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60% of the Center's regional foundation funding provided by The Cleveland Foundation and George Gund Foundation was withdrawn; the remaining 30% funding provided by the Ameritech SBC Global corporation was re-dedicated by the corporate program office for the continued support of REI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:

I-Open Civic Forums Build Collaborative Communities

Civic_forums_j-map

I-Open Civic Forum Process

Map by Betsey Merkel on Flickr

Civic Forums offer a new model of civic collaboration for a networked approach for economic and community development.

Civic Forums begin by building open economic networks to catalyze innovation and entrepreneurship. The civic forum process encourages new civic collaborations by behaving in ways that build trust, respect and accountability.

I-Open promotes civic behaviors that overcome fragmentation by focusing on shared interests, transformative business enterprise opportunities and pragmatic "next steps".

Civic Forums Accelerate Innovation in Education, Economic and Workforce Development

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy

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Cool Colors Blending

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr 

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy was written in 2008 by Gloria Ferris, I-Open and Blogger from Northeast Ohio.

Gloria describes the possibilities that open up when citizens and government leaders work together in new and different ways.

Preamble: Invigorating Communities Through Democracy

Innovation and Entrepreneurial Networks: REI.Tuesdays, a Platform for Civic Engagement

REI.Tuesdays

(download)

2003 - 2005 REI.Tuesdays.-- weekly civic forums convened by the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) at the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio engaged over 3,000 civic, business, government, and academic leaders from across 23 Northeast Ohio counties.

REI.Tuesdays civic forum conversations (Slide #2 above) address enterprise opportunity through the lens of the Innovation Framework - a heuristic model of investment in Open Source Economic Development (Slide #3).

The conversation matrix (Slide #4) provides an information infrastructure to underpin strategic scheduling and project presentation in the entrepreneurial community. Civic forums also introduce Strategic Doing - a simple, yet disciplined process to quickly move ideas to action (Slide #5) - and offer feedback loops for project work continuing outside of the regular forum schedule.

REI.Tuesdays is an example of how the civic forum process builds open economic networks for innovation to flourish and generates transformative enterprise for regional business development, human and organizational capacity building (Slide #6).

In terms of a model, REI.Tuesdays

  • Was funded by the telecommunications industry, SBC Global Ameritech
  • Supported by the Center for Regional Economic Issues, Case Western Reserve University, and 3000 Northeast Ohio business, government, academic, and civic entrepreneurs
  • Delivered social capital, web 2.0 platforms, local and global industry networks, generations of learning communties, and transformative industry clusters, and
  • Serves as a model for other forums, such as Fridays@The Corridor, Charleston Technology Corridor, Charleston, South Carolina and Thursdays at the House, Indiana Humanities Council, in Indianaoplois, Indiana.

The I-Open Civic Forum process is a successful approach to connect regional research and industry innovation for enterprise development in Open Source Economic Development.

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder & Director of I-Open, is designer of the I-Open Civic Forum process.

References:

 

Transforming the University's Role in Regional Engagement

Ed Morrison, Economic Policy Advisor, Purdue Center for Regional Development, and I-Open Co-Founder, outlines how collaborations between universities accelerate regional economic transformation. 

The presentation points to a new model developed by Purdue University, Penn State University, and the University of Akron to create a network of practitioners focused on advancing regional transformation. This important multi-university collaboration is an example for leaders to replicate, connecting knowledge and place-based legacy assets to economic development. 

Ed developed Strategic Doing - a simple, yet disciplined process to foward ideas to action quickly - with the I-Open team while working at the Center for Regional Economic Issues, Case Western Reserve University 2003-2005, and has continued to apply the process to advance innovation in regional networks. 

The I-Open Civic Forum process, also developed at that time, builds the open, neutral spaces and sophisticated communications introducing Strategic Doing to business, government, and academic leaders accelerating transformational initiatives and projects.

Strategic Doing has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Labor and many other large funded organizations, government, and academic entities to advance national economic prosperity in regions.

You can learn more about Strategic Doing at I-Open on Scribd.

