Develop This: Economic and Community Development

2023 Economic Development Week – May 8 - 12, 2023

In this episode, Dennis and Broderick discuss Economic Development Week and why economic developers are not always great at telling their stories. 

Economic Development Week gives economic development professionals a platform to showcase to their community the contributions made to their local economy throughout the year.

• Utilize IEDC’s toolkit to help support your message and increase your impact

Economic Development Week was created by IEDC in 2016 to increase awareness of local programs that create jobs, advance career development opportunities, and improve the quality of life in communities everywhere.

• Are you looking to promote Economic Development within your community?
• Why do you think we are sometimes hesitant to tell our story or blow our own horn?
• Whose job is it to tell our story?
• Every business, company, and organization has a reputation….do you know what yours is?
• We must control our own narrative

Goals of Economic Development Week

• Articulate: Voice the value of your contributions to your local economy
• Organize: Build a base of support within your community for the work of your ED
• Show and Tell: Emphasize the importance of economic development through tangible examples and peer case studies
• Amplify: Spread your message and increase the exposure of all the good work your EDO does throughout the year

     Prepare to get in the game in 2024!

Walking the Economic Development Tightrope

For many of us, there has been a fundamental shift in how we approach economic development. As the job market has tightened the challenge of bringing in a new project has increased exponentially. How do we continue to look for opportunities when our current employers can’t fill their staffing needs?

• Everyone loves the new announcement and golden shovel ceremonies
• How does that play with our existing companies?
• 750,000 jobs are unfilled in the manufacturing sector
• Deloitte Insights predicts that 2.1 million manufacturing jobs will remain unfilled in the U.S. alone by 2030
• Worker shortage and a skills Gap

In this episode Dennis as the question what do you want to be when you grow up?

Whether economic development is your 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th career it's never too early or late to decide what you want to be when you grow up. Are you following your childhood dream or has your career been a series of twists and turns?

Now is the time to take a look in the mirror and have a serious conversation with yourself. Sometimes the hardest part of life is being honest with yourself. Only one person really knows you and the truth. 

• Ask yourself the tough questions
• Write down where you want to be in one, three, and five years
• Do something that scares you occasionally  
• Life is too short not to be happy both personally and professionally 

How do others understand economic development?  Does AI understand our work better than others? In this episode, Develop This! contributing correspondent Sean Maguire checks in from OUEDI and draws inspiration for this show from both real life and entertainment and starts asking AI about economic development.  Sean engages with ChatGPT to ask questions about economic development and considers the validity of the answers AI comes back with.  He asks ChatGPT to create a script for this show, how to define economic development, and - as a planner + economic developer - why city planners make good economic developers.

Do you want Sean to ask ChatGPT your question about economic development for a future show?

Connect with Sean on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanmaguireaicp/ 

or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/econdevsean/  and send him your questions

Sometimes Doing the Right Thing is Hard

Caution! This is the cynical and bitter version of the Develop This! podcast!

In this episode, Dennis vents his frustrations about the difficulty of building coalitions even when you're trying to do the right thing. Dennis has made a conscious decision to be less like Neville Chamberlain and more like Winston Churchill.....Never, never, never, give up

• Economic development professionals are often at the nexus of difficult projects
• Everyone wants to impact workforce but doing meaningful work and doing the right thing is hard
• You would think it would be easy to build coalitions and that everyone would understand what’s at stake if we fail to take action
• Unfortunately, local politics, egos, and turf battles can derail even the best intentions

Neville Chamberlain was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940. He is best known for his role in the Munich Agreement of 1938 which ceded parts of Czechoslovakia to Hitler and is now the most popular example of the foreign policy known as appeasement.

Winston Churchill was an inspirational statesman, writer, orator and leader who led Britain to victory in the Second World War. He served as Conservative Prime Minister twice - from 1940 to 1945 (before being defeated in the 1945 general election by the Labour leader Clement Attlee) and from 1951 to 1955. 

Dennis would love to hear your stories of how you have overcome obstacles that your organization has faced.

