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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.

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Two weeks ago, the Department of Commerce released an important new report on measuring innovation in the economy. The report sets forth recommendations on improving the measurement of innovation in the economy. A recent article in Business week provides an overview.

Egils Milbergs also provides some good background on the report here. (His blog is a good one on innovation.)

California Innovation Corridor has been focused on measuring innovation in the regional economy: 

Since January, 2006 a team that includes UC Riverside, led by the California Space Authority (CSA), has been determining the best practices of how industries in California are encouraging innovation. As part of the U.S. Department of Labor’s WIRED (Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development) Initiative, this project is teaming public universities (UC Riverside) with private universities (Stanford University) as they work together over three years to interview business leaders from the California Innovation Corridor, which stretches along coastal California from Alameda County south to San Diego County and includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Read more.  

Other resources on the Department of Commerce report: 

• Here is a link to a Business Week video from the magazine's chief economist
• Here's a link to a podcast
• Here's a link to the full report
• Here's a link to the press release
• Here's a link to a fact sheet