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Anatomy of a deal: Electronic Arts
Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Electronic Arts, the computer game company, is considering a consiolidation of its operations, and Orland is competing for the facility. Orlando's proposal includes $41 million in incentives for a center with just over 1,000 employees. Read more. posted by Ed | Oregon launches Innovation Network In an effort to focus attention on three emerging opportunities, business leaders in Oregon are launching the Innovation Network. The conference this week will explore three opportunities for Oregon to build billion dollar business opportunities: smart energy, digital health care, and smart apparel. Read more or visit the conference web site. posted by Ed | More perspective on incentives It's seems that more communities are questioning the value of incentives. What matters to companies, according to this article, is the quality of place. Incentives play a marginal role. Read more. posted by Ed | Northern Kentucky's economic future Monday, March 29, 2004 Earlier this month Angelou Economics released its findings on the economic future for Northern Kentucky. The consultants provide a detailed roadmap for the future development of Northern Kentucky. Read more. posted by Ed | Economy Watch Here's some articles on the economy, just in time for lunch with your boss: U.S.: Economy Is Growing at Solid Rate Treasury's Snow: US job count missing self-employed High-end consumers are spending big, a sign the economy is back Citigroup Exec Doesn't Blame Outsourcing Economists often confounded by recent events Forum: How to keep jobs here? Better workers Kerry announces plan for economy posted by Ed | The price of a bad business climate Saturday, March 27, 2004 California is paying the price of not managing its climate for investment. And Nevada is one of the prime beneficiaries. One Nevada official puts it this way: "The meltdown is incredible. The inquiries never quit. We're getting whole companies and [regional] headquarters. We've never had headquarter moves. And these are not flake companies but ones that have been there for twenty-five to thirty years." Read more. posted by Ed | Universities as engines of economic development Another trend gaining steam... University administrators around the country are getting more sophisticated in telling their story to state legislators (and others). Here's a very good example from The University of California, Davis. Read more. It's time to connect the dots. We are competing in a global economy in which brainpowr is everything. We should care deeply about our colleges and universities. They are our factories of the future. Yet, across the country, state legislatures are cutting budgets for colleges and universities. You can see how your state is doing from this site. The RIT Entrepreneurs Conference in Rochester this week sounded the same theme. Read more. posted by Ed | Another wave coming: The aging workforce Researchers in Witchita predict a looming labor shortage as baby boomers retire. You can expect the same results in your state or region. Folks in Wichita are at leaast focusing on the issue. Most plavces are not. Last week, Kansas Technical Training Institute proposed a $25 million to $30 million job training center in Wichita. The idea is to attract students from across the Midwest to study aviation, manufacturing, health care and information technologies in Wichita, providing a ready source of educated workers. Read more. posted by Ed | Trying to find the pilot In 2002, South Carolina waged an intense recruitment campaign to lure Pilot Therapeutics Holdings Inc. from Winston-Salem to Charleston. South Carolina succeeded with $5 million in loans and grants and $10 million in tax credits and other performance-based incentives. One problem: the company had only 14 workers and shaky commercial prosepcts. Now, the local paper is having a tough time getting anyone to return phone calls. And the stock is selling for $0.08 a share. Is there a lesson here? Hmm...Probably. How about this one: Don't recruit companies without a cash flow. Read more. posted by Ed | Bioscience manufacturing in rural North Carolina Scotland County, NC is about 100 miles south of Raleigh-Durham, right on the South Carolina border. The county is the site of a new biomanufacturing facility. Raleigh-Durham is home to 75% of the 18,000 workers in the biosciences in the state. The industry is growing at 10% to 15% annually. North Carolina has been building the foundations for biosciences over the long term, and the expansion of biomanufactuting into rural counties represents another stage of the state's development. Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a deal: Adam Aircraft Officials in Utah, Kentucky, and Texas have been trying to attract Adam Aircraft. It looks likje th folks in Ogden, Utah have the best package. The prize: Within three years, the company expects to employ 500 workers assembling a new generation of carbon-fiber composite commercial aircraft. Learn more. posted by Ed | Some background on incubators If you do not know much about incubators, here's a good introductory article from New Mexico. Go. Incubators will become increasingly important in both urban and rural settings. And in the years ahead, we will see more variants. For example, here's an example of an aggressive concept being developed in rural North Carolina. Go. At Virginia Tech, they are launching an aggressive incubator program in another direction...with a 45,000 square foot building. Learn more And at Lorain Community College in Lorain, OH, the Great Lakes Innovation & Development Enterprise (GLIDE) is experimenting with Internet-based interviews to guide entrepreneurs. Visit the site. You can learn more about business incubation from the National Business Incubation Association. Go posted by Ed | TVA developing megasites for auto-related investment TVA wants economic developers in its multi-state service territory to propose 700 to 1,000 acre sites for large scale automotive investments. It is launching a certification program to market these properties. TVA will use McCallum Sweeney Consulting, a site selection firm based in Greenville, S.C., to establish certification criteria and develop a process to evaluate megasites across the Tennessee Valley. Read more. Economic developers in Western KY are hoping to convince TVA that their 475 acre site is a good candidate, although its smaller than what TVA wants. The Pennyrile park is a good example of the type of regional industrial parks that make sense. Five counties -- Lyon, Caldwell, Crittenden, Livingston and Trigg -- reached agreement with former Gov. Paul Patton to take ownership of nearly 475 acres of the land. Read more. posted by Ed | Ethics and economic development Newly elected Governor Kathleen Blanco is heading in the right direction in trying to clean up the political culture of Louisiana. She has introduced legislation to establish tighter ethical standards within state government, and she is promoting the change as necessary for economic development. In one of the understatements of the year, an aide to the governor commented, "Louisiana's reputation is, there's a perception that government doesn't operate as openly or as honestly as it should." Read more It will take more than a few modest bills to clean up this mess. In Louisiana, economic development and corruption are too often close cousins. The recent article I wrote on the Shreveport convention center fiasco illustrates the point. Governor Blanco needs to keep the pressure on. More important, the business community should make it a priority to join the movement to clean things up. Too few politicians in the state share Governor Blanco's vision of new way of doing business. And too often the mainstream media is asleep, intimidated...or too lazy to care. Here's a good example. In the audit of the Shreveport convention center, the state auditor explained that "consultants" had been paid $300 per hour to arrange meetings, the city had boosted the architect's by 25% without documentation, and the consultants were not required to document their time. The report outlines other widespreaad deficiencies. The Shreveport Times ignored these facts and instead used this headline in their article: "Audit cites concerns; reveals no impropriety". The real tragedy is that many fine, dedicated civic leaders in the state are effectively undercut by corrupt leaders in both the public and private sectors. Corruption undercuts economic development. To learn more, read this analysis of a recent report from Transparency International. Go posted by Ed | Anatomy of a Deal: Time Warner Cable in Charlotte Time Warner Cable has agreed to locate a new office center next to its headquarters in Charlotte. Florida and Texas also cometed on the project. See what North Carolina had to give up to get this deal done. Go. posted by Ed | Digital Corridor partners with Case Western Reserve Friday, March 26, 2004 It's been a busy week. Earlier this week, the Center for Regional Economic Issues, which I head, announced a new partnerships with the Charleston Digital Corridor. We will be providing the Corridor with new Internet-based tools to build innovation and entrepreneurship networks. The Corridor will be providing us some useful insights on how to improve these tools. In addition, the Corridor is adopting some of our experiments in "smart meeting design". Every week, we hold an open session, Tuesdays@REI. We use this forum to build community engagement. Our partner, Catalyst Strategies, is helping us refine these formats. The Corridor will be launching Fridays at the Corridor. We are also learning how to support collaboration between face-to-face meetings with open source collaboration tools. We are working with our partner, Smart Meeting Design, to build these open source tools, called Smart Workspaces. Learn more about our partnership with the Digital Corridor. Go. posted by Ed | Financing for Pennsylvania manufacturers A bank in Pennsylvania has a plan: Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania will provide $100 million in low-interest loans to manufacturers pledging to create jobs in the state. The bank is a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland's U.S. division. The new program is called The Citizens Job Bank. Offered in collaboration with the state Department of Community and Economic Development, the bank will create 4,000 jobs, if it meets its goal of one job for each $25,000 in loans. According to the bank, this initiative is the first of its kind in the country. Learn more. posted by Ed | State tax breaks don't grow jobs An extensive review of the economic literature leads to a core conclusion: state tax incentives don't grow jobs. The author, Robert G. Lynch, analyzed hundreds of research studies that examined the effectiveness