Wanted to share this news with our NEO colleague network straight from the I-Open home base ...

Stock Market & Financial News - BusinessWeek: The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) and Near-Time Announce New Approach to Building Innovative Workforce Development Partnerships

I-Open Leadership Retreat Shares New Practices and Tools for Community and Regional Economic Transformation

By Susan Schaul

Special Presentation: Open Source Economic Development
    Ed Morrison and the Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open)

Ed Morrison has a different way of looking at economic development, by using open source thinking and networks to encourage innovation. This approach sounds easy, but it is not.

“We need to shift the conversation,” says Ed Morrison, Director of the Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open). Morrison, speaking at the I-Open Leadership Retreat, Punderson State Park in Newbury, Ohio, April 23, 24 and 25 paints a picture of economic expansion by first describing the history behind 20th century business development.

“Our grandfather’s economy, the first curve economy, generated enormous wealth using top-down models created in vertical business silos. But the forces of globalization, started back in the 1960s and accelerated by the Internet in the 1990s, have collapsed costs and integrated markets. In Japan,” he explains, “the automakers organized production differently focusing on flatter organization, networks of suppliers, more flexible production, simpler product design, and faster build cycles. This is an example of networked production. And it proved to be an effective model”

The shift in the economy, declared by economists as moving from manufacturing to services, was too simplistic. Traditional business models based on command and control hierarchies are now being replaced by business models based on more open, porous networks and collaborations. The second curve economy, a new form of capitalism, has emerged based on networks. Morrison uses cell phones as an example. “What value is there if only one person has a cell phone?” he asks. “As the number of people with cell phones increases, the nodes of the network also increase raising the value of the communications network exponentially in a knowledge economy.”

Punderson State Park in Newbury, Ohio, was a beautiful venue for 18 workshop participants from Indiana, southern Ohio, the Mt. Pleasant Community, Akron, and the greater Cleveland area, to share ideas, brainstorm, and learn new concepts to grow their own programs. “We need to build new habits of thinking together,” Morrison advises. “This is not about who needs to be at the table, but who is at the table and what can we do?” He is a firm believer in the value of civic forums, creating the civic space where people can convene and talk together, developing trust and forming collaborations. Linking and leveraging together - these are the tools for the open source economic development process. With people linked together in clustered networks, they are in a collaborative position where they can conduct strategic doing, a disciplined approach to taking action toward economic revitalization. Even though the workshop participants came from non-profits, universities, and businesses, they were all eager to learn about these economic development tools realizing this approach made sense and could be applied to any situation.

Many people talk about economic development, but few people have actually worked in the field, plumbed the depths and shaped new strategies. Borrowing from the open source software developers, Morrison has created a new economic development paradigm called Open Source Economic Development harnessing the strength of open participation and network clusters. Morrison has spent close to 20 years in economic development, starting his career in Washington as a legislative assistant, taking on an analyst position with the American car manufacturers, then working in economically depressed areas in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kentucky. After a three-year stint at the Case Western Reserve University Center for Regional Economic Initiatives (REI), he started his own business, I-Open, along with three former colleagues. Presently, he serves as the economic policy advisor to the Purdue Center for Regional Development at Purdue University and coordinates the federally funded WIRED (Workforce Innovation for Regional Economic Development) grant for North Central Indiana.

Thanks Everyone for your comments and support...on last week's I-Open Retreat..

Here is an initial followup. More information will be posted soon by retreat participant and writer, Susan Schaul...

The Leadership Retreat was a productive experience for everyone who participated last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the beautiful surroundings of Punderson State Park in Newburry, Ohio. We enjoyed brilliant weather in addition to meeting and spending time with great people and learning about assets, passions, and next steps toward regional transformation.

Ed Morrison guiding participants on the new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development.

Gathering for dinner and conversation and learning.

Jeff Miller, Exec. Dir., Innovative Leadership Solutions joined us from Indiana, specializes in curriculum development.

