It's All About Product Design

When people talked about innovation in the '90s, they invariably meant technology. When people speak about innovation today, it is more than likely they mean design. Consumers, who are choking on choice, look at design as the new differentiator. In a sea of look-alike products and services, design creates the "Wow!" factor. Managers, facing fierce global competition, look to design for the kind of innovation that generates organic growth, new revenues, and wider profit margins.

Design is fast becoming a must-have competency for corporations. It has evolved from a simple way of giving form and color to products into a powerful tool for "C" suite executives. Design methods get managers close to their customers, design research helps top execs visualize the future, and design strategies help companies innovate.

More here.

Western Economic Diversification Canada

The Canadians are doing some very cool things in economic development. Check out Western Economic Diversification Canada.

A department of the Government of Canada, Western Economic Diversification Canada (WD) was established in 1987 under the provision of the Western Economic Diversification Act. WD works to strengthen Western Canada's economy and advance the interests of the West in national economic policy.

Its programs and services support three strategic directions: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Communities. WD also supports the Western Canada Business Service Network, which offers over 100 points of service across the West.

Self-Discovery

We should never reach a point in life where we believe there is nothing left to know about (or learn about) ourselves. This trip to Oregon has taught me so much about myself.

One lesson I learned is that I should work harder at not pre-judging life. Mistakenly, I avoided Oregon in the past because I thought it rained too much here. Wrong.

Yes, it rains here, but the rain is one of the major reasons why Oregon is as uniquely beautiful as it is. Surprisingly, it has only rained two evenings in the five days we have been here.

I think there is room for new self-discovery for all of us in economic development. There is so much to be discovered and simply experienced about places and the economies they keep, without pre-judging or judging at all.

Mentorship as Leadership

That was one of my messages to the attendees at the Pacific-Northwest Economic Development Council's annual conference at The Resort at Mount Hood, Oregon. They listened, and more importantly, they agreed.

Each of us can lead by mentoring others. And we can grow by enlisting others as mentors, who guide us, challenge us, and show us what we are not likely to see on our own.

Bend, Oregon

Learn more about her here and here and here. This is a place worth seeing and experiencing. Bend is a high desert oasis in Central Oregon. People visit this place and live here for one simple reason: because they want to. What better motivation for economic development could there be?

Business Research: Online Annual Reports

Here is a service that can help you with your prospect reserach: Annual Report Service

The largest FREE directory of online annual reports available on the web. Create a user profile to view the thousands of online annual reports or 10-K presentations.

The service simply makes it easier to access corporate annual reports and download them.

The Future of Leadership

Here is a great piece of leadership reading:

The Future of Leadership
Gretchen M. Spreitzer and Thomas G. Cummings, Editors
Jossey-Bass Publishing

This review says it all:

From Booklist: Warren Bennis is to leadership what Peter Drucker is to management. Both have had long, distinguished careers, and both are prolific writers. Bennis is the author or editor of 26 books on leadership, change management, and creative collaboration-- including Managing People Is like Herding Cats (1997). This new collection of essays was organized as a Festschrift to honor Bennis at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, where Bennis is a professor. Bennis starts by identifying "twelve challenging issues that leaders will need to understand and learn how to resolve if they are to succeed in tomorrow's organizations." The essayists respond by considering the organization of the future; the leader of the future; and ways in which leaders "continue to renew, energize, and develop themselves." In addition, two new "young leaders" offer their perspectives. The roster of 20 contributing luminaries includes Charles Handy, James Kouzes, Barry Posner, Tom Peters, and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. David RouseCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Internet and Business, and Also Economic Development

The Internet is entering a new phase that will decentralize control within companies, enable employees to collaborate more easily, and drive efficiency. But corporations that want to use the web strategically to build corporate value will not just need to make radical cultural changes, they may also need to master a new vocabulary with terms such as Wikis, Weblogs, and RSS. What will this new Internet mean for business?

The same could be said about the influence of these technologies on economic development.

Click here to read more about the impact of these technologies on business and maybe what they mean for economic development.

Why Economic Development Leaders Fail

Here are four major reasons that I see in my work:

1. Mindset Failures: Breakdowns occur in how leaders perceive reality for the community. Too much “trying to keep up with the Joneses.”

2. Whims and Fancies: Personal agendas get in the way of what’s good for the community.

3. Lack of Guiding Values and Vision: Tactics and the short-term sabotage what is really important.

4. Individual-Centered Leadership: Undermines the role of competency-based teamwork.

Your thoughts?