Learn how Civic Forums and Strategic Doing intrinsically generate economic prosperity in the paper, I-Open Civic Forums Strengthen Entrepreneurship and Business Development in Network Economies. 


The New "Cluster Moment": How Regional Innovation Clusters Can Foster the Next Economy

From the report:

What explains clusters’ renewed popularity?  To be sure, some of the concept’s new and bipartisan relevance owes to its sound non-partisan concern with the mechanics of value-creation in local economies, whether metropolitan or rural, high-tech or manufacturing.  And it’s true that as a matter of policy action clusters—ranging from the famous Silicon Valley technology cluster to the Vermont cheesemaking cluster—are all about synergies and efficiencies, and don’t tend to cost too much.
 
But what is most timely beyond all that may be the possibility that the new prominence of regional innovation clusters reflects something deeper: a positive interest in locating a more grounded, realistic way to think about the economy and development efforts so as to put both on a more productive footing.  
 
In this setting, the new cluster discussions redirect attention, analysis, and policymaking to the more grounded, day-to-day interactions by which real companies in real places complete transactions, share technologies, develop innovations, start new businesses—and yes, create jobs and locate workers. To that extent, clusters—whether of airplane manufacturing in Wichita or cleantech in Colorado or biomedical innovation in Cleveland—represent an antidote to the nation’s recent economic history of bubbles and consumption and also a framework for recognizing and bolstering the real-world variety and dynamism of regional economies.  Hot spots of productivity and collaboration as well as competition, clusters are the locations most likely to deliver a new economy that is export-oriented, lower carbon, innovation-driven and so opportunity and prosperity rich...

In sum, cluster thinking and cluster strategies have the potential to accelerate regional economic growth and assist with the nation’s needed economic restructuring, but they are more a paradigm than a single program. In that sense, the opportunities that a cluster policy framework provides for delivering impact, clarifying economic priorities, and coordinating disparate programmatic efforts will only grow more important in the coming era of intensified competitive pressures and tightened resources.

I-Open Civic Forums generate the open economic networks necessary to strengthen early cluster development in Open Source Economic Development.

Learn more at I-Open on Scribd, "I-Open Civic Forums Strengthen Entrepreneurship and Business Development in Network Economies".


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.

Introduction to Open Source Economic Development, Ed Morrison, Co-Founder I-Open and Policy Analyst, Purdue University

Ed Morrison prepared this presentation for the April 2008 I-Open Leadership Retreat hosted at the beautiful Punderson State Park in Newberry, Ohio.

The presentation offers a succinct outline of the concepts and knowledge areas important to civic leaders building networks and collaborations in communities and regions.

The material draws deeply from Ed's life work as a brilliant economic development strategist. 

From our time working together at Case Western Reserve University's Center for Regional Economic Development (REI) from 2003 to 2005, we added process extensions and additional refinements.

These contiguous developments included the Tuesdays@REI Civic Forum process for civic entrepreneurs (designed by Betsey Merkel) and the Strategic Doing process (Ed Morrison). Both were refined out of the REI work building civic networks and strengthening entrepreneurial initiatives in Northeast Ohio.

Regional practitioner thought leaders - and there were many - offered strong influences in the areas of network mapping, Open Space Technologies, Appreciative Inquiry, social technologies, design, knowledge management, and visualization during our tenure.

These are typical of the practices and tools entrepreneurs and leaders of organizations, business, academia, and government need to be proficient in today to build competitive networks and collaborations for global economies.

It is this re-tooling of capacities that will strengthen entrepreneurial innovation in such important industries as alternate energies, manufacturing, health care, land use, creative digital media, technology, and water efficiency in Open Source Economic Development.

I-Open Civic Forums Strengthen Entrepreneurship & Accelerate Business Dev in Network Economies

I-Open is a shared knowledge network for civic, business, government, and academic leaders in Open Source Economic Development.

This backgrounder begins with an overview of the value Civic Forums offer to entrepreneurs and local business development, followed by, generally, how I-Open is organized, where it originated from, and who has contributed to it making it what it is today – an educational resource for communities and their regions.

We hope you’ll add your comments here.