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New report on rual economic development
Saturday, February 15, 2003 The Best Practice Center of the National Governors' Association has released a report on rural economic development. They suggest that one major asset on which to build is an under-exploited entrepreneurial culture in rural areas. The core recommendations: (1) Adapt cluster-based principles; (2) Promote entrepreneurship outside of the agricultural sector; (3) Reinvigorate the agricultural sector through diversification and value-added agricultural practices. posted by Ed Morrison | The education-economic development link is sinking in A recent report in Mississippi shows that citizens are connecting the dots between education and economic development. Read the press release. posted by Ed Morrison | Arts and economic development In physical development, the arts community can often change the perception of a neighborhood. That is the strategy for one neighborhood in Baltimore. The Atlanta Chamber has launched an arts initiative and you can learn more about the connection of the arts and economic development on this section of their web site. The section includes a report evaluating the connection between arts and business. posted by Ed Morrison | Web Watch: Wisconsin launches a Business Wizard Friday, February 14, 2003 Wisconsin has launched a new web site designed to help entrepreneurs navigate throught he maze of government licensing and regulations. Among the types of information on the site: -- Details on state financial incentives and training programs companies can use to help offset their own costs for business expansion. -- Licensing, permitting and regulatory requirements for agencies ranging from the state Department of Natural Resources to Workforce Development and Financial Institutions. Necessary forms can be downloaded. -- Helpful guides that provide information on different types of business entities; developing a business plan and minority business programs. posted by Ed Morrison | Find out where your state ranks on taxes... Thursday, February 13, 2003 Here's an article on the best and worst states for taxes. It reviews an analysis by the Tax Foundation. For a quick glance, look at this table that lists state and local taxes as a percent of personal income. (The left hand column deals only with state and local taxes. The right hand column includes federal taxes.) posted by Ed Morrison | Updating outdated ideas about manufacturing Wednesday, February 12, 2003 The face of manufacturing has changed. The problem is that most educators don't know it. The truth is that while the number of manufacturing jobs has been declining, the productivity of manufacturing has been relatively strong. (One recent report concludes, "America is back as a manufacturing powerhouse. During the last two decades, a revolution in manufacturing technology generally ?and advances in machine tools specifically ?enabled manufacturers to reinvent themselves and to restore the competitive power of the United States as a world-class producer of durable goods.") In Asheville, EDPros are doing something to change perceptions. They have organized tours of local manufacturing facilities for high school educators. As one teacher on the tour noted, manufacturing is no longer a "dead-end" job. Read more. Manufacturers are trying to change the perception of manufacturing among young people with web sites, such as Manufacturing is Cool. And in Kentucky, manufacturers have come together to define manufacturing skill standards for high school students. posted by Ed Morrison | Increasingly, ED is about recruiting talent... Tuesday, February 11, 2003 A good review of how St. Louis is building its biotech industry underscopres an important point. Economic development is increasingly about recruiting talent. And it's not just the young, Gen-Xers. In the case of St. Louis, the city needs experienced entrepreneurial leadership. While St. Louis has a deep pool of people with corporate experience (from careers with Monsanto, Boeing and other large companies), many of these experienced managers lack entrepreneurial skills. Richard Fleming, head of the Regional Chamber and Growth Association puts it this way: ""Increasingly, economic development is not just about recruiting companies, but about recruiting talent. There's an analogy to the sports world: When you're building a team, you do that through a combination of talent coming up through your farm system, as well as recruiting free agents from other teams who have already established their careers." There's another dimension...the business environment in successful regions tolerates failure. Resilient regions have thick enough networks to support entrepreneurs who do fail. In sum, in successful regions, business attitudes emphasize "failure as learning", and not failure as a personal flaw. posted by Ed Morrison | Oregon Council: Focus on innovation Monday, February 10, 2003 New ideas and innovation are the economic drivers of the 21 st Century. Industries and regions that invest in the development and application of technology will lead the creation of jobs and be more competitive and profitable. That's the perspective of the Oregon Council on Knowledge and Economic Development in their recent report. posted by Ed Morrison | Minnesota moving to privatize some state ED functions The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce is starting a push to privatize some of the key economic development roles of the state's Department of Trade and Economic Development. Read more. posted by Ed Morrison | It's more than jobs and investment... South Carolina will start adopting new measures of effectiveness for its economic development programs. Like other states, South Carolina has focused on jobs and investment. But under the new administration of Mark Sanford, the South Carolina Commerce Department will begin measuring innovation and entrepreneurship. They will track factors such as patents issued, research spending and business starts. Learn more. If you want to learn more about measuring an innovation economy, Massachusetts is farthest down the road. Read their latest indicators report. posted by Ed Morrison | Florida pushes his "creative class".... Sunday, February 09, 2003 Beware of fads. That's the message I get from reading about Richard Florida's efforts to shape the urban economic development agenda. Richard Florida promotes the idea of a "creative class" as a key to future