My 2005 Economic Development Wish List

Here are my five wishes for economic development in 2005:

1. Economic development organizations (EDOs) for once and all take the long view of what they do. EDOs need to give more attention to creating the "future environment" in which businesses, communities, and people can prosper. Just making businesses happy with more short-term "gimme" programs is NOT the answer.

2. As a profession, we should work harder at thinking and acting globally. We need to start by evolving a new shared global vision of local economies. We need to raise our sights above the business of recruiting international businesses and promoting international trade. These activities are important, but they are only a tiny aspect of what we really need to do in connecting local economies across the planet. Look at the global realm of possibilities that await us instead of simply thinking what is good for individual places, industries, and businesses.

3. Economic developers need to look at scientific advances in all fields and identify the implications of these advances to economic development. One place to start is to examine how the discoveries in quantam physics and complexity theory could alter our current organizational models for economic development. Our current work, for one, is still far to driven by power-hungry competing hierarchies, and it is not influenced enough by power-sharing networks.

4. We need to truly become more engaged in a global dialogue about sustainability. Put an end to the narrow-minded debates pitting the natural environment against local economies. The two are inseparable. Local economies exist within Nature, not outside Her. Allow biology to become the organizing metaphor for economic development in the future.

5. Revisit our deepest "intentions" in the field. What are we really trying to do? Is broad-based prosperity a real intention underlying what we do? Are connectivity and collaboration real intentions underlying what we seek to accomplish? Do we share a deep concern about humanity and the quality of life for people everywhere? Should meaningful work be an underling intention for your work efforts in the future? Maybe we need to "intend for" some things that we currently have no mindfulness of. The journey starts in the hearts and minds of those calling themselves economic developers.