News Articles

There is a fascinating article in this week's New Yorker about the process of innovation.  Malcolm Gladwell discusses the many occurrences of simultaneous innovation and looks at a group from the Pacific Northwest focused on spawning ideas and inventions. 

Mary Ellen Clark, WIRED Bio-1 and Aaron Fichter, Ph.D, Heldrich Center for Workforce Development take a look at how to measure the effectiveness of your implementation strategies.

Some of the key questions addressed include:

1. Are you feeling any pain over the time/resources it takes to collect data and report on it?
2. Are you confident the data you report is accurate

Bio-1 is in Central New Jersey, and comprises 5 counties and 4 workforce investment boards. Some initiatives they have focused on include: life science career campaign, career academies, residential programs, increasing bioscience workforce development with the 'Flak Jackets to Lab Coats' program to reintegrate returning vets into the workforce, enhancing linkages between education and industry via the web.

Metrics Steps:

Plan and Prepare (critical few, leverage/impact), Develop a Framework (strategy/alignment, balance, data collection), Development (Strategy ALignment,Balance, Op. Definitions), Deployment (Vertical alignment, accountability transfer), Collect and Analyze Data (Review Process, Actions, Project ID), Review Process (status, opportunities, projects), Plan and Prepare (Strategic Objectives, Development Team).

Operational Definitions:

Measure Owner: Who will report on this metric

Data Owner:  Who will collect and summarize data

Formula: How is this derived?

Benchmark/Goal: What is the target? If you have benchmarks from comparable regions include them here.

 Read more >>   Options >>  

At the Boston Academy, Ed Morrison gave a helpful overview of WIRED Nation, what you as a WIRED Nation user should try to get out of it, and what you can do to contribute and interact in the community itself:

If you don't have an effective way to structure information, you end up with a 'garbage bag' of stuff - this is why on WIRED Nation we are making effective use of categories and tagging. It helps the community identify common themes as it to relates to a piece of content, such as 'advanced manufacturing', 'biosciences', etc. Moreover, categories and tags allow you to search using the 'Advanced Search' to

A few key components of WIRED Nation include:

• Forums: essentially a running list of comments - a discussion unfolding as a series of comments on comments
  

• Weblogs aka 'Blogs': generally represent a way for an individual to share information with a group
• Wikis: a fantastic way for more than one person to create content ; a quick and easy way for business professionals to be able to author content to the web quickly and effective - in a matter of minutes.
• RSS: allows you to grab content from the web and be automatically updated anytime any content is changed on that webpage.

In WIRED Nation, we have the following tabs:

• 'Forums' is an area for you to have ongoing discussions around particular topics
• 'Regions' is a wiki page which has been created to share the industry segments, key contacts, implementation plan, etc. in each region.
  
• 'Home' is yet another great example of a wiki page in action - this is a easily editable webpage including graphics, a slideshow, etc., which is updated by members of WIRED Nation, not an IT professional.
  
• 'Stories' is where we are sharing complex stories of what is working in various WIRED regions.
• 'Library' is where we are putting files - files can include a detailed description of what a particular file is
• 'Events' is a great place for us to share schedules for key sessions and events with other regions.
  

WIRED Nation is an open community which allows us to have the most qualified and well represented discussion - there is no 'webmaster', but rather the community as a whole driving the discussion.

A few points Ed emphasized include:

Categorization and tagging.

According to Ed, "categories are like the chapters of a book." For example, in WIRED Nation they include broad ideas and concept areas such as 'Innovation', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Talent', etc. Tags, however "are like the index in the back of the book." Use categories and tags together to make if far easier to find content later as well as to help people more quickly deduce what the relevance of a particular post is.

Weekly Webinars

Fridays at 1PM EST, we have a webinar in which we discuss what is new in WIRED Nation, and go over regional initiatives and how to increase visibility and support for these initiatives in the community using WIRED Nation.

Blogging:

The blog is a great way to quickly share points of interest with the rest of WIRED Nation - maybe a paragraph our two or a link to an interesting research finding or editorial related to economic development.

Jump in - contributing takes only a few minutes. The Law of Networks states that value accrued from a network increases exponentially as each new connection is added.

The FT has two reports on new developments in the Brazilian ethanol market.  First:

Cosan, Brazil’s biggest sugar and ethanol producer, has agreed to buy the Esso chain of filling stations in Brazil from ExxonMobil for $826m plus $198m in debt. The deal represents the first big investment by a sugar and ethanol producer in retail fuel distribution.

Cosan’s acquisition of Esso comes as sales of fuel ethanol have overtaken sales of gasoline in the country for the first time, including the use of ethanol as an additive in gasoline of up to 25 per cent by volume.

Full article here (subscription required).

And second:

BP (British Petroleum) announced plans to invest $560m in biofuels on Thursday and argued that its proposals to develop ethanol production from sugar cane in Brazil would not affect food supplies. The oil group plans to spend $60m buying a 50 per cent stake in a Brazilian joint venture and invest a further $500m in two ethanol refineries.

