ED Futures Newsletter

Dear ED Futures Reader,

I invite you to click on this link and spend some time reading what I've been writing at the ED Futures website.

Because of an increased work load, I have not been able to provide you with an article summary over the past couple weeks. Rest assured I continue to post to the website on a daily basis.

Please stop by and say hello.

Best wishes,

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

Brookings on the Need for Better Census Data

I'm sure many of you have used the Census Bureau's American Community Survey data. If you have, you know that high quality, up-to-date information is critical to improving market efficiency, developing effective public policies, and efficiently allocating scarce public resources.

Brookings plans a summit to discuss the ACS and the 2010 Census. Here are the questions to be explored:

-What types of data will the ACS provide? How do these data compare to the traditional decennial census long form?
-What will the availability of annually updated ACS data mean for national and local policymaking? For business decisionmaking?
-How can ACS data be used to understand year-to-year demographic changes in congressional districts?

Read more here.

An Interesting Take on Supreme Court Decision on Incentives

Before you celebrate victory on this issue. Be reminded what the real decision was about: "That the court ruled against the plaintiffs, in a unanimous decision, was welcome news to economic development interests around the country -- but not much cause for rejoicing. One reason is, the court didn't rule on the validity of the tax breaks themselves. What it did say was that the plaintiffs had no standing to bring a case, because their argument of financial harm by granting incentives and tax breaks was speculative."

Read the article here.

Newspapers Suffer

The U.S. newspaper industry is likely to face a "somber" second half of the year, with circulation and advertising revenue remaining under pressure, according to an analyst's report released this week.

The report casts doubt on any hopes of a major recovery for an industry that has seen share prices fall by 15 percent in the last 12 months amid declining readership and a migration of advertising dollars to the Internet.

Read more here.

As Long as We Have This, There is No Hope of Sustained Economic Growth

One of the questions crying loudest from the developing scandal of backdating stock options is, Why now? As new companies announce daily that they're investigating their stock option practices or that they've received inquiries from the SEC or federal prosecutors - United Health Group, Caremark Rx, (Research) and Juniper Networks (Research) are among those that have acknowledged ongoing probes - you have to wonder what sparked the mess. After all, we're talking about pre-2002 behavior, mostly from the '90s.

The problem, in brief, is that executives at some companies were backdating their stock options to dates when the stock was at its low for the year or the quarter, tilting the odds of profiting on those options heavily in their favor. Backdating isn't necessarily illegal, but following the complicated rules would largely eliminate the advantages of doing it.

Read more here.

Tucson-Southern Arizona Tech Economy

With more than 1,200 high-tech cluster companies employing in excess of 50,000 people and generating annual revenues greater than $6.0 billion, Southern Arizona is a leader in the knowledge-based economy. It's also widely known as a great place for high-tech workers to live.

Learn more here.

Dove Mountain Master-Planned Golf Community

Over 6,200 acres of foothills, canyon and mountainside living in the Tortolita Mountains, just north of Tucson, Arizona.

Dove Mountain is a master-planned golf community in a high Sonoran Desert setting and climate that will bring out the best in you, outdoors year round. The Gallery at Dove Mountain is the new home of the World Golf Championships- Accenture Match Play Championship.

This is one to see!

What is Success?

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

~ Sir Winston Churchill

Southern Growth Policies Board Releases 2006 Report on the Future of the South

Innovation with a Southern Accent focuses on creating a Southern culture of knowledge, where learning and innovation are primary social values, and essential to the region’s global competitiveness.

The report’s recommendations include strategies for building the innovation capacity in the South through the creation, accumulation and application of knowledge. The report presents the Southern Innovation System (SIS) as a mechanism for individuals, communities, states, and the South to support and cultivate innovation and outlines several regional initiatives to grow emerging industries in the South, including the Southern Nanotechnology Initiative, VentureSouth, the Southern task force on venture capital, and the Southern Information Technology Initiative, among others.

Innovation with a Southern Accent includes regional and state-level data on educational attainment, venture capital, an overview of state policies on R&D including survey results about the South’s attractiveness for R&D, and profiles of innovative programs

Just Be You!

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Allow Yourself!

"Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another."

~ Richard Bach (Illusions)

Minority Business Starts Growing!

According to a series of recent surveys released by the U.S. Census Bureau, between 1997 and 2002, the total number of U.S. businesses grew by 10%. However, during the same time period, Asian-owned firms increased by 24%, Hispanic-owned businesses by 31%, and African-American-owned firms spiked 45%.

According to the Census data, Asian-American-owned businesses grew at twice the national rate compared with all U.S. companies. The 1.1 million Asian-owned firms produced $326 billion in revenues in 2002, up 8% from 1997. The nearly 1.6 million Latino-owned businesses generated $222 billion in revenue in 2002, a 19% increase from 1997. Finally, the 1.2 million African-American-owned businesses earned $89 billion in 2002, a jump of 25%.

Read more here.

Bringing Home the Bacon for Your Area

If you are looking at ways to increase the flow of goverment money to your area, this may interest you.

More than 800 state and local governments, or their arms, employed a lobbyist on Capitol Hill in 2005, some more than one, according to a count done for BusinessWeek by the Web site lobbyists.info. Municipalities can't be blamed "for seeing more and more [earmarked] projects and saying, 'we're going to do everything in our power to line up with that,"' says Congressman Mike Pence (R-Ind.). In fiscal 2006, Congress passed bills containing more than 12,000 earmarks; as recently as 1998, the number was just over 2,000.

Read the article here.

Pittsburgh Eyes New Ideas on Job Development

How can the Pittsburgh region create more jobs? Economic development research suggests that two factors are essential: innovation (creating new ideas), and entrepreneurship (turning ideas into new companies or using them to renew existing companies). Without entrepreneurship, innovation won't create many jobs. Without innovation, entrepreneurs can't build major businesses. Regions need both to be successful.

It's not a new concept for Pittsburgh. Companies such as Alcoa, Heinz, PPG, U.S. Steel and Westinghouse were started here a century ago by such entrepreneurs as Andrew Carnegie, John Ford, H. J. Heinz, Alfred Hunt and George Westinghouse, using technologies invented or perfected here. Newer companies such as FedEx Ground, Medrad and Respironics did the same thing. In fact, most of the largest employers in the Pittsburgh region today didn't move here, they started here.

More here.