Blogs Making a Difference

Read this article that talks about why blogs, like ED Futures, are important. According to a recent Newsday article, blogs are having an impact.

The article talks about the role of blogs, or online journals, in stimulating political discourse. ED Futures is interested in stimulating greater discourse in the economic development community. So, let's have "discourse."

Wales Targets Creative Sector

A stong creative industry sector in Wales with watertight copyright is key to the long-term success of the economy, says Minister for Economic Development Andrew Davies.

The minister has already commissioned a think-tank, headed by one of Wales' leading experts on the music industry, Dai Davies, in conjunction with senior executives in the WDA, to draw up a strategy to support the sector. The minister is keen to ensure that more of the creativity talents emanating from Wales are exploited commercially. What is the creative sector? The creative industries cover the worlds of entertainment, arts and media, where rights are secured through intellectual property.

Read more here.

NC Tribe Invests in Fiber Optic Network

Think Indian tribes just sell crafts and run gaming casinos? Think again!

One of North Carolina's most rural areas could soon tap into high-speed Internet access that rivals technology in large cities. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has provided $1.9 million for a fiber optic network in six Western North Carolina counties.

The project will offer an unrivaled advance in communications for individuals, businesses, governments, health-care providers and schools, organizers say. It will also mean high-speed service will be available at a rate comparable to urban areas.

The plan targets Jackson, Macon, Swain, Clay, Cherokee and Graham counties, which have limited, and often costly, access to cable and digital subscriber line infrastructure. That's an issue the project's organizers say limits economic development, access to advanced medicine and education.

Go here to read more.

Steel: Think Global!

Story 1: The India-born steel mogul, Lakshmi N Mittal's LNM group will invest 100 million US dollars in China to set up a cold-rolled and coated steel plant to tap the communist nation's booming market, a report said today. LNM plans to set up a cold-rolled and coated steel plant in the city of Yingkou, northeast China's Liaoning province, in the next two years, according to a Memorandum of Understanding recently reached between LNM and the management committee of the Yingkou city economic and technological development zone. Go here to read more about this story.

Story 2: As part of its omnibus spending bill, Congress has approved a two-year extension of the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Program and sent it on to the White House.

The renewal is good news for bankrupt Weirton Steel Corp., which plans to claim a $145 million federally guaranteed loan package if it's able to emerge from Chapter 11 as a stand-alone company. Weirton won conditional approval in November for the loan, which is a key component of its reorganization plan. Fleet Capital Corp. has agreed to supply the money, $128 million of which would be insured against default by the federal government. The West Virginia Economic Development Authority also has agreed to lend Weirton $5.6 million to supplement that package. Read more here.

Story 3: Moscow Mechel Steel Group is intending to carry out the primary placement of its stocks on the US stock market by offering 30% stocks to the investors. To this effect, Mechel will increase its stock capital by placing 115,000,000 additional common stocks with 10 rbl par each. The placement will be made by close offer in favor of Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas. The stocks will be transferred to the account of the nominal holder - Moscow Deutsche Bank for the purpose of ADR issue. The ADRs will be released by Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas outside Russia. Read more here.

Story 4: Steel companies are passing on double-digit price increases to their customers, prompting protest from buyers, including General Motors Corp. (GM, news), about both the pace of the run-up and the addition of supplemental surcharges to existing contracts, Friday's Wall Street Journal reported.

While the increases are most intense in the U.S., prices are rising around the world. In China, steel prices rose 20% for some products in the past year, while prices for exported Japanese steel increased 13%. South Korea-based Posco (PKX, news) this week said it would raise domestic prices of hot and cold-rolled steel products 14% starting Feb. 9. Prices in Europe are flat compared with a year ago, but are expected to rise this year, according to independent New York-based analyst Charles Bradford. Read more here.

Why did I put these four stories together in the same article? Because thinking 'globally' is the ONLY way to get a clear picture about what is happening in most industries, but especially in global industries like steel. We need to do more of this as we devise future industry-based ED strategies, including our work with clusters.

Pittsburgh About to Lose FreeMarkets

FreeMarkets, Pittsburgh's rising star of the Internet age, is being acquired by a company from California's Silicon Valley for $493 million in stock and cash. The deal will cost Pittsburgh another corporate headquarters and an undetermined number of jobs, although executives of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Ariba Inc. and FreeMarkets pledged to maintain a significant presence in the city. FreeMarkets houses about 650 employees in a Downtown office tower bearing its name. The merged company will retain the Ariba name and be based in Sunnyvale.