Full article here (subscription required).

These show the continued acceleration of investments in the alternative fuels industry and regions pursuing energy strategies should note the major players and size of the deals.

From today's EDA Newsletter is a story about clean energy in NW Florida:

EDA Investment Spurs Environmental and Economic Benefits

When Green Circle Bio Energy Inc. decided to open a new wood pellet plant, it chose Cottondale, Florida, in Jackson County. This rural county in Florida's panhandle is now emerging as an alternate energy industry cluster, following an economic transition due to a declining timber industry and a changing agricultural base.

Strong regional leadership in the area was also instrumental in creating this alternate energy industry cluster. Investing nearly $1.2 million, the U.S. Economic Development Administration's assistance to this region has included water, sewer, and road infrastructure improvements to attract new businesses. Now, Green Circle Bio Energy Inc. has invested $93 million to construct the new alternative energy production facility. This wood pellet facility will produce an annual capacity of 560,000 tons of wood pellets to be supplied to central heating companies and the power generating industry for co-firing in coal based power plants. The wood pellets, made from sawdust and pulpwood, help reduce fossil fuel use and subsequent CO2 emissions, providing a cleaner alternative energy source. Over 50 new direct jobs – and an additional 100 jobs generated by suppliers – are expected as a result of this wood pellet facility.

This will be the largest wood pellet production company in North America, and 100 percent of its production is under contract for export to Europe. The facility considered locating in Russia and South America, but after much analysis, chose to locate in Florida's panhandle, close to the raw materials needed to produce its pellets. A first-of-its-magnitude initiative, it will eventually export these pellets across the globe. Not only will the facility use energy saving methods in its construction, but will also be powered with electricity from the local Waste Management landfill, and tree bark from the pulpwood will fuel the furnaces.

Rising gas and oil prices and growing concerns of climate change are creating a growing demand for energy alternatives. Forward-thinking businesses, such as Green Circle Bio Energy are capitalizing on this demand and are finding that environmental considerations are not a hindrance to the bottom line, but rather, a source of innovation and an opportunity for growth. In the case of Green Circle Bio Energy, this growth will aid in transitioning northern Florida to more efficient alternative fuel choices, while also creating more higher-skill, higher-wage jobs as the company builds more and continues to engage in the worldwide marketplace.

For more information on Green Circle Bio Energy Inc., visit: www.greencirclebio.com/index.php

To subscribe to EDANews, go here .

Clusters and Competitiveness: A New Federal Role for Stimulating Regional Economies

Due to rising global competition, the nation’s capacity for generating stable, well-paying jobs for a large number of U.S. workers is increasingly at risk. In this environment, regional industry clusters represent a valuable source of needed innovation, knowledge transfer, and improved productivity. For that reason, the public sector around the world has launched numerous programs to catalyze growth producing collaboration in key industry clusters. However, this nation’s network of cluster initiatives remains thin and uneven. As a result, many U.S. industry clusters are not as competitive as they could be, to the detriment of the nation’s capacity to sustain well-paying jobs.

Limitations of Existing Federal Policy

The federal government has the reach and the resources to stimulate the growth of cluster initiatives and to address the various barriers that limit cluster development and growth. However, current federal programs do very little to support competitive regions in general and competitive clusters in particular. They have evolved in a wildly ad hoc, idiosyncratic, and uncoordinated fashion. Further, the few federal programs that do focus on cluster and network development remain inadequate to the task.

A New Federal Approach

The federal government should move to promote cluster development and growth nationwide. In this, the federal government’s approach should be flexible, "bottom-up," and collaboration-oriented, rather than prescriptive, "top-down," or input-focused. Consistent with this, the federal government should boost the nation’s competitiveness by catalyzing increased cluster activity in U.S. regions through a two-part federal clusters program:

  Create an information center to map the geography of clusters, maintain a registry of cluster initiatives and programs, and conduct research on cluster dynamics and cluster initiative and initiative program impacts and best practices.

  Establish a grants program to support regional and state cluster initiative programs nationwide that would direct financial and other assistance to individual cluster initiatives

The report notes, in part:

For that matter, the few federal programs that support cluster and network development remain inadequate to the task. Their total cost ($558 million) is less than one percent of the total federal spending flowing towards regional economic development. The most prominent of these, one that offers a sense of the possibilities but is too small and short-lived to do the necessary work on its own, is the Department of Labor’s Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) program. Created in 2005, WIRED combines industry and economic development activities with workforce training programs. Three waves of WIRED grants have been made across the country in 14 metropolitan areas and 25 larger regions. These grants are awarded in competitive processes that reward self-organized, market-driven initiatives; private sector leadership; fact-based strategies based on existing regional advantages; collaboration across public, private, and nonprofit actors; and leveraged resources. Many WIRED projects have taken the form of cluster initiatives.

