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For the past five or six years, I have been developing a new approach for economic development, based on networks. I call this approach Open Source Economic Development in order to emphasize the strategic value of collaboration in today's global economy.
Beyond that, Open Source software development has a lot ot teach. Its methods successfully balance open participation and leadership guidance. With a few simple rules, open source evangelists (like Linus Torvalds of Linux fame) are able to develop extremely complex projects quickly. How? They harness the collective wisdom and energies of an open community.
Basically, that's the same challenge faced by every economic and workforce developer: design and execute complex projects quickly in an open environment in which no one can tell anyone else what to do.
Borrowing the insights of software development, Open Source Economic Development promotes open innovation networks to accelerate regional development. If this sounds a lot like "cluster development", it should. To my mind, clusters are simply open innovation networks.
The problem I have confronted -- as well as any economic development professional who has tried to implement a clusters-based strategy -- is how to translate theory into practice. Michael Porter, the primary advocate of clusters, has been frustratingly vague in identifying useful policy prescriptions. This vagueness should not surprise us. Porter's background is in corporate strategy, and corporate strategy -- which operates within a largely closed environment of an organization -- is fundamentally different from the open economy of a community or region.
A big part of the Open Source model on which I have been working focuses on how to translate ideas into action. The model calls for new practices of civic engagement, called "strategic doing".
I am now a member of the staff of the Purdue Center for Regional Development and Economic Policy Advisor for the WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) initiative in North Central Indiana. My colleagues at Purdue are extremely supportive of new ideas, and I have a great opportunity to work with some really talented professionals.
To implement new approaches to economic development, I also helped found I-Open, the Institute for Open Economic Networks, based in Cleveland. I-Open will help spread these new tools of economic development using Creative Commons licensing.
I came to my current interest in Open Source Economic Development after conducting strategy projects with economic developers in the U.S., mostly in the South. I hit pay dirt early. My first project in 1984 won the first Arthur D. Little Award for excellence in economic development presented by the American Economic Development Council. Oklahoma City is one of my favorite projects on which I worked. I was the architect of the strategic economic development plan for the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce (Forward Oklahoma CIty), and I served as economic development consultant to the Chamber from 1994 to 2002.
Working with former Kentucky Governor Martha Layne Collins, I authored the 1998 report for the Commission on the Future of the South. Up until recently, Governors in 14 Southern states appointed the Commission every six years to chart an economic development course for the South. The governors unanimously endorsed the 1998 Commission report, and then Governor Zell Miller of Georgia called it the “best Commission report ever written.”
In one of my other favorite projects, I managed the community assessment program for Commissioner J.R. Wilhite and the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development from 1998 to 2003. This initiative improves development prospects throughout rural Kentucky. A lot of the basic nuts and bolts of Open Source Economic Development emerged from my working with a very talented group of economic developers from the Kentucky Association for Economic Development.
Sandwiched between all of these other projects, I also worked with Ernest Andrade in Charleston, SC to develop the Charleston Digital Corridor . Ernest is the prime mover behind this remarkably innovative initiative, and we spent many hours discussing how to implement Open Source Economic Development concepts in the Digital Corridor. He has followed the maps and proven the theory. The "link and leverage" strategies of Open Source Economic Development are fast, focused and cost-effective.
I have also had the good opportunity to work with Commerce Lexington in Lexington, KY to explore how Open Source Economic Development changes the organization and operation of chambers of commerce. Commerce Lexington has committed to the disciplines of strategic doing, with impressive results.
One of my other passions involves teaching economic development strategy at the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma. For the last five years or so, I have taught that Advanced Strategic Planning Lab, where I have tested out a lot of my ideas on how economic development is shifting. Students in the class have been very helpful in clarifying my thinking and giving me straight comments on how to teach effectively.
For years, I have traveled to China, and this background has given me a valuable perspective. My experience in China began in 1986, when the Hong Kong Industry Department retained me as a consultant. Since that time I have worked for the United Nations Development Program, and for private investors. I am chairman of the board of the Xi'an Aleba Mineral Water Company, and I have come to understand in intimate detail both the promise and the problems of doing business in China.
Prior to starting my economic development work, I worked for Telesis, a corporate strategy consulting firm. In this position, he served on consulting teams for clients such as Ford Motor Company, Volvo, and General Electric. I conducted manufacturing cost studies in the U.S., Japan, Mexico, Canada, Italy, Sweden, and France. I had my first "flat earth" moment in 1984. I was sitting on a dock in Hiroshima, Japan. I had just spent several weeks understanding how Mazda managed to operate far more efficiently than Ford. As I watched cars being loaded onto ships in Hiroshima Bay, I suddenly realized that the cost barrier of transportation could never make up for the productivity advantage the Japanese had gained.
Months later, I was working with General Electric evaluating plant locations for their electric motor division. The project quickly became an exercise in recommending the shutdown of U.S. plants. Soon thereafter, I quit corporate consulting and began working with communities and regions trying to grapple with the pressures of global competition.
I started my professional career in Washington, D.C., where I served as a legislative assistant to an Ohio Congressman, staff attorney in the Federal Trade Commission, and staff counsel in the US Senate. I hold a BA degree cum laude with honors (in African History) from Yale University and MBA and JD degrees from the University of Virginia.
