In response to questions raised by our partners, the project team has drafted 19 frequently asked questions about the Northern Michigan Knowledge Economy Strategies Project. These questions seek to address issues related to planning in the knowledge economy in the three key areas of strategy, theory, and practice. These FAQs are specifically designed to address the needs of citizen planners serving on economic development and planning boards and commissions in the three partner Northern Michigan and Eastern Upper Peninsula Economic Development Districts (EDDs). The three districts include the: (1) Northwest Michigan Council of Governments (NWMCOG); (2) Northeast Michigan Council of Governments (NEMCOG); and (3) Eastern Upper Peninsula Regional Planning and Development Commission (EUPRPDC).

1. What is the purpose of this Project?
2. What is the primary objective of this project? What deliverables does the EDA expect during this 18-month Project?
3. What is the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) about?
4. How will using the learning and experience from this Project make a difference to Northern Michigan's economy?
5. Can this Intelligent Development approach make a difference?
6. What factors must be considered in transforming my EDD's planning into an Intelligent Development CEDS?
7. Should planners frame the activities of this Project as an improved CEDS process or a completely new process, i.e., a CIDS process?
8. What is the knowledge economy?
9. Although knowledge economy indicators will be helpful in informing Intelligent Development strategies, local planners and stakeholders have not been trained in the use of these indicators or the application of research needed to answer probing questions about them. How can these new indicators and available data be effectively used?
10. What are the pathways or planning processes to follow to get to CIDS-based outcomes?
11. Should we focus on the long-range goal of changing the way we approach economic development or do we stick to the mechanism or proximate goal that will help us get there, i.e., overhauling our CEDS process to include knowledge economy thinking?
12. What are the sub-systems of the Intelligent Development System?
13. What factors should be considered in forming stakeholder groups or teams?
14. What U.S. region might be considered for benchmarking to compare high-speed Internet best practices and measure progress in the three Northern Michigan EDDs?
15. Can rural America support a knowledge economy?
16. What information can planners provide to stakeholders to stimulate creative and productive thinking and what processes can be employed to keep stakeholders engaged?
17. How do we communicate about the types of strategies to participants who will move the region forward and inform our co-learning plan that will be developed with the MSU Center for Community and Economic Development (CCED)?
18. What are the broad outlines of the current knowledge economy?
19. What techniques are used by Intelligent Development practitioners to transform my EDD's current planning process to an Intelligent Development-based CEDS?
20. References

1. What is the purpose of this Project?

   The purpose of the Project is to empower and enable the planners of the three Economic Development Districts (EDDs) and local stakeholders to design and conduct a robust Intelligent Development planning process to achieve prosperity in the global knowledge economy. This innovative process is expected to produce Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) that identify fundable projects consistent with U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) funding priorities.

2. What is the primary objective of this project? What deliverables does the EDA expect during this 18-month Project?

   The overarching objective of the Project is to develop and implement three co-learning action plans that lead to the development of a comprehensive intelligent development strategy (CIDS) for each Economic Development District. EDD activities associated with this objective include a knowledge economy orientation; a CEDS self assessment; a revised CEDS to include strategic priority investments in the knowledge economy; and post-project assessments to identify project impacts. These deliverables are specified by the EDA grant.

3. What is the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) about?

   A Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) should leverage investments in public works and infrastructure projects that enhance the region's economic development. Preparation of a CEDS should carefully follow the federal Economic Development Administration's (EDA) seven Investment Policy Guidelines (www.eda.gov). EDA uses the Investment Policy Guidelines to determine awards of federal funds for public works and infrastructure projects.

   CEDS should include:

   • Market-oriented investments.
   • Investments that are proactive in nature and scope.
   • Investments that look beyond the immediate economic horizon, anticipate economic changes, and diversify the local and regional economy.
   • Investments that maximize the attraction of private sector investment and would not otherwise come to fruition absent EDA's investment.
   • Investments that have a high probability of success.
   • Investments should result in an environment where higher-skill, higher-wage jobs are created.
   • Investments should maximize return on taxpayer investment.

