The Opportunities Ahead For North Central Indiana Ed Morrison

The Opportunities Ahead for North Central Indiana Ed Morrison Purdue Center for Regional Development [email protected] May 8, 2009 Please accept my apologies for not being able to be with you at the Leadership kick-off. In this short paper, I would like to share with you several points to illustrate how North Central Indiana is rapidly becoming a national model for building regional collaboration. This growing prominence creates new opportunities for our Regional Leadership Institute. Over the past 18 months, civic leaders around the country are adopting a regional strategies at an accelerating rate. The economic downturn has underscored an important new fact: the only way to compete effectively within a global economy is to collaborate regionally. Regional strategies enable us to align, link and leverage the assets our companies need to compete in global markets. As leaders from across the country search for models regional collaboration, they are increasingly fixing their eyes on North Central Indiana. Members of our core team for our WIRED grant -- Christy Bozic, Craig Lamb, Roger Feldhaus, Jan Hendrickson, Scott Hutcheson -- are speaking at national meetings to explain the success we have enjoyed. We have demonstrated that the innovation takes place in open networks and “safe” civic spaces. We create powerful innovations when we find the trust to share new ideas freely and the personal commitment to translate these ideas into action quickly. We have demonstrated that we can think and act strategically in new ways. Our old approaches of strategic planning have given way to new habits of Strategic Doing which are cheaper, faster, and more effective. This approach shows us that we can undertake complex projects by following some simple rules. Southeast Wisconsin and the Milwaukee 7 region quickly saw the promise of our new practices of accelerating innovation through Strategic Doing. The Milwaukee 7 region adopted both Strategic Doing and our Opportunity Fund model for identifying and funding promising new training and education initiatives. Milwaukee!s Water Council -a new cluster of over 80 companies and educational institutions engaged in fresh water technology -- has also followed the new practices we developed in North Central Indiana. The Center for Education Innovation and Regional Economic Development represents over 40 school districts in Southeast Wisconsin exploring new approaches to talent development. The Center also embraced our approach to collaborative leadership and the practices of Strategic Doing. Friday, May 8, 2009"

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Increasingly, other regions are finding value in these new practices. In the past six months, workforce development professionals in Idaho and Colorado have launched new initiatives to transform their public workforce system using Strategic Doing. The federal government!s Employment and Training Administration is now integrating these practices and regional forums throughout the country. We are in the midst of conducting Strategic Doing workshops for hundreds of workforce development professionals in multi-state regional forums in Boston, Atlanta, Kansas City, San Francisco and Dallas. North Central Indiana is also innovating with new analytic tools to develop regional strategies. In the coming month, the Economic Development Administration will be releasing a new set of analytic tools for regional leaders developed here in Indiana. These tools leverage Internet databases to provide regional leaders with powerful insights into their economy. A team led by Sam Cordes at the Purdue Center for Regional Development and Jerry Conover at the Indiana Business Research Center defined and tested these advanced tools. These new practices and tools require more of regional leaders. Command-and-control models of leadership are not very effective in today!s world. Instead, regional leaders need more subtle skills to interpret and guide. In Washington, the Council on Competitiveness is completing a report on the new challenges of developing and supporting regional leaders with these new skills. The Council is also looking at North Central Indiana for guidance. Our new Regional Leadership Institute has an enormous opportunity to continue building a national reputation for our region. In the months ahead, we will surely be tested. The continuing contraction of our automobile industry places enormous stress on our economy, our businesses, our governments, our neighbors, our families. We must continue to explore new ways of linking and leveraging our assets to find new opportunities. Our WIRED grant gave us the chance to demonstrate that collaboration pays in clear and practical ways. Through collaboration, we think faster, spot opportunities faster, make decisions faster, and act faster. In short, we become more competitive. In less than a month, we will have more opportunities to expand investment in our region. The new stimulus legislation and its emphasis on green jobs creates a series of significant competitive grants. If we can compete successfully for these grants, we will have more “seed money” to stimulate additional innovation. We already have a head start. Here are some additional examples of what we have accomplished by working together: • Through our WIRED initiative, we have developed the first “green collar” certification. We can become a national leader in new practices of sustainable manufacturing.

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• Our Skunk Works initiative at Inventrek is already receiving national recognition as a creative response to re-engaging our skilled talent. • Our Indiana Energy Systems Network has rapidly fixed on some vital initiatives to develop new opportunities in alternative energy markets. • Within our region, we have the highest concentration of pre-engineering courses in high school in the country, through our efforts to expand Project Lead the Way. • The New Tech High in Rochester has become a national model for how a rural school district can transform its prospects by adopting an entirely new approach to high school education. • The video of our guitar summer camp for high school students has inspired civic leaders across the country. This imaginative approach to exposing students to the joys of manufacturing provoked applause when I recently showed it to over 200 attendees of the Governor!s Workforce Summit in Idaho. We have a shared responsibility to strengthen our collaborations and accelerate the flow of innovations that can come from these partnerships. Our Regional Leadership Institute provides the core to expand these networks. Through the Institute, we will build the skills and develop the insights we need to transform our economy. Late last year, Toyota!s president, Katsuaki Watanabe, told a news conference in Nagoya, Japan, near the company!s Toyota City headquarters, “The change in the world economy is of a magnitude that comes once every hundred years.” True enough. Our generation of leaders faces the challenge of charting the new pathways between our Grandfather!s Economy and our Grandchildren!s Economy. We have an extraordinary opportunity to transform our civic life to meet these challenge. With your help and continued commitment, we will.

Friday, May 8, 2009"

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