Past Pages, May 23, 2011: QR codes crop up, Silicon Valley tech rebound impacts Reno

EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week in 2021, we will feature snippets of stories that published a decade ago to provide readers a 10-year perspective of business news in the region. This week’s stories first published in the May 23, 2011, edition of the NNBW.

Silicon Valley tech recovery lifts regional businesses

Reno’s 3G Studios hired seven people in the last couple of months but looks to step up the pace to 10 new hires a month. Noble Studios in Carson City continues to see an upsurge of contracts from major technology companies. Scott Armstrong, chief executive officer of Dibbs Inc. in Reno, fields more calls than he expected from investors who want a piece of the company’s next round of financing.

Recovery of the technology sector is beginning to ripple through Northern Nevada. Unlike the tightly woven ecosystem of Silicon Valley, Northern Nevada’s technology sector is largely a one-off sort of business — a scattering of companies, mostly small, with more connections to California companies than among each other.


‘Funky’ codes cropping up in Reno-Sparks area

QR codes — those funny black squares that look like a Rorschach test ink blot on steroids — are cropping up at businesses and organizations throughout the Truckee Meadows.

Quick Response Codes, working much like bar codes, can be scanned with the camera of a smart phone using a special code-reading application to provide information to consumers.

For real estate brokerages, the decision to use QR codes is two-fold: It’s a cost-effective means of providing prospective homebuyers with instant information, as well as a way to remain on the forefront of an emerging technology.

“It tells you that we are cutting edge. It is eye-catching because it is different, and people want to know about it,” says Kristen Gil, Realtor with Intero Real Estate Services.


Survey finds confidence among Sparks businesses

More than half of business owners in the heart of Sparks’ industrial zone predominately feel that the worst of the recession is over, and that their businesses are growing or poised for growth.

Matt Harris, an industrial associate with Coldwell Banker Commercial Clay and Associates, recently surveyed nearly 100 businesses in the Sparks industrial corridor.

The study included face-to-face meetings and telephone interviews with company owners or managers of businesses on the south side of Interstate 80, north of the Truckee River, east of Rock Boulevard and along Vista Boulevard.

Businesses queried ranged from a 200,000-square-foot logistics provider to 500-square-foot users. Among the findings: 22% of businesses were extremely confident in the state of their operations, while 36% were overly confident — they saw the potential for growth, and the worst of the recession was behind them.