Strong Manufacturing Growth Ahead...in Malaysia

The Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) has projected 7.2 percent growth for the manufacturing sector this year, from five percent in 2003, as strong electronic orders lead firms to reopen assembly lines, newspaper reports say.

FMM president Mustafa Mansur was quoted by The Star as saying the rosier outlook was based on an overall improvement in manufacturing, especially in electrical and electronics sectors, in line with the country's economic growth.

The manufacturing sector, which accounts for 30 percent of Malaysia's economy, rebounded late last year fuelled by stronger global demand and a recovery in the semiconductor sector.

Manufacturing sales in November rose 11.40 percent year-on-year to 29.30 billion ringgit (7.71 billion dollars) for a third consecutive month of double-digit growth. Malaysia's exports were worth 342.5 billion ringgit in the first 11 months of 2003 and were expected to hit 380 billion ringgit for the whole year.

Prime Minister and Finance Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has said the economic outlook remains positive and predicted growth of 5.5 to 6.0 percent for this year, up from the 4.5 percent expected for 2003.

Read more here.

Cluster Focus: BioCrossroads in Central Indiana

BioCrossroads is Central Indiana's life science network, a public-private collaboration that supports the region's research and corporate strengths while encouraging new business development. Central Indiana is a global life sciences hub, with 900 private companies employing a skilled workforce of over 85,000, working with multiple nationally-recognized research institutions. With government, industry and academic resources aligned to accelerate business growth, the region is fertile ground for investors and entrepreneurs to build new ventures.

Formerly known as the Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative, BioCrossroads is a broad collaboration involving public and private entities across the state’s midsection. Its mission is to identify and build upon the area’s strengths in life sciences.

"Our mission is job creation through new business formation," explains Anne Shane, project director for BioCrossroads. The initiative was formed about two years ago by representatives of Indiana and Purdue universities, Eli Lilly & Co., the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, the Indiana Health Industry Forum and the city of Indianapolis. Founders of the life-sciences initiative set out to tackle four key areas: marketing, capital formation, collaboration and workforce development.

Read a great article summarizing where BioCrossroads will focus its attention from a technology standpoint.

Go here to read more about BioCrossRoads.

New Take on Outsourcing and Jobs

Here is a new take on offshore outsourcing. A new Institute for International Economics study argues that outsourcing by US companies of IT services to countries like India and Singapore will enhance American productivity growth, create new higher value and lead to higher paid technical jobs.

New programming jobs may be transferred to India but they are not cancelling out job growth in the US, says the author of the study, Catherine Mann, an economist at the Institute for International Economics in Washington. "The globalisation of software and IT service means that some IT jobs will be done abroad. But as more sectors of the economy and more businesses use the IT packages in the US, high skill jobs to design and tailor IT packages will increase in the IT sector and jobs demanding the skills to use these IT packages effectively will diffuse throughout the economy," she said.

Mann sees a repeat of what happened in the 1990s. Globalized production of IT hardware led to lower prices during the 1990s, prompting IT investment and transformation, she said.

While IT was disruptive to businesses and workers alike, "its influence on them and their successful response to that influence" were the key to faster income growth, lower inflation and more employment.

"Deeper transformation and wider diffusion" caused by outsourcing will bring about a second wave of production growth in the US, Mann's study says.

Let's hope that Catherine Mann is correct. Go here to download her report. It is an excellent read.

Sarasota County, FL Gets with Clusters

Now that the planning is done, it is time to work the plan. Sarasota County, FL will focus on four clusters for future economic development: specialty manufacturing, life sciences, creative services and high-technology.

Specialty manufacturers, companies making a wide variety of parts and equipment -- from swimming pool supplies to hydraulic cartridges -- said they were orphans and no one in the community appreciated them.

Members of both the high-technology cluster -- computer hardware and software manufacturers -- and the creative services cluster -- architects, Web designers, film makers and others involved in arts and communication -- recommended that specific geographic zones be established for them and their peers.

The life sciences cluster said the region needs to be marketed as a place where medical and biological research takes place.

They also recommended establishing a clinical research organization, which would become the focal point for the development and testing of medical and pharmaceutical products, and pushed for the creation of a life sciences incubator to stimulate the development of companies bent on commercializing scientific research.

Go here to read more.

New North Carolina Innovation Report Released

North Carolina has been concerned about its competitive position vis-a-vis the innovation economy.

