For some time now, I've been working on new, open source models for transforming education, economic and workforce development.
We've got some complex transformations ahead, but we can accomplish remarkable feats by following some simple rules.
The Purdue Center for Regional Development has become the hot spot for this work, as well as the Edward Lowe Foundation.
Follow trends in economic and workforce development on EDPro Weblog.
Want to connect? Just e-mail me: edmorrison@purdue.edu
Later this week, I'll be sharing the stage with Zoltan Acs at an event -- Returning Prosperity to America’s Heartland -- at Northern Illinois University. I'm a big fan of Acs' work, but I have never had the opportunity to meet him. Few economists have as much useful insight on regional economies. You can see a list of his papers here:
For the past several months, we have made efforts to resolve our issues quietly. As a result, we have not posted any updates to our web site: http://lantiancorruption.net
Our efforts at quiet resolution are at an end. I spoke this morning with our Cinese manager, and he indicates that there is little chance that local officials in Lantian will allow us to reopen our factory.
A couple of weeks ago, we learned that a Chinese peasant, who had complained about the land confiscations taking place in Lantian was beaten by the local organized crime ring and later died in the hospital.
Local citizens have very little power to complain against the government, as this recent article in the the New York Times points out.
At the same time, the government officials in Beijing are willing to make show cases of some local officals in an effort to demonstrate that they take corruption seriously. A local official awaiting trial in southwest China committed suicide in his cell two weeks ago.
You can get background here: http://lantiancorruption.net
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We are continuing to apply pressure to local Government officials. This morning, I talked with our manager in China to discuss our next steps. (You can get the background here: http://lantiancorruption.net) He reports that the Communist Party official in Xi'an charged with handling our complaints, is very worried that we will expose this problem to the broader media in Beijing.
He has right to be concerned. if we are able to elevate our situation to a higher level, we may be able to get a positive resolution for our investors. In the process, local officials in Xi'an could be severely punished. I indicated to our Chinese manager that our investors do not care about the fate of local Chinese officials. We no longer have anything to lose.
The organized crime network operating in Lantian County (adjacent to Xi'an and close to the famed terra-cotta warriors) would be powerless without the active support of local government officials. Through this corruption conspiracy they have shut down our factory and effectively confiscated our land. We have lost a business that served over 5000 customers with high-quality mineral water. Our factory manager has been physically assaulted.
Here's the latest and last letter I will be sending to the mayor of Xi'an. We have been extremely patient. But now our patience has run out.
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Community Renewal International (http://www.sbcr.us/) is using open networks to bring prosperity back to inner city neighborhoods. They are focused on intentionally building the relationships needed for a community to survive and thrive.
This morning, Mac McCarter, Kim Mitchell, Elizabeth Beauvais and others from CRI will be meeting with investors and potential investors.
I prepared this paper to highlight how Community Renewal can measure its impacts. It explores how we will be measuring in economic development the future. We will be going beyond simple-minded (and easily manipulated) measures of jobs.
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Strategy maps were a visual representation of the strategic conversations that we are guiding in the region. Strategy maps are important because we are conducting strategic conversations in a number of different areas, and these conversations can get very detailed.
In other words, it is easy to get lost. Strategy maps help us understand how to connect different conversations to one another, as well as to keep track of how these conversations are evolving. These maps also help new people join the conversations easily, as they are moving to the next level.
We began by drawing some strategy maps. We began here, a representation of all the research that had been done to date.
We ended up (for the time being) here...
Along the way we explored some other less linear concepts....
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Strategic Doing provides a discipline for thinking and acting strategically in open networks. Four questions frame the process. On the surface, these questions are simple, but answering them is not easy.
Later this week, I will be in Minnesota to develop a Strategic Action Plan for a 17 county region in northeast Minnesota in northwest Wisconsin. I'm currently preparing the slides for the workshop. On the first question of the Strategic Doing cycle -- What could we do? -- participants need to answer two questions: What are our assets? And what new opportunities emerge when we connect them? It's interesting to watch what happens when people are asked to identify their assets. Two common patterns emerge. First, instead of focusing on the assets they could share within their network, people focus on what they do. They focus on their current activities. I'm not sure why people focus on what they do, instead of identifying the assets that they are willing to share. It may be that we are conditioned this way. Possibly we define ourselves by what we do. Or, alternatively, people stake out their territories by what they do. Whatever the reason, explaining what you do is different than identifying what you're willing to share. Strategic Doing's first question runs into another obstacle. We are comfortable with listing assets, and, certainly, developing these lists serves a useful purpose. Oftentimes, regional leaders are simply not aware of all the assets within the region. So lists are helpful. But maps are better than lists. It's far more helpful to place assets on a map than put them in a list. Putting assets on a map draws are thinking into connections. And this is the important point. Asset mapping creates value when we connect our assets in new and different ways. New opportunities emerge. So, our conversation needs to focus on identifying "link and leverage" scenarios. If we align, link and leverage our assets, what new opportunities emerge? That is a critical strategic question. We are not accustomed to thinking in these terms. That's another reason why the first question of Strategic Doing is not easy to answer well. (download)Comments [0]
Here's a revised version of the drawing I posted earlier. The challenge is defining hte different roles colleges and universities can play in building a regional innovation system. They are many and varied.
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Next week, I head to a rural county in Indiana, where an influx of Mexican immigration has upset civic life in the county. With mindless attacks on teaching English as a second language, an AM radio station has ignited a climate of personal attacks on educators and others in the community.
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You can access the new channel here:
http://vimeo.com/channels/strategicdoing Here’s a glimpse of the Strategic Doing workshop we held at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls on June 10, 2009. Strategic Doing is a disciplined process that enables loosely joined networks to do complex thinking together quickly. As you pick up the conversation in this video, listen to the participants. They are not talking about “bumper sticker” issues. Instead, they’re exploring more complex ideas. This complex thinking is critical to civic innovation. And civic innovation is critical to transforming our education, economic development and workforce development systems. We need to move these systems quickly from the 20th century to the 21st. http://vimeo.com/channels/strategicdoing#5146626Comments [0]
It's clear from what's emerging in economic development and workforce development that we need new ways to describe pathways.
These new approaches -- whether we are discussing career pathways or entrepreneurial ecosystems -- will be closer in construction to the pathway posters that you find in many biomedical research labs. My wife is a molecular biologist working in cancer research, and her lab has several posters of networks and pathways. Professionals in molecular biology, economic development and workforce development are trying to describe these complex networks and pathways that we cannot see. Compare a visual description of a entrepreneurial ecosystem, developed by practitioners in the European Union with one cancer signaling pathway.Comments [0]
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