Technology and Organization Opportunities to Accelerate Innovations in Open Source Economic Development
The February 7, 2008 Midtown Brews forum, Our Ohio Energy Portfolio: Economic Development in Your Backyard, [1] brought together perspectives of Cleveland government, foundation and citizen decision makers. Elisa Young, traveled from Meigs County, [2] Southern Ohio, to share her perspective as a seventh generation land owner, report on current local costs to human life, and natural resource devastation in proportion to the affect of current concentration of, and construction of future power production facilities. The Open Conversation [3] was generated by about 100 participants and joined by 30 members of the Smaller Indiana [4] social network contributing questions and observations via broadcast video and chat. Government leaders City of Cleveland Councilman Matt Zone, City of Cleveland, Ward 17; Nolan Moser, Law Fellow, Ohio Environmental Council ; Andrew Flock, Painesville Councilman; Andrew Watterson, Cleveland Sustainability Programs Manager, City of Cleveland Department of Utilities; and Foundation leader, Richard Stuebi, BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, NextWave Energy, Inc., Founder and President.
The Open Discussion focused on issues and revealed the magnitude of the topic, the enormity of consequences, and our failure to innovate.
Was this conversation really just a result of a lack of technology and organization innovations, a long-term lack of citizenry participation and business leadership? ...
Our situation has changed. We're required to make decisions at a level of comprehension beyond our capability, exaggerated by unforeseen forces and at a new speed. Tomorrow, the forces will be more complex, the speed will have increased and window of time, shrunk.
Why should we be surprised?
Consider what's involved. Of all animals on earth, humans score the lowest in cognitive capability to plan for the future, and our brain capacity based on size is miniscule in proportion to the scale of the new kinds of decisions we are responsible to make.
Leaders are experiencing previously unexperienced -
We are all in this together, and ultimately, we are all affected equally. Regions and their communities are experiencing a whiplash of issues, topped with a new misunderstanding of speed, lack of planning, strategy, and metrics to guide regional decision-making in this new landscape. What will be required for people to halt uniformed guesswork, lavish and desperate spending of resources on quick stop solutions? Because of a confluence of perfect storm factors, every decision made will affect our survival sooner than our experience tells us.
This is not about finger pointing, back slapping, or deal making between a few individuals or corporations, it is about the power of collaborative leadership, employing critical thinking skills to scale brainpower, engaging high end technology innovation, and designing new models of organization.
Moving forward.
Navigating these new landscapes requires new learning. Adopt the practices and tools of Open Source Economic Development (158.5 KB) [5] deployed by I-Open. [6] I-Open is creating the open spaces to build the open networks for new conversations focused on regional transformation. With our technology partner Near-Time.net, we are building online collaborative communities to sustain the conversations between face to face meetings, share information, and accelerate enterprise development for regional transformation.
Some next steps to learn about new practices and tools:
You can learn from our national partners practicing OSED and Strategic Doing to advance networked models of transformation:
Begin by participating in these Northeast Ohio networks:
Some next steps: Get involved with I-Open
Participate in the next Midtown Brews Open Conversation; contact Webtego [27] and Insivia [28] – two Midtown technology companies leading regional transformation and ask what you can do to support their efforts; attend the I-Open workshop April 23 – 25 Workshop: A Networked Approach to Building Prosperity in Communities and Regions [29] , Punderson State Park Conference Center; join the Midtown Brews online collaborative community.
We are moving ahead to deploy Open Source models of economic development in Northeast Ohio and across the nation. We want to hear from you. What do you think?
The Big Picture.
How we connect to other U.S. regions figuring this out?
What is our opportunity to align as a region and what are our next steps?
START A NEO STRATEGIC DOING PROCESS (27.4 KB) [30]. Create alignment, the collaboration, and the innovation we need to move forward.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) spoke about society’s need to prioritize technology and organization. We can depend on one false constant: we think we have time. What will it take to stop and focus?
Links:
[1] http://midtownbrews.net/wiki/show/Midtown+Brews+2008+0207%3A+Our+Ohio+Energy+Portfolio%3A+Economic+Development+in+Your+Backyard
[2] http://www.meigscountyohio.com/
[3] http://midtownbrews.net/wiki/show/Open+Conversations
[4] http://www.smallerindiana.com/
[5] http://midtownbrews.net/files/open-source-model-2.jpg
[6] http://www.i-open.org%20/
[7] http://www.orgnet.com/
[8] http://www.new-paradigm.co.uk/Appreciative.htm
[9] http://www.designinglife.com/index.php/Main/CheckOutJack
[10] http://www.networkweaving.com/june.html
[11] http://www.littletongov.org/bia/economicgardening/default.asp
[12] http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elutherksnow/
[13] http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/docs/summary/
[14] http://www.kwfdn.org/map/demo.aspx
[15] http://www.tmcnet.com/news/2007/05/14/2620516.htm
[16] http://www.wired-nation.net/wiki%20
[17] http://www.lexchamber.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=20&url_article_id=229&change_well_id=2
[18] http://bioscienceregions.net/
[19] http://www.brewedfreshdaily.com/
[20] http://www.e4s.org/content/index.asp
[21] http://www.earthwatchohio.org/
[22] http://www.gcbl.org/
[23] http://lakewoodobserver.com/forum/index.php
[24] http://www.meetthebloggers.net/
[25] http://www.neohio.org/
[26] http://li326-157.members.linode.com/
[27] http://www.webtego.com/%20
[28] http://www.insivia.com/%20
[29] http://neo-connects.near-time.net/wiki/show/Workshop%3A+A+Networked+Approach+to+Building+Prosperity+in+Communities+and+Regions
[30] http://midtownbrews.net/files/strategic-doing.jpg