Contact him at [email protected] or call 319-753-0690

Dennis and Broderick discuss how to assemble a dynamic board of directors for your organization. No matter what your role is in an economic development group the quality of your board of directors directly impacts the quality of your organization. 

How do you attract high quality people to serve on your board of directors?

• Run a quality meeting
• Start and stop on time
• Respect peoples time
• Be the kind of organization that people want to be a part of

Traits of a good board member

• Attendance
• Inquisitive
• Not afraid to challenge the status quo
• Community minded

Find a rock star and build around him or her

Successful people want to be around other successful people

Recruit a diverse board

• Gender
• Race
• Age
• Areas of expertise

Have term limits

Rotate the executive board and board chair

Do a thorough board member orientation

Get to know your board members

Economic Development is Not for Amateurs – Jay Garner

Board self-assessment – Board Source

Dennis is joined by Mid Amercia EDC board member Brad Reams to discuss the upcoming  Mid Amercia EDC Best Practices Conference May 10 - 12 in Kansas City.

We hope you can join us in Kansas City May 10-12 for the 2023 Best Practices Conference!  The Best Practices Conference is the annual spring/summer conference for Mid-America EDC. This conference rotates throughout the states in the region, and we are thrilled to have Kansas and Missouri as this year’s host states!

You won’t want to miss this opportunity to learn best practices from industry professionals and experts. There will also be plenty of opportunities for networking with your Midwest colleagues, as well as the opportunity to experience the development and innovation that Kansas City has to offer!

Mid Amercia EDC 

Best Practices Conference  

Brad Reams 

Equitable Economic Development: Does Anyone Care?

 Background - 

“Equity” has been used a lot over the last few years

Definition: “The quality of being fair and impartial”

Last year, the IEDC released its “Equitable Economic Development Playbook” which examined structural racism in ED and promotes equitable practices and standards.

The report highlighted four fundamental “prisms” through which equitable economic development strategies could be understood and applied.

Acknowledge – acknowledge history

Target – programs and initiatives must explicitly target affected and vulnerable communities

Collaborate – equity cannot be produced from a singular source

Measure – incorporate equity and inclusion into performance metrics

It is the responsibility of all ED practitioners to promote equitable policies, practices, and standards to ensure all segments of our communities benefit from our efforts.

How Economic Development is Like the NCAA Tournament.

March Madness: Cinderella’s Buzzer Beaters, & One Shining Moment

Broderick and Dennis discuss their love of basketball and how March Madness and the NCAA basketball tournament have parallels to the work economic development professionals do in their communities. Broderick calls this the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year."

What elements of the tourney have some similarities to the economic developer's day-to-day work?

• Final Four
• Buzzer Beaters
• Cinderella's
• One Shinning Moment 

NCAA Mens Tournament 

NCAA Womens Tournament 

Movie fans Dennis and Broderick reimagine the Oscars as economic development awards. They ask the questions are You and Your Organization Oscar Worthy? Entering the annual IEDC awards is a great way to measure your organization against your peers. Plus Broderick and Dennis reveal their favorite movies and which Marvel character they would be!

Production design – Your Image

• Everyone, every business, and every organization has an image
• Do you know what your image is?

Cinematography – Visual Impact

• Branding, photography and graphics, website
• Is your website up to date?

Editing - Being Concise 

• Distilling down your accomplishments
• Annual report

Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Costume Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing- Your Story

• Your personal brand and your organization's brand
• How are you telling your story?
• Are you telling your story?
• If you don’t tell your story someone else will
• Selling blue sky

Directing – The Board

• How did the board perform?
•   Board self-assessment
• Board performance is tied to the CEO
• Onboarding process

Supporting actor – Your team

• Do you have the right team and the people in the right seats?
• The work is easy….people are hard

Actor- You

• How was your performance?
• Did you reach your goals?

Best Picture – Your body of Work and Achievements

• How did you and your organization do?
• Did you have one major accomplishment or several smaller ones?
• Do people gravitate toward your organization?

Entering the IEDC awards is an excellent way to measure your organization

The Oscars