Ed Morrison · Why BFD covers regional economic development

August 9th, 2010

In a word: regional economic development is not the same as writing a middle school term paper.

Sadly, Henry Gomez from the PD has gotten swept up into a game of political gotcha. He somehow tries to make a case that Vic Voinovich has lifted ideas from somewhere else without asking permission.

Unfortunately, Henry does not understand a key concept of open innovation: the importance of sharing ideas.

Instead, Henry has fallen for a dumb political game. He’s allowed himself to become a tool of one candidate over another, a cub reporter’s blunder.

Henry neglects to mention:

1. All of the ideas I develop in regional economic development are licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Anyone can use the ideas without asking permission, just tell people where you got them. Vic clearly does that. He’s satisfied me, the author, and that’s, frankly, all that matters. Henry is genuinely lost when it comes to Creative Commons licensing. To learn more about Creative Commons licensing, go here.

2. Strategic Doing is a discipline that is gaining wide acceptance as old approaches to regional economic development prove themselves to be too slow, costly and ineffective.

As this map shows, we have been conducting strategic doing workshops across the country. Purdue routinely conducts strategic doing workshops and webinars. Or, if you are interested, you might spend some time with this webinar from the U.S. Department of Labor.

3. I have used the terms “replicable, scalable and sustainable” widely. These are the three critical dimensions of transformation in regional economic development. If you would like to see how these terms define a transformation strategy, please come to a workshop or take a webinar. If Henry had taken some time to investigate these issue more deeply, he would have understood that these terms are widely used in my work.

4. Open innovation and strategic doing form the basis of a new university-based collaboration that includes Purdue, Penn State, The University of Akron. This network is growing steadily. I mentioned this to Henry, but he seems to have been instead focused on proving a point (which, in the end, he failed to do).

As I explained to Henry, regions across the country are facing major economic shifts. In increasing numbers, people are turning away from old patterns of thinking — indeed old patterns of partisan politics — to find new collaborations across political and organizational boundaries.

Leading regions borrow ideas from each other to speed their learning. This is why these leading regions organize annual study tours for their civic leaders (a common sense practice that Cleveland, for some strange reason, does not follow).

Here’s a look at what’s happening just in the next ten days on my calendar:

  • A collaboration of eight workforce boards in Eastern North Carolina are conducting a two day strategic doing workshop. We’ll be looking to connect the recent work of these boards to the powerful insights generated by a new statewide commission in North Carolina that is examining new connections between schools and clusters.
  • We are moving ahead with a revision of our strategy in Brevard. This strategy will also include an Opportunity Fund, as well as new initiatives in clusters and entrepreneurship networks. The plan will be announced by the White House in September with a commitment in the neighborhood of $40 million.
  • The Commissioner of Labor in Maine is convening a strategic doing workshop series over the next four months to build new career pathways in high demand health care occupations. We start August 19.
  • On August 17 and 18, a group of universities, convened by Penn State in Washington, will be completing the initial draft of a “solutions catalog” for regional innovation. Strategic doing and open innovation form the core of this catalog.
  • Will County, IL — a community with a leading edge economic development program — will be evaluating a new approach to connecting education and business together through a visual language of skills. We have used radar charts to identify skills required in high demand occupations. We will then organize innovation teams to create new career pathways among high schools, community colleges and businesses.

    • In view of all this activity, it’s sad to me that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County seem so out of touch.

    Henry’s story underscores the core weakness of the Plain Dealer in covering these emerging trends in regional economic development. That’s odd, because economic transformation is the core story of our region.

    If you want to see quality reporting, look at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the work of John Schmid, He is a consummate professional. In this region, Akron, Youngstown and Crain’s all do a respectable job. In Ohio, the Dayton Daily News and the Toledo Blade offer significantly stronger reporting than the PD.

    So that’s why we do regional economic development coverage in Brewed Fresh Daily.

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    3 Responses to “Why BFD covers regional economic development”

    1. John Polk Says:
      August 10th, 2010 at 5:22 pm

      Where does economic development “fit” within the Plain Dealer’s editorial priorities? Henry Gomez is a very fine political reporter, so it’s not surprising that his reporting of this issue should be in that context. Unfortunately, as you point out, the story was all about taking a candidate to task, not about evaluating the ideas the candidate presented.

      Is economic development part of the business beat? Other than reporting on the occasional transaction, or a feature about an organization, I can’t think of a ralevant economic development story in that section which isn’t the reproduction of a corporate press release.

      In the 30+ years I’ve been paying attention, it seems to me that the PD has never known what to do with the economic development theme; it tends to be the platform used by the corporate political establishment to flog the Economic Deveelopment Priority Of The Day…usually uncritically.

      I DO recall an article several years ago which seemed to suggest that the paper might be looking into the performance of area economic development groups. After hinting of more details to come, the coverage stopped after that one article. Someone…clearly within their first amendment rights…obviously squawked.

      In general, the PD is not an instrument of regional economic conversation, but an instrument of propaganda.

      I don’t fault Henry Gomez for writing what he did; he’s covering a political campaign. But a knowledgeable and discerning editor might have asked a few questions before running the story.

      Methinks the paper’s zeal for investigative journalism (not just exposing corruption, but asking tough questions and getting to the bottom of them) is carefully circumscribed by concern for its position as an outlet for corporate flackery.

    2. JS Says:
      August 10th, 2010 at 6:38 pm

      What’s the big deal, it’s not like every syllable he wrote in “his” telework blog wasn’t lifted from others.

      The one point about plagiarism is your grasp of the what was plagiarized might be shaky, at best. Original writing requires a working knowledge of the ideas, in a way which fosters credibility in putting forth those ideas …in discussing and debating those ideas …in adapting an idea to political realities without corrupting what’s important about the idea.

    3. Ed Morrison Says:
      August 17th, 2010 at 8:37 am

      My concern with Henry is that he failed to understand — or explain — the Creative Commons license, JS. We are not writing research papers and novels here. We are figuring out what works and sharing these ideas as widely as possible.

      I tend to agree with John. Henry is a political reporter with a limited understanding of regional economic development. The PD has long failed in its role to frame challenges facing the region. The 2006 review of regional economic development strategy — which raised legitimate questions on the GCP strategy — was never followed up.