   Other EDA sources of information include "Economic Development Districts Project Development Training" (October 27, 2008). This PowerPoint presentation was used with the CEDS "Grant Application Package" at the Michigan Association of Regions (MAR) and EDA Training Workshop at the MSU Center for Community and Economic Development on December 9, 2008. Another worthwhile educational resource is "Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) Summary of Requirements," published in Economic Development America, Fall 2006: pages 30-31.

4. How will using the learning and experience from this Project make a difference to Northern Michigan's economy?

   The project team's Intelligent Development approach responds to current and future economic development needs. The team believes the EDA grant to fund this project was awarded (October, 2008) because Michigan's long-standing and increasingly acute economic distress from manufacturing and other losses strongly warranted federal funding targeted at remedying this distress. By transforming the CEDS process to make it more strategic with greater local impact, the CEDS will better position EDDs in the global knowledge economy and generate EDA fundable investments.

5. Can this Intelligent Development approach make a difference?

   Yes. The major difference is that this project provides an opportunity to initiate essential transformation through investments in infrastructure and public works, as well as set in motion Intelligent Development processes and other economic functions beyond infrastructure that will make the three regions more economically competitive in the global knowledge economy. The principal strategic and long-term contribution will be the transformation of the CEDS process that will stimulate and ultimately embed a re-energized innovation and a collaborative, knowledge-based culture across the three Northern Michigan regions. This type of innovation and knowledge-based culture will be congruent with the complexities and interdependencies of the global knowledge economy and network society.

6. What factors must be considered in transforming my EDD's planning into an Intelligent Development CEDS?

   For shorthand in the Project, we use the term Comprehensive Intelligent Development Strategies (CIDS) in referring to CEDS that are prepared using Intelligent Development processes to produce positive outcomes aligned with the global knowledge economy. Simply stated, planning and implementation of the CEDS must link and support explicit knowledge economy functions and effect mindset change to nurture a collaborative, science-based, innovation, and enterprise culture. Further elaboration can be found in FAQ #19.

7. Should planners frame the activities of this Project as an improved CEDS process or a completely new process, i.e., a CIDS process?

   MSU CCED believes project activities represent an evolution (or extension) of the CEDS process. Adhering to the Grant Application Package requirements and CEDS criteria, EDDs may link proposed infrastructure projects to local knowledge economy objectives and functions. Further, such an extended CEDS process becomes increasingly closer to the intentions of Intelligent Development. As the impact of mindset change expands and deepens over time, a collaborative enterprise culture can evolve. Practices associated with the CIDS process can be embedded in the ongoing strategic planning of sustainable local development. A CIDS process involves planned infrastructure investment that overtly embraces local knowledge economy development and becomes routine, embedded, and ongoing throughout the planning region.

8. What is the knowledge economy?

   The knowledge economy is global and local. It is entrepreneurial, ICT-driven, and innovation-based. In a more conceptual sense, the knowledge economy is driven by the demand for higher value-added goods and services created by more sophisticated, more discerning and better educated consumers and businesses. These pressures have interacted with both technology and globalization, accelerating the process of change and enabling new and disruptive patterns of supplying consumers (Overell, March 11, 2008).

9. Although knowledge economy indicators will be helpful in informing Intelligent Development strategies, local planners and stakeholders have not been trained in the use of these indicators or the application of research needed to answer probing questions about them. How can these new indicators and available data be effectively used?

