BOULDER - As five Boulder business leaders shared their economic predictions for 2010, Chuck Porter gave the most simplistic, and perhaps realistic, answer.

"I know what you know," the co-chairman of advertising firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky said. "Things got bad, and now they are getting better."

A continuing improving economy in 2010 was the consensus viewpoint from business leaders Wednesday at the Boulder Economic Council 2010 Economic Forecast, held at the UCAR Center Green Facility Auditorium.

Guaranty Bank Market President Pat O'Brien said many banks will continue to feel pressure from regulators to clean up their lending portfolios, but there also will be an emergence of existing and new banks that are healthy enough to increase lending in 2010.

Local developer Stephen Tebo, who owns and operates nearly 2 million square feet of mostly commercial real estate in the Boulder Valley, said the market has been affected by difficulty in obtaining loans from the banks. That has hurt commercial real estate sales and new development, but existing real estate and leasing is holding strong in Boulder, he said.

"There's a perception of a lot of vacant space, but in reality a lot of it is being quickly re-leased," Tebo said. "I do not expect an onslaught of commercial properties at deep discounts," he said. "Even those that are in foreclosure are being picked up quickly."

Kim Campbell, senior property manager at Twenty Ninth Street and FlatIron Crossing malls, said the overall retail industry began to see a sales rebound in the fourth quarter of 2009.  She predicted that "cautious optimism will prevail," and retail sales in Colorado will rise by 3 percent in 2010.

Campbell also noted that the retail industry will continue to go digital with social networking and mobile phone applications a playing a big role in advertising and price-comparison shopping.

Scott Green, the engineering site director for Google's Boulder office, said many technology companies will look to grow vertically in 2010, such software companies delving into hardware. Examples are Google getting into the mobile phone business and Amazon selling its own electronic reader.  It's the Apple iTunes to iPod philosophy of being connected the consumer from start to finish, he said.

The smart phone industry - those phones with Internet and application connections - will continue to grow and change how we conduct our daily tasks, Green said.

"Today only 20 percent of Americans are using smart phones," Green said "That's likely to double in 2010."
Porter, who livened the event with some of Crispin Porter + Bogusky's latest humorous commercials, said the keys to good advertising will remain the same, despite the changes in the media people view them on.

"Great storytellers will always win," Porter said. "It's easier for consumers to shut of advertising today - a commercial comes up on TV and their attention can be diverted to multitasking on their computer or phone - so you really have to engage them."

Porter said the key to his business is talent - "getting it, and keeping it."   That why the company opened its co-headquarters in Boulder.

"We'd figure we'd have 100 people working here, now we're close to 600," he said.