The Economic Developer's Stewardship Roles

I believe that economic developers must strengthen their future roles as "stewards" of community economic assets. That is one of my urgings in my book in progress on economic development leadership.

Here are four important stewardship roles they should play:

o Change-Makers: Promote proactive changes that are needed to better economic results.

o Integrators: Share perspective about linked economic, environmental, social objectives.

o Connectors: Bring people together across worlds, “boundary-spanners.”

o Communicators of Possibility: Raise aspirations, articulate potential, persuade.

Your thoughts?

Good News Story Greater Cleveland

Expansion Management Magazine ran a nice story about Marine Mechanical Corporation (Euclid,OH) and its expansion. My good friend, Al Tusek, is an executive with the company so I know a little about the company. This is the perfect example of the type manufacturer that every community would want to locate. Check out the story here and a second story here.

Institute for Tribal Governance at Portland State University

Here is a unique resource helping tribes develop better goverance. The Institute for Tribal Government exists within the Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

A Tribal Policy Board consisting of elected tribal chairpersons, directors of tribal governmental and policy organizations, and representatives of institutions of higher education provide policy guidance to the Institute.

The Tribal Leadership Forum, a 501c3 non-profit corporation, was also created to support the work of the Institute in its charitable, literary, and educational capacities.

Portland's River Renaissance Initiative

Check out what Portland is doing with its riverfront. My friend Mike Montgomery is the new project director. It's a very exciting redevelopment initiative. I can say firsthand that this project will enhance what is already a beautiful and cool city.

Here are some links to documents about the project:

Letter from the River Renaissance Directors 300 KB

River Renaissance Strategy 6 MB

Adopting Resolution on the River Renaissance Strategy 17 KB

Ordinance to establish a Bureau Director's Group 12 KB

Summary of Public Comments on the draft River Renaissance Strategy 39 KB

At the heart of River Renaissance is a commitment to improve the economy, ecology, and social aspects of the Willamette River simultaneously, recognizing that these interdependent systems are vital to Portland’s well being and are best considered as a whole.

The River Renaissance Strategy sets out policy guidance, measurement tools and a set of actions for the city’s river-related activities.

Economic Census 2002 Reports

An increasing number of the EC-2002 reports are ready. You may want to check this page on the Census website to see what is available. There are some good ones.

Oregon's Top 150 Private Companies

Oregon is growing its business base through internal expansion, entrepreneurial development, and new business attraction. View the Oregon top 150 private company list here.

Industry Week's IW 1,000 List

Here is a great online company database you should use for industry and business prospecting. The IW 1000 is IndustryWeek's unique report on the world's 1,000 largest publicly held manufacturing companies based on revenue.

The IW 1000 includes:

* Manufacturing companies with a majority of their business in a manufacturing industry.

* Companies that generated less than 50% of revenues from manufacturing, but more revenue from manufacturing than the lowest-revenue-producing companies on this year's list.

* Software companies whose primary business is the manufacture of software programs.

* Oil and gas companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the refining of oil and gas products.

* Companies that derive at least 50% of their revenues from the manufacture of mined materials.

World’s Most Socially Responsible Companies

Maybe social responsibility is one of the criteria you use to target companies for business expansion and attraction. If so, you should check out Global Finance Magazine's picks.

As the business world rushes to find ways to quantify the benefits of corporate responsibility, determining which companies are the most socially responsible is still a relatively subjective process. In order to identify the world’s most socially responsible companies, Global Finance assembled a panel of experts from the top corporate social responsibility consultancies and analysts. They include GoodCorporation, CSR Global and The Institute of Business Ethics in the UK; KLD Research and Analytics in the US; and ABN AMRO in Brazil.

We asked those experts to identify companies worldwide that exemplified the principles of corporate responsibility. The list includes companies large and small, local and global. Some loudly—and justifiably—trumpet their corporate citizenship efforts, while others quietly go about their business, happy simply to know they are minimizing their negative impact on the world.

Even among these companies there are a handful that stand out. Those companies, highlighted in red below and profiled on the next page, receive special commendation.

