Ed Morrison · Secret Weapon on the Space Coast: Florida Today’s Cleveland Transplants

May 1st, 2010

In coping with the NASA Shuttle shutdown, the Space Coast has a secret weapon: two transplants from Cleveland Mark Mikolajczyk and Jim McCarthy. Mark (from Parma) is the president and publisher of Florida Today. Jim (from Berea) is an investigative reporter.

I met them yesterday during a regional forum in Brevard County. Florida Today helped put on the program and has been running a strong series of articles about moving the region past the coming shuttle shutdown. Here’s some additional detail about what happened yesterday:

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    • Having grown up in Cleveland, both understand the challenges of regional economies facing serious transitions. More important, they understand the role of newspapers in shaping the new narrative that regions must develop in order to transform their economies.

    Florida Today is an exceptionally strong partner in the regional economy. Here’s an excerpt from yesterday’s program:

    At FLORIDA TODAY, we understand the powerful role that newspaper plays as a civic partner, and the awesome responsibility that goes with that. We strongly support those individuals and organizations who work to further advance the quality of life and economic strengths of Brevard County. Our unmatched media strength in the county allows us to support these efforts to reduce coverage, awareness campaigns and using our voice to mobilize the community.

    The entire workforce at FLORIDA TODAY champions the Brevard community because it’s our community too. We are your family, friends and neighbors. We are committed to bringing out the best in all of us. To inform, to educate, enlighten, inspire.

    It’s who we are. It’s what we do.

    In Northeast Ohio, I have the sense that the traditional media struggles with defining its role. The Plain Dealer has launched some very helpful corruption coverage, but cleaning up corruption will not move the region in a new direction. It only slows the decline.

    When I first arrived back in Cleveland, I was amazed at “The Quiet Crisis” coverage in the PD. One editor even talked to me about the “brand equity” that the PD had built in “The Quiet Crisis”. (I must have looked at him like he was nuts. We haven’t spoken since.)

    PD’s columnists — like Brent Larkin and Dick Feagler — wrote tired, helpless commentaries about the problems in the region. My favorite Feagler headline — which I incorporate in my strategy class at the Economic Development Institute: “Vultures feed on a dying town”…and they go on to wonder why young people continue to leave the region. Larkin sounds equally burned out. He starts out his commentary on the Third Frontier, “That Ohio’s economy is a mess is a given — especially Greater Cleveland’s. If you want to make them both worse, vote against State Issue 1 on Tuesday.”

    (Larkin’s not the only one who can twist around an idea so that it fits into his “This place sucks” box. The Greater Cleveland Partnership is not much better at shaping new narratives for the region. Their big strategy document from a few years back, “Cleveland on the Edge“. Now that’s hardly a strong foundation for a new narrative.)

    In today’s open network economy, civic leadership is about crafting new, purposeful conversations. Properly convened and guided, these conversations define new opportunities by linking and leveraging our assets. The leadership and staff of Florida Today understand this deeply.

    Effective regional strategies build clear, concise narratives about where we’re going and how we will get there. Civic leaders have an important role to play in shaping these narratives.

    Economic transformation does not come about from leaders telling residents how bad things are. Cleveland cannot lead a region with fear, loathing, confusion and petty squabbles.

    The region’s new narrative will emerge elsewhere…from places like Crain’s, Med City News, NEOTropolis, Youngstown Business Journal, Pop City, CoolCleveland, and blogs like Defend Youngstown (Phil Kidd), I Will Shout Youngstown (John Slanina), Burgh Diaspora (Jim Russell), and Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron, Cleveland Arts and Livable Cities Blog.

    Cleveland’s traditional leadership has been lost for some years now. That’s why the regional conversation about Northeast Ohio’s future is shifting to Akron, Youngstown, Lorain and Pittsburgh. As brother Hunter points out, people are drawing new mental maps of the region, and Cleveland, while still important, is no longer at the center.

    New networks are forming to move the region — NE Ohio and SW Pennsylvania — forward.

    Effective regional leaders encourage new conversations about our possibilities and our opportunities. They understand a key insight that has emerged from cognitive science (one that provides a basis for Appreciative Inquiry): People will move in the direction of their conversations.

    Northeast Ohio could learn a lot from two native sons who are working to meet the challenges facing Florida’s Space Coast.

    (Note: For more on the emerging role of narrative in strategy, see Michael Jacobides, “Strategy Tools for a Shifting Environment” in the Harvard Business Review, January-February, 2010.)

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    2 Responses to “Secret Weapon on the Space Coast: Florida Today’s Cleveland Transplants”

    1. John Polk Says:
      May 2nd, 2010 at 4:49 pm

      Thanks for an extremely thoughtful and provocative about the power of shared narrative.

      There are certainly elements of the economic development process which require significant technical skill. But at least as importance as technical talent is the ability to shape a story that strikes stakeholders as authentic and constructive.

      I think Civic Cleveland lost the handle on a coherent community narrative during the White Administration and its aftermath. The collusion and corruption which characterized the “public/private partnership” at that time was a huge embarrassment to many civic stakeholders, and much energy and many resources were devoted to sidestep recent history by taking a page from it.

      Suddenly, after years of essentially ignoring the elephant in the living room, our leaders found the city in the midst of a crisis which only swift and decisive action could forestall. It’s essentially the pitch that worked so well with Browns Stadium.

      It’s a tactic which has been employed at least a dozen times over the past decade.

      The behavior of our institutions has been so at odds with their stated values that the LAST thing anybody needs is actual openness or genuine dialog. And people have noticed, and tuned out.

      Our civic leaders have created a closed system, whereby members talk only among themselves. Fewer corporate leaders are actually engaged.

      When one judges the quality of the current and emerging leadership in Greater Cleveland with that of the rest of the region, it’s hard to be hopeful that much can happen to reverse the slide. Instead, our leaders will simply tighten their circle.

    2. Ed Morrison Says:
      May 7th, 2010 at 7:02 am

      The situation in Cleveland has gotten pretty bad.