economic development. (The creative class represents the 30% or so of the workforce that "thinks creatively" for a living.) But this idea is much like the "enterprise zones" of the 1980's: a simple-minded solution to a complex challenge. While there is some truth to Florida's approach (as there was with enterprise zones), there is a real danger in distorting this truth and drawing too much from it. Ambition outruns the facts. One problem is that the Creative Class implies that 70% of our workforce is "not creative"...clearly a wrong-headed notion. (On a deeper level, Florida is talking class stuctures at a time when these structures are increasing irrelevant. One of the major challenges we face as a country is shared prosperity; Florida's notion of the Creative Class makes this challenge all the more difficult to address. My advice to Florida: Beware of unintended consequences.) A recent article explores how some cities across the country are trying to promote their support of gays. One of Richard Florida's points, as he travels the country, is that tolerance of gays is one indicator of a community's embrace of diversity. Diversity, in turn, drives creativity. And creativity drives prosperity. In the real world of EDPros, we face political leaders who have little understanding of the dynamics of economic development. They latch on to simple ideas. And that...in the end... is my real concern. Political leaders will send EDPros chasing down blind alleys all in the hope of finding the simple answer. posted by Ed Morrison | California finding out that business costs matter Business climate really means "business costs", and California is finding out that relative business costs matter in a global economy. When business costs get out of line, companies expand elsewhere. The situation is particularly difficult now. With soft markets and stiff competition, companies have a tougher time raising revenues. So, managing a state's business costs matter more than ever. But EDPros need to keep things in perspective. Business costs are not the only "driver" of business expansion. In fact, a recent report by Economy.com calculates that about one-fifth of all employment gains across the 50 states since the mid-1980s can be explained by differences in the costs of business. A recent article in the LA Times explores the consequences of California's business climate. (Registration required.) posted by Ed Morrison | Two good case studies: Austin and Asheville Here are two newspaper series that explore urban economic development. The first looks at Austin, as city leaders try to figure out "What's next?" The second explores the revitalization of Asheville's downtown. posted by Ed Morrison | Top cities for e-government Saturday, February 08, 2003 The top digital cities -- places where local government leads in Internet use -- may surpise you. They include Honolulu, Tampa, Des Moines, and Roanoke. Read the article in Government Technology magazine. Why is this important to EDPros? Because innovative government services improves flexibility and reduces costs. It will become a growing factor in defining the local "business climate". To learn more, go to the Technology in Government web site. posted by Ed Morrison | Here's a good report on how we use the Internet UCLA's Center for Communications Policy has released its latest report on Internet use. It provides you with a good overview of the Internet landscape. posted by Ed Morrison | Trying to keep young professionals in Duluth Young community leaders in Duluth, MN are trying to keep talented, young professionals from leaving the area. They have organized a nonprofit organization, Bridge Syndicate. Over 300 professionals have joined. Visit their web site to download their report on the future of Duluth. It is a good example of a young leadership group articulating a new agenda for creating a knowledge economy. Bridge Syndicate is also the type of engaged networking that has the potential for changing the face of the city. posted by Ed Morrison | Confronting the challenge of persistent poverty... Friday, February 07, 2003 A new report outlines the challenges of economic development in the rural South. It advocates more focused and coordinated investments in education, health care, community development, and small business development. To some, this approach sounds like social welfare. But it is not. We are really facing a "pay me now, or pay me later" problem. Early intervention strategies -- Head Start, reductions in low birth weight babies, parenting education, reading programs -- boost our incomes (high school graduates earn $100,000+ more than high school drop-outs over their lifetime) and cut our costs (it costs $6,000 a year to send a child to school and $26,000+ to keep someone in prison). As EDPros, we need to stop assuming this is someone else's problem. As the report notes, "Poverty is the absence of wealth, not the absence of character." posted by Ed Morrison | The challenge of fixing workforce development Governor Rendell in Pennsylvania has started to focus on an important dimension of economic development that costs no additional money: workforce development. In workforce development, the problem is not a lack of money but the unfocused way it is used. "We spend $1.2 billion on workforce development and only 5 percent of that is market-driven," Rendell said. Noting that those funds are spread among 47 separate programs administered by five different state departments, he observed recently in Pittsburgh, "That's insane." The WIA was supposed to improve the system, but relatively little is changed. It is still a fragmented grants system that is largely controlled by the providers. posted by Ed Morrison | Michigan governor proposes two important ED initiatives Thursday, February 06, 2003 Michigan's new governor, Jennifer Granholm, proposed two interesting economic development initatives in her first State of the State address. The first is the Technology Tri-Corridor. The Corridor will focus new technology business recruitment and development in three critical areas: the life sciences, the automotive industry and the emerging homeland security sector. In an interesting twist, the governor is using the state's leverage to steer investment into the Corridor. About 240 private investment funds do business with the state government. The State Treasurer is now telling those fund managers that they'll get more of Michigan's business if they make sound investments in the Technology Tri-Corridor. More