While the national economy has been unkind to all states, North Carolina held its own over the last three years, according to a measure of 25 broad indicators of innovation, technology and economic growth released earlier this week. In all, Tracking Innovation: North Carolina Innovation Index 2003 considers more than 50 performance measures across five general categories, highlighting the state’s strengths and weaknesses.

The 2003 Index is a comprehensive update of a similar index published by the BST in 2000 as part of the Vision 2030 Project. Indicators in Tracking Innovation 2003 were compiled from a wide range of secondary data sources. State policymakers are expected to use the updated index as a basis for developing recommendations over the coming year to support the state’s innovation economy.

Download the repprt here.

Very Cool Initiative

In an unprecedented, historical move, 26 Northern California community colleges have formed a collaborative to close the state's digital literacy skills gap and better prepare students to compete in a global workforce. Led by Cabrillo College, the Bay Area Information Technology Consortium (Bay ITC) is a collaborative effort among 26 Bay Area community colleges and high technology businesses dedicated toeducational innovation and IT reform. Working with education partners, employers and workforce boards around the Bay Region, Bay ITC is poised to launch a campaign to raise information technology user skills in response toindustry demand for consistent skills assessment. The campaign launches this month and has already attracted interest from more than 30 community colleges statewide.

Go here to read more.

Labor Uses Offshoring as Rally Point

A December 2003 Commerce Department report confirmed that increasing numbers of technology jobs are moving from the United States to offshore spots including India, Ireland, the Philippines and China. In July 2003, for instance, IBM acknowledged that it was speeding up its schedule to shift 3 million service jobs to China and India. Microsoft Senior Vice President Brian Valentine admitted in a July 2002 presentation that work could be had in India at "two heads for the price of one." AT&T Wireless and Boeing are among other large-scale operations known to be shifting IT labor pools from Washington State to India and other low-cost countries. Even state agencies, including the departments of corrections and social and health services, are outsourcing to offshore computer programmers.

With reports like this, unions are using the offshoring trend as a rallying point for their organizing activities. Go here to find out what WashTech and the Communications Workers of America are up to.

A Word on Positioning

Marketing has played a major role in economic development for many years. Communities, regions and states are constantly looking at new and better ways to re-position themselves for new business investors. You may find this article on positioning to be VERY interesting.

According to Michael Fischler, "there are no fixed and unmovable rules to positioning—for that matter, to marketing in general. There are no “five easy steps” to any aspect of it—from writing headlines that sizzle to developing positions that don’t fizzle. Marketing is a craft, not a science. And every successful marketing program is made by hand, by talented craftsmen, sanding and sawing and staining a unique creation—a marketing structure—that works for their company and no other." (While his article pertained to B2B Internet marketing, there is some carryover to other applications of thinking, including the ED marketing arena.

When they’re done with their research, when they’ve looked intensively into who you are, how you compare with competitors, what customers think, what newsgroups and reviewers and analysts say, one of two things is going to happen:

1. The marketplace is going to find that you are who you position yourself to be. Good news: you’ve earned your place.

2. The marketplace is going to find that you are not. Not good news.

In the second case, the only position you’ll occupy in the marketplace is the most heavily populated one of them all: the “Full of Hot Air” position (although I daresay the thing you’re full of might change, depending on the vocabulary of your marketplace).

Go here to read more.

Korean Steekmaker Promises 70,000 Jobs

POSCO, Korea's largest steelmaker, yesterday said it would channel 10.7 trillion won ($8.2 billion) to create 70,000 new jobs in steel and related industries over the next five years.

Amid the climbing unemployment rate that has the government begging for corporations to engage more employees, the world's fourth-largest steel manufacturer announced the plans to spend the bulk of its funds toward job creation.

This year only, POSCO will spend 2.3 trillion won on local operations.

In addition, the company said it would increase its supply of high-end steel products, such as steel sheets for automobiles and stainless steel plates. In effect, it hopes to become one of the top three stainless makers in the world by 2008

Go here to read more.

West Midlands Gears Up with New Plan

Advantage West Midlands today unveils its blueprint for a £20 billion (about US$37 billion) economic expansion of the region over the next five years.

The development agency has identified 13 key "challenges" that need to be addressed with public sector funding to realise the vision of making the West Midlands a world class region in which to work and live.

