Smart Communities

Regionalism: Calling All Entrepreneurs

Regional economic strategies too often rise and fall on what you can attract rather than what you can grow. While an instant cluster of an industry with high-wage jobs is certainly desirable, it rarely happens that way. Even if your community is lucky enough to attract a high tech firm or even a manufacturing company there is usually a market to be developed by local entrepreneurs or inventors. These same folks can define a region based on an idea or a concept. As we read earlier in he week, Google helped spark the Silicon Valley explosion. So you say, let's just get some entrepreneurs. If only it were that easy.

Regions have to make a commitment to attract, foster, and support entrepreneurs if they hope to galvanize that part of their economy. Skills have to be taught. College and universities are doing that in some places. Venture capital has to be available. And the region has to have business incubators so there is a place to house and encourage small business development.

Entrepreneurship may be a major key for keeping rural areas vital and thriving. The Kellogg Foundation report on rural entrepreneurship gives and in depth view of the idea and how it is working across the country. Walport, OR, has engaged in a very interesting community process that is focused on creating a viable economy for their community and region. It includes dialogue, asset-based development, and cooperation--some of my very favorite community components.

The bottom line is that we need entrepreneurship to insure that our economy grows, changes, and responses to new demands and opportunities. If you haven't developed that segment of your regional economy, go to your nearest college or university and start the conversation. Want to know what to say or what to ask? Read on.

Regionalism: Defining Your Workforce

Does it really matter to you how well your neighboring county's students are doing? It better. As major employers think about locating or relocating they are not looking at city or county lines but the workforce draw in the area. This is why we are finding more regional workforce initiatives being established--some effective and some not so much. I was particularly intrigued with how the Chesapeake region of Maryland defined its workforce area: Science and Security Corridor. They promote the number of scientists in the area.

There are 650 Workforce Investment Boards (WIBs) around the country. As I understand the mission of the WIBs it is to connect the dots on workforce preparation and development. One thing they do is position the region to be ready when new technologies or industries emerge such as plastics and medical devices. Louisiana is on the cusp of establishing WIBs there. I am attracted more to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) workforce intermediary idea. This seems to be a more strategic way of coordinating and anticipating opportunities.

I am investigating now how much and how often the local WIBs coordinate their work with the school system and the local Chambers of Commerce and the effectiveness of their efforts. As we prepare our communities to coordinate efforts and perhaps invest in each other (yes you read right) then who is guiding those efforts so everybody wins? Is it the WIBs or do we need a different kind of regional entity that is looking at workforce, education, and quality of life issues at the same time? My experience has been that you are lucky if the Chamber is focusing on two out of three but rarely all three with the same emphasis. I hope to hear form some of you about what is working (or not) in your region.

Regionalism: How to be a Technology Hub

When we talk regionalism, some people think in terms of technology. You hear about technology hubs or corridors as I did last week in Cedar Rapids. In my mind this is where businesses of the same ilk cluster and build a brand and a presence that complements and fuels each other. I wrote about Austin's successful foray into the semiconductor world and Research Triangle Park in Smart Communities but what does it really take to get into this regional technology business and make some money at it. Paul Graham has written a wonderful essay to tell us how. He says you need two kinds of people: rich people and nerds. While I am sure he has a point, you will also need a strong cadre of well-trained pre-professional and professional engineers, computer specialists, and the like. If you have a medical center you will need some biotech people for sure. You will also need some places for these smart folks to go for dinner, coffee, and a book they can hold (as opposed to order). They probably are the exercise crowd too so how are your running trails? They also want a good environment for their children.

The point: technology hubs need more than just technology to be successful as Silicon Valley is finding out. Technology hubs require all the things we want in our communities for them to be successful. What this kind of business brings is higher wages, stability, and a window to the world. So where is the growth in venture capital spending? Take a look at this study--you will be surprised.

Regionalism: More is Better

This week we will begin a series on regionalism. We talk a good game but it is often hard for communities to sign on the bottom line and lose some control. So again and again we duplicate efforts, miss out on economies of scale, and fail to identify the collection of resources and assets that we have together.