important, Governor Granholm is making a tight connection between early childhood education and economic development. In an global economy that runs on brainpower, this connection makes sense. Project Great Start will focus on two critical interventions: parent education and reading to pre-school children. It represents a broad call to increase learning in the critical years from birth to age five, because, as the governor notes, "Education must begin at birth." Governor Granholm gets it: "Scientific research on the brain is clear: By the time a child arrives for kindergarten, 85 percent of the brain is developed. If the brain is purposefully stimulated and nurtured before a child is old enough to tie his or her shoes, that child's lifelong capacity to learn will be forever enhanced. And, unfortunately, if it is not, an opportunity is lost forever. The challenge to completely shift our thinking to seize this incredible opportunity is immense." States in the South, prodded by the 1998 Commission on the Future of the South, have been focusing on this issue for a few years now. As the Commission noted in it's report, "Workforce development starts with a pregnant mother." (Disclosure: I worked on this report for the Commission.) posted by Ed Morrison | Glossy brochures don't build an economy Here's the situation: you're an EDPro in a small town (population 10,000) in Southeast Indiana. How do you boost economic prospects in your economy? The answer is not "Launch a marketing campaign". But that's exactly what Greensburg, IN is doing.Why? Because a consultant appears to be pushing them in this direction. Read more A word to the wise: glossy brochures are expensive, and they don't build an economy. The mayor would be better off investing scarce economic development funds in entrepreneurial development at the high school, a business plan competition, internships with local companies, or a drop-out prevention program. About 30 kids a year drop out of the town's high school. With marketing, follow two strategies: beef up your web site (the Greensburg Chamber's site is not working when I checked) and develop a regional approach to marketing. As a small economy, it's just too expensive to go it alone. posted by Ed Morrison | Consolidating local government to boost economic development Wednesday, February 05, 2003 Look at Indianapolis and Nashville, and it is easy to conclude that broader "metro" government can help economic development. Louisville has recently taken this step. But what about other, smaller communities? Read how leaders in Colbert and Lauderdale counties in Alabama see it as a way to make local government both leaner and more effective. Colbert has a population of 55,000; Lauderdale's population is 88,000. They are located in the northwest corner of the state, west of Huntsville. Consolidation can strengthen your local brand and improve your political standing. At the same time, it can lead to more less costly and less fragmented government services. EDPros can learn important lessons from the process local leaders have designed to consider consolidation. They are taking the time to assemble the facts. Contact the Shoals Chamber. Consolidation is a good step, but it is extremely tough to pull off. To start, you must have both the business and political leadership in place. Make a judgement on the quality and strength of your leadership before you start down this path. If you have doubts, move on to other issues. There are other ditches to die in. posted by Ed Morrison | Rendell wants businesses near university campuses Tuesday, February 04, 2003 Pennsylvania's new governor Ed Rendell is pushing a new idea: tax incentives for businesses located near the state's colleges and universities. Called the Keystone Innovation Zones program, the idea is part of a legislative package the governor will submit to the legislature in March. Read more. While the idea if building businesses around a univerity campus is a solid strategy, tax incentives -- or enterprise zones -- don't work all that well. A far better appraoch, but more complicated, would involve examining the state's technology transfer policies and the incentives (or disincentives) that motivate faculty to start a business. It also involves looking at faculty policies (like release time) and procurement regulations to see how much support the state actually provides to entrepreneurial faculty. To get some background on these issues, review a report by the Southern Technology Council, "Innovation U.: New University Roles in a Knowledge Economy". posted by Ed Morrison | Web site watch: Downtown New York Alliance From time to time, I point out solid web sites for EDPros. Downtown New York competes against locations in mid-town, and it has launched a new website to support its marketing efforts. You get both a sense of the district and practical information. The site includes several helpful features: a clear home page, a space finder, and an incentives calculator. posted by Ed Morrison | State tax systems rated EDPros can take a look at how their state tax systems perform in an online report released by Governing Magazine yesterday. posted by Ed Morrison | Strategies to reduce the brain drain... Monday, February 03, 2003 By all accounts, Howard County, Maryland is not small. It has a population of 250,000. At the smae time, it faces a problem that most small counties confront: stemming the brain drain. The Chamber of Commerce, working with the schools, has launched a new strategy to reduce the brain drain. The approach could teach EDPros in smaller counties how to keep their "best and brightest". The initiative combines classroom instruction in business with one-on-one contacts with area businesses. Students vie for summer internships. The students visit three local businesses -- one a month -- and spend two hours with an executive touring the company's facilities and learning about the types of management jobs available. Business leaders give students a sense of the education path required for those jobs and what a person might expect coming from college, and how a person might work his or her way through the ranks of the company. This approach can work anywhere, and EDPros can use it to address continuing concerns about a brain drain. Read more. Learn more from the Howard County Chamber. posted by Ed Morrison | Sprawl undercuts the quality of life... In selected states, EDPros are confronting "growth issues"...citizen concerns that the current pattern of