Greater Cleveland Tomorrow: Some Critical Steps

Plans have not been completely finalized, but the Greater Cleveland Growth Association and Cleveland Tomorrow will join to form Greater Cleveland Tomorrow. Joe Roman, the current Executive Director of Cleveland Tomorrow, will serve as the new $21 million organization's President and CEO.

While cost-savings were cited as a factor in the Plain Dealer article describing the situation, I see something more important at work, which is that the region needs a much sharper focus on economic development with an increased ability to accomplish things of scale. Greater Cleveland and NE Ohio's competitive position for economic development will not change appreciably over the next 5-10 years unless we adopt a more powerful strategy that is strategic investment-driven. Hopefully that is what Greater Cleveland Tomorrow can help us accomplish.

What is my take on this situation?

1. I think the merger makes sense for the sake of Greater Cleveland economic development. An improved alignment of economic development efforts focused on business and job development and those aimed at strengthening the regional business climate is essential. Hopefully the merger will accomplish this alignment objective.

2. The new organization should focus on "projects and strategies of scale" that will catalyze and synergize economic growth in the region's major industry sectors, including manufacturing, bioscience, travel and tourism, health care, and finance and insurance, entrepreneurship, technological innovation, development financing and marketing.

3. The job of working with companies to make new facility investments in Greater Cleveland should be handled by Team NEO through a well-defined networking plan with local county and community ED organizations. If done properly, this approach could increase and strengthen the "local" role in economic development. The capacity of local communities to do this job needs to be strengthened. They must have the resources (funding, skills, programs, information and knowledge) to do the job effectively.

4. It sounds like the new organization's geographic focus will be the Greater Cleveland metro area, suggesting that strategic relationship development will need to be accomplished with the Akron, Canton and Youngstown metro areas to offer a more seamless overall NE Ohio regional economic development approach. Team NEO provides one new bridge among these metros.

5. An integrated regional marketing strategy is needed to support future economic development efforts undertaken by Greater Cleveland Tomorrow, Team NEO and local counties and communities in the Greater Cleveland area. I would argue for a new approach to marketing that is focused primarily on "strategic relationship development" with businesses and other economic development stakeholders. I would avoid the usual old glitzy brochure approach. Instead, marketing efforts ought to focus on building effective access to business, government, educational and community decision-makers and investors. A new high-quality Internet-based information system to support that new marketing system is needed. I would avoid the endless debates about "branding." The branding issue can be handled by developing a series of clear value propositions that speak to the value that economic development will provide to the areas six major ED stakeholder groups; business, government, education, funding sources, workers and citizens, and ED allies. Let's focus instead on using marketing to gain access to the people, financial capital, media, and other resources needed to get things done.

6. The new Greater Cleveland Tomorrow organization needs to be highly performance-based, with clear goals, objectives and performance measures to guide management efforts. Economic development has entered the "age of performance," and we need to be more convinced than ever than we can measure our success. Go here to read my October presentation on how this new model can be accomplished. In addition to job retention and growth, we need to track business starts, innovation, job enrichment, educational attainment, creativity growth, financial return on investment, global market penetration and a host of other measures that reflect the broader impacts and value of economic development.

7. Finally, a clear plan to involve government and to engage Greater Cleveland citizens about their economic future is essential. People must understand what they must do for themselves and what they can do together to increase personal and community prosperity. This focus should be inter-generational in nature and should focus on all age segments of citizens in the region. We should listen to our young people, and we should listen to the old. Both have a stake in the region's economic future and both need to be heard. Let's start with a something called Greater Cleveland's Intergenerational Fund for Economic Prosperity. Let's give local citizens an opportunty to invest in economic development and make some money in the process.