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The boundaries of economic development are shifting.

The increasingly important role of young professionals in a regional economy represents a prime example. In the past, young professionals had almost no voice in a region's economic development strategy.

Now, however, young professionals are playing an increasingly important role in providing leadership as the economy shifts toward a new set of important economic drivers: networks, creativity, innovation.

Here is an example from Chattanooga. The nonprofit organization CreateHere is pushing out the frontiers of economic development in that city. Read more.

Connecting podcasting  with economic development is relatively new. increasingly, though, EDPros will have to experiment with different ways of getting messages to different audiences. Over the past several months, I've been working on a number of initiatives to try to experiment with new Web 2.0 platforms, low-cost video and audio streaming, and simply capturing events with audio files.

Virginia Beach is starting to experiment with a regular podcast. You can learn more about what they're doing from this article. You can download their podcasts through iTunes.

A first impression: the primary audience for a podcast for economic development is probably local. In other words, you're trying to keep people informed of your economic developer strategy, as well as important event information. My guess is that podcasts are not going to be all that successful in marketing a community.

Here some basics on podcasting.

One of the ways to build a critical mass of civic leaders needed to transform an economy is to take them on a field trip. These leadership visits serve a number of important purposes. First, they build relationships among your leadership team. Second, they are a fast way to learn. Finally, leadership visits open new possibilities.

That is exactly what's happened in a recent leadership visit in which a group from Jackson, Mississippi traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas to gain some insights into how to transform a downtown.  Read more.

In Southern Illinois, Benton and West Frankfort are only 8 miles apart. Yet they do not collaborate on economic development. Until now. The possibility of a new fiber-optic network is expanding the opportunities to collaborate between these two small Illinois communities.

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And that's the point. When you're trying to build collaboration, focus on a handful of different opportunities. Push for some results as quickly as possible. Regional collaboration sounds great in theory, but it only works in practice.

If you're interested in learning more about broadband deployment in rural communities, you might want to check out the ConnectSI website here.

You can read more about the collaboration emerging in Southern Illinois from this article.

Here's an interesting idea out of Kentucky: employer roundtables. With the State and the University of Kentucky as partners, the Roundtable meets to develop strategies that simultaneously benefit employers and employees.

"Their goal is to help Kentucky's employers become 'employer-of-choice' organizations. They are equally interested in the individual workplace as they are in assuring Kentucky's ability to court and secure viable businesses and talent from around the world," said Personnel Cabinet Secretary Nikki Jackson. 

You can read more about the Roundtable here and visit their web site here.

When I think of enlightened newspapers whose editors understand the dynamics of regional economic development, I think of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the St. Peteresburgh Times, the Toledo Blade. The Shreveport Times does not come to mind. Until now, perhaps. 

This Sunday Shreveport Times has an uncommonly good editorial on the dynamics of reginal economic development. Read more.
In the old industrial economy purposeful conversation about economic strategy was often dismissed as "just talk", a distraction, a waste of time.

The economy of networks is far more ambiguous and complex. Purposeful conversation becomes essential to making sense of emerging trends, new opportunities, hidden risks.

That's in part wy communities and regions with a vibrant civic life will be more competitive in the years ahead. They will learn faster. Diverse viewpoints brought together by trusted civic leaders will lead to new insights and faster responses.

Here's a white paper on Strategic Doing. We've also launched a new web site on Strategic Doing, where we will be collecting stories, tools and insights into how to do strategy in open networks.

Just got back from Workforce Innovations, the largest gathering of workforce development professionals in the country. With our partner, Near Time, and the Department of Labor, I participated in the launch of Innovating Networks.

Innovating Networks introduces Web 2.0 technologies to economic and workforce development professionals.

The Web 2.0 changes everything because, for the first time, anyone can leverage the interactive power of the Internet. I've included a number of videos below to give you a sense of the possibilities.

Web 2.0, of course, creates new oppportunities for building innovating networks -- clusters -- within regional economies. (In a separate post, I'll give you a briefing on what I've been doing to launch a water technology cluster in SE Wisconsin.)