The agency hopes its Economic Strategy and Action Plan 2004-2010 will help move the region into Europe's elite economies by channelling £20 billion of public money into major "challenge areas".

The 13 areas cover: enterprise; manufacturing; skills; transport; economic inclusion; innovation; environment; visitor economy; development sites; housing; demographic; international; and image.

The first five have been given high priority status because AWM believes they have the greatest impact on the region and its 5.3 million inhabitants.

This is one to take note of. There are some very interesting "to scale" investments in the plan.

Go here to read more.

Get with Biomanufacturing, Panel Tells NY State Officials

New York should improve investment incentives to attract the money needed to develop biotechnology companies in the Rochester area and across the state, scientists and executives told a NY state Senate task force earlier this week.

Start-up companies and researchers also need an affordable facility where they can manufacture the amount of new drugs required for initial clinical trials that prove safety to federal regulators and potential to investors.

A biomanufacturing facility would be the most important and effective way for New York “to capture and retain” the biotechnology industry, Maurice Zauderer, chief executive of Vaccinex Inc. of Rochester, told the NextGen Task Force.

Zauderer called the proposed facility the New York State Center for Biologics Manufacturing. He estimated the center would need about $10 million in state aid for construction and $4 million to cover annual operating costs. His proposal received support from Dr. Howard Federoff, the University of Rochester’s senior associate dean for research, Paul Wetenhall, executive director of High Tech Rochester, and others.

To help biotechnology companies commercialize products, the state should increase its investment in early-stage companies, said Christopher O’Donnell, managing director of the Trillium Group.

Go here to read more.

Science Globalization Ahead of Economic Globalization

Listen to this quote from the Swiss secretary for science and research, Charles Kleiber: “The globalisation of science is much more advanced than the globalisation of the economy."

What does this mean? It means in the race to create the global knowledge economy, the knowledge part of the equation is ahead of the economy part. That says we have some work in evolving newer and better economic development strategies that capitalize on knowledge. This is an important point for economic developers everywhere to pay attention to.

A Swiss delegation, headed by interior minister Pascal Couchepin, is putting forward the country's views at the OECD annual meeting in Paris. Science and technology ministers and senior officials from more than 30 countries are meeting at the OECD headquarters to discuss the increasing globalisation of science. Delegates are trying to find ways of improving cooperation between the science sector and the economy.

Go here to read more.

Support Youth Entrepreneurship, New Study Says

Compelling new evidence from researchers at Harvard University indicate that youth entrepreneurship programs may be particularly effective at keeping students from low-income urban backgrounds on the academic track and can be a significant force in driving them toward high achievement and leadership.

The research, conducted on behalf of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), an international nonprofit organization that teaches entrepreneurship to low-income young people, shows that young people who learn about entrepreneurship by participating in its program develop a "success" orientation and are more likely to be focused on becoming professionals and entering the workforce.

Led by Dr. Michael Nakkula, Director of Project IF (Inventing the Future) at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, the multi-phase study is the first of its kind that seeks to identify the benefits of entrepreneurship education programs such as NFTE, including clarifying the entrepreneurial skills and attitudes that are promoted by such programs and understanding the connection between these skills and attitudes and larger life goals. The study involved data collected from 312 students in the Boston public high school system during the 2001-2002 academic year.

The research suggests that the hands-on, interactive nature of the curriculum holds the capacity to engage students by making learning relevant to their real-world experiences and ambitions. Although ongoing, the preliminary findings reveal that the NFTE students, when compared with a comparison group:

-- Increased their engagement in reading on their own, independently from school assignments

-- Increased their interest in college by 32 percent while the comparison group's interest declined by 17 percent

-- Increased their aspirations for jobs that require more education by 44%, while the comparison group's aspirations were only 10% greater.

-- Expressed a 17 percent increase in their interest in work and professional achievement.

-- Expressed a success orientation. Students increased 56 percent in their "hopes and worries about future success" while the comparison group increased only 12 percent.

Go here to read more.

High Tech Execs Want It Both Ways...Surprise, Surprise

Here is one you absolutely must read.

Silicon Valley executives were in Washington a few weeks back asking for billions in federal spending to help U.S. tech workers remain competitive in a global market. Noble enough rhetoric, but as quick as they were to ask for taxpayer money, these same execs defended the accelerating practice of “offshoring” — sending tech jobs overseas.

