The I-Open Backstory: A Tale of Industrial Economy Disruption and Spin-Out

Rei_cluster_map
Image: REI Cluster Map by Ed Morrison & Laszlo Kosmon

From the Report: REI. Business Plan V.1.5 at I-Open on Scribd.

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) is a 501c(3) not for profit educational economic development organization spun out (2005) of the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI), a regional economic policy and report center based in Cleveland, Ohio from 1980 to 2005.

The Center was originally funded by the Cleveland US Federal Reserve Bank at the recommendation of a RAND Corporation report to advise the then many Fortune 500 corporate leaders based in the 23 counties of North East Ohio, a regional industrial economic success.

In 2003, Ed Morrison, lawyer, economic development practitioner, and policy strategist was hired as the Executive Director of REI, housed at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University. The resident team led by Mr. Morrison, quickly incorporated legacy knowledge assets, updated and developed Center mission, generated a set of operational Principles, and aligned organizational investments with strategic programs in support of tech-based economic development in global networked economies.

(Note: Within 60 days of the time of the announced 2003 REI re-alignment, 60% of the Center's regional foundation funding provided by The Cleveland Foundation and George Gund Foundation was withdrawn; the remaining 30% funding provided by the Ameritech SBC Global corporation was re-dedicated by the corporate program office for the continued support of REI activities. Some 15 months later at the closing of the Center by CWRU in 2005, Ameritech SBC Global funds were confiscated by CWRU's Weatherhead School of Management, REI's host organization, during a time of organization and leadership disruption and financial downturn.)

In support of the REI 2003 mission update, and to catalyze and strengthen regional civic networks integral to tech-based economic transformation, team member Betsey Merkel developed the Civic Forum process, a pragmatic approach to civic engagement to accelerate the generation of transformational initiatives, ultimately engaging during the 17 month period over 3000 people "on a campus with no parking" - and before the advent of social media! (Costs averaged $.60 cents/person compared to a large failed regional engagement program averaging costs of $60.00/person, proving regional transformation for prosperity building does not need to be costly or complex in open economic networks.)

Simultaneously, Ed Morrison designed Strategic Doing, a rapid project development process to support, evaluate, and invest in the resulting Civic Forum entrepreneurial innovations for education, economic, and workforce development.

The Civic Forum process and Strategic Doing develop transformational civic entrepreneurial initiatives in Open Source Economic Development to accelerate prosperity for competitive regional advantage. 

 

Click Through For The Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) Slide Show at I-Open On Flickr. [16 Slides]

The Center was closed by CWRU in June 2005. Ed Morrison was hired by Purdue University in Indiana USA to assist in the development of the Purdue Center for Regional Development, now a national and global hub for education, economic and workforce development and policy.

Also in June 2005, Ed Morrison, Betsey Merkel and two others co-founded The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) to continue the education and development of new practices and tools in Open Source Economic Development begun at REI.

(Note: Open Source Economic Development and Strategic Doing developed by REI Exec. Dir. Ed Morrison were later spun out in June 2005 and widely adopted by U.S. Workforce Investment Boards, the U.S. Economic Development Administration at the U.S. Dept of Commerce, and U.S. Dept of Energy to accelerate workforce innovation for regional economic development.

In Northeast Ohio, Betsey Merkel, REI Strategic Networks and Communications, and developer of the Civic Forum Process, continued to lead Civic Forums with I-Open colleagues and community to construct regional civic entrepreneurial networks and support resulting transformational enterprise initiatives.)

Ed retired from I-Open a few years ago to dedicate his work to the advancement of open models in workforce development. Betsey Merkel continues to invent and develop new practices and tools in Open Source Economic Development for the acceleration of transformative enterprise in emerging network economies.

Links of interest:

Building Leadership Capacity in Faith-Based Economic Development

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Shown L to R: Carlos Steward, Asst. Dir., Recreation; Lisa Braun, Executive Director; and Dawn Brown, Asst. Dir., Workforce Development at Ohio City Power with Lee Kay, Grant Coach and Consultant at Neighborhood Connections. Image Credit: Lisa Braun

Ohio City Power is an emerging place-based and virtual network that provides recreation, skills training and employment opportunities for the homeless and jobless at St. Paul's Church and Community Outreach in Ohio City, Ohio.

Ohio City Power programs strengthen community projects, relationships and collaborations for leadership capacity in faith-based economic development. 

2012 programs focus on:
  • The development of Ohio City Power projects to address neighborhood issues;
  • Encouraging new and stronger relationships between Ohio City community residents and local leaders; and, 
  • Supporting emergent opportunities for the development of community leadership, organizational  and community capacity building. 
Ohio City Power itself is comprised of a small core leadership network embedded in other supporting and evolving sponsor, partner and collaborating networks.

Open models such as Ohio City Power connect assets, talent and resources to transformative creative initiatives and business development for regional prosperity.

Ohio City Power 2011-2012 activities are funded by a grant from Neighborhood Connections, an affiliated program of the Cleveland Foundation and member of Grassroots Grantsmakers, an international affinity group for grassroots funders.

