Winston-Salem region heads toward innovation Monday, November 11, 2002 Eight counties in Northwest North Carolina have launched a new strategy project. The area includes rural counties with Winston-Salem as the hub. Layoffs in the textile industry have hit the region hard. Funded by $400,0000 in federal and state grants funds, the project seeks to build individual recovery plans for each county, then group them together for cluster development, marketing and workforce development. Angelou Economics, one of the most innovative ED consulting firms around, will head the project. The business leaders behind the study have their heads screwed on right: they are looking to build an innovation economy, not just come up with list of possible firms to recruit. Learn more. Go This project could provide some useful guidance to rural counties in North and South Carolina that are suffering from major declines in manufacturing employment. In addition, I expect to see Angelou's recommendations to track what is happening in Western North Carolina, where the Mountain Council for Entrepreneurial Development has recently launched under the leadership AdvantageWest, a regional ED organization. In addition, the Asheville Chamber of Commerce is developing an "entrepreneurial league system", based on work by Tom Lyons of the University of Louisville and Gregg Lichtenstein of Margate, N.J. This approach tracks entrepreneurs much like a baseball team would track its players through a farm system. Learn more. Go. posted by Ed Morrison |		This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. links Some Background on EDPro Weblog The purpose of this weblog is to help economic development professionals -- EDPros -- keep up with the changes sweeping our profession. Strap on your goggles. It's a whole new game. There are no experts any more. The only place to learn about economic development is from other EDPros who are doing it. One other point: the prevaling approach (paradigm, if you like) in economic development is shifting from competition to collaboration. There are a lot of reaasons underlying this shift, but here's the important insight: You, your community, and your region will do better by collaborating and sharing information. So, spread the word...Share the knowledge. Tell a friend about EDPro Weblog. If you are using a news reader, here is the link to syndicate this site: Here's the link if you are a bloglines subscriber: Speaking and workshops on Open Source Economic Development As the idea of Open Source Economic Development starts spreading, more people are asking about it. Visit the I-Open web site to learn more. My colleagues and I are happy to explain the basic concepts in a talk or a workshop. E-mail Susan Alshuler if you'd like to learn more about workshops and speaking. Background on Ed Morrison Download some background information on me here.

The Web EDPro Weblog