While asking for government assistance to remain competitive is a time-honored tradition, the incongruence here is jarring. The heydays of the late 1990s recede in the rearview mirror, but an unfortunate Silicon Valley myth remains fixed in the region’s consciousness.

Stalwart and bold executives, venture capitalists and technologists took massive risks where others feared to tread, reaping rewards and building the Valley from ground up. So goes the story. Theirs was a world of unfettered capitalism that succeeded, in no small part, because of its independence from a stodgy and sclerotic government.

The execs’ comments in Washington contained echoes of this story. Government should know its place. Gives us tax breaks for research and development, spend more on math and science education and pay to retrain our displaced workers. But leave the innovation to us; we know what’s best.

Go here to read more.

Insights Into How Cuba's Economy Works

Cuba is a place where the structure of working life has been turned upside down. Whereas ambitious young Americans push to become doctors, lawyers, and architects, in Cuba the situation is completely reversed. Professionals are at the bottom of the economic totem pole, earning $10 to $30 a month. (Imagine, trial lawyers and surgeons making a dollar a day!) Menial service providers are the nation's entrepreneurs, at the top of the economic ladder, earning hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars a month.

In a desperate effort to turn its terribly depressed economy around during the early 1990s in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, Cuba began focusing heavily on tourism. It restored dozens of crumbling buildings in historic Old Havana and transformed them into first-class hotels and attractive restaurants. It promoted tourism to audiences in Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world outside the U.S. And it shrewdly made legal the American dollar, allowing its arch enemy's currency, flowing via Miami expatriates and international tourism, to turn things around.

Today, tourism accounts for about 60 percent of the country's "exports." In the process, though, Cuba's supposedly classless society now consists of two classes: the destitute class, including many professionals, who rely on Cuba's nearly worthless pesos, and the entrepreneurial class, which works in Cuba's tourist industry, earning the dollars that make the wheels go round. The most enterprising Cubans find a way to work with tourists, and acquire dollars via tips. Bellhops, waiters, hotel maids, tourist guides, and street musicians earn anywhere from $150 to $1,500 a month from tourists, astronomical sums in a country where the typical salary is $20.

Go here to read more.

Air Traffic Down in Columbus

Air travel is an important measure of regional economic activity. At least for Columbus, OH, the numbers were down in 2003.

Port Columbus International Airport officials unveiled year-end passenger statistics on Tuesday, writing off 2003 as a "temporary setback." The airport served 6.3 million passengers in 2003, down 7.3 percent from 6.7 million passengers in 2002. Passenger traffic declined 12.8 percent in December to 493,037, from 565,226 in December of 2002.

The airport chalked up most of the decrease to service cutbacks by America West Airlines, which closed its Port Columbus hub in the spring.

Go here to read more.

Kansas About to Step Up ED Efforts

From farms to Main Street and into laboratories, Kansas' next economic push would be tied to bioscience research and helping homegrown businesses, under a plan unveiled Tuesday aimed at creating more than 40,000 Kansas jobs by 2015. The $500 million, 10-year plan envisions small businesses and a major new industry -- bioscience research -- taking root in Kansas with startup assistance in the form of public and private investment, tax breaks and help bringing ideas to market.

One part of the measure is meant to boost the state's presence in bioscience, the fast-growing area of research focusing on discovery of new treatments for diseases, growing crops for use by drug manufacturers and development of new materials for health and industrial use.

The second part of the proposal would help start small businesses statewide by offering grants and attracting investors. The bulk of the funding for the program would come from reinvesting tax revenue generated by bioscience businesses back into research companies and regents universities.

Go here to read more.

Indiana Economic Development Investment Strategy

In a year when Indiana at times led the nation in job losses, Hoosier leaders frantically launched more job creation and economic development initiatives in 2003 than at any time in the state's history.

Most of the burst focuses on helping entrepreneurs start and expand their businesses rather than trying to attract big, expensive projects like auto plants, an analysis by The Star shows.

Experts say the more than 21 initiatives -- ranging from technology parks to a venture capital fund -- far outnumber the nationally recognized revitalization efforts Indiana started in the early 1980s to combat job losses caused by the Rust Belt recessions.

All told, in 2003 more than $150 million was plowed into building capacity to allow the replacement of the 160,000 jobs the state has lost since 2000. And the initiatives might help Hoosiers regain earnings that matched the national average in 1970 but fell behind by $4,851 per job by 2000.

