ED Futures Newsletter

Dear ED Futures Subscriber:

Welcome to the latest ED Futures newsletter.

We have given a great deal of attention to industry trends in the past week. Mostly because we know this information is important to you. You will find articles on a number of other issues in this issue as well.

Click on the links below to read the industry profiles posted. Comments and questions are welcome.

Spiritual Sector

Business Services

Communications Services

Chicken Processing

Fabricated Metals

Steel Distribution

Paper Products Manufacturing

Information Technology

Air Couriers

Best wishes,

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

Innovation? Try Borderless Thinking

"You need two things to create an innovative culture. Innovation requires diversity. You need to bring together different kinds of people to get new ideas. Innovation also requires borderless thinking. A censored society always focuses on borders and what you cannot do. A society that promotes borderless thinking focuses on new possibilities and opportunities. It is better at innovation."

--Nandan M. Nilekani, President, CEO, Infosys Technologies, India

These Companies Aren't Listening to Richard Florida

With all the ballyhoo over innovation as the management mandate du jour -- one need look no further than the agenda at the World Economic Forum in Davos for proof -- it's tempting to think that the message might finally be getting through. The hunt for creative talent is crucial, the development of new products critical. And you, dear manager, should know your company holds the qualities of innovation and creativity in the highest respect.

But new data released from human-resources consulting firm Development Dimensions International show that's hardly the case. About a year ago, Pittsburgh-based DDI surveyed more than 900 human-resources managers and 4,500 leaders in other corporate departments across 42 countries and 36 industries. It asked leaders the following question: "In your organization, which of the following leader qualities get the most respect?"

Non-HR managers were asked to choose just one answer, with choices ranging from "ability to bring in the numbers" to "integrity or ethics." The percentage of North American leaders who checked "creativity or innovation" as the most respected quality -- just 4% -- tied with "technical expertise" for second-to-last place. (Only "ability to work across other cultures and countries" scored lower. See chart below, "Respected Leadership Qualities ranked by non-HR business leaders in China and North America.")

Read more here.

Enabling a Fact-Based Worldview

Hans Rosling's brainchild, a nonprofit called Gapminder, uses interactive design to render global statistics comprehensible. Economic development needs to take a lesson from Rosling. Visit his wesbite and see what I mean.

In the late 1990s, Dr. Hans Rosling became frustrated by the x-axis, which -- as all middle-schoolers know -- is the part of a graph used to measure time. But for Rosling's global-development students at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, it was also the obstacle to their understanding of the health and economic trends that were shaping the globe.

"The students didn't have a fact-based worldview," says Rosling, who helps kick off this year's TED conference -- that's technology, education, and design -- on Feb. 22. "They talked about 'we' and 'them' the whole time -- and even the official terminology of 'industrialized' and 'developing' countries failed to communicate that there is a continuity from the world's poorest nations to the richest."

So Rosling did what any medical doctor and public-health researcher who had spent countless hours playing video games with his children would do: He enlisted his son's help in creating a short animated movie, with floating bubbles representing nations' progress along both health and economic indicators. The y-axis measured child survival. The x-axis measured gross domestic product per capita. And time was time, with each passing second ticking off the years. The size of the bubble represented population; it floated up and to the right for improving health and wealth; it floated down and to the left for failing economies and societies.

"FACT-BASED WORLDVIEW." "When the bubble started to move, people got very excited!" Rosling gleefully recalls. His students sat bolt upright as he began calling global development as if it were a horse race: And there goes China down the stretch, while sub-Saharan Africa continues to fall farther and father behind.... "It was a tremendous breakthrough in my lecturing," reflects Rosling.

Read more.

The Hot New Retirement Destination? The Classroom

Retired? Don't go to work...go to learn!

Here's one to add to your retirement vitality index for your community. Don't have one? Think about creating one to track what your area has to offer retirees and near-retirees. Education is more important to retirees. People want to tap the unknown sides of themselbves. Help them do it.