To view the full page, go to:

http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2008/04_competitiveness_reamer.aspx

Florida's Great Northwest released its new cluster analysis last week. Compiled by SRI, the report identifies key clusters to drive the region's economy. 

You can read more about the report here and here.

You can download a copy of the executive summary here. 

You can flip through the SRI presentation below. (Note: the typography is a little goofy, probably due to the translation from a Power Point to a PDF). 

You can visit the web site here.

EDA's on-going series continues this week (Wed, 4/9 @ 3:00 pm EDT) with a webcast titled "Connecting Regional Economies to World Markets."

The agenda and registration are available here .

Late last year, the Brookings Institution began an effort called The Blueprint for American Prosperity focusing on how metropolitan areas drive economic growth.  Part of that effort looks at what the Federal role should be.  Specifically, the Brookings Institution states that:

Metropolitan areas cannot resolve their challenges alone. Counties, cities, and suburbs operate within a national policy framework, and face challenges bigger than their own capacities. What’s needed is a new partnership between federal, state, local, and private-sector players to help metropolitan areas build on their economic strengths, foster a strong and diverse middle class, and grow in environmentally sustainable ways. Over the next year, we will publish a series of policy papers outlining specific federal reforms.

Brookings has studied what DOL and our Federal partners have done under the WIRED Initiative as part of this effort.  Keep an eye on their Federal Role website as reports on WIRED and other Federal activities should be released in the near future.

IBM has an interesting new report out called "Economic Development in a Rubik's Cube World."  The abstract states:

"The world is currently changing at an increasingly rapid pace, driven by six “megatrends”: deepening globalization, large scale population trends, accelerating technological progress, the "Omni Consumer," the corporate social responsibility imperative and growing political uncertainty. These trends are forcing companies to innovate and refine their fundamental business models. Investment promotion agencies and economic development organizations must not only deal with all those changes, but also with more intense competition. To do so, they need to understand their clients, environment and competitors, and respond effectively."

Here is the study homepage and the full report (pdf).

Senator Voinovich (R-Ohio) has introduced legislation to amend the Workforce Investment Act to promote the principles of Wired (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development). The proposed legislation would establish the three new voluntary programs within the WIA framework.

The bill, called the WIRED Act:

• Authorizes states and regions to work with a governor (or governors in the case of multi-state regions) to submit WIRED plans for approval by the Secretary of Labor. The plans must be aimed at crafting targeted workforce development programs that provide enhanced job training and related employment activities in the region. They may include complementary economic development activities. If approved, the plans could allow states to combine a number of different federal workforce and economic development funds;  
  
• Authorizes the Secretary of Labor to award supplementary grants to assist in implementing a WIRED plan or to carry out other regionally-focused workforce development activities; and
  
• Authorizes the use of formula funds available to states and local areas under WIA to carry out regionally-focused workforce development activities without going through the entire WIRED approval process. As stated earlier, some of this vital funding is currently going unused because of the inflexibility of the WIA program.

You can read more about the Voinovich bill here.

You can read the text of the legislation here.

A new federal report outlines the top priorities for federal research in manufacturing: hydrogen energy technologies, nanomanufacturing, and intelligent and integrated manufacturing. 

Each of these areas has a potential for job growth and serving broader national interests. 

In addition, the report points out that these three areas of research are interdependent. 

The report, released by the National Science and Technology Council, is designed to highlight areas of manufacturing research that are likely to generate high returns for the national economy. 

You can read more about the report here. 

You can download a copy of the report here. 

The report, starting on page 73, outlines some of the workforce issues facing the future of manufacturing. The authors start by outlining the main conclusions of the 2005 Manufacturing Skills Gap report of the National Association of Manufacturers:

In its 2005 skills gap survey of more than 800 manufacturing businesses, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) found that 81% were experiencing “severe” (13%) or “moderate” (68%) shortages of skilled workers overall, and 90% reported shortages of skilled production  employees.

The report goes on to outline the skills needed by tomorrow's manufacturing workers: 

To operate a modern production facility, manufacturers require workers with adequate preparation in fundamentals such as mathematics, science, reading comprehension, and writing; strong workplace competencies, including computer literacy, teamwork, and critical thinking; and technical competencies in areas such as quality and process control, supply chain management, and integrated production systems. Manufacturing workers may also need to develop specialized skills tailored to specific jobs, industrial needs, and technology requirements...

Manufacturing skills certification is one of several steps toward ensuring an adequate supply of “knowledge technologists,” a term coined by management and quality pioneer Peter Drucker. In future manufacturing operations, as well as in other sectors of the economy, Drucker predicted, workers will continue to engage in manual tasks, but their jobs will require a “substantial amount of theoretical knowledge which can only be acquired through a formal education, not through an apprenticeship.” 

You can download a copy of the report here.