More about the value of building Open Conversations and Civic Forums

Here is our Tool Box for building open innovation in networked economies. We use these guides to identify and connect innovation and enterprise development.

Methods and tools

• Open Source Economic Development  (Our Map)

I-Open accelerates innovation and economic transformation in local and regional economies. Our approach, Open Source Economic Development is founded on open source development, an effective innovation engine developed in the software industry. Open source is a set of principles and practices that promote access to the design and production of goods and knowledge.

I-Open develops and deploys practical approaches to creating open innovation networks in neighborhoods, counties, and regions. Open networks drive innovation, and I-Open is focused on the disciplines, habits and practices that strengthen these networks in our "civic spaces".

• The Innovation Framework

Civic leaders in every region, every county, and every community need to think in terms of global competition. In today's world, our opportunities and challenges are taking place on a global scale.

To seize these opportunities, we need to focus on the following areas of investment:

• Strengthening Brainpower

Building world-class brainpower. In today’s global economy,

brainpower provides the only sustainable basis for competitive advantage. In a knowledge economy, workforce development begins with a pregnant mother. Every child needs a preschool education; every child should be able to read and comprehend well by the third grade; dropping out of high school creates a lifetime disability.

• Connecting innovation and entrepreneurship networks

Translating our brainpower into wealth through flexible and adaptive innovation networks. These networks convert new products, new services, new markets into wealth; innovation provides the process and skills to translate ideas into prosperity.

•   Building quality-connected place

Quality connected places attract and retain our brainpower and innovative businesses. Smart people can live anywhere and will choose to live in regions that respect sound principles of physical development. Quality connected places have thick connections to other people and other markets.

•   Promoting an effective brand

Prosperous regions tell positive stories. These stories create a unique experience, a special identity and a shared common understanding of core strengths and future opportunities.

• Strengthening civic habits of dialogue and inclusion

In a globally connected economy, no one can do it alone. Everyone brings value and new perspectives. Prosperous regions develop civic habits of thinking and acting together; they build collaboration and trust resulting in competitive advantages. The regions that collaborate spot opportunities faster and move more quickly than regions that do not.

• Strategic Doing (Our Process)

Open Source Economic Development is designed to quickly trigger new initiatives in each of the 5 areas investment on the Innovation Framework. We are equipping civic leaders with the skills (collaborative leadership) to launch and align these initiatives through the process of “strategic doing”, a new approach to generate strategic insights and consensus. These insights focus our resources and make choices. This happens through meaningful conversation. Strategic doing emphasizes the importance of generating strategic insights and translating these ideas into action quickly.

• Building On-line collaborative communities

Web 2.0 is perceived as a second-generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social networking sites, wikis, folksonomies, events calendar, video archiving, podcasts, RSS feeds and blogs to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. It is a way software developers and end users use the web as a platform. Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as a platform, and to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Web 2.0 serves as a virtual collaborative meeting place in between face-to-face meetings to continue the conversation or move forward on a project together.

I-Open uses the Near-Time.net platform as its tool of choice for building Open Source models of economic development.

Our Strategic Activities

• Research
• Networks
• Enterprise development
• Education 

Here are some Open Source Economic Development objectives we think about

• Building Our Regional Network Infrastructure to accelerate the formation of entrepreneurial cultures

I-Open encourages entrepreneurs to participate and lead in building networks to connect and collaborate with like-minded individuals and organizations. The thicker the networks, the easier to spot opportunities and move quickly to start a new business, expand and grow an existing business or a start a group project. By expanding their social networks, entrepreneurs develop the social capital resources needed for present and future funding.

Acting in ways that foster an entrepreneurial culture, entrepreneurs, align with the business leadership networks and make the important shift away from the industrial economy (top-down environment) to an innovation or information economy (a networked and collaborative environment). Engaging and reaching out to others to figure out new ways of working together produces new and innovative products and services. By collaborating with educational institutions, entrepreneurs have access to theoretical and practical research that is needed to make responsible and better decisions about the future. Adding government officials in the mix help change policy and offer services beneficial to start-ups and to the growth of existing businesses. Neighborhoods, communities and regions become “hot spots” and attractors to develop a quality connected places where growth and prosperity thrives.

• Identifying and Connecting Resources and Capabilities

Civic Forum participants have the opportunity to identify and connect to resources and capabilities. As they develop relationships and connections with the other participants in and out of the forum, they pull in the resources they see as valuable assets for their business or project to move forward. What people, places and tools are needed to do a better job or make a project successful?

Some examples of resources that a typical entrepreneur is seeking:

• Access to WI-FI

• Low cost office space and meeting space

• Free parking

• Equipment (computer, fax machine, printer and copier)

• Up to date software

• Telephone

• Access to capital

• Connecting Partners and Small Teams

I-Open encourages participants develop new collaborations and partnerships; who they envision as a team to work on their idea and develop it into a business or project. The unexpectedness of what they create together is the exciting part of working together.

Our research shows that partners working in small teams produce results quickly. They deliver many new ideas to jumpstart the process of asking some of the critical questions towards solving some of the major problems the world faces today. As teams form and meet outside of the forum, new whitepapers will be written on a variety of topics from contributing collaborators, roundtables will convene to begin discussions on important issues that need attention, and new working groups will build teams for business and project development.

  Measurements and Metrics we use to build Networked Economies

In the innovation economy, the metrics have changed. We no longer rely on reports on foot traffic, traffic lights and patterns or number of buildings, with statistics that are 2 years old and available on the web for free. Measurement relies on what is happening right now and how to determine what we are doing is successful. Rules for measuring and metrics:

• Number of civic forums convened

• Number of new and expanding networks (changes and growth identified by social network maps

• Quantity of new startups of local businesses

• Quantity of growing existing businesses

• Quantity of funded initiatives

• Quantity of online communities developed

• Quality of activity based on evaluations from participants

• Number of seminars and workshops

• Number of new programs developed