On Tuesday February 1, 2012, Ohio City Power leaders (shown above) met with Lee Kay, Grant Coach and Consultant at Neighborhood Connections to talk about how Ohio City Power programs are growing and developing.

Stop by to learn more, and contribute your insights and knowledge to improve this network of practice by visiting  http://www.ohiocitypower.net/ 

Citizens Academy - a set on Flickr

Images © Alice Merkel on Flickr

Images describe Citizens Academy, a leading charter school in Cleveland, Ohio. I-Open visited Perry White, Founder and Executive Director, Citizens Academy in June 2010 to learn more about his life long work connecting children, learning and justice.

Since 1999, Perry has led a transformative model of charter school education, now a top-performing urban school in the state of Ohio with a national reputation for successful students.

You can learn more in the introductory interview, Connecting Children, Learning and Justice with Perry White at I-Open on Vimeo www.vimeo.com/18102918 

Reference Links
Learn from the wisdom of civic leaders across I-Open communities:
Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 301 Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

 

Connecting Children, Learning and Justice

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Interpretation

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr

Perry White, Founder and Executive Director, Citizens Academy of Cleveland, Ohio, talks about his passion to connect children, learning and justice in the video below. Since 1999, Perry has led what is now a transformative model of charter school education, and one of the top-performing urban schools in the state of Ohio with a national reputation for successful students.

"I think many people settle and tend to let themselves off the hook,” said Perry White, a former social worker who founded the Citizens’ Academy charter school in Cleveland in 1999 — naïvely, he now recognizes — and has overseen its climb from an F on its state report card in 2003 to an A last year. “It took us a while to understand we needed a no-excuses culture,” he said, one of “really sweating the small stuff." - New York Times, Education, May 1, 2010 Article Here. 

Connecting Children, Learning and Justice from I-Open on Vimeo.

Reference Links
    •    Citizens Academy http://www.citizensacademy.org/

Learn from the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:

    •    Facebook I-Open http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Open/170817416694?ref=ts
    •    Flickr     http://www.flickr.com/people/iopen/
    •    Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/iopen
    •    Livestream http://www.livestream.com/iopen/
    •    Posterous http://i-open.posterous.com/
    •    Scribd http://www.scribd.com/I-Open
    •    Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/IOpen2 
    •    Twitter http://twitter.com/iopen2
    •    Vimeo http://tiny.cc/106p0
    •    You Tube http://tiny.cc/j5rse
 
Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 301 Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

 

Building a COINs Strategy for Education, Economic, and Workforce Development

Collaborate: Leading Regional Innovation Clusters - A Report from the Council on Competitiveness, identifies three important components of 21st Century innovation based prosperity:

  1. Conversations 
  2. Collaboration
  3. Capacity

The Swarm Creativity Framework (below) is a tool to guide education, economic, and workforce development strategy for competitive regional advantage.

Swarm_creativity_framework

Taken together, the Council's directives, the Framework, and "Strategic Doing" - a simple process developed in I-Open to move ideas to action quickly (below), enable every community to build a COINs-collaborative innovation network strategy for creative, thriving local economies.

Strategic_doing

From the perspective of the Collective Intelligence Genome introduced at the COINs 2009 Opening Keynote by Dr. Thomas W. Malone, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, this outlines the What, Why, and How - the Who, is all of us!

You can learn more about the Center's work at http://cci.mit.edu/index.html

I-Open is a co-sponsor of the COINs 2010 Conference.

COINs2010 Conversations in Collaboration: Global Teaming

 

 

 

The 2nd Annual International COINs2010 Conference  is coming to Savannah, Ga., USA  | Oct. 7-9

CONNECT ON THE NETWORK MAP

Visualize your network by registering on the COINs2010 website. Connect with your acquaintances and friends and grow your network into a galaxy.


WORKSHOP HIGHLIGHT: Creating Conditions for Effective Global Teaming

There are many reasons why companies form global teams to work internationally and interdependently towards a common goal.  Global teams can be created to develop global strategies, or to work locally to execute these strategies, or both.  Multinational corporations often create global research and development teams to benefit from site-specific scientific expertise that is not available in one location, but is spread around the world.  Still, other companies create global teams in specific functional areas, like sales and marketing, and then have representatives of that function from around the world collaborate in teams.  This enables the organization to benefit from a diversity of perspectives and services that can match or fulfill the needs of a global client, wherever that client might be located.  No matter what the reason for the formation of a global team or what form the team takes, leaders and team members must address the complexity of global teamwork by architecting new ways of collaborating. These factors must be considered and managed in designing and forming global teams to perform successfully.  Stakeholders, team leaders and team members can actively participate in creating conditions prior to the start-up of a team that can provide and enhance the likelihood that the team will achieve its objective. view more workshops.

 

REGISTER ONLINE at COINs2010.com

Registration rate is $180 (US Dollars) and includes pre-conference full day Coolhunting Workshop and Condor 3 month-trial.

 

 

This is a COINs2010 DESIGN ETHOS Intersection Event

 

 


Things are really heating up for the COINs 2010 Conference in Savannah, Georgia!

