Brewed Fresh Daily

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:

Growing Local Economies
Your Economy
Tools for Success