There is a general lack of specificity about the topic though. For most places, developing a regional strategy is a building process that can have lots of moving parts. See the reference on Louisville to get a sense of the scope of a regional approach. We see it most often in regional chambers, regional foundations, and businesses. We see it less often among governments and nonprofit organizations. We need a new focus and a new definition. My friend, Larry Lee, says that a region can be defined by asking three questions: 1) where do you shop? 2) where do you go to the hospital?; and 3) what newspaper do you read daily? He says that the answer to these three questions will define the region for you. You can try it and see.

What to do on Monday: Push Reading

As this week of blogs has shown, we must be more deliberate about what we do and how we position our community if we expect some different results. Amidst all this talk of visioning and benchmarking though, people get lost and can't quite figure out what they should do. Well I am going to answer that for you. Start a reading campaign in your community. Not only are children reading below level but also are their parents. If Bob Herbert is right (and I think he is) that we know less than we use to and need to then we must do something. This kind of effort can include libraries, universities, book stores, dogs, fast food restaurants, grocery stores--you name it. In others words, you could galvanize the whole community around reading. What might you expect as results? Better performance in school by young people, a more informed public, and a workforce that can compete. Not a bad pay-off for Monday's work. Take a look at the Center for the Book's One Book program.

Assets--Staying Local, Going Global

Yet again I will emphasize knowing what you have as the foundation for community and economic development. I am continually amazed at how myopic communities can be about their own strong resources. As you position your community to go global, this is a conversation that must be revisited. While mapping resources are available, I would suggest that you and a small team develop your own list of the things that you think make a community great and then set out to quantify them in your own community. You may not have Broadway but you likely have wonderful community theatre. You may not have the Boston Pops but you have an ensemble or small orchestra.

Cedar Rapids has a Czech village and museum that is wonderful. If I lived there I would be sure that those assets figured prominently into any plan for the future. This is a tourism draw as well as the opportunity for a seminar series, concert series, etc. They may be doing all of this but I doubt if they have thought of the many ways this could change their community. Every community has similar opportunities. I was reminded yesterday of my trip last May to Tacoma, WA. This is a terrific community with many assets. It could be and will likely be one of America's great cities if it keeps moving in the direction it is going. Tacoma has capitalized on its waterfront, built out its arts community, invested in its schools, and maintained a small city flavor. I think that is the answer for all communities.

Learn what you can about the asset-based approach. Four very good resources are:

• Building Communities from the Inside
Out: A Path Toward Finding and
Mobilizing a Community’s Assets by
John McKnight and John Kretzmann
(Northwestern University, 1993).

• Smart Communities: How Citizens and
Local Leaders Can Use Strategic Thinking
to Build a Brighter Future by Suzanne W.
Morse (Jossey-Bass, 2004).

• Asset Building & Community Building
by Gary Paul Green and Anna Haines
(Sage, 2002).

• Appalachia: Turning Assets Into
Opportunities by the HTC Group
(Appalachian Regional Commission,
2004).

Benchmarking--Staying Local, Going Global

Today I had the pleasure of being in Cedar Rapids, IA, for their annual United Way Volunteer Recognition Luncheon. Earlier in the day I met with a group of community leaders and discussed the Smart Communities work particularly in light of their own efforts at a community visioning process being lead by city government. The Chamber is also doing something called Fifteen in Five that is very interesting. My question was whether their benchmarks were specific enough to know when they had reached them. For example, one of the goals is regionalism What kinds of markers and how many would be needed to assume success? Essentially I want to know if communities have a good fix on where they are--benchmarks give you that foundation. You get the idea.

They are doing great work and I enjoyed the opportunity to share ideas. At lunch a person next to me said you shouldn't encourage people to "get to the finish" because then they might stop. He made a very valid point. Visioning processes are not an en-game but organic processes that are continually defined and updated. It is not a one-shot deal but an ongoing part of community life. That is a different approach that the spiral-bound book on the shelf scenario that we find too often.

