The Dulles South Mom-Force launches!

A new service online and in the Dulles South area of Loudoun County connects work-at-home professional Moms with local and online businesses and the government seeking experienced telework/telecommuting resources. Based on the Mom-Force philosophy and methods, the local service is available at Dulles South Online.

News Release:
The Loudoun Connection.

Great List of Family-Friendly Indoor Activities in Loudoun

...was compiled over at the Loudoun Proud Blog.

Loudoun Farm Museum, Pet Store, Community Center, etc.

Another good resource for NOVA kid's activities can be found in Squidoo, at NOVA Kids.

#1 Reporters for Dulles South, Loudoun and DC Region

After months of scanning the local rags, while listening to the TV, we feel it's time to point out our votes for the #1 Journalists covering the Dulles South, Loudoun County and greater DC region "hyperlocal" issues. Both are long-time locals.

Erika Jacobson at Connection Newspapers gets our nod for Print, as a seemingly tireless aggregator of local news and information, across just about any subject area. Just pick up the Loudoun Connection, South Riding Connection, etc., and you'll see byline after byline of contributions from Erika, written in clear, easy-to-read and well-research journalism prose.

Melanie Alnwick reports on TV for WTTG-Fox5 ("Special Projects Reporter and Sunday Morning Anchor"), and has over the years been consistently delivered really spot-on, award-winning stories and local news, with a delivery style and intelligence basically unmatched by most other TV anchors or reporters.

Any other favorites we've not considered?

The Best "Bloggers" award will probably have to wait till the Fall's political season, where everyone's sure to show their true colors.

Dulles South Loudoun Political Forums this September...

...are scheduled to be hosted by the Dulles South Business Alliance (DSBA). DSBA is "dedicated to the future of business in the Loudoun County Dulles South area, including the Route 50/606 corridor and "Dulles Loop", reaching west to Lenah and east into western Fairfax". Attendance at the forums at this time is expected to be limited to Loudoun Businesses and Fairfax Businesses in the area.

The first forum will include candidates from the Loudoun and select Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and will be held on Tuesday, September 11, from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m., and will be held in the gymnasium of the Arcola Community Center located at 24328 Gosh Road, Aldie, VA 20105.

The second forum will be held on Tuesday, September 25 and will include select House and Senate District candidates. The time of this forum has also been changed to 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. and will be held at the Arcola Community Center.

For more information about this Fall's upcoming races, with particular focus on the Dulles South area, see Dulles South Politics.

WAPO's Loudoun Extra Online

The Washington Post launched its LoudounExtra.com site today - good looking site with a certain focus on Loudoun County, mostly compiled by Loudoun area and regional reporters, with an effort to start bulking up on content submitted by readers (through surveys/votes, blogs, directories, photos, etc.). It's touted as a real effort at "Micro-regional Web 2.0" - though it's not quite as "Micro" as some of the regional newspaper sites (i.e. the Connection) or hyper-regional Portals like Dulles South Online, which tend to provide extra Loudoun and surrounding area content truly from a residential and small business perspective.

An initial glitch - wasn't able to comment on the blogs...but overall, looks like a pretty good job (though I don't like flash, especially when it takes long to load - Loudouni.com learned that lesson the hard way), and we'll see how this experiment works in the absence (now) of the only other purely user-generated-content-driven regional effort (BackFence.com - which basically stopped operations last month).

Update - I'll claim the first "500" error (i.e. "Internal Server Error", and then a hard redirect to a very bad internal error page) for the site, when trying to do searches.

A Vast Number of Identical Home Businesses

...was a recent remark made in the Loudoun Times-Mirror, regarding attendance at the upcoming Fall South Riding Business Expo - thus leading to acceptance of only one application per business type at the fair. This is a very visible manifestation of the rapidly growing trend of part-time, home-based businesses and enterprises developing quickly in the region, and especially out in Loudoun County (remember the Landsdowne HOA home business hubaloo a few months back?).

Why is this? Today's WAPO offers some explanation, where according to a recent study, "a new majority of working moms in the US would be happiest in part-time jobs, with fewer seeing full-time work as an ideal". Additional explanation is driven by the local economies and real estate depression - simply more Moms and Dads need additional income to keep up with rising taxes (to soon include additional taxes levied by the NVTA!) and adjustable mortgage interest rates. Another factor is the growing undercurrent of acknowledgment that the Public Schools and County Services simply aren't doing enough to provide the right mix of education, interest and supervision both during school and after - especially for teenagers. Therefore Moms are much more interested in having flexible work, near or at home, to participate in teen life and keep an eye on things.

It all boils down to rapid expansion in the numbers of Moms looking for work at home that's flexible, can be part-time, and if possible leverages their professional backgrounds. Dulles South Online's developing "Dulles South Mom-Force" initiative reflects this trend, offering ex-professional Moms an opportunity to showcase their skills and capabilities offered on an outsourcing, work-at-home basis to employers, whether local, regional or Internet-based.

The recently-published eBook the Mom-Force: Volume 1 is a catalyst and example for those taking this route, those who want to transition from full to part-time, at-home work, and those who don't want to simply start another of the "vast number of identical businesses".

Dulles South Multi-Purpose Center Groundbreaking

Dulles South Online today attended the Dulles South Multi-Purpose Center Groundbreaking ceremonies in South Riding, along with a distinguished list of county notables - including BOS members Snow and York, Toll Brothers reps, most of the South Riding HOA, Loudoun County PRCS directors, members of the Board of Education, etc. Phase I of the center is scheduled for initial occupancy next August (2008). Pictures below.

Reasonable NVTA pressure from Loudoun

The Loudoun County BOS vote yesterday to officially challenge NVTA's expected request on July 13 to obtain affirmation of the constitutionality of the non-elected organization and its taxing authority is a a good example of the right kind of checks and balances we need to move forward with long-term transportation strategy. While the board is somewhate divided, with Bob Marshall firmly in the camp that NVTA doesn't now or ever have the proper legal authority to impose taxes on Northern virginia localities (and is thereby pressuring for a "no" vote on the somewhat hastily assembled collection of taxes to be agreed upon July 12th), and others like Steven Snow more firmly in the camp that "any progress is good progress" towards alleviating our traffic concerns. Loudoun's lone representative on the Board (Scott York) at his recent public meeting was somewhat in the middle, expressing support for reasonable progress while caution in research; his position is reflected by others including Lori Waters and Mick Staton, who are in favor of very reasonable checks and balances in discourse and decisions, by all involved.

We at Dulles South Online fully support Loudoun's decision to challenge NVTA's request for constitutionality as a taxing entity, if only to understand better and without question the actual answer, and actually provide smoother passage of future solutions.