of in promoting economic development. His conclusion: tax incentives don't work. What's worse, they can actually erode a state's competitiveness by reducing the revenues needed for investment. The result: states actually become less competitive over time. Read more. Kentucky's new governor has proposed a major overhaul of the state's tax system. I used this report and others to develop an analysis for the Kentucky Industrial Development Council on the pending proposal to reform Kentucky's tax base. The KIDC Board of Director's used this analysis as one source to help arrive at their decision earlier this week to support the passage of the governor's proposal. You read my analysis of the governor's tax reform proposal on the KIDC web site. Go. posted by Ed | Pittsburgh launches angel fund for biosciences Thursday, March 25, 2004 LifeSpan represents a new network of angel investors in Pittsburgh. The network is designed to connect wealthy investors with promising bioscience start-ups. Learn more. posted by Ed | One problem with enterprise zones Here's one of the reasons that I do not like enterprize zones: they unnecessarily politcize the economic development porcess. In New York, a state legislator charges that tax breaks were awarded to political contributors. Read more. posted by Ed | Resource: Report on small business From from 1982 to 2000, the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration published a useful report, The State of Small Business. Now, the Bush Administration is publishing a new report, The Small Business Economy. This week, they released the the 2001 edition covering the year 2000. Issues covering 2001-2003 will be published later this year. Download the 2000 edition. Go. posted by Ed | Background report on the jobs situation Earlier this week, Business Week published a good series of articles on how the jobs issue is likely to play out in this election year. Both policital parties are missing the core issue: How can government "best help Americans adjust to a world where productivity grows rapidly, demand for skills changes constantly, and global competition threatens even well-educated service workers?" Read more. posted by Ed | Economy Watch Sunday, March 21, 2004 Here are articles to keep you smart about the economy. Specialists try to make sense of economy Not all jobless rates are created equal US consumer confidence at 10-month low Global economic recovery unlikely in the near term Fed Casts Wary Eye on Jobs Market posted by Ed | Building entrepreneurship in western North Carolina Saturday, March 20, 2004 Western North Carolina has been making strong moves to build its entrepreneurial networks. This strategy makes sense as a central theme of economic development. Entrepreneurship is critical to rural areas. The probability of branch plant recruitment has gone down with the growth of globalization. So, the standard economic development formulas don't work as well anymore. Read more about what is going on around Asheville. The Blue Ridge Entreprenuerial Council provides a good model for us to follow. (Thanks to EDPro reader Jim Roberts for passing on this link.) Go. You can learn more about the Blue Ridge Entreprenuerial Council here. posted by Ed | More background on the Boeing deal The Boeing 7E7 deal is under scrutiny with a law suit in Washington State. And the investigation is revealing details of how the deal came together. The latest revelation: a potential conflict of interest. The state paid the consulting division of Boeing's auditor, Deloitte & Touche, $715,000 for advice on how to put the deal together. Read more. posted by Ed | Resource: Compare cities Here's a web site that enables you to compare two cities on a range of variables, including the economy, housing, education and crime. Go. posted by Ed | New report on smart growth Thursday, March 18, 2004 Encouraging compact development patterns strengthens the competitive position of a region. Think of it this way. Every region has to carry a certain "social overhead". These costs include the operating and capital costs of infrastructure (water, sewer, electricity, communications) and services (public safety, education). By spreading development out over a larger area, sprawl increases costs. Regions undergoing sprawl pay more in infrastructure and services than other, more compact regions. This viewpoint is explored in a new report from Brookings. You can download it from this page. Go. posted by Ed | Arizona making progress in biosciences Last year, the Flinn Foundation released a roadmap for Arizona's development in life sciences. One year later, the foundation is assessing its progress. Note the focus on tightly defined metrics. One goal: increase Arizona's National Institutes of Health funding from $118 million annually to $214 million by 2007. Read more. You can download background reports on Arizona's strategy from this page. posted by Ed | Web Watch: Job generation from energy conservation Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) has launched the Community Energy Opportunity Finder, an interactive website that calculates potential energy and dollar savings, air pollution emissions reductions, and potential jobs a community could create by implementing an energy efficiency program. Good quote from Michael Kinsely of RMI: "Economic development professionals tend to focus exclusively on recruiting new businesses. Most simply don't know that there are business development and