A strong vision of where the community wants to go is critical but having some idea of the outcomes that would spell success and the design of the process are equally as critical. Here are some tips and resources on developing the process that may be helpful to your community. Check out the community capacity tool also. This could provide some additional data for your process.

Branding--Staying Local, Going Global

In the second in our series on Staying Local, Going Global, I want to take up community branding again. We have discussed the topic several times over the years and these blogs continue to be our most popular. But this morning, let's take a fresh look.

A community brand as I define is what you want people to know that you do or that you are. For example, I am headed off to east central Iowa today and they call themselves the Technology Corridor. Other places tell you about themselves as in "The Best Place to Raise a Family" or the "Friendliest City." In my city of Charlottesville, we call ourselves a "World-class City." Birmingham, AL, used to call itself "The City of Churches." You get the drift.

One of the exercises I use in my Smart Communities seminars is to ask people to describe their community on the space of a t-shirt. You would be amazed at the wonderful descriptions that emerge. I remember particularly Amarillo, TX, and the great ideas about the "big sky." Young people are particularly creative in doing this. This is all to say that you certainly should hire a designer or graphic artist to create the visible brand but I suggest that you develop a local process to develop or revise your community brand. It is fun, it gets people thinking about the positive, and it creates local buy-in to new ideas. Now how?

We get some help from our friends in Australia who give us a step-by-step way of branding a community or an organization. Nelson County, VA, went through a branding process a few years ago and give us some tips on what it is and what it can do. And finally, take a look at the before and after of the Gastonia, NC branding process. They developed a brand for their 2007 centennial that is very effective.

As you think about your community's brand, I want to encourage you to think big, think bold, but be honest. Over-claiming that you are the city of museums when you have one, may be a stretch (read this article about Seattle when you have a chance). Also don't just use platitudes. Have something concrete to say about who you are or what you do. Think back about yesterday's entry and consider niche, passion, and economic engine and I will just bet that you will come up with something great.

Vision--Staying Local, Going Global

Today is the first posting in our series on "Staying Local, Going Global." Throughout the next few weeks we want to explore the things that must be done and could be done to make communities more competitive in the global economy. This is not a lost cause by any means. American communities can position themselves to enjoy the benefits of the global economy while still providing an excellent quality of life right here. The almost predictable response to this kind of optimism has been "we need more manufacturing jobs." Well that would sure help but there are not enough of the "big fish" auto factories to go around. So now what?

Today I am suggesting that we look at Jim Collins' great work on the hedgehog and the fox or what we call it at the Pew Partnership, asset-based vision. In essence, Collins says that you have to know a few things about yourself before you can move forward: 1) what are you best at? 2) what are you passionate about? 3) what drives your economic engine? The intersection of those three circles is the answer. In personal terms, it is doing what you love and are good at. Too many of our communities are too narrowly focused to answer these questions. I have heard recently from a group in Arkansas that is positioning itself as the "go-to" region for recreation. They are passionate about preserving their streams and woodlands but they need to develop an economic development track. They don't have all the answers yet but they are thinking in the right way. The Medelia model is another example of a new approach. That is the key here: a new kind of thinking.

We have traditionally thought of vision and mission as what we want not what we have. This approach blends the two ideas and throws in passion to boot. How good is this?

What to do on Monday: School Readiness

The National League of Cities and the United Way of America announced recently a new initiative that will assist six cities promote school readiness. This is great news but what about the 6,000 cities and towns who need the same thing. That is where you come into the picture. Every person--parent or not--should be concerned that as many as half in some places of kindergarters are not prepared for school. How do we know? The facts: they don't recognize letters, their social skills are lacking, and are generally not ready to learn.

The assignment for Monday is to find out the situation in your situation and get in gear. There are many resources available to communities to plan a strategy with or without grants and outside assistance. But the fact of the matter is that your community will be in a better position to apply for national and local funding if you have established the extent of the problem.