Forest City Enterprises is the lead developer in the new Illinois Technology Innovation Campus announced by the governor this week. Forest City’s Boston-based University, Bioscience and Technology Group will manage the project.

Here's a sensible collaboration that provides an example for NEO.

North East Texas Workforce Development Board is partnering with Northeast Texas Community College and local economic development councils to present a summit on manufacturing. Read more.

Toledo is considering a coke plant for economic development, and they have had difficulty figuring out which jurisdiction gets the tax revenues.

Earlier this week, local political leaders reached an agreement.

Yesterday, I traveled to Orrrville, OH to meet with a group of librarians from Wayne County. The question we explored: What s the role of libraries in the future of Northeast Ohio's economy.

During the industrial era, our economy generated enormous wealth. One of the legacy assets of this period is our extraordinary library system. (For example, Orville's library ranks sixth in the nation for a community its size.)

A little over a year ago, the Brookings Institution produced a report on Pennsylvania. The basic findings focused on the competitive disabilities created by no-growth sprawl. Learn more about the Brookings report and download the report here.

KeyCorp has made an important investment in the Civic Development Corporation of Ashtabula County. Learn more about what the Civic Development Corporation provides to our region by reading the relea

The planning department in Summit County is guiding a planning process for the county. The Department of Community and Economic Development is asking questions, such as "How much farmland should Summit County have?"

You can read more about the process here.

This process touches on a deeper set of issues facing our region: No growth sprawl. Like Pennsylvania, Northeast Ohio has developed inefficient patterns of development. You can download the Brookings study from this page. You can also download a reportcompleted in 2000 on the costs of sprawl in Pennsylvania.

Here are some useful resources that build the connection between early child development and economic development.

The 1998 Commission on the Future of the South report

Thanks to everyone who attended the Community of Minds event this evening. I appreciate especially those of you who came up to me after my talk with words of thanks and encouragement.

As requested by several of you, I've posted my presentation here on REALNEO (PDF file - 2.1 mgs) - regarding the session and presentation, please feel free to comment below, or add a page to this book with your comments (you must set up an account to post and comment).

Scott Suttell, the managing editor of Crain’s Cleveland Business, throws up a caution sign to convention center proponents. He points to a USA Today article on a new Brookings report.

The report deflates the argument that convention center investments make a lot of sense. The reason: a soft national market and an over-supply of space. The market is not down just a little. It has fallen 30% to 50%, according to the report.

The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has the right idea. In a white paper that the chamber published this week, the business leadership calls for a major increase in research funding at the state's research universities.

The handbook for Drupal -- the content management system underlying RealNEO -- is available through a Creative Commons license/ Read more.

Here's another idea for our region to consider: A pilot program to promote immigrant entrepreneurs. A recent article from Inc magazine outlines SmartStart in Maine. The initiative targets the development of micro-enterprises.

I'm not sure whether this release got picked up by the local media. COSE is launching its annual business plan competition. Read more or visit the web site.

Business plan competitions are a good way to stimulate entrepreneurial efforts in a region. Here's a good article from McKinsey on the strategy. Read more.

Investing in business plan competitions would be a good strategy for the Fund for Our Economic Future. Here's how it could work. The Fund would challenge every college campus in Northeast Ohio to co-sponsor a business plan competition. The Fund would put up $50,000 in prize money for each campus electing to participate. That would require a commitment of about $1 million per year.

Each year, we would likely generate twenty to thirty good business proposals across the region. Some of these ideas will be small and focused on local markets. Others will be bolder ideas targeting higher growth businesses.

The competitions would deliver to the door step of other organizations -- JumpStart, GLIDE, COSE -- a promising set of business plans. In addition, the schools could commit to providing guidance and support to those who entered the competition but did not win.

Results would be clearly measurable by additional start-up investment.

Can artists improve civic behavior?

Here's an interesting article from the Harvard University Gazette about the mayor of Bogota, Colombia. He's a former academic and has been using mimes to encourage people not to jaywalk or behave irresponsibly in public.

A recent report by the Pew The Pew Internet & American Life Project explores the attitude of artists to the Internet. The surprising finding: Artists and musicians are enthusiatic Internet users and they believe the Internet helps them make and sell their work.

We have a remarkable opportunity to begin weaving together University Circle as a hub in our network of creative industries in NEO. Yesterday, I provided development officers at University Circle, Inc. an insight on how we can begin. You can download the presentation.

For over a year, the Committee for Economic Development, a Washington-based business group has been promoting the connection between early childhood education and economic development. Today, they released the latest in a series of reports.

One NEO software executive commented last spring at a NEOSA event: We have a tendency to over-estimate the short term effects of outsourcing and to under-estimate its long term implications.



He appears to be right. Forget about outsourcing call centers. Fast Company points us to the real competition ahead: creativity and innovation. "As new funding fuels innovation, Silicon Valley insiders see India and China ultimately eclipsing America as technology markets -- with local companies dominating." Read more.

An editorial in this morning's Dayton Daily News makes a good point. The state legislature would be taking the wrong step by eliminating the local government fund. At the same time, the state legislature can use the local government fund as leverage to encourage more regional collaboration.

One thing is for sure: the topic of immigration policy will be heating up in 2005. The reason: high end labor shortages. jeffbuster [at] sbcglobal [dot] net passed along an article from Newsweek that underscores the point. Our research and technology base depends deeply on foreign scientists. Read more

Even worse, we are drying up this source of talent with a cumbersome, ill-advised immigration policy. As the Newsweek article points out: We are facing "a dramatic decline of foreign students in the U.S.—the first shift downward in 30 years".

Regional approaches to economic development are popping up all over the place. Earlier this week, the governors of New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania got together to end the recruiting wars that have been going on among those three states.

The chambers of commerce in the Phoenix region are launching a sensible economic development strategy during the holidays. They are urging residents to shop locally. Although it's too late for this year, maybe our NEO chambers could launch a similar marketing effort next year.

Earlier this week, a group of us from REI met with the leadership of Mt. Zion, one of the churches located in University Circle. We conduced a fast-paced Appreciative Inquiry into one aspect of the church's seven-fold mission. The church aspires to be community-oriented, but what does that mean?

Using skills taught at the Weatherhead School in Appreciative Inquiry, we explored the different dimensions of spirituality and action that gives this church remarkable life. In a short time, we forged a strong friendships between REI and the church leadership, since we see deep overlaps in our outlooks and aspirations. A remarkable evening.

An energy is bubbling just below the surface of University Circle. In the months and years ahead, we will see remarkable new partnerships forming. We have invited the leadership of Mt. Zion to share their visions for the future of University Circle with us during an upcoming Tuesdays@REi.

For a number of years, Massachusetts has led the nation in producing an innovation index report. This week, the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative released its latest report. You can read more about the report. You can also download a copy.