The Innovation Framework in Open Source Economic Development

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Shaded Grass

Image © Alice Merkel on Flickr  

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.

View or download the full screen view of the Innovation Framework on Flickr.

The Innovation Framework in OSED

I-Open Civic Forums Build Collaborative Communities

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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

I-Open Analytics Offer a Framework for Building Civic Networks

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.

The result of the efforts outlined in this matrix are described in the I-Open Press Release 01-18-10 posted to this blog at http://i-open.posterous.com/civic-networks-prepare-people-and-communities

You can learn more about I-Open at http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open.org/. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA

Innovating with Higher Levels of Organization, Process, and Tools

The 2003-2005 Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI) Civic Forum Program Matrix was designed by Betsey Merkel while working with the REI team (Ed Morrison, Susan Altshuler, Matt Kozink, Dennis Coughlin) to organize Civic Forum conversations in Northeast Ohio from 2003 through 2005.

Civic Forum conversations connect people and their ideas to education, economic, and workforce development through the generation of transformative industry cluster initiatives.

REI.Tuesdays Civic Forums were convened from the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI), Case Western Reserve University at the Weatherhead School of Business. Leaders from business, academic, civic, and government created new conversations about exploring civic priorities, shared ideas for industry innovation, and worked together to launch transformative initiatives. Learn more about REI Civic Forums.

The Civic Forum 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.

The REI.Tuesdays Matrix offers an example of a tool to strengthen the design of new conversations focused on aspects of Open Source Economic Development.

You can learn more about I-Open here.

Learn more about the I-Open Civic Forum process designed by Betsey Merkel and how your community or region can begin to adopt a sustainable practice of building networks, generating social capital, and collaborating to build transformative initiatives for prosperity.

Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel http://www.betseymerkel.extendr.com/ and I-Open http://i-open.org/. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA