U.S. Business Inventories

U.S. business inventories rose 0.8 percent in May, led by the largest increase in stocks held by retailers in nearly 12 years, a government report said.

Inventories at the country's retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers rose to $1.324 trillion after a revised 0.7 percent rise in April, the Commerce Department said. Analysts had forecast inventories to rise 0.4 percent in May. The department originally reported April at 0.4 percent.
Sales of goods on hand rose 1.4 percent in May to $1.057 trillion after 0.6 percent increase in April.

Retail inventories, the main new data in the report, rose 1.6 percent in May, its largest monthly increase since 1.7 percent in August 1994, after falling 0.1 percent in April, the Commerce Department said. Retail sales rose 0.1 percent in May.

More here.

World's 500 Biggest Companies

Fortune's Global 500 here.

Oil at $100

As bombs fall in Beirut, pipelines explode in Nigeria and Iran shakes its fist at the West, energy traders and motorists alike are wondering one thing: How high can oil prices go?

"If another major event takes place, it's not at all unrealistic for oil to spike to $100," said Bruce Lanni, an oil analyst at A.G. Edwards. "And there's no fundamental reason in this current climate to see oil prices retreat below $70 in the next few months."

More here.

Insights into India's Economy

The Indian economy has clearly turned a corner. Indian business is no longer synonymous with call centers alone. There is a new sense of confidence from the government and from businesses in India and abroad. India's manufacturing resurgence and budding consumer markets are ready to yield very tangible benefits to the country's population and to people around the world.

Download the full report here.

Top 50 Business Gurus

Click here to read the short article and click on the image below to enlarge it.

Work!

Click here to read an interesting Forbes Magazine series of work.

Wind Energy Market

In the three years since we produced our Special Report: Investing in the Booming Wind Industry, we've seen the complexion of the industry change from a blossoming, mostly regional industry based in Europe, to a worldwide industry that is becoming increasingly corporate, and experiencing growing pains in the process.

For over a decade, wind has been the world's fastest growing energy source on a percentage basis. The industry has been growing at 28% a year for the past five years, and if growth trends continue at this pace as is expected, wind capacity will double about every three or four years.

Wind installations grew by 25% in 2005 and now stand 59,322 megawatts (MW) worldwide, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). New wind installations hit a record 11,769 MW in 2005, up from 8,207 MW in 2004.

Read more here.

Natural Products Market

2005 was a great year for the U.S. natural product industry - it grew 9.1% to $51.4 billion, according to Natural Foods Merchandiser's annual Market Review.

Natural products retailers account for half the sales at $25.5 billion and, for the first time since 1999, they experienced double-digit growth at 10.9%. Internet sales are growing rapidly, reaching $558 million. Mass-market (food, drug, club and convenience stores) rose 8%; direct-to-consumer sales rose 6.4%.

Whole Foods Market, of course, led chain sales growing 22.4% to $5.03 billion in revenue. Little sister Wild Oats grew 7.3% to $1.12 billion in sales. The number of specialty stores that carry natural products, such as gourmet food retailers, personal care stores, and health clubs, jumped from 4,014 in 2004 to 18,300 in 2005 and over $1.2 billion in sales. On the negative side, supplement retailer GNC's sales declined by 15.3% to $1.37 billion.

Read more here.

Partnerships Important to Rural Development

Here is a good one to read on the subject: Innovative Regional Partnerships in the Rural Tenth District(PDF,146K) By: Stephan Weiler, Jason Henderson, and Katie Cervantes

Executive Intelligence

Here is a clip from a recent HBS review of Justin Menkes new book "Executive Intelligence." Sounds like the countersynch to Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence.

Menkes says what we need are even more brilliant corporate leaders, and personality is not as important as we think in determining leadership success. Give me a break! Yes, we need smart people to lead organizations, but we had better start paying attention to what these people carry in their hearts too. Read this one and gag.

Sorry folks. I know people will flock to this one, but it just doesn't do much for me.

"In his recent book, Executive Intelligence, Justin Menkes proposes another set of hypotheses, among them that too much emphasis has been given to personality and style and too little to types of intelligence that enhance leadership performance. He argues that "when it comes to predicting work performance, cognitive-ability tests have been demonstrated to be approximately ten times as powerful as personality assessments. . . . Personality is not a differentiator of star talent. It is an individual's facility for clear thinking or intelligence that largely determines their leadership success." Menkes places his bets on an individual's "executive intelligence," the ability to digest, often with the help of others, large amounts of information in order to form important decisions that produce useful action with the right amount of deliberation."