While it's far too early to tell if the initiatives will pay, Indiana gets high marks for trying a variety of ideas and by focusing on entrepreneurship, which generates most new jobs, said Don Iannone, a Cleveland-based economic development consultant.

"It's an extraordinary effort on Indiana's part," said Iannone, who works in Indiana and several other states. "It's a larger-scale effort than what I see in other places."

Go here to read more.

What Do You Think About Alan Greenspan's Comment About Jobs?

Alan Greenspan said yesterday that the U.S. economy is flexible enough to replace jobs that were lost in the last recession.

The Federal Reserve chairman said that laid-off workers may need to be retrained to qualify for new work, however.

Greenspan's comments came in a speech prepared for an economic conference in London. The central banker addressed fears that many of the 2.8 million manufacturing jobs lost in the past three and a-half years could be gone forever to lower wage countries. He said competition from low-wage countries was not a new development. He said that in the 1950s and 1960s, there was concern that American jobs were migrating to Japan and then Mexico.

Greenspan's comments came a day before the Federal Reserve begins a two-day policy-setting session in Washington. He made no mention of monetary policy.

My question is: "Is flexibility the real issue here?" Businesses will create jobs where the greatest economic advantage exists for them. Can we offer a sufficient economic advantage to retain and grow the "productive" jobs in our economy? That seems to me to be the right question.

Manufacturers Struggle to Fill the Jobs They Have Open

Amidst all the talk about offshoring of manufacturing job, here is an article about how Albany NY manufacturers cannot find workers for the open jobs they have.

Frank Falatyn, president and chief executive of Fala Technologies Inc. in Kingston, N.Y., has found willing new customers for his microchip-handling products in International Sematech and Tokyo Electron Ltd.
That's good.

What isn't good, though, is the trouble he has finding skilled machinists and toolmakers to produce the miniature clean rooms and hand-operated machines that take the lids off chip-wafer boxes.

"It's going to be very difficult for me to grow the business," Falatyn said.

While educators and other officials encourage students to concentrate on semiconductor plants and biotechnology and all things nano, the blue-collar jobs found at old-line manufacturers such as Fala get the cold shoulder and are getting harder to fill.

Go here to read more.

What Are They Saying in India About Restrictions Proposed on Offshoring?

You need to hear from the horse's mouth. Click here and read what India's IT association has to say about proposal to limit business process outsourcing (BPO) activity by US companies. It's worth a few minutes of your time.

The Dark Side of Globalism

There are many different takes on globalism. This is one you may not have heard or thought about. Read on.

There are many faces of globalism and it comes with many names, but in all cases the goal of globalism is to erase national borders, eliminate national sovereignty, reduce national identities and move toward global governance through the United Nations.

The European Union is the prime example of the results of globalism, where once-proud nations have surrendered famous currencies like the deutsche mark, the franc and the lira. It's where ancient cultures like Greece and Rome have erased their borders and buried their cultures to be led by a Union of Socialists with loyalty to nothing but the drive for more and more power.

Yet it's done in the name of equity, economic prosperity and ecological integrity. Globalism is sold to the unsuspecting public with words like free trade, open borders and environmental protection, but it's really about redistribution of wealth; your wealth.

It's about erasing national borders and national sovereignty. And it's about top-down control, not necessarily by elected officials, but by special interests called Non-governmental organizations (NGO's), which are only sanctioned by the United Nations.

Globalism calls for a wrenching transformation of our society, away from representative government and independent nations to the establishment of a global village with global citizens. The entire plan is outlined in detail in the UN's Agenda 21, a treaty signed by then-President George Bush at the UN's Earth Summit in 1992.

Go here to read more.

Corporate Ethics Pays Off

That is the conclusion of a recent McKinsey & Company study. Register at the site and you read the article.

In short, the article says that challenging times make it particularly necessary for strategists to think clearly and soundly. But as Charles Roxburgh notes in "Hidden flaws in strategy," those qualities may be a lot rarer than we think. Drawing on insights developed by behavioral scientists, this article helps explain why so many smart people develop and execute bad strategies. Hardwired into our brains, it seems, are biases and shortcuts that were once essential to our survival as a species but can now inspire strategies that are doomed even before launch. Often, for example, we overestimate our ability to make "reasonable" assumptions, so strategies based on them fail when they prove false. We succumb to fuzzy "mental accounting" that leads us to make illogical decisions. We take comfort in following the herd even though "me-too" strategies usually produce merely mediocre results.