   Typically, local planning agencies formulate strategies based on data collected for other purposes or use measures that are available at macro scales, not for sub-state regions. The value of such data is obviously truncated. Furthermore, as regional and local economies continue to shift away from traditional, industrial-based economic development to a greater emphasis on science, innovation, technology-based, and advanced service-driven economic activities, there are significant gaps in the data and limitations to the measures that are currently available to track these critical economic changes. In addition, planning agencies tend to be underfunded and hard put to use their scarce resources to close these relevant data gaps in knowledge economy indicators or to generate new primary data. As a result, make-do efforts relying on substitute or surrogate indicators are used for needed or desired measures of the global knowledge economy performance. Consequently it is expected that components of the co-learning plan will entail joint investigation to identify relevant data sets for measuring changes in knowledge-based economic activities in the local economy.

   A broader response to this question is that relatively few strategic planners or policy makers (either public or corporate) have mastered these indicators. Moreover, current analysis is far from mature in understanding the complexities and impacts of changes in local and regional economies connected to the structural changes in the state and national economies. The shift away from a traditional manufacturing economy is particularly difficult to fully comprehend in Michigan where the manufacturing economy has been historically dominant and provided enviably high per capita incomes and an outstanding quality of life. While a strong manufacturing sector is essential to Michigan's economy, the expansion of knowledge-based economic sectors (e.g. the Google facility in Ann Arbor or the Mascoma facility in Kinross) is expected to continue as are anticipated process improvements in existing economic activities.

   Process improvements have resulted in large part from the application of information and communications technology to improve the economic performance of firms, institutions, organizations and individuals. Technology-based enhancements have enabled greater productivity; supply-chain efficiencies; outsourcing of jobs; and re-organization of work toward flatter more horizontal behaviors in place of hierarchical vertical structures. As many jobs have been shifted to lower-wage locations on a global scale, Michigan with the upper Midwest has lost manufacturing jobs at headline rates while large companies pursue profitability. Industrial sections of Western Europe, Japan, and even China have experienced analogous job losses.

   The MSU Center for Community and Economic Development (CCED) has been investigating issues associated with the global knowledge economy for many years in Michigan and around the world. This work has been devoted in large part to identify and address gaps in education and planning practice that are inherent in the emergence of new global economy relationships and the expanding role of information and communications technologies. The Intelligent Development System and its various sub-systems are derived from CCED's long-standing economic development policy and planning research. The co-learning activities in this Project will create a sharper focus and provide measurable results to perfect our collective knowledge and experience in planning and practicing Intelligent Development and producing innovative and effective CIDS.

10. What are the pathways or planning processes to follow to get to CIDS-based outcomes?

    The Intelligent Development System provides a concrete, practical, and effective pathway to transform a region's CEDS to a sustainable development process to empower local stakeholders to achieve a more economically-productive and equitable region in the context of the globalized economy.

11. Should we focus on the long-range goal of changing the way we approach economic development or do we stick to the mechanism or proximate goal that will help us get there, i.e., overhauling our CEDS process to include knowledge economy thinking?

    Both are needed. The purpose of a CEDS is to make the case for needed infrastructure and public works investments. These investments must meet the criteria of EDA's Investment Policy Guidelines, and they need to support and connect to new and existing local knowledge economy functions. To achieve such a high level of impact, strategic investments must be envisioned for short, medium and long-term scenarios. Carefully developed strategic investments will encourage the leveraging of resources beyond EDA funding.

12. What are the sub-systems of the Intelligent Development System?

    The Intelligent Development System consists of eight interdependent sub-systems: ALERT Model Sub-System; Stakeholder Sub-System; the Digital Development and Development Sub-System; Physical Infrastructure and Financial Sub-System; Intelligent Development Lessons Sub-System; Actualizing Intelligent Development Sub-System; Intelligent Development Impacts Sub-System; Relational Theory and Other Theory Sub-System; and the intended Intelligent Development Outcomes.

13. What factors should be considered in forming stakeholder groups or teams?

    Although the composition of regional planning organizations is frequently specified by law or regulation, various mechanisms are needed to stimulate more diverse regional representation and more equitable participation and involvement in the development of Intelligent Development strategies, planning policies, and implementation. Widespread participation can energize, rejuvenate, and sustain the viability of local communities. Research on the global economy indicates that an atypically broad range of stakeholders should participate in, provide input to, and support the development and implementation of the Intelligent Development strategies and the resulting policies, programs and projects of action and intervention.