land use policies encourages sprawl and undercuts the quality of life. For EDPro's who have to understand this issue more completely, here's a good article from Virgnia that explores below the surface. Based on polling results, it shows how voters view the connection between "growth" and "quality of life". Read an overview of the sprawl issue and "smart growth". Go The sprawl cycle starts with loose subdivision regulations (or none at all). Strip development along traffic corridors then follows residential development. All this occurs on top of a rural infrastructure that's not equipped to handle it. When enough people "connect the dots", a backlash against growth starts to form. Although business development is not the primary trigger for sprawl, EDPros get caught in the crossfire. Citizen consensus can break down, and, if that happens, politics turns nasty and economic development is held hostage. posted by Ed Morrison | Minnesota heading down the wrong path with enterprise zones Saturday, February 01, 2003 Minnesota's governor is moving to establish as many as ten new rural enterprise zones. The problem is...there's not much evidence that these zones work. Read more. The process of economic development is far more complex that the promoters of these zones understand. Economic development requires a productive pattern of joint investments in infrastructure. In the knowledge economy, the scope of infrastructure is expanding beyond the traditional (roads, bridges, water, sewer) to include flexible secondary and post-secondary education, workplace training, entreprenuerial development, telecommunications, and innovation networks (sometimes called clusters). Equally important, prosperity now demands collaboration and consensus that come from civic habits of dialogue, as well as a special type of leadership practiced by civic entrepreneurs. Enterprise zones promote simple answers...but there are none. posted by Ed Morrison | Growing networks of angel investors Friday, January 31, 2003 I'm noticing a growing interest around the country in promoting angel investor networks. Angel investor networks have been around for a long time as an economic strategy. It's a simple, compelling idea, but it's not that easy to pull off. What's behind the new momentum? Several factors: an increased emphasis on innovation. Flat and declining support for "soft money" initiatives. And a growing sophistication among angel networks. But for an angel network to be effective, you need to train (and screen) both entrepreneurs and investors. This week, New Mexico held an angel conference to train both investors and entrepreneurs. Read more background. The conference web site includes a good example of a conference schedule with two tracks, one for entrepreneurs, one for investors. If you are planning to head in this direction, use the New Mexico agenda as a guide. Innovation Philadelphia building its angel networks to the next level formally by establishing a $5 million to $10 million fund for angel investors. Read more. To start your education about angel investing, you can download the Kaufman Foundation's recent report on best practices. More detailed research is available at the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research, where the concept of angel investing was first rigorously examined in the early 1980's. The Center now estimates in 2001 angel investors numbered 350,000, and invested between $30 and $35 billion in close to 50,000 ventures in the United States. Read more. posted by Ed Morrison | Helpful resources on workplace basic skills Most EDPros are not comfortable with education and workforce issues. In the past, we've never had to be. But all that's changed. We need to get up to speed on these issues quickly. Here's a web site worth passing on. It's not pretty, but it provides EDPros with a quick orientation to basic workplace education, a critical issue for many employers. It also can get you the key contacts what's your state. More important, the sponsors update it weekly. The web site, WorkplaceBasicSkills.com, fits into a good business retention package. posted by Ed Morrison | New broadband financing available in rural areas. EDPros in rural areas may be interested in a new Department of Agriculture program to expand broadband. USDA will provide the financing of about $1.4 billion in loans and loan guarantees to rural telecommunications providers. Read the transcript of the announcement. Many rural EDPros are not well plugged into the economic development programs of the Department of Agriculture. But they are extensive. This fact sheet can get you up to speed. posted by Ed Morrison | Michigan pushes collaboration in the tool and die industry Wednesday, January 29, 2003 Collaboration is easy to talk about but hard to pull off. That's why "cluster-based" strategies are so tough to implement. So, I was drawn to explore Michigan's effort to boost collaboration among smaller tool and die companies. As part of this initiative, Michigan is launching a pilot training program to address the competitive challenges of the tool and die industry. The program will train workers in new manufacturing methods. Read more. EDPros with large, mature industries should explore this approach. A recent report by the State pointed to training as one of the key drivers for maintaining this industry. The report outlines practical ways to improve collaboration within an industry cluster. Download the report. posted by Ed Morrison | Georgia Tech offers courses on economic impact assessments EDPros have a range of software options if they want to assess the economic impacts of different projects. Georgia Tech has one package that is easy to use, low cost, and well supported. They have several seminars planned for this spring. Learn more. You can download a demo. posted by Ed Morrison | Building specialized infrastructure for clusters One element of a cluster -based development strategy is to build specialized infrastructure. In Akron, this means building a pilot plant for small scale polymer production. In Montgomery County, Maryland, it means a science and technology research park geared to biotech. Akron's Pilot Plant is more focused and smaller scale. Montgomery County's project is much larger and more speculative. Building specialized infrastructure is a tricky business. The difficulty is figuring out if there is a sufficiently strong market demand to support the infrastructure (including capital and operating costs). That question turns