Successful Tribal Nation-Building

The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development has been conducting research and technical assistance projects across Indian country for over a decade trying to understand the complicated forces at work.

This research argues strongly that three factors underlie the ability of Indian Nations to build sustainable economies:

* assertions of sovereignty (self decision-making);

* institutions that are able to "settle disputes fairly, separate the functions of elected representation and business management, and successfully implement tribal policies that advance tribal strategic goals;" and

* the matching of governing institutions to indigenous values and beliefs (culture) about how authority should be organized and exercised.

The following slide presentation was prepared by the Harvard Project for American Indian Economic Development and the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Keys to Nation Building in Indian Country

Center for American Indian Economic Development at Northern Arizona University

(CAIED), located on Northern Arizona University Campus, is a unique information and resource center for Arizona’s tribal nations and communities. CAIED was established in 1985 by the Arizona Legislature.

Its mission is to collaborate with tribal communities and nations to achieve self-sufficiency through community, economic, and business development.

Click here for a short profile of Arizona tribes served by the center.

National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development

The National Center is committed to business development for Indian people. It is a non-profit organization, founded and directed by American Indians. The National Center is dedicated to developing American Indian economic self-sufficiency through business ownership.

Learn more here.

Scenario Planning: It Can Help

As a strategic planner for economic development and higher education institutions, I see how people think about the future.

Often, people struggle with finding new ways to see the future. Scenario planning can help. I use these techniques in my consulting work.

Click here to learn more scenario planning.

Future of Philanthropy

Philanthropy is all about choices: the choice to give, the choice of how to give and who to give it to, even the choice of when to declare victory or admit failure. Check out the Future or Philanthropy website. Interesting insights and advice.

Here is one that interested me:

"The New Ecology of Social Benefit, describes seven major forces changing philanthropy and the world around it—privatization, connection, acceleration, multiplication, diversification, observation, and reflection—and the ways these forces are combining to create a changed environment for every gift and every giver. This short chapter brings these forces to life by making them visually striking and by supplementing the prose explanations with concrete data."

Who Are the Most Highly Rated Business Thought Leaders?

Here is the list from ManyWorlds:

1. Gary Hamel
2. C. K. Prahalad
3. Mohanbir Sawhney
4. Steve Flinn
5. Michael Porter
6. Robert S. Kaplan
7. David P. Norton
8. Clayton Christensen
9. Cristian Mitreanu
10. Naomi Moneypenny

Question: Who do you consider to be Economic Development's top ten thought leaders?

Case Study: Rural Texas Land Prices

Buyers focusing on recreation and investment have propelled Texas rural land prices into the stratosphere. The price of an acre of rural Texas soared 16 percent in 2004, rising from $1,097 in 2003 to $1,274 per acre.

The price surge is the largest single-year percentage increase since those registered from 1972 to 1974 and the third-highest annual gain in the past 38 years.

Read more here.

Small Businesses as Economic Engines

This article reinforces what most of us have thought for a long time: smaller firms are creating the jobs in America, but remain under-estimated as economic growth engines because the big guys get all the attention. Read on.

The most recent revision of estimated growth for the economy in the first quarter of 2005 pegs real growth at 3.8 percent, up from the 3.1 percent original guess. That's pretty good,

Small-business owners have seen the outlook correctly as reflected in the NFIB Small-Business Optimism Index. The index readings in recent months have exceeded 100, which means owners sense the current economy to be as good as or better than that in 1986 when GDP grew 3.5 percent for the year.

In the most recent NFIB monthly survey, 15 percent of those surveyed reported increasing their total number of employees, while 11 percent reported reducing their workforce. This is good news for economic development, since large corporations continue dumping work and jobs overseas. On balance, all small firms added a net of 0.2 employees per firm, a historically strong figure. Job creation has been solid, matching the growth of the economy. Neither has been spectacular, and that is good, since “spectacular” is always followed by “less than spectacular.” The economy can’t over-perform indefinitely, and steady is the best course.

Nanotech in Real Estate

Here is one to think about. In its infancy now, nanotechnology will play a large role in redefining how real estate is used and developed. More here.

Development Information Online

Click here and read this article about the growing role of online information in development decisions.

Not new to many of you, but it points to many of the right issues.

Silicon East, and Not Boston

Baltic and Scandinavian states have become a hotbed of technology development and a lab for young techies. The implications are surfacing in everything from game software to financial services. Is this the new Silicon hub? And can it be that the Baltics, with all of its pros and cons, will become the new India for outsourcing? Read more here.

Chandler, Arizona Gets a Big One

Intel is sinking $3 billion into a new chip manufacturing plant in Chandler, Arizona.

The 300-mm wafer fabrication plant is expected to produce by the second half of 2007. It will be the sixth facility of its kind owned by Intel and focused on the company's most cutting edge 45 nanometer process technology for future computing platforms.

Currently, most chips are produced using a 90-nanometer process, with 65-nanometer designs on track to debut later this year. Intel's decision to invest billions of dollars in a new, U.S.-based plant was a positive counterpoint of the trend to outsource and offshore production in so many areas of the U.S. economy.

Read more here.

U.S. Furniture Makers Look to Viet Nam

Not surprisingly, U.S. furniture makers are looking beyond their shuttered factories in North Carolina and other southern states. At first, it was China, and now they are looking to Viet Nam, which has steadily improved its capabilities in the industry.

Click here to read more.

China-U.S. Economic Relations: Where Do Caribbean Nations Stand?

This is important. Pay attention to this one.

Not surprisingly, Caribbean nations are sizing up their future economic bets--not just with the US--but many other nations around the world, including China.

