An SSTI Editorial: For the New Year, Something Has to Change. Perhaps You.

Diffusion of effort can be a great thing in fostering local or regional economic development because there are so many fronts on which the battle must be fought: workforce; business retention and recruitment; entrepreneurship; infrastructure; investing; and, science and technology addressing the needs of different sectors such as manufacturing, retail, service, financial or information technology. Each organization or office can focus its resources exclusively on one or two specific goals head-on for greatest impact.

It can work well when resources are plentiful and when the various economic development organizations recognize and respect the boundaries. Collaboration and constant coordination is key so the individual pieces work as a well oiled, virtual machine. The ability to rise above partisan politics to address the common goal of building a local or regional economy is of utmost importance.

It varies from one metro area to the next, but at some unknown point, the system can turn inward and start to devour itself. Perhaps it is as financial and human capital resources become stretched or personalities too large or the number of organizations too many (often because it's easier to create a new organization than change one entrenched.) The focus becomes turf wars and power grabs among the now competing organizations and the original common goal is lost in the bloodbath. Visitors to the community – for instance, businesses looking to relocate or expand – leave trying to decide which cliche is most appropriate: too many chiefs... or too many cooks.

The situation was bad enough when it was simply traditional economic development groups fighting amongst themselves. The addition of technology-based economic development and university-based research clouded the picture even more as different efforts were required to address different issues: angel capital, intellectual property, research parks, technology entrepreneurship, R&D collaboration, or a more technically skilled workforce in math, science and engineering. Cluster-based strategies throw in another element — choosing hot sectors to focus new investment and resources, leaving some businesses feeling neglected and abandoned.

It seems the final blow for many regions and communities has been the septuple whammy over the past two years as the dot-com crash, the economic recession, the threat of terrorism, the states' fiscal crises, manufacturing's restructuring, free trade and globalization collectively took their individual tolls. Something needs to change.

Cleveland appears to be one of those communities ready to make that change. The largest economic development organizations, often competitors in the past, have taken a hard look at Northeast Ohio's public, private and quasi-public economic development infrastructure and are shaking things up. There have been several announcements of mergers, consolidations and regionalization. The latest, and perhaps biggest, is the Dec. 19 announcement of the consolidation of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, Cleveland Tomorrow, and the Greater Cleveland Roundtable.

Temporarily called Greater Cleveland Tomorrow, the new organization will focus on:

• technology, entrepreneurship, innovation and high-growth business creation;
• physical development;
• workforce development and education; and,
• business attraction, retention and expansion.

Don't think the need to address these changes applies only to larger, older metro areas like Cleveland. Other parts of the country also are benefiting or could benefit from critical self-assessments resulting in new structures and restructures.

If, when collaborating with other groups in your community, you find more time is spent arguing over who gets top billing or the money than what you'll accomplish, then it's time to refocus.

If you find it difficult to work with a local economic development group because they are affiliated with one political party and your organization is aligned with the other, then it's time to replace both groups with a single nonpartisan entity focused on real tech-based economic development.

Old jurisdictional, political, cultural boundaries have to be ignored. Egos and job descriptions have to be discarded. Risks have to be taken; new ideas embraced. If you don't want to do it, step aside.

This economy – powered by the Internet, global outsourcing and less restricted flows of capital – isn't going to wait for the communities that have forgotten how to work as communities. Innovation and economic growth will take place in those regions willing to embrace and enact big change.