Reacting to the deal, Ronnie L. Bryant, president of the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance, the region's leading economic development agency, said, "We are in the process of getting as much information as possible from FreeMarkets about their plans. We will be working to do everything possible to protect as many FreeMarkets' jobs as we can."

This is a tough situation for Pittsburgh. Sorry to hear it. This situation is a perfect illustration of what I have been saying why eocnomic developers must devise a better way to deal with mergers and acquisitions and other business strategies that are undermining all thr hardwork by local economic development work. We are far from ready.

Go here to read more.

Denver Working on Marketing Itself

DenverMileHigh is the City of Denver's new website. It's a good one. Needs more economic development content, but its' pretty good. Denver has assembled a team to help the City think through how it should position the City for new opportunities of all sorts. I like the attention being given to international. Go here to read more.

Learn About Regionalism

This came to me via Robert Hickey, EDA's manager for Ohio and Indiana.

For your information, there will be a telecast on "Regionalism--Maximizing
Effective Partnerships for Economic Development in an Era of Scarce
Resources" on February 4, 2004, 3PM - 4PM EST, or 2 PM central time. Dr.
Sampson, EDA's Assist. Sec., is a panelist. Discussions will focus on regional cluster
development and funding public policy issues; processes in place to identify
clusters; and types of plans under development to support clusters; how
states are implementing their plans; and, the results of those efforts.

Contact person is Peggy Tadej at 202-986-1032, Ext 224 or e-mail
tadej@narc.org. For more info see NARC website: www.narc.org

Potential host sites can be found on NARC's website and on-line registration
forms.

More on India's R&D Progress

Pay attention to this one!

India ’s now established itself as a major innovation hub. In the last 15 years, over 10,000 patents were filed. A large portion of these were filed by 150 MNCs. The Intel R&D centre has filed 68 patents till now — 30 in the last year alone. “We’re doing stuff that’s critical for the long-term success of the company, as well as working on the current ‘jewels’ of the company,” says Ketan Sampat, president, Intel India .

Texas Instruments was the first MNC to tap India in 1985, after which came companies like GE, Motorola, Intel and Philips, followed by IBM, and Cisco. Even smaller MNCs like Techbooks and Google are now making a beeline for India . These set-ups are fast becoming centres of innovation, and attaining a far greater importance in the larger scheme of things. For example, IBM set up IRL in 1998, and today 70 researchers are working on projects ranging from bioinformatics to media mining, from eCoupons to grid computing and speech recognition for Indian languages. “A lot of the technology we develop is crucial to the IBM products globally,” says Dr P Gopalakrishnan, director, IBM India Research Lab.

Go here to read more.

Washington DC Metro Releases New High Tech Study

This is an interesting study for your consideration.

The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area ranks well among its peers in attracting federal research and development funding and small business grants, but the region lags others in private industry investment and licensing of technologies from academia to the private sector, a new study finds.

The Greater Washington Board of Trade's Technology Task Force, which released its technology commercialization study Wednesday, found that the region needs to improve collaboration among its universities, federal laboratories and the private sector to increase the amount of technology transfer and commercialization.

The study compared the Washington area with several regions of high-tech development: Silicon Valley and San Diego in California; Boston; Austin, Texas; and Raleigh-Durham, N.C.

"This has been such a government-oriented region that it's attracted companies with a focus of doing business with the government rather than with [the] commercialization of private activity," said C.D. Mote Jr., president of the University of Maryland, College Park, and co-chairman of the task force.

Go here to read more.

Good Jobs Being Replaced By Not So Good Jobs in California

Jobs lost in California during the last national recession have since been replaced largely by lower-paying jobs, as fewer higher-paying jobs were created statewide over the past two years, according to an economic report.

The type of jobs created in California since November 2001, when the recession ended, have been mostly in service industries that pay an average of 40 percent less than higher-paying jobs in technology and other areas, the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday.

The decline of high-wage jobs, particularly in technology and manufacturing, as lower-wage labor and service jobs have increased is part of a national trend. Only two states - Nevada and Nebraska - saw the creation of more higher-paying jobs, said EPI, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank.

Nationwide, the jobs gained paid an annual average of 21 percent less than the jobs lost. Only Massachusetts and Delaware had a higher average of lower-paying jobs than California.

"Good quality jobs are disappearing, especially in California," Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. "It's a real challenge."

Go here to read more.