Keep Your Eye on Global Demographics

Listen up. This is an important article on why economic developers need to pay closer attention to demographic changes that are sweeping across the global landscape.

It's no secret that demographic trends are working against the U.S., Japan, and Europe. But just how badly the combined effects of slower labor-force growth and aging populations could undermine long-term economic growth is underscored -- to shocking effect -- in a major new study by the World Economic Forum in partnership with consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.

The report, released at the WEF annual meeting taking place in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 21-25, raises profound questions about labor participation and productivity, the cross-border flow of capital, the globalization of labor markets, and the financial viability of pensions and other social-insurance programs.

"Economic output is determined by labor-force growth and productivity rates," says Richard Samans, managing director of the WEF's Institute for Partnership & Governance. "In countries with significant projected labor shortages, the supply of goods and services may not meet demand and standards of living could fall."

Among the report's more shocking contentions:

• In Italy, where the total national debt is already more than 105% of GDP, retirees will outnumber active workers by 2030.

• Japan would have to increase immigration elevenfold from its current level to make up for the nation's low fertility rate and rapid decline in its working population.

• And assuming current demographic and economic trends continue, the European Union's share of total global output will shrink from 18% today to 10% in 2050. Japan's share would decline from 8% to 4%.

The U.S.'s outlook is brighter than Europe's and Japan's, largely because the American workforce is expected to increase by 31 million workers by 2030. By contrast, the report projects that Europe will have 24 million fewer workers and Japan 14 million fewer than they have today. Meanwhile, population growth elsewhere continues almost unabated. India will add more people to its workforce in the next 30 years -- 335 million -- than the total working-age populations of the EU and U.S. combined.

Go here to read more.

Innovation Needs Open Systems

Struggling with a new innovation initiative in your area. Read this article and take a few notes.

Since the days of Thomas Edison’s Invention Factory, new product innovation has been the engine of long-term growth and a buffer in times of economic weakness for world-class companies. Yet even respected research powerhouses like British Telecom, Siemens, and Fujitsu are today finding it more difficult to make their innovation investments pay. There is too much piling up on the shelf, and there are too few breakthroughs that lead to new markets and higher growth. In short, R&D labs once prized for their independence and proprietary research find they’re having a terrible time extracting value from their own work.

To increase the return on their R&D, successful innovators are finding they must complement their in-house R&D with external technologies and offer up their own technologies to outsiders. R&D at large companies is shifting from its traditional inward focus to more outward-looking management — open innovation — that draws on technologies from networks of universities, startups, suppliers, and competitors.

Until recently, private R&D labs wouldn’t have dared try open innovation; R&D was viewed as a vital strategic asset and, in many industries, a barrier to competitive entry. Research leaders like DuPont, Merck, IBM, GE, and AT&T did the most research in their respective industries — and earned the most profits as well.

Go here to read more. Free registration with site is required. (This is a good one.)

Philanthropies Should Use Their Knowledge

Philanthropic foundations are knowledge-intensive bodies. Almost everything they do, from identifying innovative nonprofit organizations to evaluating grants and publishing policy-shaping reports, depends on the use of human and intellectual capital. But many philanthropies, fearing that a dollar spent internally is a dollar wasted, have neither the organization nor the systems to manage their knowledge properly. What they fail to understand is that knowledge is a cornerstone of effective philanthropy. Go here to read more. (Must register at McKinsey.com first.)

Could Washington State's High-Tech Tax Breaks Spark a Class War?

Does this debate sound familar?

The push to renew tax breaks for high-tech companies turned into an open-class war this week, with one side pushing the sunny upside of high-tech innovation and the other highlighting the gritty plight of the needy who depend on government services. The incentives -- both aimed at fostering research and development -- are set to expire this year.

Renewing them would cost taxpayers about $74 million dollars between now and July 2005, and about $100 million a year thereafter. Gov. Gary Locke, a Democrat, has endorsed the idea, and the breaks have bipartisan support in the Legislature. But opponents stung by recent deep cuts to state spending on health care, education and social services want the exemptions halted.

Go here to read more.

China-U.S. Business Dispute Resolution Center Formed

In an important move aimed at furthering east-west trade agreements, the CPR Institute, a nonprofit alliance of 500 of the largest global corporations, law firms, scholars, and public institutions and CCPIT, the most important and largest institution for the promotion of foreign trade in China, are forming a U.S.-China Business Mediation Center to help resolve disputes involving U.S. and Chinese businesses. The Center will have offices in New York, New York and Beijing, China.

