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From Chris:

Had the opportunity to speak with a number of communities in southeast Iowa, southwest Wisconsin and the Madison area earlier this week….maybe 160 folks or so.  Talking about entrepreneurial solutions for the economy in September of 2008 may be one of the most unique experiences I have had in my life.  The bankruptcy news was swirling on the TV’s, the paper’s were running End-of-Time-Font stories, people talking about where to invest when even the money market accounts were failing, community people were feeling the pain of manufacturing companies shutting down in small towns all over the Midwest…..my oh my , what times we live in.
 
I am of the opinion that the old world is dying and the new world is aborning.  We are looking at a raging forest fire but really we should be thinking about what the sprouting little plants will be like when the conflagration is over.
 
A side note:
 
I had been in several parts of Wisconsin before but never in Madison.  The town’s reputation for beauty and progressiveness had proceeded itself but I was so surprised to see that it sat on isthmus…the capital, the downtown and a good part of the University of Wisconsin, all on a narrow strip of land.  In all directions, the street views look out over the very large lakes, or they terminate at the state capitol which sits high on a hill and has the same design as the US capitol.  The U of Wisc campus is monstrous—nearly 50,000 students, very urban in nature.
 
It reminded me a lot of Portland:  lots of students everywhere, street life, restaurants, bars, big leafy trees and water views.  I had the sense that THRIVE, Rafael Carbonell’s regional organization, may take the lead in organizing an entrepreneurial support effort.  In fact, it might be useful if the Portland and Madison people were talking to each other.
 
If you look at the Edward Lowe Foundation website called “YourEconomy.com” you will see that Madison does very well in the critical second stage company category: 16% of companies in the 10-99 employee category vs. 11% for the US average.
 

 
 
That critical second stage company category is a predictor of future economic health and good news for Madison.

From Chris: "Brian Kelsey's (Civic Analytics in Austin) blog with some thoughts on incentives".

From Christine Hamilton-Pennell:

Great interview with Kelly Peters, Chief Operations Officer of the
Rocky Mountain Innovation Initiative (RMII) in Fort Collins, Colorado
(and karaoke partner at the National EG conference in Fairfield,
Iowa!).

http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080922/BUSINESS/809220310

Kelly was formerly the Economic Development Director for the City of
Greeley, Colorado, and ran their economic gardening program. In that
position she involved the librarians from the university and local
public library in providing research to growing businesses (profiled
in the Rural Research Report article, "Public Libraries and Community
Economic Development: Partnering for Success,"
http://www.iira.org/pubsnew/publications/IIRA_RRR_688.pdf). She sees
her work at RMII as embodying the concepts of economic gardening, even
though they don't call it that.

A new United Nations report highlights the opportunities in "green jobs".  Worldwide, for example, one million people work in jobs related to biofuels. The UN projects that by 2030, employment could grow to 12 million. You can read more about the background to this report here.

You can download a copy of the report here.

("Green jobs" is still a fuzzy concept. The Texas Workforce Commission recently published a useful report on green collar workers. You can download it here. You can also download a report by the University of Massachusetts. 

A number of regional economies are preparing for the opportunities.  In North Central Indiana,  Purdue University and Ivy Tech, Indiana's community college system, are working together to develop a green color certification. Indiana is also launching the Indiana Energy Systems Network.

IndianaWIRED is also hosting a series of forums on sustainable economies. Here's an example.

In the Eastern and Central Montana, economic and workforce developers are focusing on biodiesel. You can learn more here.

In the Metro Denver region, high school students will be learning the skills to participate in a variety of clean energy technologies. You can read more about that initiative here.

In West Michigan, the region is focused on sustainability, both with a West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum and regional sustainable manufacturing.

These are just small sample of the exciting developments underway.

At a 30,000 foot level, economic development is about managing three flows of money. "Good Money" flows into the economy from businesses that trade outside. These are businesses, which account for usually about 30% of the employment in an economy, generate higher incomes. Traditionally, economic developers have focused on recruiting these businesses.

Economic development is also about increasing the velocity of "Neutral Money" that circulates within the economy. When economists talk about a multiplier effect, they are referring to the circulation of Neutral Money within the economy.

Finally, economic development involves "plugging leaks". That means reducing the flow of money (we can call this "bad Money") from the economy.

Increasingly, communities are taking a more balanced, integrated approach of economic development that includes all three flows. (After all, there are no bright lines segregating these flows.)

Here's an example. Check out the web site of the Farmer-Chef Connection, a business-to-business network that promotes the development of "local living economies".

You can read more here about how this type of network works.

The Farmer-Chef Connection is one of a broad number of networks that are forming around the country to support sustainable local economies.

Last week, I was at the Lowe Foundation for a retreat, where I met Leanne Krueger-Braneky of the Sustainable Business Network in Philadelphia.  She introduced me to the work of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, where her organization is a leading network.

To learn more about the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, visit their website.

[Cross-posted to EDPro Weblog.]

In mid-August, Chris pointed us to a Kauffman Foundation report on entrepreneurial activity in the states. I've attached a copy to this post.

You might also be interested in looking at the latest Milken report on economic activity in metro areas. You can download it from this page.

