Economic Gardening in Steamboat Springs

About a week ago, I attended the economic gardening gathering in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We had a very valuable set of presentations which got us up to date with some of the newest developments in economic gardening.You can read more about the conference here. The article focuses on the remarkable work being done by a growing network of people in Fairfiled, IA, led by Burt Chojnowski. While in Steamboat, Burt and I had dinner together, and Burt is planning another gathering in Fairfield in early October. (More details, later)

If you are not familiar with economic gardening, it is a network-based model of economic development first designed by Chris Gibbons in Littleton, Colorado. You can read more background from the Littleton website here.

The gathering in Steamboat Springs represented the sixth annual meeting of practitioners of economic gardening. To keep up with this group, you can join any Google group from this page. In addition, we are working on a new website to gather economic gardening materials that might be helpful for practitioners.

Jack Schulz, who also attended the Steamboat Springs gathering, has written about it on his blog. Read more. (If you do not know Jack, you should. He's the author of Boomtown USA: The 7-1/2 Keys to Bog Success in Small Towns.)

Finally, Chris Gibbons has sent along this message that highlights some of the latest developments in the implementation of the economic gardening strategy:

We made several announcements at the beginning of the Steamboat conference that will hopefully be of use to other communities:

• Mark Lange of the Edward Lowe Foundation introduced their new “YourEconomy.org” database (http://youreconomy.org/http://youreconomy.org/http://youreconomy.org/) of entrepreneurial activity in local economies…..especially the gazelles or second stage companies (10-99 employees) that drive much of our economic success.  This site will be expanded throughout the summer providing an in-depth look at what driving every local economy in the country.  As communities compare entrepreneurial activity against each other, this database is going to change the conversation in economic development.

• Eric Ervin, with the City of Littleton, introduced our arrangement with SECO Financial which will provide mailing lists toLittleton companies.  In the past, this has been a monotonous (although important) task generating targeted mailing lists.  SECO’s web site makes it very simple for the business person to go in and with a few check marks (industry, size, location, growth rates, etc.) create their own list.  Littleton will underwrite the costs for our own businesses but we will be out of the list making business as a staff activity.  We have cut a deal with SECO to allow other communities to participate… with the idea that the more we get, the bigger the quantity discount we will all get.  If you want to participate, contact Eric Ervin at eervin@littletongov.orgeervin@littletongov.orgeervin@littletongov.org.

• We have created a jump start team consisting of a database research company, a GIS company and a web optimization company.  The purpose of this team is to contract with communities that are interested in starting an EG program but don’t have resources for a full blown project.  A community may only want to stick their toe in the water to see how the tools would work and if they are useful to their local business.  Or a community may want to hire the team to provide a turnkey start the next day….producing research and marketing help while the community builds its infrastructure (hire staff, buy software, get up the learning curve, etc.)  The team can work three months, six months, a year or whatever time period the community desires.  Or a community may not be large enough to need a full time program and only want to tap into these resources now and then for selected businesses….it can hire the team at various times during the year.  Contact me at chrisgibbons@q.comchrisgibbons@q.comchrisgibbons@q.comif you want more information.  (Please note that I have to do this off city time and equipment—thus the new address).

• We are also going to offer professional training in Economic Gardening tools and concepts at the Edward Lowe Foundation campus in Big Rock Valley, Michigan this August 15^th – 18^th.  I will teach these classes on the weekend (plus Monday) with the support of the ELF staff.  This will be a twenty-year brain dump over an intense three day period.  See attached agenda.  We will ask you to bring one business problem and one political problem to apply the tools to during the three days.  For details, contact me at chrisgibbons@q.comchrisgibbons@q.comchrisgibbons@q.com if you are interested.  If there is enough interest in the training, we will turn this into a certification course.  For those of you who indicated interest at the conference, we will be contacting you shortly with details.

• Finally, the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship  (Don Macke and the RUPRI folks) announced that CRE and EG will formally work together.  CRE organizes communities for entrepreneurial activity and EG has the tools to implement.  We will encourage communities to go through both programs, starting with CRE’s Energizing Entrepreneurs training.