Ft. Wayne moves toward regional marketing Saturday, March 19, 2005 Last week, civic leaders in Ft. Wayne agreed to support a regional approach to marketing. The focal point is a five year $6 million marketing plan. Read more. It's unfortunate that Ft. Wayne's first regional initiative will be marketing. That's the hardest area of economic development in which to build regional focus. First, marketing often focuses on logos and graphics. These efforts often do not deal with the underlying sense of identity and ownership that organizations and communities build up over the years. These mental models need to shift. Before you act like a region, you need to think like a region. (In some regions economic development strategy is hobbled by high school football rivalries.) Second, at the ground level, recruitment is a zero sum game. A prospect can either go to county A or county B. From a regional perspective, it makes no difference. But from a local political perspective, it makes a lot of difference. Managing these tensions requires high levels of trust at the operational level. At the end of the day, EDPros have to work together. Third, even if all goes well with the branding and the operations, the results of marketing will be uneven in the region. Companies will tend to cluster. Managing the tensions of "Who pays what?" and "Who gets what?" is tough. Inter-jurisdictional revenue sharing agreements can help mitigate these problems, but these agreements are relatively rare. 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