Just as we're rewriting the rules on retirement, we're helping to transform the face of education, driving a surge in adult learning programs. In response to tens of millions of men and women looking for new learning experiences, we're witnessing an explosion of online courses, adult education classes, university extension courses, seminars, international programs, museum lecture series, dance classes, and for some, more degrees and work-based career reinvention.

Some universities are even beginning to award credit for life experience. The American College Testing Association recently developed a formal life-experience evaluation that schools are using to award college credits. In lieu of SAT scores and high school transcripts, returning students are asked to provide their personal portfolio, including a presentation of work-related experiences and skills.

Universities and developers, realizing the perpetual appeal of a college campus (and the terrific resources it can offer older adults) are building retirement communities on or near the school's grounds. One example: The Kendal at Oberlin (in Oberlin, Ohio), offers access to the campus and courses at Oberlin College, continuing care programs, and a lively community.

In St. Petersburg, Fla., the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College (ASPEC) has 350 accomplished members from a wide range of professions and walks of life. These are people who excelled at their careers before retiring and want "to keep creating, keep producing," says Merle Allshouse, former ASPEC director.

Members attend lectures and panel discussions on topics from boat building to opera and discussion groups on topics from sci¬ence and society to poetry and investing. "The intellectual aspect of the organization was the thing that really got me," says Bob Siver, a former company president. "We study right along with the young students."

Read more.

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

Commentary: Northeast Ohio's Voices and Choices

I've been watching and listening to what we are learning from the public dialogue in NE Ohio called "Voices and Choices."

First, I applaud the sponsors and organizers for their efforts. Second, I applaud those contributing to the process by sharing their ideas about the region.

What am I hearing? Sadly, I am hearing what I have always heard in NE Ohio, which is lots of dissatisfaction and unhappiness about the region, its economy, its politics, and many other issues. I thought New Orleans was the best place to hear people "sing the blues." Listen to those NEO blues. Just a little joke.

What do I really hear from Voices and Choices? I hear about the same thing I hear everywhere else in the world: people suffering and people suffering about their suffering. It's ok, that is very consistent with the first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism, which is that "Life is suffering." The other three are: Our suffering stems from our attachment by the mind to things, ideas, feelings, and anything else; Our attachment can be overcome through self-awareness and practice; and finally, by following the Dharma, which means we should seek the Higher Truth, we can reduce our suffering. The Higher Truth referred to by the way lies inside each of us.

It might serve all of us to explore the relevance of the Four Noble Truth to our lives. After all, what do we have to lose--but our suffering.

Here are a couple quick observations I'd offer for consideration. First, the world is what it is. Accept to as it really is. Nothing more and nothing less. In that light, NEO is what it is. My guess is that when each of us looks honestly inside ourself, we will see that NE Ohio is not the problem that we suffer over. Rather, the problem is our attachment to certain ideas or feelings we have about NEO, ourselves, and other things.

On the economic front, stop wanting the regional economy to be something other than what it is. It is what it is. Stop wanting the region's economy to look like Austin's, or some place else. NEO is not Austin or any other place. NEO is NEO. Find the good in what NEO is. Rest in the joy you find there, and assert to yourself that life is good in NEO. It's amazing how things are magically transformed once we see them for what they really are. I say that because there are those who will read this and say: "Are you crazy? We need to CHANGE how things are." My only response is to appreciate what is already there first, and then see what happens.

By the way, the ground we stand on in NEO is sacred ground. Treat it with respect and treat all that you find here with respect and appreciation. I find that when I practice paying respect and giving appreciation, the same is returned to me. It's magic. Try it.

Want to reduce your suffering? Let go of the ideas that make you suffer. Then, take a fresh look at NEO and everything else in your life. Chances are the world will look different to you, including NEO, because you've changed inside.

Bottom line: It's up to each of us to end our own suffering and create our own joy in life. That's not Mayor Frank Jackson's job. That's not the the Chairman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership's job. It's your job. It's my job.

This voice has spoken. Feel free to listen, if you like. It doesn't matter. It's just one tiny voice among many. However, it is a joyous voice.