The Innovation Framework is a guide for entrepreneurs, scientists and business leaders to successfully navigate a shift in mindset from scarcity to abundance in Open Source Economic Development.
Collaborative leadership is a discipline driven by the laws of natural systems, and is designed to catalyze individual creativity, communication and collaboration, ultimately leading to flourishing cultures of innovation.
I-Open conversations share insights and innovations in health care, energy, land, food, water, and technology. Leaders in the Civic Space generate a collective intelligence to solve the social, economic and environmental challenges of the world with transformative enterprises.
"The Short Bus" is special story that reflects the culture of the Northeast Ohio region.
It was contributed to I-Open for sharing by Northeast Ohio illustrator, Ralph Solonitz.
"The Short Bus" falls into I-Open's investment category of Branding Stories, from the Innovation Framework, a heuristic model of investment for individuals, organizations, and businesses in Open Source Economic Development.
There are five categories of investment in this road map to prosperity: Brainpower, our most competitive asset; Innovation and Entrepreneurial Networks, the civic infrastructure needed to translate creativity into transformative initiatives; Quality, Connected Places, the importance of investing in cool places to live, work, and play; Dialogue & Inclusion, the value of creating new points of access for civic leaders to share information and create knowledge; and Branding Stories, the importance of investing in storytelling to amplify a community or region's cultural assets.
This conversation and e-mail Matrix, designed by Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder and Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), is an example of how I-Open Civic Forum conversations were organized in Northeast Ohio from 2006 through 2009.
Conversations are informed by interviews contributed to I-Open by leaders in civic, academic, government and business. Interviews reveal new insights and innovation opportunities in both social and economic industry that can not only be shared, but improved upon in guided I-Open Civic Forum discussions.
Matrices are helpful to guide the intent and focus of new conversations in Open Source Economic Development exploring investment categories of the Innovation Framework, and topics representing citizen priorities affecting education, economic, and workforce development.
In the past, we most often associated "analytics" to mean measuring what we got out of any effort, in terms of profit. Today we still need to measure output, but we also need to organize how and where we are adding to change the results of our activities.
Conversations in the "Civic Space" - the space outside the four walls of any organization - build trust, and trust builds networks. These are the important starting points to build transformative initiatives and ultimately, new businesses.
This matrix points to the need for communities and regions to participate at higher levels of organization, process, and tools to identify, connect, and align creativity and resources for transformative, sustainable innovation.