of a chamber membership when modern technology, in some ways, competes with what a chamber works to deliver to members.

Business owners find Google Analytics, Spotify networks, and point-of-sale systems with integrated applications for marketing and data analysis all to be helpful tools.

And that doesn’t include their own social media platforms and the followers they can build. Still, the human touch of chamber members helping each other and the far wider digital reach a chamber offers can’t be overlooked.

“The question I hear most often is, ‘What am I getting for my membership?’ and it is a fair question,” said Batavia Chamber president Margaret Perreault.

There is no single answer to that question, Perreault contends. “Members join for many different reasons,” she said. “One may value referrals from a leads program, another may want visibility through our community guide, directory, events or ribbon-cuttings.”

It also is not unusual for a member to call the chamber with a difficult problem, get it resolved and “find that the membership was worth it,” Perreault added.

It is becoming increasingly common that a small-business owner has to become more tech savvy than those of years ago, to the point that they may feel a local chamber is not keeping up. Yet, others embrace the option to leave technology and spreading the word through vast databases to someone else.

Geneva Chamber president Paula Schmidt said her organization has to address the “common challenge” that some businesses may not fully understand the value of membership and may not take advantage of all of the opportunities available to them.

“Like any membership organization, the value is often tied to how engaged a business chooses to be,” she noted. “Whether it is networking, learning how to use social media more effectively, or gaining exposure to thousands of festival visitors, the chamber provides opportunities for businesses to connect, learn and grow.”

Sometimes, chamber members can unite to solve a community problem, which occurred in Geneva last summer when the costs of operating Swedish Days put the annual festival in jeopardy. But some chamber members rose to the occasion to offset the costs and save the event.

Local chambers can flex their muscles when working with each other to create programs or expos for members. There’s evidence of more collaboration of this type between the Tri-Cities chambers, with an event like the Canstruction competition taking place in February 2027 at Waubonsee Community College.

Canstruction is a community competition in which businesses, schools, nonprofits, students and others use thousands of cans of food to create artwork, with the goal of fighting hunger throughout the Fox Valley. The theme of “Harmony for Hunger” encourages teams to create structures inspired by music.

The three chambers also are collaborating to offer the Fox Valley Rising Professionals networking event and show from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, at the Comedy Vault, 18 E. Wilson St. in Batavia.

It’s the sort of thing that gives chambers and their members a sense of belonging to something bigger than their daily routines and business tasks.

If a chamber member or potential member doesn’t feel satisfied with their return on investment in being a member, St. Charles Chamber president Paula Price says chambers have to address that concern.

“It’s a fair criticism, and chambers should be willing to hear it,” Price said. As for that common question about a business pondering what it gets for a membership, Price said, “That’s exactly the question we should expect businesses to ask.”

A membership can’t simply be an annual invoice that arrives because a company belongs to the chamber, Price said. If that member pays the dues but never attends a chamber event or makes use of other services, it leaves the chamber in a difficult spot.

“There is responsibility on both sides,” Price said. “Members should engage, but the chamber also has a responsibility to make engagement easy and worthwhile. We need to continually demonstrate value, rather than assume businesses will automatically recognize it.”

Chambers are moving away from a dues structure based on the number of employees to one that establishes different tiers of service, depending on what a business is seeking.

In a business environment changing day-by-day, Price feels chambers are at a “fascinating point in their history.”

It will never be time for a chamber to abandon the things it has done well with relationships and personal connections, but the time is now to combine those strengths with “technology, better data, strong advocacy, education and collaboration,” Price said.

“For me, the question isn’t whether chambers of commerce are still relevant,” she said. “The better question is what could a chamber become if we designed it today for the businesses we will have five or 10 years from now?”

Mill Race vision unfolds

After months of wrangling over the ground rules for maintaining the historic former blacksmith shop on the Mill Race Inn property in Geneva, developer Shodeen Family Foundation has a proposal on the table that addresses that issue and paints a picture of what could unfold there.

Through its Mill Race Land Company LLC, Shodeen is proposing three five-story residential buildings, with 84 units total, with parts of the blacksmith shop built into one of the structures, and some of its walls being repurposed as part of a shrine to the historic site.

This falls in line with what Shodeen ultimately did with the historic Creamery building along State Street in Geneva, converting portions of it into the courtyard area of The Herrington Inn & Spa on the west side of the Fox River, directly across from the Mill Race property off the east bank of the Fox.

A fairly common pattern occurs with Shodeen projects. A property sits for a long time, with any number of issues being hammered out with city councils and historic preservation commissions, whether it be St. Charles, Geneva or Batavia.

Ultimately, an agreement is struck, though often not one that pleases everybody. But that’s a rare result with downtown development projects.

I have often said it is hard to argue with what Shodeen has done in the region. There have been a few “misses” along the way, but the “hits” far outnumber those.

Did you know?

Early settlers in Kane County enjoyed clean air, a clean Fox River, lush forests, and virtually no noise beyond what animals and birds in the forests provided.

But it wasn’t a particularly safe place, as Native Americans clashed with white settlers, from the French to the British to the new settlers of the expanding United States.

Nearly 20 years after the War of 1812 and treaties that didn’t bode well for Native Americans, the land in northern Illinois was officially cleared for settlement. Native Americans were essentially pushed west of the Rock River toward the Mississippi River.

It was considered somewhat safe for settlers because of the various military stockades and outposts built beyond Fort Dearborn in Chicago to protect people.

That protection came from places called Naper’s Fort (Naperville), Plainfield Fort (Plainfield) and McCarty’s Island Fort in the Fox River (Stolp Island in Aurora). Others in the region surfaced later, during the Civil War, including Camp Hammond in Aurora, Camp Lyon in Geneva and the most significant training site, Camp Kane, near Langum Park in St. Charles.

Even though Native Americans were run off their land in the Tri-Cities region, their memories as the stewards of the Fox Valley still exist.

The Pottawatomi tribe came into the Fox Valley in the early 1700s, with some of their larger villages in Aurora and on property now owned by Mooseheart, according to a book about the tribe by historian Jim Dowd.

Local history museums have kept the story of the Pottawatomi tribe alive, as has Ēkwabet, the Pottawatomi Indian statue along the Fox River in St. Charles.

In addition, St. Charles created Pottawatomie Park and Pottawatomie Golf Course along the banks of the Fox River.

And Waubonsee Community College and Waubonsie High School stand as a reminder that Wabansi, or Chief Waubonsie, of the Pottawatomi tribe, was a leader who found peaceful ways to interact with white settlers.

Dave Heun is a freelance columnist based in Geneva, IL. He can be reached at dheun@sbcglobal.net.