St. Louis Cardinals Stadium Economic Study Released

Building a new St. Louis Cardinals stadium and surrounding developments will pour $800 million into the region's economy, according to a study for the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association. The figures take into account not just the stadium, but construction of the first two blocks of Ballpark Village, a mixed-use development next to the park, paid for in part by the Cardinals.

But the study, conducted by Bryan Bezold, the RCGA's chief economist, does not include the economic impact of Cardinals games or the businesses that would operate in Ballpark Village. The $800 million impact is broken into four parts:

-$387 million to construct the stadium and surrounding infrastructure, mainly roads.

- $307 million in "indirect impacts" from construction, including part of the wages earned by workers at the site and payments to local construction suppliers.

- $60 million, the team's investment in Ballpark Village.

- $47 million in indirect impacts from building Ballpark Village.

Personally, I tend to be skeptical about economic impact studies of this sort unless they are based upon only the most conservative estimates of revenue generation. Also, it is important to examine the net impact after expenditures to build and operate the facility. It's treat it like a business. What's the gross and net profit after all costs are accounted for?

Go here to read more.

Kodak Creates New Rochester ED Fund

Ironically the same day Kodak announced it was cutting thousands of jobs, the photo giant made a pledge to spend millions to bring new jobs here. Kodak employees, who fear their jobs are on the line, hope they won't end up paying the price.

Kodak has created the 15-million dollar Rochester Economic Development fund to promote job creation here. Kodak says it'll pump in five million dollars over the next three years to attract new economic opportunities, not all related to photo imaging.

Stay tuned on this one. Go here to read more.

New Flowers Bloom on Cleveland's Westside

A story unfolding in Cleveland's west side Stockyards neighborhood illustrates how grassroots business leaders can transform companies and neighborhoods, and that high-tech firms can be incubated from almost any platform, including manufacturing. For those of you looking for a ray of hope for business development in the central city, this is one you should examine.

The Stockyards neighborhood has a rich history including the days when livestock was herded across West 65th Street to meet its fate at the Swift Premium Meats packinghouse. That was some time ago. Since the 1950s, metalworking and metal finishing; along with food processing and distribution have redefined the commercial uses in this neighborhood. Today's news begins a new chapter in the neighborhood's development.

Frank Fanta, President of Fanta Equipment Company, a family owned firm in the metal finishing equipment industry established a new beachhead in the high technology sector of analytical and scientific software. Mr. Fanta established a relationship at Case Western Reserve engineering school with Tom Riegler through a co-op program. Mr. Riegler upon graduation, went to work for Agilent Technologies formerly Hewlett Packard and continued his education at Stanford University. In a case of Cleveland brain gain, Mr. Riegler returned to Fanta Equipment Company in 1998 to start up Zeta Technologies, where he is now President. The firm has grown to 4 employees and operates out of Fanta Equipment Company's Storer Avenue facility across the street from the former Union stockyards.

The primary product of Zeta-Tek is called Spectrum Works. Spectrum Works controls radio frequency measuring monitoring hardware. Zeta-Tek has recently completed a sale of systems to the Federal Communications Commission. The new systems will be located throughout the United States and neighboring countries.

Zeta-Tek recently sponsored and presented at a United States Telecommunication Training Institute in Washington DC to representatives from 13 developing countries. As a consequence, Spectrum Works has gained international recognition as can be seen by a newly installed system in Greece.

The technology of Spectrum Works has a far-reaching application base from manufacturers, installers, and operators of wireless equipment. Spectrum Works simplifies the complex measurements required to be made before, during, and after installation.

About the West Side Manufacturing Initiative

Fanta Equipment and Zeta-Tek are examples of hundreds of successes, large and small, taking place on Cleveland's west side. WIRE-Net's West Side Manufacturing Initiative, supported by the City of Cleveland, and the Generation, Gund and Cleveland foundations includes four programs to build on the manufacturing strength of Cleveland's west side:

1. Help businesses develop strategies focusing on product and market innovation. Eight Cleveland manufacturers employing 600 people are among the firms already participating in WIRE-Net's Manufacturing Innovation Initiative.

2. Redevelop existing land & building so cost effective space is available in Cleveland for growing companies.

3. Reinvest in Cleveland's infrastructure so companies have excellent access to customers, suppliers and employees.

4. Share experiments, successes and challenges with the broader northeast Ohio community by promoting business success stories and attracting new investors to the area.