Hopefully, we are paying attention to these shifting realities south of our increasingly porous economic borders. There are economic development consequences of how Caribbean countries align economically (and politically) in years to come.

Read these statements in a recent news article in Caribbean Net News:

"Small countries, such as those in the Caribbean, are spectators in the relations between powerful countries like the US and China. But, even as spectators, the region need not be silent and could still play a part, however small, in how the relationship unfolds.

China has become an important aid donor and investor in the Caribbean, notwithstanding the remaining links of a few countries to Taiwan. The United States is a neighbour to which the region has many long established ties and from which many benefits are derived.

To the extent that it can, the Caribbean should use its friendly relations with both countries to encourage a constructive dialogue between the US and China whose peaceful relationship would be a boon to each of them and to the world."

Texas Adds Tax Break for Retailers

Texas legislators have created a law that allows Texas cities of all sizes to offer retailers sales tax breaks in special investment zones. Why? One reason is Texas relies heavily on retail sales taxes and therefore its economic development organizations work to attract more retail.

Not all agree this is a good idea. From where I sit, it does not strike me as the right thing to do.

I guess some in Texas would with me. "San Antonio sees sales tax incentives as the recirculation of existing money, Cavazos said, and prefers to target its incentives at new economic projects such as Washington Mutual's planned financial center or the Toyota supplier park."

Read more here.

Broadband: Critical Ingredient for Western NC Economic Development

Information now circles the globe through broadband, rather than books. Broadband is the high-speed access that lets you use the Internet efficiently, downloading big files of music for your iPod or the medical records that your doctor might need to save your life.

In 2004, the United States ranked 10th in the world when it came to broadband service to all its citizens. This year, the International Telecommunications Union said the United States has slipped to 16th.

Western NC, according to the e-NC Authority, the state agency that promotes high-speed Internet access. The e-NC Authority recently hosted a conference in the Asheville Renaissance Hotel to look at the progress Western North Carolina has made in broadband access. More here.

Women Running Really Big Companies

Here are five examples:

Brenda C. Barnes
Sara Lee

Xie Qihua
Shanghai Baosteel

Fumiko Hayashi
Daiei

Mary F. Sammons
Rite Aid

Anne Mulcahy
Xerox

Anne Lauvergeon
AREVA Group

Companies Making the Dough, But Not Jobs

President George Bush will go down in the history books, but probably not for much to be proud of. How about the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004? I call this piece of legislation "Public Enemy #1 to Economic Development."

A recent Business Week article had this to say: "When it comes to corporate income taxes, it sure pays to be a multinational these days. U.S. companies fork over up to 35% of their domestic income in federal taxes. But for earnings from abroad, the tax rate is just 5.25% this year, thanks to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. The election-year bill was aimed at spurring the U.S. economy by encouraging U.S. companies with international operations to bring home profits they had parked in lower tax countries."

Business Week goes on to say: "One thing is clear, however: The money piling in from abroad as the result of the Jobs Creation Act has done little to actually spur hiring. In fact, six of the 10 companies repatriating the biggest totals are axing workers in the U.S. They include HP, which announced July 19 that it would cut its head count by 14,500 in the U.S. and abroad, and Pfizer, which has said it will shutter 20 factories with undisclosed U.S. job losses to lower costs by $4 billion by 2008."

What do I suggest? Click here to read my thoughts.

Creative Gurus

Some of the creative gurus helping companies turn on their creative flow:

•Yves Behar, FuseProject
•Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer, GE
•Larry Keeley, Doblin Group
•David Rockwell, Rockwell Group
•Sohrab Vossoughi, Ziba Design
•Jeannine Rae, Peer Insight
•Roger Martin, Dean, Rotman School of Business

Read more here.

Who is playing this role in companies in your area? Find them. Meet them. Help them accomplish their job.

Some Advice to CEOs

Want to help companies in your area? Tell them to read this. Want to strengthen your ED organization? Apply these same principles to what you do.

"Thriving enterprises learn how to track changing values and conditions, form business models that combine resiliency and flexibility, and find new ways to structure relationships both within and across enterprises. These businesses excel at knowledge processes – at discovering, generating, interpreting, analyzing, and implementing knowledge. In the late 1990s, change was attributed primarily to technology. Today’s change leaders are folding technological innovation into a broader portfolio of competencies. Foremost among these competencies are relationships, clear visioning and communication, entrepreneurial thinking, negotiation, global thinking, and organizational self-awareness.

Business executives preoccupied with executing to keep up with change cannot afford to ignore the findings of a growing number of disciplines. These range from social and cognitive psychology, economics and behavioral finance to organizational design, innovation processes, and even complexity theory. Clashing ideas from these fields play out at the macro-level as arguments over the boundaries of intellectual property, the role of regulation, and the liability of companies – all shaping the business environment." More here.

Education Versus Incentives

A recent article about economic development in Mississippi reflects a discussion that would occur in more places: Should we improve education or give away incentives to companiee? Given the choice, I would urge greater attention to educational development, especially as I see what we are up against in the global competition for businesses and jobs.

Immigrant Labor

The number of immigrant day laborers is rising fast on the heels of the construction boom.
Immigrants who lack permanent employment, relying instead on jobs that might change from one day to the next, are a fixture of the U.S. economy, numbering as many as 10 million nationwide, according to advocacy groups. A substantial number of these workers – no one knows how many – are in the U.S. illegally. Read more here.

This is an important economic and workforce development issue in many states. Having worked in Arizona and California, I saw it first hand.

What are your thoughts of this issue?