Tom Stone, Exec. Dir., Mt. Pleasant NOW and Debra Lewis-Curlee, Mt. Pleasant Community Zone.

Here's an outline of the material we worked on together guided by workshop leader, Ed Morrison (below) and You can view the Live Show broadcast (just click "On Demand" at the lower bar and the selections will display) on the iopeneducation channel.

Agenda:

Wednesday

Here's a note just received from Marlon Solano..which we offered to post for the REALNEO community to build connectivity and new opportunities for art in NEO. I've suggested they link to NEO online communities and other communities such as SmallerIndiana.com to leverage resources and capabilities focused around mutual interests...

Hope you can join us online for this week's workshop on new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development. The retreat is lead by Ed Morrison, I-Open, Director, and Policy Analyst and Director of the WIRED initiative in North Central Indiana, Purdue Center for Regional Development, Purdue University. 

Join us Thursday, May 1, for the next Midtown Brews with Meet The Bloggers for an open conversation with guest Ben Cipiti, native Clevelander, and author of The Energy Construct. Ben will be joining us via web stream from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Feb 7th Midtown Brews forum "Ohio's Energy Portfolio" is posted to the Midtown Brews welcome page.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

U.S. coal power boom suddenly wanes

Worries about global warming and rising construction costs give the edge to natural-gas and renewable-energy plants.

By Mark Clayton | Staff writer from the March 4, 2008 The Christian Science Monitor

"What you're seeing is a de facto moratorium on coal power right now," says Robert Linden, a senior oil and gas analyst at Pace Global in New York. "You turn off the money spigot, you've turned off those plants."

Creative Capital can transform regions. This story talks about the value of open conversations, building networks, collaborating, and sharing experiences to accelerate innovation in communities and regions...

Coming up this week...

Creative Capital for a 21st Century Digital Media Marketplace @ Insivia

Learn how Creative Capital transforms regions. Get started now by listening to this conversation with guests Geof Pelaia, Virginia Marti College; Eric Purcell & Laura Wright, Insivia; and Experience Artist, Melissa Daubert.

The Mad Potter covers my home town
Written by: George Nemeth
Got this email from a friend who was at last night’s Midtown Brews free-for-all:

Ralph Solonitz Commentary: Save the Earth

Here's an email from our partner in Smaller Indiana,  Bruce LaDuke. Bruce participated in the Midtown Brews Open Conversation. Be sure to click through to the website to learn more about how other leaders are innovating to illuminate solutions through open forms of conversation.

Commentary from Ralph Solonitz: Clean Coal

Near-Time, Purdue Center for Regional Development Partner to Launch First Nationwide Community of Regions Focused on Workforce Innovations

Today Near-Time announced a partnership with the Purdue Center for Regional Development to launch the first nationwide community of regions focused on innovation and economic development. This partnership is a spinoff of the U.S. Labor Department's WIRED Initiative. The new nationwide community is accessible at www.wired-nation.net.

Technology and Organization Opportunities to Accelerate Innovations in Open Source Economic Development

The February 7, 2008 Midtown Brews forum, Our Ohio Energy Portfolio: Economic Development in Your Backyard, brought together perspectives of Cleveland government, foundation and citizen decision makers. Elisa Young, traveled from Meigs County, Southern Ohio, to share her perspective as a seventh generation land owner, report on current local costs to human life, and natural resource devastation in proportion to the affect of current concentration of, and construction of future power production facilities. The Open Conversation was generated by about 100 participants and joined by 30 members of the Smaller Indiana social network contributing questions and observations via broadcast video and chat. Government leaders City of Cleveland Councilman Matt Zone, City of Cleveland, Ward 17; Nolan Moser, Law Fellow, Ohio Environmental Council ;  Andrew Flock, Painesville Councilman; Andrew Watterson, Cleveland Sustainability Programs Manager, City of Cleveland Department of Utilities; and Foundation leader, Richard Stuebi, BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, NextWave Energy, Inc., Founder and President.

The Open Discussion focused on issues and revealed the magnitude of the topic, the enormity of consequences, and our failure to innovate.