I had the pleasure of working with WIRE-Net on its most recent strategic plan update. I am quite impressed with what the organization has accomplished by using "collaborative advantage" strategies to attract new resources and opportunities to Cleveland's westside.

Corporate Growth Looking Up

This is a survey you will find interest in.

A recent survey by Thomson Financial and ACG of 1,301 business executives around the world finds increasing optimism about corporate growth prospects.

Ninety-three percent of respondents in the first ACG/Thomson Financial Corporate Growth Outlook Survey expect their company’s revenues to increase in 2004. Organic growth through investment in sales and marketing, and mergers and acquisitions were each cited by 31% of respondents as the best strategies to achieve growth in 2004, followed by investments in product development (15%), and strategic alliances (11%). Business executives say the greatest external catalyst for corporate growth in 2004 would be an improving economy (49%), followed by a strong M&A market (27%).

Respondents say the sectors that will experience the most organic growth are healthcare, life sciences and medical equipment and services (39%), followed by technology (22%), business services (13%), and manufacturing and distribution (12%). Within technology, they predict the sectors that will experience the greatest organic growth are wireless and telecom (29%), followed by biotechnology (26%), information technology (20%), and software (11%).

Today’s M&A environment was characterized by 45% of respondents as good or excellent, 46% say it is fair, and 8% characterize it as poor. Eighty-five percent of respondents think the M&A environment will improve in 2004, 90% predict the number of transactions will increase, and 67% think valuations of companies will increase. During 2004, the sectors that will experience the most M&A activity will be technology (30%), manufacturing and distribution (20%), and healthcare, life sciences and medical equipment and services (17%), according to respondents.

Business executives say the primary goal of a merger or acquisition today is to grow market share (44%), followed by increase revenues (27%). The company attribute that matters most to an acquirer today is sales and revenue growth (24%), followed by profitability (22%), being in an attractive business sector (16%), management strength (15%), proprietary technology (12%), and a strong brand/corporate reputation (9%).

Go here to read more.

Appalachian Foundation Builds ED Capacity

The Foundation for Appalachian Ohio has awarded six grants totaling $123,000 to agencies across Athens County, including the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks, Inc. (ACEnet), Paper Circle, Rural Action, Ultimate Recycling, Hocking College and the Dairy Barn Arts Center. The money supports programs that promote economic development.

"The Athens County programs are among the 11 grant recipients of Foundation for Appalachian Ohio economic development grants this year," President and CEO Leslie Lilly said in a news release. "Over $200,000 in grants in all were awarded to organizations that serve communities throughout the 29-county region."

ACEnet, an economic and community development organization that works to improve rural southeastern Ohio, received a three-year grant totaling $50,000 for a project that provides marketing assistance for regional entrepreneurs. In the news release, Larry Fisher, director of ACEnet's Food Ventures program, said the organization's marketing efforts already have helped local businesses access previously unavailable markets for their products.

Go here to read more.

NE Ohio Company Working to Beat Offshore Outsourcing

Anita Campbell, who runs the Small Business Trends Weblog, posted an interesting article about a company named Holonics from NE Ohio who is working to beat the ofshore outsourcing trend. This is one to read. Thanks Anita! Go here to read her article.

You should add Anita's weblog to your reading list. Very unique and highly informative content!

Competitive Intelligence Analysis: What ED Can Learn From Business

Business executives are always trying to find out what their competition is up to. Are there some things economic developers could learn from them? I think there may be.

Here is a starting point.

A recent Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) membership survey asked what methods of analyzing CI information were most used, and which were rated most effective:

Tools for Analyzing Information
[Percent using each tool]

Competitor profiles: 88.9%
Financial analysis: 72.1%
SWOT analysis: 55.2%
Scenario development: 53.8%
Win/loss analysis: 40.4%
War gaming: 27.5%
Conjoint analysis: 25.5%
Simulation/modeling: 25%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Effectiveness of Analysis Tools
[Percent rating each tool extremely or very effective]

SWOT analysis: 63.1%
Competitor profiles: 52.4%
Financial analysis: 45.5%
Win/loss analysis: 31.4%
War gaming: 21.9%
Scenario development: 19.2%
Conjoint analysis: 15.8%
Simulation/modeling: 15.4%

Regionalism

Everybody in the business talks about it, but why is regionalism so difficult in economic development? I encounter this issue with great regularity in my strategy work.

My simple answer is that regions lack political constituencies to support them. Politicians are elected to serve at the state, county or city level. Regions are political vacuums in that respect.

