ED Futures Newsletter

Dear ED Futures Subscriber:

Here is the latest issue of the ED Futures Newsletter.

Several new industry profiles were posted during the last week. Scroll down and take a look. You may want to check the posts going back to February 12, 2006 to get them all.

Have these questions ever occurred to you: Where will my career in economic development lead me? What's the next step? Is this a field I will retire from? People contact me often about these questions. Based upon these conversations, I have formed a couple impressions I would like to share with you and get your reaction to.

What's Next for Me?

Many economic developers are wrestling with this question, especially those who have outgrown their current job and would like to consider a move. The problem for many is that: 1) there are not that many really good jobs out there that justify the move; and 2) many economic developers are afraid to make the move because they and others they know have been burned by bad situations with leadership and other related problems. Many economic developers justify staying put because they would rather stay with the devil they know rather go with the devil they don't know.

I'm sympathetic with your situation. You need to be careful. Power plays, mismatched expectations, competing interests, and a host of other issues are out there. Be careful.

My advice is two-fold: 1) whatever you decide to do, look at yourself and your own role in contributing to the situations you find your way into. Not a one of us is perfect. Need I say more? 2) Let's all work together on the "leadership problem." My research indicates that economic development has a lot to learn about leadership. Many board members I encounter in my work think leadership is bullying people around. That's not leadership. I find a amazing number of people sitting on economic development boards who are frustrated by their own lives and work and use their position on the local ED board as a way to take out their frustration with their own situation. Sound familiar?

What are the Long Term Prospects?

Economic developers like me have been in the job for 30 years and they are thinking about retiring in ten years. I worry about the folks I know in the business who have changed jobs several times, but they have basically been doing the same job forever. I call this "same deal, different place." I don't know about you, but I don't like eating the same thing every night for supper.

I also worry about the newcomers to the field, who bring great energy and new ideas to the field, but the field won't let them apply their talent and energy. I suspect we are losing some of this new blood to other fields because these folks don't want to spend the next 35 years putting up with the crap in the field. You may say, "that's part of the job." It may be, but let's find a way to do away with some of the crap.

The long term issue is one that all of us need to work on together. As a profession, we need to create a vision of where economic development is headed in the next 25 years and we need to engage our stakeholders about how to proceed in the direction of that vision. For example, I am not convinced that there will be as many ED organizations in the United States ten years from now. Our industry is too fragmented as it is. Why add to the clutter? How many EDOs does a region like Greater Cleveland really need? Probably not as many as we have. And yes, I understand the politics and control issues.

These issues are worth thinking and talking about. After all, it's your career.

I hope to hear from you.

Best wishes,

Don Iannone
Publisher, ED Futures Journal
Email: dtia@don-iannone.com
Telephone: 440.449.0753