The new access to a powerful Internet also challenges us to come up with new appraoches to strategy. Strategic planning was developed by large multi-divisional corporations. It works well in a command and control environment. But the process does not work well in a network. We need new practices. That's what strategic doing is all about.You can download a white paper on strategic doing attached to this post.

You can also go through the slides from my Strategic Doing workshop here.

Here's a video overview on Web 2.0.

Here's an explanation of a blog.

Here's an explanation of the power of networks and social networks. (Innovating Networks has some elements of social networking, because it makes the "people network" of economic and workforce development more visisble.)

Here's an explaination of a wiki. Innovating Networks integrates wikis with blogs in an easy to use platform.

Here's an explanation of an RSS feed, another Web 2.0 technology. RSS feeds  help you filter information quickly. Near Time's platform integrates these technologies so that you can keep up with news more easily.

Next week at Workforce Innovations, I'll be releasing a white paper on open innovation models of economic development and workforce development. I've attached a copy.

I will also be releasing a white paper on Innovating Networks. I've attached a copy of that one, as well.

There will be a third one on Strategic Doing for a session I am conducting on that topic. It's not quite ready yet. I'll post it here shortly.

Strategic Doing is a set of principles, practices and disciplines for implementing strategy in a network. Old models of strategic planning were designed for hierarchical organizations, and they do not work well.  Strategic Doing represents the alternative.

(All this material is distributed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License. That means you are free to distribute and modify anything you see in the white paper for commercial or noncommercial purposes. You do not need permission. Just tell people where you got it.)

One of the major challenges we face in the years ahead will be integrating education, economic development and workforce development. The old federal programs-- many of them stretching back to the 1930's -- create turf in our regions.Defending this turf has not only wasted resources. It has also kept us from seeing new opportunities that are fast emerging for innovation.

Next week, at Workforce Innovations, a group of us will be launching Innovating Networks, a new collaborative web site. 

Innovating Networks is an online community of workforce development professionals and economic development practitioners.  This collaborative web site provides an opportunity to share best practices, success stories and all types of information using Web 2.0 tools while networking and interacting with professionals and practitioners from across the country. It's a promising initiative to bridge the divide among education, economic development and workforce development professionals. I've been working on this initiative with our Web 2.0 technology partner, Near-Time.

I-Open (the Institute for Open Economic Networks) is the non-profit spin-out organization I formed with colleagues from the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University. Near-Time and I-Open have been collaborating on a number of promising approaches to support "strategic doing" (how you do strategy in a network), Open Source Economic Development and Open Source Workforce Development.

I'll be reporting from Workforce Innovations in New Orleans next week.

Old ways die hard.

EDPros in New Hampshire's the New Hampshire Division of Economic Development’s Business Resource Center are heading in the wrong direction. They are simply trying to shift businesses from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. Read more.

This economic development strategy is an old one: Mississippi pioneered recruitment in the 1930's. The fact that New Hampshire's strategy has not evolved much in seventy years is telling.

This approach makes little sense in a regional economy (New England) that is competing globally. What's worse, it undercuts the cross-border collaborations we need to make our regions globally competitive.

These are the type of efforts -- poaching, to use a perjorative term -- that make so little sense in today's world. We need economic development strategies that increase 21st century skills, boost innovation and accelerate collaboration. 

If you want examples of cross borade collaborations that are starting to work, look at the Kansas City metro, or Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, or Louisville and Southern Indiana. Also a number of the 39 WIRED regions cross state lines.

New Hampshire and Massachusetts need  "no poaching" agreement, and fast.

Maybe then New Hampshire's EDPros can begin to focus on what matters.

A lot of communities sponsor civic leadership visits to other communities.The practice is a simple one, but it is profoundly useful. Civic leaders from vibrant communities and regions are continuously learning and figuring out how to adapt new ideas.

After site visits to 250 communities across the U.S., Michigan State University professor Dave Ivan concludes that vibrant communities focus on a relative handful of key practices. One of them: continuous learning. As Dave points out, "Vibrant communities are continuously learning".

Civic leaders in Portland, OR have taken the practice to a new level. A delegation recently returned from Scandinavia with new ideas on a range of issues, including how to build the city's renewable energy future.As one participant noted, "“These places have grounded their economies with green energy being the cornerstone. That gives us a template for the future.”

Read more.