job creation opportunities in energy efficiency and renewable energy." This strategy will become increasingly important as we move toward sustainable models of economic development. Visit the site. If you are interesting in learning more about sustainable development, visit the RMI web site here. You can also download a report from Australia that Don Iannone recently posted to his web site, Economic Development Futures. Download the report. posted by Ed | Report on Iowa's biotech foundations Battelle has released the findings of an assessment of Iowa's biotechiology foundations. The top EDPro in the state is optimistic. He agrees with the reports assessment that sees the confluence of research and the state's strong agricultural sector as major opportunities for the state. Joseph Cortright, an Oregon economist, is more skeptical. Cortright wrote a recent Brookings report on biotechnology development. "Biotechnology is not like a Krispy Kreme franchise that can go anywhere. It tends to get locked in." Read more. You can download the Brookings report from this page. Go. You can download the Battelle Iowa report here. posted by Ed | Major study of Pennsylvania manufacturing Last week, Team Pennsylvania Foundation released the results of a major study that documents the role of manufacturing in Pennsylvania and analyzes the forces shaping the future of the industry. The Foundation represents a group of business leaders from across the state who work on economic development issues with state government. Small and midsize manufacturing companies provide the broad foundation for manufacturing in Pennsylvania. Increasing competition nationally and internationally will present significant challenges for the state's entire manufacturing sector in the coming years. To succeed, the study recommends that Pennsylvania manufacturers to pay special attention to increasing sales through process and product innovation. Download the report. Go. posted by Ed | Resource: Technology donations to nonprofits TechSoup.org is a valuable web site for nonprofit organizations. It includes how-to articles on 16 technology topics, a technology news section, and a TechFinder service provider directory. Visit TechSoup.org. TechSoup has launched TechSoup Stock, a service that helps nonprofits access donated and discounted technology products. Go. posted by Ed | Resource: Data on firm births, deaths Wednesday, March 17, 2004 For a number of years, the SBA's Office of Advocacy has taken the lead in producing valuable information on firm births and deaths. The latest data (for 2001) at the national, state and metro levels is available from this page. Go. posted by Ed | Proposal for cargo hub in the Twin Cities Tuesday, March 16, 2004 Business leaaders are pushing for an air cargo hub in the Twin Cities. The question turns on the volume of business. The market area for a cargo hub is 300 to 500 miles, and Minneapolis-St. Paul generates only about 60,000 tons of outbound international freight. (Compare Chicago with close to a million.) That might not be enought to make a market. Read more. posted by Ed | A wake up call for upstate New York Amo Houghton is a rare bird, an experienced politician with a deep grounding in business. So, peeople should listen when he says: “Unless we look at what we have that’s special and what the needs are for the next 50 years from now...we’re going to end up like little sections of Kansas that are just dried up.” Read more. posted by Ed | Anatomy of a deal: Bush Brothers' Canned Beans Knoxville and Knox County, Tennessee have recently launched a Property Tax Incentive Program to retain businesses in the county. Bush Brothers & Co., the country's largest producer of baked beans, applied for the program. The company has recently invested $25 million in a 130,000-square-foot headquarters. Younger & Associates, a Jackson, TN consulting firm, conducted an economic impact study to guide the incentive discussion. Read the details. Go. posted by Ed | Report on Europe's creative class For fans of Richard Florida, you'll want to read his latest work, an analysis of the creative class in Europe. You can read about the report here and download a copy. posted by Ed | Buffalo looks at city-county consolidation Following a path marked by Louisville, Nashville and Indianapolis, Buffalo leaders are now seriously considering city-county consolidation to streamline government operations. Louisville recently landed a 1,600 employee expansion of a Citigroup facility, and Buffalor leaders have taken note. Learn more. posted by Ed | A personal note Monday, March 15, 2004 I've been spending the last few days moving out of my house in Louisiana. I'm going to continue working with my many friends there, especially Kim Mitchell and Maggie Warwick. Kim is an architect with special gifts, and for several years with my brother, Hunter, we have been exploring the connections between physical planning and economic development. (Hunter was formerly the city planner in Cleveland until his wife decided to run for mayor.) You can get some insight into Kim's thinking on our companion weblog, Competitive Communities. You can learn more about Kim's firm here. Maggie Warwick, Kim, Hunter, and I have been developing plans for the Louisiana Hayride restoration. The Louisiana chapter of the American Planning Association recently awarded our work with the 2003 Outstanding Planning Award. Kim Mitchell and Sharon Swanson in Kim's firm guided our