    Stakeholders include:

    • Businesses, including large and small-medium sized enterprises, and innovators as well as organized labor;
    • Public agencies and elected office-holders from various levels of government, including local, county, and multi-jurisdictional;
    • Non-governmental, non-profit organizations (NGOs) institutions, especially, human-capital organizations including representatives of pre-school to higher education; and social welfare organizations; and
    • Selected individuals like youth and cross-generational representatives and other representatives of societal diversity who are particularly relevant to local communities (e.g., those pursuing "encore careers").

    A metaphor to illustrate the nuances of this highly participatory approach may be helpful. In a theatrical performance, a cast of actors come together for the purpose of creating a specific show. Through many interactions among the director, actors, and other specialized roles (lighting, sound, costumes, props, special effects, etc.), they collectively produce a performance. The performance is based on a script that is interpreted by the director and improvised upon by the actors in the course of achieving a credible performance. This performing arts metaphor mirrors the dynamics of vibrant stakeholder participation that can enliven and sustain a knowledge economy strategic planning approach. Indeed, Lisa Peattie, a planner who has worked with community organizations in Cambridge, Massachusetts and poor communities in South America, has conceived "community" and community organizing as a kind of drama or theatrical performance.

    Future scenario planning, then, should flow from a rich mix of stakeholders and civic society design (Hopkins & Zapata, 2007). To this end, it is essential that the generational, gender, ethnic and geographic diversity of the planning region be carefully factored into the casting and creation of such an innovative stakeholder design.

14. What U.S. region might be considered for benchmarking to compare high-speed Internet best practices and measure progress in the three Northern Michigan EDDs?

    In the global knowledge economy and network society, access, affordability and knowledgeable use of the high-speed Internet and other information and communications technologies are essential. Yet, large numbers of rural and small town populations, businesses, and institutions in Northern Michigan cannot take advantage of the benefits and opportunities of the knowledge economy.

    There are, however, other rural regions of the U.S. fully participating in the global knowledge economy. For example, the e-NC Authority identifies itself as "a grassroots initiative to link all North Carolinians - especially those in rural areas - to the Internet" (e-NC, no date). The North Carolina e-NC Authority, then, provides a strong benchmark candidate. This North Carolina case might be investigated and used to inform broadband planning in Northern Michigan in consultation with telecommunications experts on the Project's F/IRST and KISN advisory groups, regional planners, and engaged stakeholders.

15. Can rural America support a knowledge economy?

    Yes. Several factors related to knowledge-based economic growth can be addressed with well-designed strategic initiatives. Relatively more populated rural communities tend to have higher concentrations of knowledge-based occupations because they provide greater opportunities for personal and business-2-business interactions and knowledge sharing. However, high-speed Internet access may neutralize the drawbacks of smaller populations by providing teleconferencing interactions, data base access, and routine use of the Internet and various e-communications. Moreover, Northern Michigan provides outstanding quality-of-life amenities with its Great Lakes recreation opportunities as well as hunting, trout fishing, skiing, wineries, hiking, etc. This quality of life can be a strong magnet to retain and attract knowledge workers.

    Three examples of rural knowledge-economy strategies include:

    1. Tapping institutions of higher education for innovations to jump-start the rural knowledge economy.
    2. Leveraging local amenities to attract knowledge workers.
    3. Building new infrastructures critical to local knowledge economy development.

    The core of building a rural knowledge economy is to foster innovative, regional, entrepreneurial partnerships of people, businesses, communities, & institutions (Henderson & Abraham, 2001). The key is to build on an accurate knowledge of current, place-based assets to leverage strategic investments informed through Intelligent Development insights and understanding.

