Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Around Madison, Wisconsin, civic leaders have created the Dane County Collaboration Council. It is another model of building networks to create effective economic development strategies. Read more.
Economic development takes place in a civic space, outside the four walls of any one organization. The challenge is simple to see, but complex to address: In the civic space, no one can tell anyone else what to do.
Models of strategic planning, born from industrial corporate environments, are not as useful in managing these complexities. Command and control systems do not work in economic development. Our challenge instead is to build alignment among inter-dependent entities.
The most important aspect in creating alignment is build trust among the people involved. Trust comes not from words, but from consistent behavior. So, we need to find ways to build trust by moving people quickly from thinking about collaborating to actually doing something collaboratively.
posted by Ed Morrison |
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.
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.
Collaboration Council in Dane County