team. I'm looking forward to continue working with them. You can read more about our plan for Shreveport's Historic Music Village. Go. posted by Ed | Shifting dynamics in global auto business Tuesday, March 09, 2004 Automobiles has always been a good, leading edge industry to figure out global trends. So, here are two stories that caught my eye. The first: Michigan's governor is determined to compete with Southern states in attracting foreign auto companies. (Her pitch, though, sounds like a used car ad: ""To the extent that anybody's looking somewhere else, come talk to us first because we will meet or beat your best deal.") Read more. At the same time, this week demonstrated what global competition is all about in automobiles. For the first time, foreign countries outnumber state development offices in exhibiting at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress in Detroit. From the article: "Sonny Simmons, representing the state of Mississippi, said it's no longer states versus states or even North versus South. "'Everybody is looking,' said Simmons, who was one of at least five recruiters from Mississippi. 'We have China, France and the UK calling us looking to locate, and there is a company out of Mexico who may want to move to Mississippi.'" Read more. posted by Ed | South Carolina passes economic development legislation South Carolina's governor is trying to boost the state's economy past strategies of branch plant recruitment. The South Carolina legislature has passed new legislation that focuses on boosting investment in higher education and venture capital. Read more. posted by Ed | New York Empire Zones are missing the mark Only about 30% of the firms receiving subsidies under New York State's Empire Zone program are meetiong or exceeding their hiring goals. State auditors found the zones "are poorly administered, keep inadequate records and do not hold firms that receive tax breaks accountable for actually producing jobs." Read more. posted by Ed | Outsourcing could hit Silicon Valley hard Economists at the University of California, Berkeley estimate that outsourcing could hit Silicon Valley hard. 1 in 6 jobs is at risk, according to their calculations. That compapres to 1 in 10 jobs nationally. According to one of the authors, "The good scenario is that innovation and dynamism keeps California one step ahead of the rest of the world, so the good jobs stay here and the more routine ones go overseas. ... But the bad scenario is that in the absence of innovation, you're going to have a situation where others catch up" and Silicon Valley loses its dominance. Read more and check out a graphic detailing the trends. The comments are based on a study released last November on the latest wave of outsouring. Download the study. This article is part of a series that appeared on Sunday in San Franciso. Read other stories in the series: Trying to cope when a job goes overseas Hot-button issue makes for lively debate along the campaign trail Looking Offshore Analysis: Economic arguments Looking Offshore: China Giving India competition VC firms push for outsourcing Straight from the mouth: Executives speak out Jobs that won't go overseas Factories, burgers and jobs Chalk offshoring up to economic progress posted by Ed | Research Triangle Park releases new strategy RTP has released a strategy that calls for creating 100,000 new jobs with a $5 million strategic plan, Staying on Top. The strategy will focus on developing industry clusters around eight technology areas: Pharmaceuticals Biological agents and infectious diseases Agricultural biotechnology Pervasive computing Advanced medical care Analytical instrumentation Nanoscale technologies Informatics Read more or download the plan. posted by Ed | Textile plant closings in Kentucky Monday, March 08, 2004 Globalization has delivered an inescapable lesson: We can no longer support middle class families by sewing underwear. Read more. posted by Ed | Economy Watch Sunday, March 07, 2004 Here are some useful articles to make yourself smart about the economy: Private payrolls stuck in neutral New jobs just a sixth of what experts forecast Economists to put price tag on global problems Like Japan in the 1980's, China Poses Big Economic Challenge Economic activity continued to expand in early 2004, fed report says Exit Polls: Jobs, Trade Top Voter Issues Key SBA Programs Must be Strengthened to Boost Job Growth, Economy, Snowe Says posted by Ed | Web Watch: Powerful new mapping tool Saturday, March 06, 2004 The Dallas chamber and the local council of goverments have combined forces to produce the most powerful economic development mapping tool I have seen on the web. The system combines mapping data and statistics compiled by COG with detailed labor information provided by the chamber. More important, the mapping has valuable features. I especially like the feature that allows you to zoom into an area by drawing a box around the target. This solves a big problem of on-line maps: zooming is often an awkward, time consuming process. There are other valuable features, including the ability to e-mail yourself the map once you have drawn it. The online tool also includes a wealth of data from aerial photos to transportation improvements and demographic forecasts. Visit the site. posted by Ed | Richard Florida continues to "sell soap" A lot of buisness involves marketing: "selling soap". Economic development consulting is no different. And Richard