on whether the anchors to your cluster are competitive and dynamic. Read more about what EDPros are doing with polymers in Akron and biotech in Montgomery County. posted by Ed Morrison | Do short term incentives undercut long term competitiveness? Tuesday, January 28, 2003 There's a plausible argument to say that they do. Corporate tax breaks directly influence local property taxes, the largest single source of funding for public schools. A report by the National Education Asssociation makes the case. The authors contend that tax subsidies are rarely evaluated for their effectiveness. They look at 5 states: Ohio, Florida, Texas, Minnesota, and Montana. In this era of tight state and local finances, this argument can gain some political traction. If you need to prepare yourself, read more or download the report. posted by Ed Morrison | Valuable data available... SBA has released some valuable data sets for EDPros interested in economic analysis. They include state and metro level data on firm size and dynamic changes. This type of information is critical to defining the scope of a BR+E program. The data is easily downloaded in Excel format. Go Michael Porter's Cluster mapping project has also released data for the year 2000. For a subscription of $250 a year, EDPros can download data. You can reach the cluster mapping project on their home page. Go Explore the free sections of the site first. You may not need much beyond that. If you want to explore in depth, get a subscription and some smart interns. Forget hiring a consultant to teach you about clusters. (I have yet to see a cluster report by a consultant -- including Porter -- that is worth the money. Disclosure: I have done one, but I didn't think much of it, so I don't do them anymore.) posted by Ed Morrison | Can SBDC's become more entrepreneurial? Pennsylvania's network of 15 Small Business Development Centers are proposing to move into a more aggressive entrepreneurial network. It's a bid to expand state support for the SBDC's. Read more. Go To learn more about your state's SBDC network, go here. posted by Ed Morrison | Promoting the Creative Class... Monday, January 27, 2003 Richard Florida has been relentlessly promoting his concept of the Creative Class. Last week, at the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Florida announced that a national summit on the creative class will convene in Memphis on May 1-2. Why Memphis? Because, it seems, the city has embraced his ideas. In contrast, in Pittsburgh, his adopted home town, Florida is having difficulty getting support for a research institute he wants to establish. Read more. I admit I'm skeptical of Florida's merchandising. I find little in Florida's work that has not already been said by Jane Jacobs (who taught us about the economy of cities 30+ years ago) and Peter Drucker (who taught us about "knowledge workers" 15+ years ago). posted by Ed Morrison | Here's an entrepreneurship report helpful to EDPros A new report underlines the growing trend that entrepreneurship is spreading, but points out that EDPros need to do a better job promoting these initiatives to skeptical politicans looking for a "quick fix". The report explore entrepreneurial initiatives in Maine, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Read more. Or, download the report. posted by Ed Morrison | Download this... EDPros need to stress the economic importance of education to their communities. Here's a valuable poster that's free to download from www.postsecondary.org Grab it anytime you are speaking in front of educators or students. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Putnam provides a benchmark web site for smaller communities If you are an EDPro in a small community, your web site (if you have one) should be at least as good at Putnam, Connecticut. Learn some background. Go. Putnam is a town of 9,000 people in the northeast corner of the state. An intern with the town's Economic Development Commission, Kartik Patel, developed the site. The site is well designed and presented. While the graphics do not show the fingerprints of a professional designer, that does not matter much, as long as the information is clear and easily accessible. Here are some important features: +The home page integrates economic development marketing with town news for residents. +The site includes easy-to-read maps. The maps offer a good selection of regional, local, and town center views. +The economic and demographic information provides a clear and concise profile of Putnam. +The section on the industrial park starts with an aerial view, always helpful to orient visitors. It includes a lot map to let you know what is available. +The pull down menus are based on a freeware program, Coolmenus. You do not have to spend a lot to get good results. Putnam's EDPro, Norman MacNeill, director of Economic & Community Development, has shown the way. Use Putnam's site map to plan your own web site. Use a similar basic, simple design. Fill it with clear, important content. Find an intern or student who can design the site. (In Putnam's case, Kartik is obvously smart with a good eye and a clear head.) posted by Ed Morrison | Iowa governor proposes a new investment fund Sunday, January 26, 2003 Iowa's governor is proposing a $500 million fund to accelerate the development of life sciences and advanced manufacturing in his state. Patterned after the successful Vison Iowa (which targeted community development), the Iowa Values Fund will be geared to leveraging private sector investment. Iowa's community development program invested $225 million in public funds and triggered about $2 billion in private investment. Learn more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | EDA: And the winner is... Saturday, January 25, 2003 The spring awards season has begun, and the Economic Development Administration will not be left out. They want to recognize economic development innovation. Here's a suggestion: Why don't they hold also hold a contest to redesign the EDA web site? It's got the look and feel of Ms. Jones' 4th grade geography class. Even more interesting, they have no interactive way for EDPros to make nominations. Worse yet, the only way you can learn about the award program is to sit there and download a 4.5 MB brochure. Even with high speed Internet connections this takes a while. Who has the time? As a service to the EDPro community, I have reduced the size of the EDA brochure to a little over 1 MB. You can download it here. Go We