One of the objectives of the project was to map the social networks that exist in the North Central Region among the economic development community. To that end, a brief social network form was sent out to economic development agents to fill out. The template had a list of key names of people dealing in economic development in the region. Every respondent had to pick out their frequency of interaction with a particular individual and the quality of information exchanged, if any.
The objective of doing this was to understand who is connected to whom and how. A social network map provides an image of the connections at a point in time, but since these networks are dynamic, they change over time. Moreover, a social network map is not just a picture to look at but, added with the social network analysis metrics, provides an insight into how those networks are formed, how dense the networks are, and in case two nodes (individuals) need to be tied (linked), what is the shortest path to do that, who is (are) the bridge(s) between those two nodes. The goal of developing these maps is to improve density of connectedness within the region and community.
byManveenon Thursday, January 7th, 2010 at 1:39pm Filed under Updates.
We asked our survey respondents a very simple question. How do you define your region? And we did got some really varied answers. The answer depends on who you ask that. If it is a business, the region is where the customers are and is not bounded by the city, county or state lines. A region as defined traditionally by the official boundaries is no more a region. Region is more of a virtual region now, with lesser and lesser geographic boundaries. If I had to answer that question, I would say all those I can reach to are in my region. With the technology available, will that be the world? Yes, but will that be my market, No!
byManveenon Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 3:20pm Filed under Updates.
From theory to action: energizing entrepreneurship (E2), strategies to aid distressed communities grow their own. Mary Emery, Milan Wall and Don Macke. Journal of the Community Development Society 35.1 (Oct 2004):p82. (6267 words)
- A brief summary
The Heartland Center for leadership Development and the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship have proposed a new approach to helping distressed communities build on their assets to grow their own jobs and businesses in this paper. With today’s downturn in the economy the approach seems to be even more relevant.
The economic development professionals emphasize on attracting industries also called the recruitment strategy to increases employment in their community. Although this strategy has worked for some larger communities, it has failed to give results in small rural regions. This strategy provides tax and location based incentives and lower cost of operations to the big manufacturers and retail outlets. Attracting a big name to a small region is usually seen as the most successful way to increase employment and job creation assuming that these big companies will bring more jobs and increase the tax base. But this seldom is the case.
The authors propose an approach that is grounded in three assumptions about rural community development.
1. Every rural community is unique. Imitating a strategy that worked in one community may not work in every community.
2. There can be no ready answers to a region’s economic development dilemmas. Some tools, insights and case studies can be provided, but it is on the communities to access their own strengths and weaknesses and develop a strategy that suits them the best and learn from experience.
3. Local leaders and entrepreneurs have to get together to implement a successful economic development program. They are both strong pillars of the social capital of the region.
The basis of the E2 approach is a number of research findings that the authors list in their paper. The approach focuses on community assessment and capacity building, wise use of scarce resources on specific objectives, initiating the action strategically, providing business development services, working with community institutions and organizations and involving the youth.
The last section of the paper describes two case studies. The first one is the case of Valley County, Nebraska and the second case is of a small town, Mullen, in the Nebraska Sand Hills. Both these communities adopted E2 approach to guide them in their economic development efforts and have been successful in doing so.