Get Connected  -- Log in to COINs 2010 and find yourself on the Connect Map, an emerging open knowledge network of research and industry leaders from around the world. Connect to people and ideas advancing innovation for creative competitive advantage. Go Here.

Log In and Register! We look forward to learning more about your important work in education, economic, and workforce development for communities and regions. Go Here.

Industry Topics included -- health care, design, transportation, creativity, education, technology, government, business development, and media. Go Here.

Skills Training -- Conference registrants receive a no-charge, half-day pre-conference Coolhunting Training Session led by Galaxy Advisors team and Peter Gloor, Chief Creative Officer and Founder Galaxy Advisors, and research scientist MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. All participants receive a complimentary six month trial of Condor, the dynamic semantic social network analysis tool. Go Here.

Practitioner Workshops -- Join us to learn about global teaming, social network analysis, innovation diffusion, and new practices in collaboration to accelerate your efforts to build enterprise. You will be joined by global thought leaders, students, and industry practitioners. Go Here.

We look forward to participating in new conversations with you about creativity and collaboration to advance business development!

See you online and in Savannah!

COINS 2010 Coolhunting Academy: Skills Training to Strengthen Creativity and Collaboration

The COINs 2010 Coolhunting Academy document (above) offers background information for the upcoming Coolhunting Academy, a hands-on skills training workshop for entrepreneurs, organization, government, foundation, and economic development professionals.

The Academy offers an ideal opportunity to learn and apply new skills to "coolhunting" - the practice of seeking the most creative ideas and people - for the purpose of "coolfarming" - the practice of collaborating to help them succeed.

You will learn technical skills training and connect to new conversations with other like-minded entrepreneurs focused on advancing creativity as a driving force in regional economic development. You will discover new friends and colleagues interested too, in generating transformative projects and initiatives for enterprise development.

The October 2010 Coohunting Academy is presented prior to the COINs2010 Conference, October 7, 8, & 9, 2010. Attendance at this workshop is free for conference attendees; registration is $120 for workshop participation only. A three-month trial version of Condor is included.

Skill Set for the Ideal Condor user -- (note: if you do not have all of these skills ask your favorite Tech Geek to accompany you to work together!)

* very good computer skills, knowledge in a Web application development language (php, Javascript, perl, java), database skills (MySQL)

* and can be applied for organizational analysis, as in this case:

* sociology, psychology

* or Web mining, brand tracking, marketing, as in this case:

* marketing, branding, communication

Academy Details and Logistics --

Meet the GalaxyAdvisor Team who leads Workshops:

Kai Fischbach - Chief Scientist
Hauke Fuehres - Chief Technology Officer
Peter A. Gloor - Chief Creative Officer and Founder
Ken Riopelle - Chief Coolfarming Officer

DATE: Thursday, October 7, 2010
TIME: 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
LOCATION: Arnold Hall, 1810 Bull Street, Savannah, Georgia 31401

Take me directly to the COOLHUNTING ACADEMY REGISTRATION

The October 2010 Coohunting Academy is presented prior to the COINs2010 Conference, October 7, 8, & 9, 2010. Attendance at this workshop is free for conference attendees; registration is $120 for workshop participation only. A three-month trial version of Condor is included.

CONFERENCE FEE: Academic and Professional Rate: $180.00. Reduced Student Rate: $50.00.

Economy of Culture

Storytelling deepens our understanding of social and economic investment in a Quality, Connected Place, one of five areas in the Innovation Framework, a heuristic model of investment in Open Source Economic Development.

In this video interview, Northeast Ohio experience artist Melissa Daubert describes a collection of art pieces she created about her time living and teaching in Zimbabwe as a Peace Corps volunteer.

From Melissa’s story we begin to understand how culture knits together local assets to generate a dynamic hyper-local economy of established mores, the wisdom of traditional thought leaders, knowledge of project design and construction to ease daily living, and simple rules to establish trust and respect in the community.

These are important elements every neighborhood needs to identify and connect local creativity and accelerate the generation of small, widespread collaborative projects for local prosperity.

I-Open - live streaming video powered by Livestream: Teaching Future Minds Technology

Watch live streaming video from iopen at livestream.com

Ted Jordan, President, Funutation Tekademy, is skilled in teaching computer design, technology, robotics, and fun to young adults!

Ted's story (09-26-08) is a pathway of mentoring, education, and work experience that brought him to what he does today - his real passion - teaching young enthusiastic adults at all levels of experience.

An inventor and entrepreneur, Ted tells the story of growing up, a strong family network, excellent education and training, and many diverse experiences in business.

Ted offers advice to parents of children who are passionate about learning computers and robotics.

Programs like Funutation are excellent models for replication in every community and school to attract and connect with young minds building a future workforce that is progressive and creative.

Learn about Funutation Tekademy http://www.funutation.com/

Learn from the wisdom of civic leaders across these I-Open communities:
Copyright 2011 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 2563 Kingston Road Cleveland OH 44118 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web: http://i-open.posterous.com/