can compress it even more by zipping the file, but this is good enough. posted by Ed Morrison | Benchmarks on the size of your small business economy for BR+E programs Research in economic development is is a generally sorry state. Most reports are written by academics, for academics. It's often hard to squeeze these reports for practical insights that EDPros can use. One surprising source, though, is the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration. They provide some useful state profiles of the small business economy. These enable you to get some benchmarks on the size of the small business economy in your state. You can use the state figures as rules of thumb for your region. While academics may wince at the practice, it's good enough to help you start defining the scope of your retention and expansion programs. Download your state report. Go posted by Ed Morrison | In education, focus on a few clear messages EDPros will confront the consequences of mediocre educational performance...complaints by employers about underskilled, unreliable workers. Wading into the morass of education reform is a daunting challenge. Everyone blames everyone else. Employers blame teachers. Teachers blame parents. Parents blame administrators. And administrators blame politicians. So it goes in an endless cycle. EDPros should not throw up our hands. Instead, we need to focus on simple, clear messages: For example, early childhood education for all children. Every child needs to read and comprehend well by the fourth grade. High school is no longer a ticket to the middle class. And every child needs a K-14 career plan. Last week, Cailfornia's Senate Select Committee on Central Valley Economic Development held a hearing to explore why some high poverty schools perform so well. Research has shown that these schools can perform well when they follow a few basic guidelines. Read more. Go The hearing was based on a report by Pacific Research Institute. Download the report. posted by Ed Morrison | A message from Comdex: Grow your own Friday, January 24, 2003 A Tennessee EDPro came back from Comdex with three prospects and a message: "Let's grow our own." Read more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Iowa builds rural entrepreneurship We've entered the Age of Network Capitalism, and that puts a premium on entrepreneurial skills. But how do you build and support these skills in rural areas? Iowa's rural accelerator program has a good approach. Developed by the University of Northern Iowa Regional Business Center, It involves three components. The first is a simple 2 hour overview of business concepts and skills. The second is a more detailed training called Fast Trac™. (This component is supported by a grant from the Department of Agriculture.) Fast Trac™ Tech is a curriculum developed by the Kaufman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership of Kansas City, MO. that has been used to train over 40,000 entrepreneurs in 150 cities across the United States. Learn more. The last component is on-line support network. Based on a membership model, this on-line approach builds connections among entrepreneurs. It's free-standing and potentially self-supporting. You can view the network at www.myentre.net. A very strong feature of the site is the ability for members to have live chats with counsellors. As a small business owner, would I pay $4 a month for this service? You bet. The three components of the rural accelerator program makes sense for two reasons. First, they are integrated and comprehensive. Second, unlike standalone programs like SCORE and most SBDCs, they move entrepreneurs toward building their own networks. Learn more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Missouri will train dislocated workers in entrepreneurship Thursday, January 23, 2003 The Missouri Department of Economic Development is promoting the idea of entrepreneurial training for dislocated workers. Using the Fast Trac™ training developed by The Kaufman Foundation, to provide dislocated workers with training to start their own businesses. Learn more. Go Learn about the Fast Trac™ curriculum here. Last fall, the Department of Trade and Economic Development in Minnesota released an encouraging report on this approach. You can download Minnesota's report here. Or read the summary by the National Governors Association here. posted by Ed Morrison | Monthly partnership meetings build communications The first rule of economic development is to stop doing stupid things. Rule Number Two: get people talking honestly to one another. (Both rules are harder to follow than we think.) So, some of the most effective economic development innovations are the most sensible. Here's an example. Lexington, MA business and politrical leaders have organized the Lexington Business Partnership. Meeting monthly, the Partnership enables business and town leaders to exchange ideas on taxes, town business regulations, and other policy issues. Learn some useful details on how the Partnership operates. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Iowa launches Community Vitality Center Here's another innovation out of Iowa, a Community Vitality Center. Funded by the Department of Agriculture and housed at Iowas State University, the Center will undertake a number of initiatives to stimulate business development. The Board of Regents approved the Center this week. Center staff and ISU students will work with leaders in small and medium-size towns to establish networks that improve Iowa's competitiveness for attracting business and residents. The Center, proposed by ISU Extension and Positively Iowa, a non-profit group, is already underway. The Center's governing Board has approved five projects. The first three projects are related to the theme of Community Vitality and Entrepreneurship. The first project involves a series public deliberation forums called Community Conversations that were held at 10 regional sites across the state last fall. Local citizens and leaders who participated in these meetings are examining 3 different approaches that communities may take in supporting and assisting entrepreneurs and startup businesses. Learn more from a recent article. