Universal Service

I received an email today from Barbara Crafton of The Geranium Farm regarding universal service for all young adults. She referenced work of Professor Larry Sabato of The University of Virginia's Center for Politics. We need to think about how we train our youth for leadership and for participation in the civic space. She suggests we think about having service as a requirement for any leadership position as well as for everyone else.

"Politics works better when citizens are informed and active participants." (from http://www.amoreperfectconstitution.com/ )

Ode to a Dead Horse (Cleveland Economic Development in Action)

Dakota Wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, we in Cleveland often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a strong whip.

2. Trying a new bit or bridle.

3. Changing riders.

4. Moving the horse to a new location.

5. Riding the horse for longer periods of time.

6. Saying things like, “This is the way we have always ridden this horse.”

7. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

8. Arranging to visit other cities to see how they ride dead horses.

9. Increasing the standards for riding dead horses.

10. Creating a test for measuring our riding ability.

11. Comparing the state of dead horses today.

12. Complaining about the state of dead horses today.

13. Coming up with new styles of riding dead horses.

14. Blaming the horses parents.

15. Tightening the cinch.

16. Passing legislation which declares that “This horse is not dead.”

17. Harnessing several dead horses together for increased speed.

18. Trying to resuscitate the dead horse.

19. Praying for the dead horse to be resurrected.

20. Wisdom #1: Convince a stranger that the dead horse is resting up for the next day’s work.

21. Wisdom #2: Sell the dead horse to the stranger.

(I received this in the mid 90's relating to the activities of certain non-profit boards but I believe that it is often relevant to the economic development strategies in shrinking cities.)

History is in the Telling

Recently I have had a number of conversations about story telling or the lack thereof. I continually express my belief in the power of each one of us relating our stories which also includes the open source behavior of passing on the stories of those with whom we have interacted.

Story telling is not something that is to be controlled or can be controlled. However, there will always be arguments about how something actually occurred or why an event happened; what is the “true” story. Writing a story down or filming it does not always come up with the answers and often times skews the story for all who only use one source. Therein lies one of the benefits of the internet in that there becomes multiple sources for determining for ourselves what is important, what happened, or why it happened. The human brain is remarkable in that it can seem to identify the wheat in the chaff.

In Ireland there is a rich tradition of storytelling with the storyteller going from village to village relating folk tales, history, and other happenings throughout the island. People of each community would look forward to the visit of the story teller, hungrily gathering together to hear stories that have been heard often before as well as those that are new to many ears. The stories themselves are important but the hearing in community also provides for the richness of the experience.

We and our communities live on through the stories that are told so it is important that we teach ourselves the stories both new and old. The new stories are grown out of the old; we learn from our mistakes only if we are aware of the mistakes of others in the community.

Have You Done Your Part Today?

Have you done your part to help enhance the civic space today? Have you introduced someone you know to someone else you know because you feel the two of them or the three of you have something in common? Have you thought about how two entrepreneurial people you know might benefit from talking with each other and actually done something about it?

If not, send an email introduction today and then follow it up with a contact of your own. Help your friends and acquaintances tell and spread their stories. Grow your collaborative network and enhance the quality connected place we know our community to be. Help make the box bigger; save others from working on their own outside the box.

National Revenue Sharing

There has been considerable talk and and some implementation in Northeast Ohio of revenue sharing among communities when companies relocate. How about looking beyond the smaller region and look nationally or even globally and share tax revenue with communities that lose businesses to the Midwest due a shortage of water (the most precious of resources next to air and brains)?

As time goes on and some resources become less available (water, coal, petroleum, minerals, etc) there will be greater pressure brought to bear to provide the diminishing resources to those with the most money making the resources less available for those with the least money. Such practices remove the community resources from one community replacing them with money in the hands of a limited powerful elite.

The Midwest at one time was referred to as the rust belt but is now the water belt. If Georgia and the Southwest want water and are willing to pay for it, how can we encourage the recycling of the Midwest water in the Midwest by having those dry communities meet their needs by moving their companies and residents to the Midwest?

We need to encourage keeping the Midwest water in the Midwest rather than shipping it away to the South and West.

Economic Development: Thinking With Our Brains and Hearts

In a recent email to a researcher in economic development I wrote of my definition of economic development. My definition, as are open source technology and practices, is ever evolving. I see Economic Development as the linking and leveraging of assets (money, brain power, quality places) to sustain and increase the amount of "good assets" (assets flowing into the community from outside the community) and to reduce the amount of "bad assets" (assets flowing out of the community) as well as to increase the speed of the assets moving within the community and the speed with which the community positively responds to negative changes. The same would hold true no matter what the geographic constraints.

Civic leaders need to decide how best to effect economic development so that it ends up being “good” economic development. To decide requires thinking and doing strategically. We need to think with our brains and our hearts not with parts of our anatomy and our personal wallets.

Old Behavior: Command and Control

Cleveland is running far behind the pack in innovative behavior and its foundations are no exception. When around the country foundations and economic development organizations are working with small communities and entrepreneurs, the foundations in Cleveland are turning to the industrial approach. From Crain’s Cleveland Business Sep 3 2007: Sandra Kiely Kolb board chairman St Luke’s Foundation: “Foundations have taken a more business-model approach looking at collaborations... Maybe we’re asking the harder questions of nonprofits, but it’s for their own good.”

Business models are changing and here is Cleveland embracing old models and telling the nonprofits that it’s for their own good. Also the foundations have given up on the power of small group and individual behavior in economic development. From the same Crain’s article: “Mr. Abbott said the Gund Foundation during the last four years has partnered with other foundations to focus on Economic development because no entity is powerful enough to go it alone. And local foundations expect nonprofits to follow their lead.” Perhaps the foundations should be doing less leading and more supporting of innovative behavior. Perhaps the foundations should be doing less telling people and organizations what to do than partner with others in identifying and encouraging new ways of sustainability.

More than ever in Cleveland it seems to be “command and control” instead of “link and leverage.”