What I'm Doing...
- Retweeting @duz: Honeymoon with RTA is over: no transfers with cash, & only Tower City sells 1 day passes. WTF? i 15 hrs ago
- Retweeting @dianedipiero: Introducing: asiwaswriting.blogspot.com/ Diane DiPiero's Musings From the Rust Belt 16 hrs ago
- @davidmead cold pizza tastes even better with @baconsalt 16 hrs ago
- Retweeting @jimkukral: New blog post: Blogcritics: How To Build & Sell Your Web Business For Millions http://tinyurl.com/5td3ry 16 hrs ago
- RT @lawboop: Palin: INDICTED Senator Stevens "has dedicated his life 2 the betterment of the state," Dems will eat this bigoil selection up. 16 hrs ago
- More updates...
Powered by Twitter Tools.
Recent Comments
- Toni said “All of that has been done, the bank issued an "alert" on the numbers that ...” on Back at CSU…
- Jeff said “Well, crap. Sorry to hear it, Toni. You've got some damage control to do, but ...” on Back at CSU…
- cjc said “Er, losing a checkbook is more catastrophic than losing a credit card or debit card. ...” on Back at CSU…
- Justin Balck said “Hahaha. I just checked out the Cleve in motion website. What a joke! The Okies ...” on Could we all lose a little weight?
- George Nemeth said “@Justin Balck: Anyone can be an author and contribute to bfd. If you'd like to ...” on The Next NEO: Collaborations
- About BDP Comments
Blogroll
-
Meta
Ed Morrison · BFD Learning Moment: Economic Gardening
June 14th, 2008
Out in Steamboat attending the 6th annual Economic Gardening gathering. This approach to building economies from the inside out has been around for ten years or so. It’s gaining momentum. About 100 people are here, and presentations are from all over, including Japan and Australia. Economists call this approach “endogenous growth”, and practitioners in the UK and Asia are focused on this approach to building economies. (U.S. economic developers are still overwhelmingly geared toward recruitment.) Georgia uses economic gardening as the basis for its statewide strategy to support new business starts.
The Lowe Foundation — which also supports our work at I-Open’s — is a strong supporter of Economic Gardening. Indeed, they are here to announce the availability of a powerful, (free) new tool for regional economies. Your Economy.
Economic Gardening strategies vary, but at their core they combine two components: one-on-one business development guidance with sophisticated market and competitor intelligence.
This morning, we listened to how one of the national labs is using this approach quite effectively. They focused initially at forming business development networks. They are now moving into market intelligence.
The Lowe Foundation’s new tool adds to the mix. We’ll be showing the tool at I-Open’s workshop at Lowe Foundation next week. We’ve got regions from Oklahoma, Louisiana, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin coming to learn about Strategic Doing, how you do strategy in networks.
The beauty of economic gardening is that it can span the range of businesses. Here’s a couple of interesting web sites from people attending the gathering:

June 17th, 2008 at 10:05 am
This sounds like a fascinating idea but I can’t get the links to work. I’m particularily interested in the new tool for regional economies. Can you fix it? Thanks!
June 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Deb:
Sorry for the malfunction. I’m heading out the door. I’ll fix them later this afternoon.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I first heard the phrase, economic gardening, from Councilman Jay Westbrook of Cleveland over 15 years ago. He contrasted it with the smokestack chasing then prevalent.