3M
ARM
AstraZeneca
BBC
BAT
BG Group
BP
BT
Canon
Cemex
Companhia Siderúrgica de Tubarão
The Co-operative Bank
Cummins
Danone
Dell
Delphi Corporation
Deutsche Bank
Diageo
Gaiam
General Mills
Gillette
Graco
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
GWR
Herman Miller
Intel
Interface
Johnson & Johnson
Marks & Spencer
Merck
Millipore
Modine Manufacturing
Moody’s
Natura
Nordstrom
Nortel
Northern Trust Corporation
Northrop Grumman
Nucor Corporation
Pitney Bowes
Proctor & Gamble
Rio Tinto
Ricoh
Rohm & Haas
The Rouse Company
Scholastic Corporation
Shell
Sony
Southwest Airlines
Statoil
The St. Paul Companies
Symantec Corporation
Tata
Tellabs
Tesco
Timberland
Toyota
Trex
Tupperware
Votorantim Celulose e Papel
Westvaco
Weyerhaeuser
WGL Holdings
Whirlpool
Whole Foods Market
Xilinx
Zimmer Holdings

Forbes' Best Smaller Places for Business and Careers

Did you area make the Forbes' list? Click here to see the list.

Which are the top-rated places:

1 Sioux Falls, SD
2 Fargo, ND
3 Iowa City, IA
4 Lincoln, NE
5 Fayetteville, AR
6 Lawrence, KS
7 Bismarck, ND
8 Rochester, MN
9 State College, PA
10 Rapid City, SD
11 Bloomington, IN
12 Missoula, MT
13 Las Cruces, NM
14 Greenville, NC
15 Bloomington, IL
16 La Crosse, WI
17 Billings, MT
18 Cheyenne, WY
19 Bryan, TX
20 Champaign-Urbana
21 Barnstable, MA
22 Charlottesville, VA
23 Grand Forks, ND
24 Dutchess County, NY
25 Casper, WY

India Gaining in Manufacturing

Take a poll among commentators and talking heads and you will find that most have the simplistic view that China will be the manufacturing superpower while India will at best be a supercompetitive services provider with little impact on global manufacturing.

India’s manufacturers are beginning to show just how wrong this view is. Why is this happening? The country’s emergence as a manufacturing hub is driven by two powerful forces: improvements in top-down policy and vigorous efforts by corporate India to re-engineer itself in the face of growing competition.

Read more here.

EDO CEOs Should Know the Same Things About Leadership

Nine Things CEOs Need to Know About Leadership
Source: Chief Executive Magazine

1. “There’s no question, companies that are committed to developing good leaders attract good people. Even those who leave the company spread the word after moving on.” —William A. Cohen, professor of marketing and leadership, California State University in Los Angeles, Maj. Gen. USAFR Ret. and author of The New Art of the Leader.

2. “[Leaders] try to engage employees at a level where they actually transform themselves to make things happen that would not have been possible with just ordinary employees.” —Jay Conger, professor of organizational behavior, the London Business School and author of Building Leaders.

3. “The key issue is that the board of directors and the CEO must embrace leadership development as a business tool. They must espouse it, invest in it and view it as a necessary competitive advantage.” —Peter D. Crist, vice chairman, Korn/Ferry International, an executive search firm.

4. “Everyone in a leadership position takes responsibility for developing the people under them. They’re measured on it, rewarded on it and own it. There is no substitute for it.” —Stephen J. Drotter, president, Drotter Human Resources and co-author of The Leadership Pipeline.

5. “The leader is a person who does not do it himself. The leader is a person who works with and through others to achieve a vision.” —Marshall Goldsmith, founding director of leadership development network Alliance for Strategic Leadership and co-editor of Coaching for Leadership.

6. “Leadership is creating an impression of yourself and your company that other people want to emulate.” —Russell S. Reynolds Jr., chairman and CEO, The Directorship Search Group, an executive search and consulting firm.

7. “The tough aspect of leadership development is reflection and feedback. No matter how great you are, until you sit back and figure out how what you’ve learned makes sense for you and the company, you won’t develop as a leader.” —Lt. Col. Scott Snook, Academy Professor, Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, the United States Military Academy at West Point and author of Friendly Fire.

8. “Strong [CEOs] create effective followers not through fear and intimidation but through realistic performance appraisal and risk-reward applause.” —Frederick W. Wackerle, executive coach and corporate board adviser and author of The Right CEO.

9. “For decades, we have talked about the traits of successful leaders and tried to find ways to develop those traits. But I would say that’s only half the equation. Leaders can look pretty, talk nice and dance well, but if they don’t get results, they’re not good leaders.” —Warren Wilhelm, president, Global Consulting Alliance, a human resources management firm, and author of the forthcoming Learning Architectures.