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Ed Morrison · Detroit accelerates the creative economy
July 12th, 2011
Today marks the opening of Detroit’s Creative Corridor Center. The opening included the introduction of businesses connected to the dc3 business accelerator. Read more.
Ed Morrison · Building high speed infrastructure in Kansas City
July 12th, 2011
Earlier this year, Google announced that Kansas City, KS won the big prize: a high speed network capable of delivering Internet content at gigabyte speeds: about 100 faster than what cable companies and telephone companies now offer. (More background here.)
Then, in May, Google announced that it would extend its network into Kansas City, MO.
Here’s an update on where matters stand today. The project is spurring some big ideas. Read more.
(The article points to the leading edge efforts in Chattanooga, where a community-owned network has created some major opportunities, as Neal Pierce wrote in a column last week. The city is beginning to connect its new infrastructure to entrepreneurial opportunities.)
Not surprisingly, Google’s project has spurred cities to build out high speed infrastructure. Learn more.
Ed Morrison · Kauffman sees a “job leak” among smaller firms
July 11th, 2011
A new report from Kauffman highlights that smaller, entrepreneurial firms are starting up with smaller numbers of workers and adding fewer workers as they grow. Read more.
Of course, job growth is only one part of the picture. Wealth creation — measured in valued-added per employee, for example — represents another important measure of firm impact. This factor is not addressed in this study.
Studies which look at aggregate small business statistics carry important limitations. They do not, for example, distinguish between growth-oriented firms serving national and international markets (“traded businesses”) from firms that serve primarily local or regional markets (“sheltered businesses”).
Starting Smaller; Staying Smaller: America’s Slow Leak in Job Creation<script type=”text/javascript”>(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd. src=”http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js” ; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();</script>
Ed Morrison · The innovative power of civic forums
July 11th, 2011
Over the past month, I’ve been working in Collier County, Florida with an interesting initiative, Project Innovation.
A couple of weeks ago, we held a Strategic Doing workshop to demonstrate how a loose network of people could come together for a few hours and developed quite a sophisticated strategic action plan.
As an outgrowth of that session, we explored the idea of Project Innovation sponsoring monthly civic forums. These forums represent an important first step in building the new civic habits of collaboration. We need these collaborations to tackle our complex challenges of building a sustainable, shared prosperity. Our capacity to collaborate determines in large part, the resilience of our local and regional economies.
The Complexity of Civic Collaboration
Civic collaboration is more complex than most people are willing to knowledge.
Collaboration is not the same as simply knowing somebody. It goes beyond recognizing someone at a meeting or having their e-mail in your address book. Collaboration — our capacity to take on complex projects in open, loosely joined networks — emerges from mutual understanding, simple disciplines, transparency, and trust.
Building habits of civic collaboration takes time and practice for the same reason that trust takes time to strengthen.
It’s no secret that our our collective skills at civic collaboration are running at historic lows. All around us, we see stalemate as ideological trip wires prevent reasonable people from coming together to discuss practical collective action.
Fortunately, we see solutions to these damaging stalemates emerging around the country. Citizens are rebuilding their civic spaces and strengthening the disciplines of civc collaboration by developing new ways of thinking, new ways of behaving, and new ways of doing.
<br /><small>View Strategic Doing Presentations and Workshops in a larger map</small>
Starting Out With New Ways of Thinking
So, for example, we need to abandon some traditional approaches to “civic engagement”. We will not change course with one-time events, like civic summits.
Indeed, traditional approaches to civic engagement can be downright wasteful. One group of foundations sponsored an elaborate set of civic meetings in their region that ended up costing $3 million. There’s only one problem.
The process raised expectations that did not lead anywhere, and when you did the math, the cost per participant ended up being about $150. For reference, civic forms should cost about a dollar per participant, and they can actually generate cash with sponsorships.
Building Complex Habits with Simple Disciplines
Fortunately, building civic habits of collaboration is not that complex or expensive.
For the past seven years or so, Ernest Andrade has been building a culture of open innovation and collaboration among growth oriented companies in the Charleston Digital Corridor. Each month, Ernest hosts a session Fridays@The Corridor.
Similarly, the Youngstown Business Incubator launched Third Thursday @3, a civic forum to explore new business opportunities among companies at the Incubator.
Starting a regular civic forum represents a first, easy step to creating a culture of open innovation. We have some materials at the Purdue Center for Regional Development that can help you along. Just connect with us.
Here the draft materials I developed today for Project Innovation.
Branding the forum is important, and Carol D’Amico, head of Project Innovation, will be exploring different ways to develop her brand.