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Building rural entrepreneur networks We've entered the Age of Network Capitalism, and that puts a premium on entrepreneurial skills. But how do you build and support these skills in rural areas? Iowa's rural accelerator program has a good approach. Developed by the University of Northern Iowa Regional Business Center, It involves three components. The first is a simple 2 hour overview of business concepts and skills. The second is a more detailed training called Fast Trac™. (This component is supported by a grant from the Department of Agriculture.) Fast Trac™ Tech is a curriculum developed by the Kaufman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership of Kansas City, MO. that has been used to train over 40,000 entrepreneurs in 150 cities across the United States. Learn more. The last component is on-line support network. Based on a membership model, this on-line approch builds connections among entrepreneurs. You can view the network at www.myentre.net. This approach makes sense for two reasons. First, it's integrated and comprehensive. Second, unlike standalone programs like SCORE and most SBDCs, it moves entrepreneurs toward building their own networks. Learn more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | It's time to rethink technical education Wednesday, January 22, 2003 If you're like me, most EDPros are guilty of carrying around outdated notions of technical education in their heads. The truth is that technical education is now the ticket to the middle class. A high school diploma no longer makes the cut. Here's a good article to start update your thinking. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Northeast Ohio will try regional marketing Chambers of commerce in Northeast Ohio have joined to form Team NEO, a regional marketing organization. Sponsors have secured $3.4 million in commitments over three years, and they hope to secure another $3.5 million. Team Neo includes the chambers in Cleveland, Akron, and Youngstown, as well as other development groups. Don't hold your breath on this one. Regional marketing efforts are the toughest type of cooperation to pull off. First, you have to promote a strong brand. There's no clear understanding of what Northeast Ohio really mens. (Team NEO sounds meaningless.) And will the participant organizations -- the Akron Chamber, for example -- do away with their own marketing efforts? I don't think so. How will existing brands integrate? Next, you have to have procedures in place to handle prospects. This is very tricky. Cooperation is all fine and dandy in the abstract. But when there's a live prospect in the room.... Who decides which sites? Is there a hand off to existing organizations? And these siting procedures only work if there is a strong sense of trust among the participants. Finally, I'm not clear on why regional business leaders chose to focus on marketing to start. Building university collaboration makes more sense initially. Or, alternatively, focus on regional coordination of infrastructure issues. Present a single voice to legislators in Columbus. In short, this effort is unlikely to build the region's innovation economy. Read more posted by Ed Morrison | Build innovation networks with business plan competitions Tuesday, January 21, 2003 Regions and states are starting to figure out that business plan competitions are good ways to build entrepreneurial networks. Here's an example from Michigan. The Great Lakes Entrepreneur's Quest (GLEQ), a statewide business plan competition, is hosting the 3rd Annual Great Lakes Entrepreneurship Meeting. Its partners include the New Enterprise Forum, the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Great Lakes, the Eastern Michigan University Center for Entrepreneurship, the Ann Arbor IT Zone and the Michigan Small Business Development Center. Entrepreneurs participating in this year's GLEC will also appear on radio. Read more. Here's another example from Pittsburgh. This is a direct, relatively low cost way to build the entrepreneurial networks you need to keep smart people in your community. There's steps you need to take in setting one up, and your best bet is to talk to people who are already doing it. posted by Ed Morrison | Good starting point for rural telecomm Most EDPros don't know what a telecommunications infrastructure report looks like. Here's an example from rural Illinois. Download (Be patient: it's large at 3+ MB) The Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs put this report out, and their site includes some very useful resources for rural communities. This is a good place to start to get yourself up to speed on rural telecommunications. Go For example, they have a good report on starting a telecommunications plan for your community. Go. posted by Ed Morrison | New Mexico pushes an aggressive ED agenda Governor Richardson in New Mexico promises to spend 25% of his time on economic development, and he is proposing an aggressive agenda in his State of the State address. First off, he is pushing education to the front of his economic development agenda. To improve performance, he's recommending higher pay for teachers, stronger truancy enforcement, and budget reallocations to push money out of administration and into the classroom. These are practical, focused ideas that can work. He's also got some good language on the connection between education and economic development: "...we will find ways to make certain that every child learns to read, learns math, learns the indispensable basic skills to further learning and to life itself. Improving education is a basic quality of life issue, it is part of economic development, it is part of crime prevention, is, in fact, the first priority of my administration..." In addition, he is proposing across the board income tax and capital gains tax cuts. He is also recommending: + strengthening the teaching of business and entrepreneurial skills in New Mexico schools. + strengthening incubator programs. + $3 million in tax incentives for investment and job creation -- including a tax credit of $1,000 and up for rural businesses that create jobs paying at least 110 percent of local prevailing wages. + incentives for startup technology companies, renewable energy companies and film production. + investing up to $200 million - about 2 percent of the total in the state's permanent funds - in New Mexico businesses. + $15 million to the in-plant training fund, bringing it to $20 million when combined with existing funds. + $3 million to fund a nonprofit corporation to recruit new businesses. + $9 million as a one-time expenditure to complete the funding of endowed chairs in business and technology research at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech and New Mexico State University. + $100,000 to create an economic development commission to follow up on trade expansion with Chihuahua. + $250,000 a year for three years for a new commission charged with protecting New Mexico's four military bases. Read more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Kansas governor connects communities and security Monday, January 20, 2003 Not surprisingly, Kansas' new governor, Kathleen Sebelius, delivered a State of the State speech short on specifics. But she made an important connection between building communities and Homeland Security. "...in today's uncertain world, one of the most effective strategies for Homeland Security is to reconnect people to each other. How much more difficult would it be for those who wish us harm to plot and act if people lived in tightly-knit, interconnected hometowns, where people knew their neighbors and took an interest in each other?" Read more. posted by Ed Morrison | New Jersey's governor pushes different ED buttons Governor McGreevey of New Jersey has proposed five important ideas to build a competitive economy: upgrade teacher skills, reduce incentives for sprawl development, unify the state's university system, better alternatives for high school students who "test out" of required courses, and a technical proficiency test for high school graduation. Here's why each idea makes sense. Upgrading teacher skills: This approach is the fastest way to improve educational performance. Reducing srawl: Sprawl costs more in infrastructure and services to support. Unified university system: Postesecondary education is critical to economic development, but too many state systems are inflexible "silos". More K-14 alternatives: We face a similar problem with secondary schools. Not enough choices are available to encourage K-14 thinking among students and parents. Technical proficiency in computer skills: Computer literacy is no longer an option for a middle class job. These ideas are controversial, so don't expect them to survive. The Governor didn't help his case by doing a poor job of framing his proposals. But at least the governor has put them on the table. Read the speech. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Some sensible ideas to build innovation.... January is the season for annual "state of the state" addresses. I'm still going through a few, and I'm finding some interesting ideas that have not been widely reported. For example, the governor of Missouri is appointing a Commission on the Future of Higher Education. This commission will make recommendations to strengthen the link between higher education and economic growth. The Commission will also identify any new funding sources for colleges and universities. In addition, the governor has called for a new alliance between businesses and our universities. He has asked leaders in higher education and in the private sector to create the Research Alliance of Missouri to coordinate research and provide more access to technology for Missouri businesses. These are sensible ideas that do not cost money. They promote, instead, better collaboration and stronger networks. Download the address. posted by Ed Morrison | Texas moving to reform statewide ED Texas is set to revamp its economic development apparatus. Under the new scheme, the governor will have new authority over economic development and new tools, including a deal-closing fund. More details should come in about two weeks. Read more.Go The critical issue: How will the new approach strike a balance between short term recruitment pressures and longer term investments in education, training and research? This reform effort follows an extensive report issued in November by The Perryman Group. Download a copy. posted by Ed Morrison | Cleveland County, NC pulls itself together... Cleveland County, North Carolina is located in the western part of the state on the South Carolina border. It's a drive to the technology "hot spots". About 100,000 people live in the county, though, so it's not small. (Shelby is the largest city.) Employment has been shrinking at about 2% a year, largely because of the erosion of the textile industry. Unemployment is about 10%. Look closer at Cleveland County and you see an economic development strategy that makes sense. They have figured out that their core economic asset is brainpower, not land and certainly not "life style" (whatever that means). Two years ago, county leaders formed the Job Development Task Force to bring together the different economic development and workforce development efforts in the county. Now the task force includes the chamber, the workforce board, the community colleges, and others. Not only have they done a good job bringing people together, they have also worked hard to manage expectations, a key tactic in and economic development strategy. Learn more. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Reversing the brain drain... How do you keep the best and brightest in your community, especially if you have a college or university? Make the campus "sticky" by adding a business incubator. Learn how Knoxville and the University of Tennesee are doing it. Go posted by Ed Morrison | Indiana's plan stumbles at the starting gate Governor Frank O'Bannon's efforts to refocus Inidiana's economic strategy is off to a shaky start. With Energize Indiana, the governor proposes to invest in a 10-year, $1.25 billion initiative to jump-start Indiana's ailing economy through investments in economic development, education and work-force development. The most controversial component of his plan is to issue bonds, secured by tobacco settlement funds. O'Bannon has proposed leveraging future tobacco money to pay for much of Energize Indiana. The public debate is already muddled, but it shouldn't be. The issue of "pay me now, or pay me later" turns on two questions: What is the present value of future cash streams from tobacco? Second, what is the return on investment from investing the money now? My conclusion after looking at these two questions: O'Bannon's proposal makes sense. But don't count on see it any time soon. The House Speaker has already divided the package up into 15 different bills that will be heard in seven committees. The Ways and Means Committee is supposed to reassemble the pieces. And O'Bannon has failed to market his ideas effectively...starting with his "brand": "Energize Indiana". posted by Ed Morrison | |
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