In my assessment, current political and taxing jurisdiction boundaries prevent us from adopting regional economic strategies. Competition for resources is also a major factor. Local, intra-regional, rivalry for tax base is the single biggest reason why regional economic development efforts suffer from weak support.

There are other reasons as well. People attach great personal significance to specific local places. In this sense, communities will always matter. Even though worker commuting patterns have shifted to larger geographic areas, people tend to relate the most to the specific community they live in.

What is the answer to fostering greater regional cooperation for economic development? There are two that I will offer here: 1) help people to understand how communities in the same region are interdependent and share a common fate in terms of economic growth; and 2) build a track record of regional cooperation that starts with smaller and simpler things and advances to larger and more complex challenges. Communities, and most counties, have economic bases and not economies. Regions in most cases have true economies that can be defined by industry structure, markets, infrastructure systems, and labor markets.

Right now, some regional economic development efforts are being re-thought--for example those in Toledo, Charlotte and other metro areas. Others are moving forward step-by-step, such as those in San Diego, Phoenix, Louisville, and Pittsburgh. Some, like the new Team NEO effort in Northeast Ohio, are just getting underway.

My forecast is that regional strategies for economic development will continue to make progress. This progress will hinge on many factors. The most important of which is demonstrating that new value can be added by regional programs and organizations.

The 80-20 Factor in Economic Development

Every economic development organization (EDO) wants to increase its impact and effectiveness. I’m all for it. As a professional advisor to EDO’s, I want to help your organization do just that. As most of you will attest, it’s not an easy job, especially when larger economic trends are working against you.

Last year, I was called in by the Regional Growth Partnership (RGP) in Toledo, Ohio to advise the organization’s board on key factors shaping RGP’s current and future success. Under assault by the Toledo Blade newspaper and local politicians, RGP was looking for help in putting Northwest Ohio’s slow economic growth into a larger context. It was obvious to me that the national economy was the region’s single biggest enemy but many folks in the community didn’t see it. I coined the “80-20 Factor in ED” as a way to explain the influence of external events in shaping a local economy’s ability to grow and develop.

My thesis is that approximately 80 percent of the change (growth and decline) that occurs in highly developed metropolitan and regional economies is driven by what happens to the national and global economies. The grounds for this thesis is in shift-share analysis, a common economic analysis technique that allows researchers to estimate the extent to which local economic growth and/or decline is shaped by: 1) national economic growth; 2) local industry mix; and 3) the presence or absence of key local competitive advantages. In analyzing several metro economies across the country using shift-share analysis, I discovered that the national growth component of their shift-share analysis results accounted for 75-80 percent of the change occurring in the local economy.

This is far from a perfect measure, or explanation, for how local economies develop, but it provides useful insights. It is incomplete for several reasons, including the fact that the little devil “chance” plays a significant role in economic events, and also the fact that unique and special factors play a role in the success or failure of particular economic development projects.

Since my Toledo experience, I have continued to explore this 80-20 rule. A recent analysis of the economic base of King County, WA (Seattle area) revealed that 234,000 (84%) of the 277,000 jobs created in the county during the 1990-2000 time period was explained by national growth factor of the shift-share analysis. I plan to do additional work in this area in the coming year for one simple reason: “It is essential to know how much of a local economy’s growth can be influenced by local actions by EDO’s. I think this analytic foundation can help to set more realistic expectations about what is possible through local economic development efforts. It’s certainly not 100%. In my judgment, the impact factor is probably closer to 20-25%.

It Starts With Attitude

What economic developers do in society is very valuable, but we face some major challenges in reaching our goals. Consider this a little pep talk on how to better prepare for those factors and trends likely to shape our success in 2004.

Henry Ford was quick to remind his employees when they encountered a tough problem of the importance of attitude: “If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.” In the context of economic development, attitude has everything to do with our ability to succeed in this new year. No, it’s not the only factor, but I think it is the best place to start the journey to success.

Bob Farley, a former Texan and Fantus Company executive, is the new President and CEO of Team NEO, the brand new regional economic development organization formed to encourage and assist business expansion and recruitment across the 13-county region. In a recent interview with Crain’s Cleveland Business, Bob said with respect to Northeast Ohio: “We need to walk taller. Attitude is a critical factor to the region’s future economic success.”

Bob is right about the role of attitude in shaping our future competitive abilities. Attitude alone will not change the region’s business cost structure, but it is the starting point in looking at the quality, value, and productive advantage that are produced by these costs.