16. What information can planners provide to stakeholders to stimulate creative and productive thinking and what processes can be employed to keep stakeholders engaged?

    Case studies and examples of other similar rural and small town regions can be helpful in awakening an awareness and sense of urgency that should be felt by every resident, business person, public servant, and student in Michigan.

    With the long-standing economic stresses Michigan's regions have experienced, there should be sufficient motivation for the partners to stimulate stakeholders' enthusiasm and commitment to develop effective strategies that are congruent with harnessing and steering the opportunities inherent in the global knowledge economy. Indeed, Michigan's own economic tsunami from precipitous losses in its manufacturing sector over an extended period of time demands fundamental restructuring in economic development, education, health care, and civic governance. And finally, the virtually-unprecedented magnitude of the current national and international economic crisis provides a snapshot of the global context for local and state Intelligent Development.

    The Intelligent Development System created by the CIDS Project Team relies in large part on the ALERT Model. The Awareness element of the ALERT Model is intentionally designed to address issues of motivation and sustained engagement of the stakeholders in community change efforts. Participation in and continuous engagement addressing the region's infrastructure, related economic demands, and social needs should generate additional interest and stimulate fresh thinking to elicit innovative solutions for future Intelligent Development.

17. How do we communicate about the types of strategies to participants who will move the region forward and inform our co-learning plan that will be developed with the MSU Center for Community and Economic Development (CCED)?

    The development and implementation of EDD co-learning action plans will be central to communicating about the types of economic development strategies to consider. Once the initial co-learning plans from each regional planning organizations have been shared with the CCED team, then common and specific learning needs will be identified. Work with the EDD planners, stakeholders, Future/Innovation Research Strategy Team (F/IRST), Knowledge Integration Solutions Network (KISN) to co-design learning plans will address identified learning needs. Self-learning by EDD partner planners is also critical to both the development and implementation of the co-learning plans. This highly creative and high-impact co-learning process will shape the design and implementation of Intelligent Development in Northern Michigan. Self-learning and co-learning will be initiated through engaging the Intelligent Development System and the ALERT Model elaborated in Corey and Wilson (2006). Ballard's Michigan Economic Future (2006) will also be used to support the development of co-learning action plans.

18. What are the broad outlines of the current knowledge economy?

    Ten precepts that have been instrumental in operationally defining the knowledge economy and closely-related contemporary economic development notions include:

    1. When the majority of non-agricultural employment in the U.S. was in white collar occupations, then a revolution in advanced services began.
    2. To go beyond mere material consumption, one should plan for an information society that is highly intellectual, creative, future design-oriented, and intended to realize individual lives worth living.
    3. The term post-industrial suggests the growing importance of such services as health and education and new science and technology research and development, but without replacing the old economy of routine services, manufacturing production, and primary economic functions such as agriculture and extractive activities such as lumbering and mining.
    4. The criticality of theory has become essential in seeking to grasp and master the complexities of the new economy and society.
    5. The role of abstract thinking in planning further has been recognized as critical.
    6. The importance of preparing for planning for anticipatory policy and political decisions for harnessing information and communications technologies has emerged.
    7. The impacts of global networks of capital, management, and information has become a high-impact factor in business and daily lives.
    8. As a result, technology-enabled productivity and competitiveness are major forces to be strategized.
    9. The relational concepts "space of flows & timeless time" underlie the complexities of these global and local substantive economic and societal systems.
    10. Economic functions are basic to Intelligent Development, but other interdependent and critical factors include society at large, cultural arts and amenities, and the natural environment with their respective sub-systems.

    The complex and diverse forces of globalization and digital development, especially the information and communications technologies (ICTs) infrastructure, drive the knowledge economy at the city-region scale that increasingly relies on technology, especially ICTs, and knowledge as factors of production in the context of the state and national economy.

19. What techniques are used by Intelligent Development practitioners to transform my EDD's current planning process to an Intelligent Development-based CEDS?

