EDPro Weblog: Economic Development for Today's Professionals

Monday, November 05, 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

EDPro Premium Update

EDPro Premium is coming, and I have been spending most of my time working on the new platform. If you are a subscirber to EDPro News, you...

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Economy Watch

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Here are articles on the economy from last week. Jobs: A September Shocker Copyright piracy takes a $58 billion hit on U.S. economy – report...

Incentive Watch

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A new incentive war will touch off if VW decides to increaase capacity with another plant. Here's the latest from Alabama. Read more . W...

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

North Dakota's Centers of Excellence

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I keep hearing positive developments coming out of North Dakota. Here's another example. This article outlines how Minot State Univers...

Biotech in the Bay Area

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Developing a cluster of businesses in the life sciences is not for the faint hearted. This recent article out of San Francisco underscores ...

High school education in the 21st century

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Occasionally, I come across articles by educators that underscore the importance of changing our approach to high schools. I do school supe...

Iowa's Skilled Worker Shortage Study Committee

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Here is another story on the looming worker shortage in Iowa. Other states are confronting the same demographic challenge, although Iowa se...

Rural entrepreneurship in Minnesota

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Minnesota has announced a new initiative to promote entrepreneurship in rural counties. Strategic Entrepreneurial Economic Development (SEE...

Accelerate Arkansas

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Four years ago a group of business and political leaders in Arkansas came together to form Accelerate Arkansas. The purpose of the organiza...

A model local education summit

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A promising educational summit is taking place this week in Wayne County, Indiana. The event is promising for a couple of reasons. First, ...

Collaboration in NE Louisiana

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A multi-parish (county) collaboration is forming in Northeast Louisiana. Interestingly, as currently structured, the chief executive office...

Toledo focuses on government innovation

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The transformation of the industrial Midwest will accelerate as more communities and regions learn the skills of collaboration. Regional ap...

Denver's workforce gaps

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Denver has completed a workforce assessment which reveals upcoming worker shortages. Like other reports that are starting to appear around ...

Washington State innovation zones

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Washington State has kicked off its new cluster strategy by creating five innovation partnerships zones and investing roughly $1 million in ...

Rising skill levels

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A recent report from the Workforce Development Board of the Treasure Coast in Florida contains this quote: "The skill levels of jobs ar...

The future of freight rail

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If you want an overview of what the future of our national freight railway system is going to look like, you will be interested in this new ...

Monday, October 01, 2007

Economy Watch

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Here are articles on the economy from last week. Will Globalization Destroy Black America? What 'Chindia' will mean to the West Gree...

Incentive Watch

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Here are some articles on incentives from last week: In North Carolina, a debate goes on at the local level about incenitves. Why provide th...

Vermont's creative economy

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Last summer, Vermont held a conference on its creative economy. Advancing Vermont's Creative Economy, drew over 250 participants from ac...

Getting the message to the Michigan legislature

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Michigan's state government shut down for a couple of hours and then re-opened. But the challenges remain. As surrounding states are inc...

Big ideas for entrepreneurship in Buffalo

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EDPros in Buffalo are floating big plans for promoting entrepreneurship. One idea: Use proceeds from the sale of unused hydropower to establ...

Home grown workforce

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More and more EDPros are starting to see the vital importance of growing a workforce. As the head of Enterprise Florida recently told an aud...

Just in time training at a community college

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Community colleges offer the opportunity for fast response to employer education needs. Here is an example. A community college in Marylan...

More on early childhood education

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Here's another commentary on the role of pre-kindergarten investment in economic development. Indiana is considering expansions to early...

Moving on LEED certifications and training

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A new initiative in Washington, D.C. is promoting "green building". A new law in the district requires that public and private bu...

Workplace training in New Jersey

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As the pressure from workforce shortages grows, more employers are turning to workplace training. Here is a good overview article of what ...

Universities and the 4 P's

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University presidents can play an important role in revitalizing regional and state economies. Michael Crow is playing that role at Arizona ...

Innovations in food systems

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Here's a good article on the emerging innovations in agriculture. Focused on developments in Northern California, the article explores ...

Resource: Traffic data -- 2007 Urban Mobility Report

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The Texas Transportation Institute has released its 2007 Urban Mobility Report. The report provides information on long-term congestion tre...

Creating a new story line in South Carolina

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The South Carolina economy is shifting and, as low skilled manufacturing jobs continue to evaporate the and the state's universities red...

Birmingham to Denver

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Regional leadership delegations are continuing to travel. It's one of the fastest and most efficient ways to build a consensus for acti...

Connecting Orlando and Germany

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Here's a brief story of the growing connections between Orlando and Germany. Embedded in the article is an interesting fact: the Univer...

Iowa sees a worker shortage

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According to business and workforce development professionals in Iowa, the state will have about 100,000 job vacancies within the next five ...

Seed capital in Western Michigan

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Investors in Western Michigan are launching a seed capital fund to finance startup businesses. According to promoters, the $1,000,000 fund ...

New York's Upstate Now plan

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Governor Spitzer in New York has vowed to place more emphasis on revitalizing the economy of the upstate New York counties. In May, legisla...

Southeast Solar Summit

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Renewable energy represents a path to growth for many regional economies. It makes sense to get up to speed on the opportunities. Solar ener...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Economy Watch

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Here are articles on the economy from last week. Transcript: Bill Clinton interview Federal bill helps huge farmers, not California's in...

Incentive Watch

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Here's some articles on incentives from the past week or so. College Station, TX is examining how it invests $3 million+ in incentive mo...

Biotech training in North Carolina

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North Carolina appears to be the leading state when it comes to taking on the challenges of training and education for biotechnology and the...

Foundation collaboration in SE Michigan

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Ten foundations, including the Ford foundation based in New York, are launching a $100,000,000 "new economy" development fund for ...

Consensus in Columbia

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Residents in Columbia, Missouri are taking part in an interesting exercise, called the Community Choices Open House. Recently, participants...

Outside the big box

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Local businesses circulate money within a regional economy. They account for what economists call "the multiplier". One critical...

Good Quote

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The Kansas City region is sorting out the difficult issues of collaboration. In a recent meeting, the mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, Mark ...

Pennsylvania's Technology Collaborative

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The Technology Collaborative in Pennsylvania focuses on commercializing digital technologies developed by the state's universities into ...

Innovate North Dakota

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North Dakota has launched an interesting initiative, called Innovate North Dakota. Participants pay a $100 feet to gain access to a network...

Worker creativity: A gap?

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The Fairfax County Economic Development Authority will host the 2007 National Conference on the Creative Economy in October. To build inte...

Transformations in Maine

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Chuck Lawton, an economist formerly with the State Planning Office in Maine, is one of my favorite commentators on the changing dynamics of ...

Maryland's newest incubator

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Maryland is perhaps the most aggressive state in implementing a incubator -- based strategy for innovation. Here is a good article on one o...

Focusing on higher education

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The International Economic Development Council concluded its annual conference in Phoenix last week. Michael Crow, the president of Arizona...

Cluster policy academy for seven states

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The National Governors Association has selected seven states to participate in a year-long policy Academy to learn how to improve economic i...

Georgia Logistics Innovation Center

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Here is some interesting background on the Georgia Logistics Innovation Center. The Center helps solve logistics problems and facilitate th...

Kansas Bioscience Centers of Innovation

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The Kansas Bioscience Authority is soliciting proposals to develop new Bioscience Centers of Innovation. In the initial phase, the Authorit...

Monday, September 17, 2007

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