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I-Open Visuals: David Moss

One of the actionable outcomes of these conversations is the development of an REI Beta Project

A few questions to kick off the conversation before the 2/9/04 conversation. Add others, suggest possibilities from the expertise you bring to the REI table... If you're new to the wiki, see the Wiki Collaboration Suggestions Below

Are there economic "neighborhoods" in the region who might be more apt to be early adopters in starting an Open Source ED initiative - if so, which?

Jack, you raise an interesting point. One of the struggles with characterizing the "economic neighborhoods" to which you refer is that there are dozens of overlapping economic neighborhoods of different size, depending on the economic focus of the discussion. For example, does Pepper Pike fit into the Chagrin Valley, the southeast suburbs, the 271 corridor, the east side, Stephanie Tubbs Jones' district (I forget the number)or the NEO region? Each one of these categories can be considered an economic neighborhood. I think the trick for us will be to identify and name specific economic neighborhoods with the clear understanding that they overlap. Therefore, developing a common language and precise communication of definitions will be critical, both internal to the REI discussions as well as with external parties. (David A.)

Been struggling with the puzzle about how to name economic neighborhoods in inclusive ways. I have a problem naming a multi-municipality area by one or two of of its members - like "the Solon-Beachwood area" or the like. It makes everyone else in the cluster not named. That's why we have law firms with 8 names. Can't leave any stakeholder out. An alternative that we already have an emerging precedence for (the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative) would be to name areas after natural landmarks that cross muni boundaries. After all, we're about open source - which is disruptive boundary bashing. So...there may be an area called "Tinkers Creek" that covers the southeast Cleveland communities that run along it. Portage Lakes...Chagrin River...etc. (Jack)

How could we identify and invite their local champions to collaborate with REI resources in kicking off this initiative?

How could we use our technologies and resources to support the proliferation and growth of these initiatives?

One way to begin thinking about regionalizing economic development is to create '''Local Economic Communities (LEC's). These would be self-organizing and collaborative (non-isolationaist), overlapping micro-communities in the region.

They would be communities clustered around natural landmarks like rivers and lakes - for example the precedent we always have emerging, the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative. Examples: Portage Lakes, Rocky River, Cuyahoga National Park, Grand River, etc.

The initial process/event for each LEC would be to invite people to explore what local economic interdependability (LEI) might mean to them - focusing on (thanks to the Rocky Mountain Institute folks meeting at the Brewery downstairs with Holly Harlan and Chris Alverado at the same time tonight) a) their passion, b) their pain, c) the legitimizers and conveners (what in part Benson Lee calls "champions".

We're talking about local economic interdependability as a driver of sustainability on micro and macro scales.

REI's role can be to lend expertise to the emergence and growth of these communities -- in facilitation, knowledge management, collaborative web-enabled technologies, event management, research, and help defining LEI in each community.

Folks invited to the initial event - community

• Entrepreneurs
• Businesses
• Churches
• Civic organizations (Kiwanis, Rotary) & chambers of commerce
• Education orgs
• Health care & social service orgs
• Arts & Culture
• Labor orgs

Premises

• Networked (open source) local community efforts are more sustainable than global top-down or "downtown/city hall" centric
• Economic development conversations are already happening
• These conversations need to be larger, more long term, and more collaborative

• Creates jobs within that community
• Creates local value-partnerships
• Fosters local resource/product use
• Collaborates with non-local communities for mutual value

• REI is a likely convener of communities because of the neutrality factor
• First step: invite a dozen or so Go-To people from the local community (economic neighborhood), do social networking mapping and for phase 2, have them invite some of their 1st and 2nd circle people
• Have the intial gatherings be focused on What are the common compelling issues? (not restricting them to "big", "hairy", "audacious" or the like)
• As issues emerge, include any neighboring communities and potential regional stakeholders, collaborators, expert resources - as in, what starts local/micro could grow into more macro initiatives

Wiki Collaboration Suggestions

• Add your comments, questions, suggestions, document attachments anywhere on the page you think they best help the flow of conversation
• Add your name (and date of your post if you want) after your posts so people know who to follow up with for more details, etc. (Jack)
• In the spirit of courtesy, try not to delete or mame other people's contributions - if you want to post rebuttals, critiques, or alternatives, post them as unqiue contributions (if someone somehow deleted something of yours - or if you deleted something of your own - and you want to restore it, click on the Page Revisions, find it and click on Restore)
• If the conversation spins off into emails, phone and face conversations,(and hopefully it will!), migrate the value of those (post them) back here to the collaborative discussion
• Feel free to raise new questions or ideas
• Build on other people's ideas
• If you want to take a poll of collaborators, insert some options for people to vote on and ask people to indicate their votes using whatever voting symbols and method you invent (or use other online polling tools)