    The Intelligent Development approach reflects and reinforces the characteristics of the global knowledge economy and networked information society. Information and communications technologies (ICT) in particular, or digital development in general, comprise the global knowledge economy infrastructure.

    Building the global platform of digital networks continues at exponential rates. The ICT infrastructure of interconnected nodes has fundamentally changed how we communicate and conduct business. The knowledge economy is organized around flows that channel information, execute capital management decisions, and propel complex ideas over great distances instantaneously. These networks are open structures that can expand and integrate new nodes with a virtually infinite capacity, and have enabled the "flatness," described by Thomas Friedman (Friedman, 2007). This leveling of the playing field has empowered new and small-scaled corporations and individuals, virtually anywhere and at any time, to compete in domains that were until recently exclusively those of large corporations and wealthy individuals.

    Such fundamentally new conditions require new behaviors guided by a new mind set. Significant new investments must be made in developing human capital and talent and in creating new strategies that seize niche opportunities. Innovation and invention are the new mainsprings of prosperity and a sustainable quality of life. Innovation has become the principal differentiator conferring competitive advantage in the global network society. These networked dynamics and complexities have stimulated new development practices. Some principal practices have been identified in the functioning of the global economy and are framed below as "Intelligent Development."

    In recognizing the complexities, uncertainties, multi-layered and nonlinear functions, and the networks and flows of the new global knowledge economy, Intelligent Development explicitly draws on contemporary research, theory, concepts, and models. Intelligent development emphasizes that the dominant theoretical mindset must go beyond traditional rational positivistic theory by adopting relational theory (Graham & Healey October, 1999).

    Intelligent Development, then:

    • Uses comparative methods, including best planning practices and conducts benchmarking.
    • Prioritizes investments in places and regions for creating wealth, higher wage employment, and improved quality of life through investments in human capital and enterprise culture.
    • Draws on the expertise of local experience & local knowledge. Concrete local knowledge acquired through experimental and trial-and-error behavior specific to particular locations and times is critical. The integration of local expertise and contemporary knowledge economy research and theory will support the practice of intelligent development.
    • Explicitly promotes and facilitates participation in local development policy planning processes by citizens and institutional stakeholders. Effective participation assures that stakeholders are invested in planning processes and results, and become embedded across the local development culture. Enhanced participation is intended to contribute to mindset change that supports innovation and enterprise culture development locally and across the region.
    • Aligns politics and policy. Cross-walking the frequent divides between the demands of narrow, fractious politics and the rational imperatives of informed policy making can galvanize support for viable high-impact, mega-engineering projects sought by a broad mix of stakeholders and direct beneficiaries. Such alignment is not static. It is an ongoing process that must be responsive to, among other things, anticipated changes in federal economic development policies (e.g., in the immediate term, the national stimulus plan as laid out in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and local program and policy responses to those changes and changes in local economic conditions. The current set of grim economic realities may act as a catalyst to align politics and policy. That is, crisis may elicit close alignment between politics and policy. The new Administration's stated commitment to reduce partisan rancor may also act as another catalyst supporting closer alignment of politics and policy.
    • Employs forward looking strategic planning with a vision of sustainable development that seeks highly accessible, affordable, and universalized digital development infrastructure.

    When best practices influenced by appropriate theory and the latest research on innovation in science and technology are fully applied, then systematic, holistic, equitable, and multi-functional community/regional planning can be conducted and implemented. This strategic Intelligent Development approach includes attention to amenity factors and quality of life factors designed to retain and attract knowledge workers. The goal is for Northern Michigan communities to effectively compete in the global knowledge economy and network society, and enjoy equitable and sustainable prosperity.

    NOTE: Future project FAQs will discuss (1) each Intelligent Development Sub-system; (2) proposed approaches to implement the co-learning plans; and (3) selected definitions that are critical to the implementation of the co-learning plans. Additional questions and answers will also be added in response to planners' stated needs.

References