Florida's creativity schtick is working well to convince community leaders that they need to think differently about economic development. His advice: follow the "3 T's: technology, talkent and tolerance". Build more rock walls, bike trails, and street level entertainment. Read more. posted by Ed | Tallahassee contracts for a "check up" Tallahassee's Economic Development Council has contracted with The Wadley Donovan Group to conduct a $100,000 assessment of their local economy. The project will incllude three familiar areas: how to attract new businesses, how to retain existing businesses, and how to encourage more start-up businesses. The EDC also wants to learn more about how university research can launch private businesses. (This last area is tricky. I'll be interested to see what WD, a firm geared toward recruitment strategies, comes up with.) Read more. posted by Ed | Resource: State projections of high school graduates Workforce issues will continue to dominate economic development over the next twenty years. We are simply not producing enough skilled workers to replace the aging Baby Boom generation. The latest evidence: a report by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), ACT Inc. and the College Board. The study projects the number of high school graduates will peak in 2008-09 at 3.2 million, about the time that Baby Boom retirments start accelerating A slow but steady decline in the number of enrollments and graduates is expected to occur in most parts of the U.S., following the peak year. Here is a summary table prepared by the State Science & Technology Institute Go. Download your state profile from this page. Go. posted by Ed | Arkansas draws connections between higher education and economic development In the years after World War II, the South built its economy on branch plant recruitment. Now we can see shifts happening every month as more Souther states figure out that the branch plant strategy -- grounded on lower costs relative to Northern states -- no longer works all that well. Arkansas' governor has appointed a commission on higher education. The state's top economic development official testified before the commission last week, and drew the tight connection between education and economic development. Here are some quotes from the state's economic development director, Larry Walther : “We cannot direct a company to locate to a community without an educated work force.” “If we are to compete in the next 15 to 20 years with other surrounding states, we must win in the classroom — not just on the football field and the basketball court." The department's head of research reinforced the message: “We can no longer go after low-wage branch (manufacturing) plants. We have to start going after higher-paying knowledge-based jobs, and education will be the driving force behind that.” Read more. posted by Ed | Another regional group forms...this time in Louisiana This time it's in Southwest Louisiana. Read more. Here's the message: If you are not thinking about regional economic development strategies: you should be. The trend has now hit every corner of Louisiana. The state has never been a pace-setter in economic development. I can speak from personal experience of doing economic development in Louisiana for nearly twenty years (with the scars to prove it). Louisiana is a state that has operated economic development under the maxim: "If it's not mine, kill it." Looks like things are changing..finally. posted by Ed | Planning for spinoffs from Scripps Friday, March 05, 2004 The major investment of the Scripps Institute in Florida is generating a lot of activity in the surrounding area. As one participant notes, "This whole thing with biotech and Scripps has just got everyone right now racing to try to figure out how to take advantage of it" Learn what is going on. Go. posted by Ed | Study calls for enhancing public university research to boost N.C. economy A new studyn delivers the following message to state legislators: To ensure science and technology remain bright spots in North Carolina’s economy, state leaders should leverage the competitive advantage that public research universities provide to economic development and growth. Specifically, the universities need more flexibility in state regulations, such as purchadsing, personnel and construction. Read more or download the report. Go. posted by Ed | Roanoke and allies launch a new brand Roanoke and other Western Virginia communities have launched a new regional brand: NewVA. The NewVa name and logo is designed to help establish a regional image from the Alleghany Highlands, through the Roanoke and New River Valleys. A regional alliance developed this brand for almost a year to help attract people and business to the area. Read more about the branding process. Go. posted by Ed | Trouble hiring at high tech firms As companies become more sophisticated in their business models, they encouter a problem: finding the right high tech talent. Here is a story from North Carolina that illustrates the point. Read more. The underlying message of this story is important to EDPros: Be careful about making generalizations about increasingly sophisticated labor markets. This is subtle stuff, and it makes no sense to be simplistic. For example: There are no such things is low technology industries anymore, only low tech companies. And high income jobs are becoming more sophisticated and dynamic. posted by Ed | Cutting economic development overheads Continuing a trend that I see all over the country, Toledo is streamlining its economic development organizations. There's a risk here, though. Economic development organizations can become bigger and less responsive to change, even as leaders try to end duplicaation. Mashing organizations together is not always the right answer. Confronted with fragmentation, we have three choices: 1) Do nothing; 2) Consolidate to build scale; or 3) Expand networks to achieve scale. Most economic development leaders faced with a choice of doing something, opt for Number 2. But the real frontier in economic development -- the place where economic transformations are taking place -- is under Number 3. Read more about what is going on in Toldeo. Go. posted by Ed | Good practice to follow on local tax incentives In Troy, OH -- outside Dayton -- the city makes an annual review of tax incentives to make sure recipients are hitting employment targets. Learn more. posted by Ed | Proposal for North Carolina Innovation Institute Earlier this week David Rizzo,chief executive officer of MCNC, proposed the creation the North Carolina Innovation Institute, a $164 million proposal to generate new jobs in the state's technology sector. State legislators, strapped by budget shortfalls and under pressure to respond to the collapse of some lower skilled manufacturing segments, is skeptical of making the investment. Bad choice. Now is the time to make these investments. Read more here and here. Good quote from Rizzo: "Advancements in technology and global market competitiveness have eclipsed the old model for economic development, which focused on lowering the cost of doing business and creating or recruiting manufacturing plants." posted by Ed | Seed investment strategy in life sciences The new CEO of the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse has an impressive record of accomplishment and firm views of how seed funds should be invested to grow life sciences businesses in Southwest Pennsylvania. He believes that the best way to have an inmpact is to place fewer, larger scale seed capital investments. Read more. posted by Ed | Richard Florida: The critique continues In a sarcastic op-ed, an EDPro from Maine suggests that the state adopt gay marriage as an economic development stratetgy. Read more. posted by Ed | Austin's $11 million campaign Thursday, March 04, 2004 The Greater Austin Chamber is about half way to its goal of raising $11 million. The fund will finance a five year economic development strategy, dubbed Opportunity Austin. $3.5 million of the total will be invested in marketing to create a brand for the Greater Austin region. The plan calls for a national advertising/public relations campaign and creation of a new website for site selectors and business executives researching possible sites. Read more about Opportunity Austin. Learn more background on the strategy. Go. Or, download the consultant's presentation from last September. Go. posted by Ed | Helping small manufacturers connect One way to help smaller manufacturers is to encourage information sharing. Here's a good quote from a small manufacturer operating in a suburb of Milwaukee: "It's important for all of us to help each other or no one will succeed. The rules have changed. Another local business is not my competitor anymore. This is a global economy, and we must work together locally." Read more. posted by Ed | Biotech in Kansas City Wednesday, March 03, 2004 Seeding biotech is a tough business that takes patience. In Kansas City, they have been at it for only about four years, but they are starting to see some progress. One indicator: NIH funding has more than doubled. Here is a review. Read more. You can also explore the web site of the Kansas CIty Area Life Sciences Institute. The Institute provides the linkages that are needed to build the cluster. It's a good example of a web site that provides connections. Visit the site, if you are interested to see how the Internet can be used to support the developmentof a cluster. Go. posted by Ed | Web Watch: Michigan's BioConnections Here's another application of the Internet that is relatively new in economic development. MichBio, Michigan's life sciences industry association, has launched Bioconnections.org. The site is designed to make it easy for Michigan's life science industry employers and job seekers to connect with BioConnections. The site offers details on the five programs of BioConnections that offer subsidies to eligible Michigan life science companies: internship placements; general staff recruitment; executive search services; custom HR consulting; and a discounted job posting site. Learn more. posted by Ed | More lists: Inc's 25 best places to do business Here's another compilation, this time from Inc. magazine. Youget the 25 best large cities, the 25 best medium cities, the 25 best small cities, and the 10 worst cities. Read more. posted by Ed | Interview with president of Purdue Monday, March 01, 2004 Here's a good, short interview with the president of Purdue University. He explores the transformation underway in Indiana. Good quote: "Every business in the 21st century must be high-tech to be successful. Whether we talk about life sciences, information technology, manufacturing auto parts, farming or running a newspaper, we need technology for speed, cost and quality." Read more. posted by Ed | |
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