Click to read the full article.

Michael Porter on U.S. Healthcare

Last month HBS Working Knowledge offered an excerpt from Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results, by Harvard Business School professor Michael E. Porter and Elizabeth Olmsted Teisberg.

The U.S. healthcare system is dysfunctional, a Rube Goldberg contraption that rewards the wrong things and doesn't create value for the consumer. In this Q&A, Porter discusses his research.

Read more here.

Nanotechnology in Cancer Research Awards

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced the implementation of the major components of its $144.3 million five-year initiative for nanotechnology in cancer research. Awards totaling $35 million over five years, with $7 million total in the first year, will establish 12 Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnerships.

In addition, NCI and National Science Foundation (NSF) are together establishing integrative training environments for U.S. science and engineering doctoral students to focus on interdisciplinary nanoscience and technology research with applications to cancer. For this partnership, $12.8 million in grants are being awarded. Read more.

U.S. Venture Investing Trends Update

U.S. venture capital investing rose 18% over a year ago, reaching $6.02 billion in 564 deals, according to the Quarterly Venture Capital Report released by Dow Jones VentureOne and Ernst & Young LLP. VentureOne is the publisher of VentureSource. Overall deal count increased 6% from the first quarter of 2005, and the amount invested was the most venture capital expended in a first quarter since the first quarter of 2001.

The increase was influenced by a resurgence of investment in the information technology (IT) segment, which posted 327 deals and $3.36 billion invested. This was nine more deals than a year ago and 13% more capital. In fact, it was the most capital directed toward the IT segment in a single quarter since the second quarter of 2004.

Download the data here.

India's Economic Growth

India's $775 billion economy expanded 9.3 percent from a year earlier in the quarter ended March 31, rounding off the financial year with growth of 8.4 percent, the fastest after China among the world's 20 biggest economies.

The Reserve Bank of India, in an unscheduled June 8 move, increased its overnight borrowing rate by a quarter-point to 5.75 percent to curb inflation after higher farm output and consumer spending helped growth accelerate from 7.5 percent in the previous year. The central bank forecasts as much as 8 percent expansion in the year to March 31.

Read more here.

WVU's Regional Research Institute (RRI)

WVU's RRI is an example of a university-based research shop doing very good economic development research.

Check out the Institute's available working papers here.

NY Capital Region's Center for Economic Growth

CEG is a private, not-for-profit, member-supported regional economic and business development organization dedicated to developing and promoting efforts to attract high-tech talent and companies and to providing innovative services to bolster local businesses in New York's Capital Region and Tech Valley. CEG's goal is to generate robust, contagious and intelligent economic expansion.

As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/ Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) affiliate and New York State Office of Science, Technology & Academic Research (NYSTAR) awarded Regional Technology Development Center in the Capital Region, CEG assists manufacturing and technology companies with effective business strategies, training and assistance.

CEG is committed to growing local companies, attracting new investment and preparing local communities for future opportunities.

Learn more here.

ED Futures Newsletter

Dear ED Futures Reader:

What does it mean to you to be an economic development professional?

This is an important question for all of us to ask ourselves. As many of you know, I have been giving a great deal of thought to this question. Click here to download an earlier white paper I wrote on the subject.

I'd like to engage folks about this question. Interested?

Here is a summary of some of the ideas I have received from others:

Comments thus far reflect eight overall views of economic development’s status as a profession. The number in parentheses indicates the number of people who reflected that particular view in their comments.

1. It is an emerging profession now with an undefined path to advancing its professionalism. (16)

2. It is an emerging profession now, and will continue to advance if we remain on our current professional development path. (8)

3. It is not a profession now, and it will not become one unless we make radical changes to move it in a professional direction. (7)

4. Right now, we don’t really know if economic development is or is not a profession. (6)

5. It is a new profession that will need to continue working on advancing itself. (3)

6. It is not a profession now, and it will never become one. (3)

7. It is a fully mature profession now, and it is making good progress in advancing itself. (1)

8. Our goal should not be to become a profession. Instead we should develop as a business. (1)

A number of new articles have been posted to the ED Futures website. Please see below.

Best wishes,

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

Leadership Styles

Leadership style is the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. There are normally three styles of leadership (U.S. Army Handbook, 1973) :
1. Authoritarian or autocratic
2. Participative or democratic
3. Delegative or Free Reign

Which are you?