Was this conversation really just a result of a lack of technology and organization innovations, a long-term lack of citizenry participation and business leadership? ...

How did we get to this point?

Our situation has changed. We're required to make decisions at a level of comprehension beyond our capability, exaggerated by unforeseen forces and at a new speed. Tomorrow, the forces will be more complex, the speed will have increased and window of time, shrunk.

Why should we be surprised?

Consider what's involved. Of all animals on earth, humans score the lowest in cognitive capability to plan for the future, and our brain capacity based on size is miniscule in proportion to the scale of the new kinds of decisions we are responsible to make.

Leaders are experiencing previously unexperienced - 

• Forms of change
• Quantum levels of change
• Leaders are required to interact with new economic systems
• Required to respond to unforeseen future forces
• Navigate a landscape comprised of a few resource rich decision making entities verses a pool of burden bearing constituents (you can flip ownership of burden with the same disastrous unbalanced outcomes, the point is responsibilities are not shared)

We are all in this together, and ultimately, we are all affected equally. Regions and their communities are experiencing a whiplash of issues, topped with a new misunderstanding of speed, lack of planning, strategy, and metrics to guide regional decision-making in this new landscape. What will be required for people to halt uniformed guesswork, lavish and desperate spending of resources on quick stop solutions? Because of a confluence of perfect storm factors, every decision made will affect our survival sooner than our experience tells us.

This is not about finger pointing, back slapping, or deal making between a few individuals or corporations, it is about the power of collaborative leadership, employing critical thinking skills to scale brainpower, engaging high end technology innovation, and designing new models of organization.

Moving forward.
Here is what I learned in my conversations with others at Thursday’s Midtown Brews:

• There is a need to dramatically increase alternative energy innovations
• Dramatically increase funding for research
• Ensure open access to results
• Regular apolitical theoretical and practical summation of research
• Identify future forces affecting energy
• Build open networks to engage the public, private business leadership, government
• Design technology tools for a new rate of speed and visualization

Navigating these new landscapes requires new learning. Adopt the practices and tools of Open Source Economic Development (158.5 KB) deployed by I-Open. I-Open is creating the open spaces to build the open networks for new conversations focused on regional transformation. With our technology partner Near-Time.net, we are building online collaborative communities to sustain the conversations between face to face meetings, share information, and accelerate enterprise development for regional transformation.

 
Some next steps to learn about new practices and tools:

Here is an e-mail from Ed Morrison inviting/summarizing the WIRED Nation, a result of the collaboration between the Dept of Labor, I-Open, and Near-Time.net.

What can we learn, replicate, and continue to apply from this model to accelerate our economic development work here in NEO?

Smaller Indiana and REALNEO please meet each other!

I would like to introduce the REALNEO  network to Smaller Indiana, an online community based in Indianapolis with a state wide reach. Smaller Indiana connects creative indeas and was recently begun by Pat Coyle, and is growing to 600 members!

Midtown Brews connects you face to face once a month with Northeast Ohio leaders in the technology, energy and creative industries. Host partners: EarthWatch Ohio/Insivia/I-Open/Meet The Bloggers/Webtego

 

Join us and the Smaller Indiana network February 7th to learn more about... Our Ohio Energy Portfolio: Economic Development in Your Backyard

 

A Two-Day Workshop at

Strap on your goggles...It's a whole new game!

Presented with the generous support of Cleveland State University Nance College of Business Administration

Join us for...Tuesdays@FUTURE

Marketing and Branding: Telling the Story of University Circle

Date: Tuesday, June 13

Time: 4:30 P.M. - 6:15 P.M.

Date: Wednesday, May 17

Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.

Place: Myers University, Chester Campus

3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH

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Date: Wednesday, May 10

Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.

Place: Myers University, Chester Campus

3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH

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Date: Today, Wednesday, May 3

Time: 5:00 P.M. - 6:45 P.M.

Place: Myers University, Chester Campus

3921 Chester Avenue, Cleveland, OH