As many of you know, I have been on a personal campaign to get economic developers and their leaders to “innovate” with new strategies and organizational approaches to business and job development. Download one of my presentations on this subject here. Our attitude toward change is fundamental to our willingness and ability to switch to more effective “business models” that produce more value for our customers and other stakeholders.

An attitude of abundance, versus scarcity, coupled with the ability to see “value” in people, businesses, and places is essential to licking the major challenges we face in issues like offshore outsourcing, which ED Futures has been ruthlessly tracking over the past year.

All of us need to take stock of our attitude toward the many complex issues and situations we face in economic development. Let’s start 2004 with an attitude change that sees value and service as being within our grasp. This will put us on the right path to better solutions.

Working Together Boosts Innovation

Don't believe me, read this fascinating article by Andy Lippman (All Together Now) on how cooperation spurs innovation, which our economy needs desperately to gain and sustain a global competitive advantage.

Here are a few clips to entice you to read this great article:

"All it takes is one shove to start a wave of jostling in a packed crowd. But (with apologies to Adam Smith), there’s rarely just one invisible hand that creates waves of innovation.

The amazingly rapid development of the Web, which moved like a tsunami across thousands of businesses and out into the world at large, took many hands—hands that were often unwittingly working in concert.

Now we are at risk of being stuck dead in the water. Rather than working together in ways that benefit everyone, companies are delaying innovation because of a narrow, and misguided, sense of self-interest.

The solution is, first, to understand what I call the wave theory of how major innovations occur. Then we need to form partnerships that will let us ride those waves together, in ways that help all of us."

What does this say about future strategies for economic development? You got it! We need to cooperate to innovate. Got the idea? Now, let's do it!

Landing on the Right Side of Your Ass

Yes, you heard me correctly. Actually that is the title of a new book by Michael Laskoff about coping with downsizing, rightsizing, and other business changes causing people to lose their jobs.

Read the review. Interesting advice.

Unfortunately, my guess is that a number of people in my community and yours are pondering the issues raised by Laskoff's book. They need our help!

Battered Dollar Creates Some Tourism Boost for U.S. Cities

That is the conclusion of a recent Business Week article that describes how the exchange rate is giving some boost to international tourists to vacation and recreate in America--at least for now. And yes, security issues are still there and pose a barrier for some international travellers. Go here to read the story.

Let's jump to the strategic economic development question: "Do opportunities exist for your area to attract more international visitors in 2004? How can you capitalize on this currency advantage while it lasts?

Buzz Campaigns for Cities

"Dollar for dollar, the best advertising is word of mouth -- as long as the word is good, that is. Handspring's new Treo 600 cell phone/PDA combo, which went on sale in mid-October, is one product that seemed destined to live or die by the buzz." That is what a recent Business 2.0 article has to say about creating demand for a problem by creating a "buzz" for it.

So, how do we apply this thinking to cities or metropolitan areas? What is the buzz campaign for Cleveland, Chicago, Little Rock, Las Vegas, Memphis, or Pittsburgh? How do we create a buzz for suburbs (Beachwood, Ohio, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, or Petaluma, California) of large cities? How do we create a buzz for small independent cities that are the home to a college or university (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue, Indiana)?

Just remember that you have to deliver on the buzz at some point! Somebody will eventually ask "where's the beef?"

Insights on How to Succeed in Business

I ran across this fascinating article interviewing various business CEOs about how they succeed at doing things better than anyone else.

It strikes me as a fair question to ask economic developers who run highly successful economic development programs or organizations. Wouldn't that be interesting?

I like this response by Bob McKnight from Quicksilver about how to keep a brand cool. "You constantly have to rejuvenate yourself and your business. You have to find young, smart, passionate, innovative, creative thinkers who want to work hard. Your design staff has to hang out where kids hang out and make sure that they're on point with product. They have to read all of the fashion magazines. They have to be on trend with colors and fit. You are really relying on your designers to align themselves with you and be innovative and intuitive all the time.

Anybody can market, anybody can put an ad in Surfer magazine -- whatever. You have to have the right athletes, the right environment, the right events, the right projects. You have to be innovative and new all the time in your marketing. Abercrombie can make as good a short as us, so why buy us instead of Abercrombie? Because we have history and heritage, and we align with cool and we're cutting-edge, we're innovative, we're progressive, and all of those things come to mind when someone sees Quiksilver."

What does this say about keeping cool cities cool, or making a not so cool city cooler?