 For the past couple of weeks I've been  remiss in not posting to Economic Gardening. I've gone back through my e-mails to see what I have been missing from postings to our Google group. I came across an important e-mail from Chris just after our gathering in Steamboat Springs in June. It summarizes some of the important announcements from the gathering.  I reprint them here and at the attachment Chris provided.

• Mark Lange of the Edward Lowe Foundation introduced their new “YourEconomy.org” database (http://youreconomy.org/ ) of entrepreneurial activity in local economies…..especially the gazelles or second stage companies (10-99 employees) that drive much of our economic success.  This site will be expanded throughout the summer providing an in-depth look at what driving every local economy in the country.  As communities compare entrepreneurial activity against each other, this database is going to change the conversation in economic development.

• Eric Ervin, with the City of Littleton, introduced our arrangement with SECO Financial which will provide mailing lists to Littleton companies.  In the past, this has been a monotonous (although important) task generating targeted mailing lists.  SECO’s web site makes it very simple for the business person to go in and with a few check marks (industry, size, location, growth rates, etc.) create their own list.  Littleton will underwrite the costs for our own businesses but we will be out of the list making business as a staff activity.  We have cut a deal with SECO to allow other communities to participate… with the idea that the more we get, the bigger the quantity discount we will all get.  If you want to participate, contact Eric Ervin at eervin@littletongov.org .

• We have created a jump start team consisting of a database research company, a GIS company and a web optimization company.  The purpose of this team is to contract with communities that are interested in starting an EG program but don’t have resources for a full blown project.  A community may only want to stick their toe in the water to see how the tools would work and if they are useful to their local business.  Or a community may want to hire the team to provide a turnkey start the next day….producing research and marketing help while the community builds its infrastructure (hire staff, buy software, get up the learning curve, etc.)  The team can work three months, six months, a year or whatever time period the community desires.  Or a community may not be large enough to need a full time program and only want to tap into these resources now and then for selected businesses….it can hire the team at various times during the year.  Contact me at chrisgibbons@q.com if you want more information.  (Please note that I have to do this off city time and equipment—thus the new address).

• We are also going to offer professional training in Economic Gardening tools and concepts at the Edward Lowe Foundation campus in Big Rock Valley, Michigan this August 15th – 18th.  I will teach these classes on the weekend (plus Monday) with the support of the ELF staff.  This will be a twenty-year brain dump over an intense three day period.  See attached agenda.  We will ask you to bring one business problem and one political problem to apply the tools to during the three days.  For details, contact me at chrisgibbons@q.com if you are interested.  If there is enough interest in the training, we will turn this into a certification course.  For those of you who indicated interest at the conference, we will be contacting you shortly with details.
• Finally, the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship (Don Macke and the RUPRI folks) announced that CRE and EG will formally work together.  CRE organizes communities for entrepreneurial activity and EG has the tools to implement.  We will encourage communities to go through both programs, starting with CRE’s Energizing Entrepreneurs training.

Chris Gibbons and the folks at the Edward Lowe Foundation are talking about the next phase for our training.  We would like to keep the class together and to get some low cost coaching to the members.  In addition, Chris and Ed Morrison are in discussion about making this site the primary location for the economic gardening community (the econ-dev list would continue, of course).  We'll float some ideas to the group shortly. 

Michael also made some wonderful pics -- with a great running commentary -- and you can access them here.

Steve passed this note on to Chris who posted it in our news group:

Chris,
 
I would like for you to see if this process would be better for everyone. Many of the images are 300 dpi and large in file size. Many people could care less about all of the photos and would just like certain ones. Any of the images in the slideshow can be selected and downloaded as they are viewing them. They simply pick the ones they want. Sending all 92 would take a long time. Please try the system below first and let me know if this would work for you and everyone else.
 
If it does, just copy and paste the link, the instructions below and send it to everyone. They can save any image they want.
 
This note indicates that any image can be used for any purpose they want to. I claim these to be royalty-free stock photographs. No attributions needed.
 
Right-click on any image during the slideshow. When the dialog box pops up select the “Save Picture As” and save the image in a folder you have selected on your computer. The slideshow images are much smaller file sizes and will download quickly. They can be used on a web page but probably not large enough for having them photo processed.
 
If you want the original larger image that can be used in a publication then you need to go to the  “Click here to view images” located just below the images on the slideshow. It will take you to the image pages. Click on any image. It will display the larger, full-size,  photograph and display it. You can right-click on the image and save it as you did above. Some of the images are 2 to 4 megs in size and can take longer to download.

http://www.joplincc.com/economicGardenLowe/slideshow1.html
 
Let me know.
 
 
Steve
 
Steve Russell
Newman Innovation Center
www.newmaninnovationcenter.com
www.joplinregionalbizcenter.com
www.joplincc.com
 

For those of you who are interested, here are a couple of videos on complexity sciences. You might also read the Wikipedia entry on complexity economics. 

We had a brief discussion of open source economic development and how this model connects with Economic Gardening. I've attached a couple of white papers for those of you who want to learn more.

As I mentioned, the Lowe Foundation has also supported the development of a curriculum for open source economic development.

If you'd like to learn more, please e-mail me.