My Take on Team NEO

Northeast Ohio's six largest economic development organizations (EDOs) have joined forces in a much more formal way to promote regional economic development in a more coordinated way. This is good news indeed.

Team NEO was announced today by officials from the six groups, representing the Youngstown, Canton, Cleveland, Akron and Lorain areas. These include: Greater Cleveland Growth Association, Greater Akron Chamber, Cleveland Tomorrow, Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber, Stark Development Board and the Lorain County Chamber of Commerce.

The founding team members have agreed to put up $3.4 million for the first three years and have plans to raise another $3.5 million.
Marketing is likely to be the top priority for the new organization, hopefully generating new investment leads for all participating counties.

A national search for a President and CEO of Team NEO is in the works. It will be interesting to see which familiar faces try out for the part. One bit of advice: make sure this person has already done it before and that she/he is really a team player and builder. Our experience indicates this is a job that should pay in the $225,000-$250,000-range plus a bonus. Not cheap!

Click here to see what today's Akron Beacon Journal had to say about Team NEO. You can download the Greater Cleveland Growth Association's press release about Team NEO here.

What is our advice to Team NEO?

Getting everybody to agree to work together was step one. Step two was getting the existing organizations to refocus their attention and redirect a part of their existing budgets. Getting through the first two steps was not easy. It never is. Congratulations on taking these two big steps.

Now, what's next?

First, work at building trust and team-building among the various regional actors. Don't be afraid to "go to school" on how to collaborate. Too often we assume that people know how to work together and often they do not.

Large-scale economic development collaboration is a relatively new thing for NE Ohio. If you look closely how other successful regions have done it, you find that "actions speak louder than words." This is a case where everybody is from Missouri, so "show me!" Talk to the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, Jacksonville Regional Chamber, Kansas City Area Development Council, St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association, Indianapolis Regional Economic Development Partnership, and host of other similar organizations.

Second, develop a vision and action plan to guide efforts over the first 2 years. Don't get carried away with your first plan. Things will change once the organization is up and running. Develop the right vision, goals and a performance-based business model. You can fill in the details as you go. Adopt a business model that allows you to experiment.

Assume that the economy will continue to treat you like hell for at least the next 6 months and probably longer. Don't be afraid to try something bold and different. NE Ohio needs it.

My suggestion is to "get inside" the mind of the industries that you seek to retain or attract. One suggestion is to work with CAMP and other regional industry technology centers (Omeris, others)--these organizations really know how their respective sectors work, who the players are and they probably have some ideas on specific investment projects that could be tested for NE Ohio. Form an industry advisory council that provides you with an ongoing flow of this type of intelligence.

Third, decide that Team NEO will be a "proactive" project developer. What does that mean? It means that Team NEO should work with its regional and local partners to identify specific types of investment projects that could work. This means that Team NEO should present specific investment opportunities to regional, national and international companies. That is a different business strategy than the usual "reactive" approach where you respond to projects already identified by businesses.

Fourth, look for future growth from a wide array of industries. It's ok to have targets of opportunity, but remember that growth will come from a wide range of traditional and emerging industries. The world changes too fast to lock and load for too long on 4-5 investment favorites. It's also important to see manufacturing as a source of future opportunity. Again, talk to the folks at CAMP, Inc.

Fifth, give special attention to growth-oriented small to medium-sized businesses. Attract the middle market companies. They will need your help and can benefit from the region's existing industry expertise in a wide range of industries. Look for cross-investment opportunities involving international companies. The U.S. remains the most stable market in the world, even though the Chinese attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI) last year than the U.S. did.

See my friend Ed Morrison's blog. Click here to go to Ed's blog. He has posted some advice for Team NEO as well. Ed makes an important point about the difficulty of "branding" a complex and diverse region like NE Ohio. I agree with this point.

These are some starting ideas. More later.