This significant development comes at a time when the volume of Chinese imports and exports has reached an all-time high of $126.33 billion. The United States is China's second-largest trading partner after Japan. Beijing has sent two multibillion-dollar buying missions to the United States in recent months. (Source: China's Ministry of Commerce) Are they visiting your community?

CPR Institute For Dispute Resolution is a pioneer and leader in the area of dispute resolution. Founded in 1979 as the Center for Public Resources, CPR promotes excellence and innovation in public and private dispute resolution, and serves as a primary multinational resource for avoidance, management and resolution of business-related and other disputes. CPR's unparalleled wealth of intellectual property and published material in this area has educated and motivated America toward an increased reliance on negotiation rather than litigation. CPR's proprietary Panel of esteemed arbitrators and mediators has provided resolutions in thousands of cases, with billions of dollars at issue, worldwide.

So, are there any economic developers involved in this initiative? Maybe there should be.

For more information, go to CPR's web site at www.cpradr.org.

How Bangladesh is Positioning Itself in the Insurance Industry

This article may come as a surprise to some, but those in the insurance industry are listening. Hartford had it all at one time as the insurance capital. No longer. Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska mounted an offensive and gained share in the industry in the 70's and 80's. Places like Jacksonville, Florida gained ground as insurance centers in past past decade. And of course, my hometown, Greater Cleveland, has been the home of the successful auto insurance giant, Progressive.

Read on and consider how the industry and its geographic positioning is changing.

Bangladesh offers an opportunity in the insurance industry. The country has gained valuable experience in managing insurance business, which requires a high level of knowledge, negotiation skills and professional management expertise to become successful. In Bangladesh, there are many trained and skilled workers in the insurance market. Providing them with the right mix of training and using them efficiently and effectively as well as introducing innovative insurance products in the market, the country can, possibly, attract more insurance-related investment.

Countries like Pakistan and India have been successful in drawing more investment in the insurance market by completely revamping the insurance market and bringing in fresh talents who are aggressive, more focused and result oriented, by continuously studying market demand, changing to the needs of the market, as well as being more responsive to the new demand from the market will be the critical control points for success in the insurance market in the coming future.

Go here to read more.

Innovation Differs from the "Tried and True"

Things are changing out there. Some of what you learned in business school you might need to forget in order to innovate. Read this story about how the University of Arizona and some Arizona companies are approaching the innovation process.

More and more, established businesses, emerging ones and even governments are turning in calculated ways to a strategy of innovation. The word is almost trendy, on the lips of speechmakers and in bestseller titles.

But the idea of innovation is no fad. As low-cost manufacturing moves overseas and the United States pins its economic future on knowledge jobs, businesses and states like Arizona increasingly are looking to new products and services to jump-start their growth.

Coming up with something new and successful historically has meant new jobs, new companies and new wealth for those who invested their time, brains and money in it. The safety razor, the hydraulic brake and the heart valve are among innovations developed by entrepreneurial firms that became big markets.

But what is innovation, and how do you recognize and foster it?

Innovation is more than an invention or an idea, experts say, because too often those sit on a shelf, unneeded and unwanted. An innovator takes the idea and applies it in a way that benefits people and, for a business, makes money.

"It's the second step after the invention," said Mark Dean, an IBM Corp. fellow in Tucson and vice president of storage technology at the tech giant. "The invention might not yet have a context or a benefit, but the person who can take that and apply it to solve a problem is usually what I call innovative."

Among the factors that spur innovation:

• Diversity, either in people's backgrounds or their experiences. Making a connection between an idea in one industry and a problem in another is one way to be innovative.

• Competition. Workers should compete to come up with the best innovation; in sports, many people enjoy playing with someone who is better than they are.

• Getting to know customers. Innovation comes from solving a customer's problem or finding ways to make it easier for customers to do business with you.

• A culture of experimentation, or freedom to explore. Innovation is risky, and not every attempt succeeds. Even if the improvements are incremental, cultures that foster experimentation get people familiar with change.

• Patience and persistence. Innovation is an iterative process that takes time.

• Recognition and reward. Many innovators want to be recognized by their peers, and the rewards help compensate families for their support.

Go here to read more.