Ed Morrison · Getting paid to sprawl: Subsidized relocations in Cleveland and Cincinnati
July 9th, 2011
A new report takes a detailed look at local economic development subsidies in Cleveland and Cincinnati. The conclusion: Subsidies encouraged sprawl. The report cites 164 companies that received relocation subsidies as they moved facilities around in Cleveland and Cincinnati. These subsidies encouraged movements that were “overwhelmingly outward bound”.
To address these problems, the study recommends more local collaboration and “anti-poaching” agreements. You can download the report from this page.
Ed Morrison · Michiana’s Health Information Network
July 9th, 2011
The Michiana region of northern Indiana and southern Michigan is turning into an innovation hot spot.
In one of the latest developments, the Michiana Health Information Network provides high speed access to community-wide clinical data. Members of the Network can access electronic medical records, along with high definition images, such as MRIs, immediately.
Last week, the Network launched a video to explain how it works.
Learn more about Metronetzing, the regional fiber network that loops around South Bend and Mishawaka.
The project began as an economic development initiative in South Bend. Learn more.
Pennsylvania continues to build on its nationally recognized model for building industry partnerships to accelerate workforce development.
Since 2005, Pennsylvania’s Industry Partnerships have engaged over 6,300 employers and 117,000 workers. Last week, the state legislature voted to make the initiative a permanent part of the state’s workforce development strategy.
Funding continues to be a problem. State investment in these partnerships has dropped from $20 million a year in 2008–2009 to only $1.6 million in the current budget. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania has developed an important prototype built in these partnerships across industry clusters. You can learn more about the Pennsylvania Industry Partnership initiative from this page.
Ed Morrison · Report on technology transfer from the federal labs
July 8th, 2011
The federal government has released a study evaluating the technology transfer processes from federal labs to industry. The report examines both effective strategies and barriers to effective tech transfer.
You can read about the report here.
Ed Morrison · The Shuttle Shutdown: Responding with agile strategies
July 7th, 2011
Here’s an example of what we are doing at the Purdue Center for Regional Development on Florida’s Space Coast, in the wake of the Shuttle shutdown.
Agility is key to forming new networks and recovering from large layoffs. We have developed agile strategy disciplines appropriate for complex collaborations in loosely joined networks. Read more about our work on the Space Coast.
Strategic Doing on the Space Coast
By teaching new approaches to strategy in open networks, we have activated new regional innovation clusters in a matter of months. This happens, because we quickly focus sophisticated collaborations on measurable outcomes and next steps. This video explains the beginning of the process in the Space Coast in April 2010.
A new clean energy cluster forms
The Space Coast Energy Consortium formed quickly — within two months. Based on the disciplines of Strategic Doing, the cluster leaders quickly designed a strategy agenda and began executing. The slide pack explains this fast “design build” cycle for activating clusters.
Leveraging the lessons of the auto industry
We learned the value of agile strategies by dealing with the challenges of restructuring the auto industry. By deploying sophisticated collaborations quickly, we guided the Kokomo economy into new directions, This video tells the story.
A new certification in Strategic Doing
To spread these skills more widely across the country, we will be announcing the details of a new Purdue certification in Strategic Doing in the next few weeks. If you are interested keeping up with this announcement, just join our mailing list.
Cross posted at edmorrison.com
Ed Morrison · The Shuttle Shutdown: Responding with agile strategies
July 7th, 2011
Here’s an example of what we are doing at the Purdue Center for Regional Development on Florida’s Space Coast, in the wake of the Shuttle shutdown.
Agility is key to forming new networks and recovering from large layoffs. We have developed agile strategy disciplines appropriate for complex collaborations in loosely joined networks. Read more about our work on the Space Coast.
Strategic Doing on the Space Coast
By teaching new approaches to strategy in open networks, we have activated new regional innovation clusters in a matter of months. This happens, because we quickly focus sophisticated collaborations on measurable outcomes and next steps. This video explains the beginning of the process in the Space Coast in April 2010.
A new clean energy cluster forms
The Space Coast Energy Consortium formed quickly — within two months. Based on the disciplines of Strategic Doing, the cluster leaders quickly designed a strategy agenda and began executing. The slide pack explains this fast “design build” cycle for activating clusters.
Leveraging the lessons of the auto industry
We learned the value of agile strategies by dealing with the challenges of restructuring the auto industry. By deploying sophisticated collaborations quickly, we guided the Kokomo economy into new directions, This video tells the story.
A new certification in Strategic Doing
To spread these skills more widely across the country, we will be announcing the details of a new Purdue certification in Strategic Doing in the next few weeks. If you are interested keeping up with this announcement, just join our mailing list.
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