Danny Hearn started out by talking about the FEC group of 40 people who are not assigned to come up with a plan from government or the Chamber, to submit anything, or create a plan or anything. What we are is a group of people who are meeting, discussing, and learning about weak signals and future trends and how they might effect the way we educate, learn, the way we do economic development, and the way we govern. To see if we could look at ways to help existing efforts in our community.
From there he introduced Terry Bledsoe. Terry talked about the latest issue of Business Week Magazine. The picture can be flipped vertically . One side says "Why the market will keep going up." If you flip it the other way it says, "Why the market is going nowhere."
Terry stated that he believes this article is reflective of the times we are living in now. We play by a lot of rules that we have know forever. A lot of those rules don't apply anymore. A lot do still apply, but we have to look at them in more detail than we ever did before. that is what the Future Economy Council is looking at. What changes do we need to make, so that we can adapt to all the changes. Apparently, we haven't adapted well since the year 2000.
I order to think about change and understand how we need to change some of our processes. You have to understand where we are at and figure out where things are going. We are going to have to look at the world in a different way before we can sense what we are doing. We've been looking at a book called the Age of the Unthinkable - by Joshua Cooper Ramo. Basically the book states that there are a lot of things we have been looking at for years, and probably correctly, but not in enough detail in understanding all of the complexity of it. Especially with all of the technological advances we see coming forth.
Terry quoted some issues that have come up at the conference. he pointed at a statement made by Kitty Barnes. She said that (in Southeast Catawba County), She didn't know what these people were doing, but their showing up with buckets of mail. Houston Harris stated that he has served on a lot of committees lately and they're all trying to fight the same fight. Andy Wells - We're not growing. We're not letting the world know we exist. JD Ross - We have a horrible Brain Drain. When someone finishes school, their looking for a high paying job. Good area to raise a family. the schools are some of the best. Houston Harris - We're gearing around the things we did 20 years ago. Andy Wells - Fractured marketing. We have different web sites. We want educated people with money. Houston Harris - We want start-ups, better bandwidth, better infrastructure. Incubator and incentives for start-ups. Mooresville is progressive and alive.
When we went to the Manufacturing Solutions Center, the question was asked, "How do you get small manufacturers to move to a higher level?" That is what the FEC is looking at. How do we get the region to move to a higher level?
Dan St. Louis talked about sharing; sharing equipment between agencies and sharing workload. He talked about partnership, connections, cooperation, and opportunities.
We have talked about all of this in the Future Economy Council. It is all recorded on Project3P.com ... This is what we are trying to do. we are trying to build leaders that can actually look out here at the things that are going on and actually pick up on trends and signals and bring those opportunities to Catawba County.
We have all been through leadership training, so what is different? The World is different, is what is different. We have to look at it differently. The group is very diverse and very talented, but we don't know what is going to come out of it, but we are very hopeful of some of the ideas.
We are working with Rick Smyre of the Community's of the Future. People all over the world have utilized Rick's services, but the Catawba County group is one of the first in the world that is looking at what our economy needs to look like in the future and how do we get there. How do we create Economic Resiliency so that economic downturns don't hit us as hard as this one has.
One of the key pieces in this process is the development of Master Capacity Builders. This goes to creating leaders who are able to develop new ways of thinking about the future, identify trends and weak signals, be able to ask appropriate questions, ways to add value, and innovative global systematic connective networking. The FEC is looking to tie all of these things together.
Some of the trends and weak signals we have discussed are: 1) Children are authorities on central innovation, such as the new digital media. An example would be Web 2.0 portals like facebook, myspace, and twitter. How we communicate with people has changed dramatically. 2) Universal connectivity - everyone has the ability to access the internet, but here in Catawba County (Southwest) we still have people who can't get Broadband to their home. 3) Jobs that do not require proximity. There are people that don't work at the office or business; they work out of their home. How do we provide these people the services they need to help facilitate these opportunities? Many of these people draw high salaries. 4) Ubiquitous, unprecedented access to information. What was it like when we couldn't get answers in 5 minutes or less? Can you manage your staff in 140 characters or less? Twitter. 5) What is Apple really up to? Apple's data Center's size is unprecedented throughout the world. How do we take advantage of that?
We have looked at a lot of data and here are some of the discussions we have had: 1) We have looked at Taylor Dellinger's (WPCOG) information and Wilmington, North carolina hasn't suffered the same job losses we have. What did they do to keep from suffering the job losses we have seen. maybe we should look at their economy so that we can compare the two. 2) There have been some very successful creative small businesses that have been developed right here in Catawba County. Restoration hardware is made here, but there isn't anywhere to buy it here, but they utilize skilled labor from right here. We have an Computer Generated Graphic Artist (Michael McNeely) that lives here in Catawba County. He worked on the film, Pirates of the Caribbean. He is a member of the FEC. 3) Software from a company in Newton was used to convict Phil Spector, at his Murder trial, by creating a graphic simulation of the murder scene.
We have a lot of creative industries here that we need to build off of. We need to build off of these opportunities to create more opportunities.
What did Apple like about Catawba County? They like our manufacturing attitude, the culture of Hard Working, and the Quality of Life. We need to use these strengths and make sure that we market off of these strengths.
We have also had a discussion about diversity. In 1999, this area was noted for it's diversity (in the New York Times). We were held up as a model for the new economy. What happened? We ran out of product. We were at full employment, so new industries chose not to come here, because we didn't have people to stock their employment needs. So we couldn't further diversify.
We have also talked about parallel processes. We want Scott Millar out there doing everything he can to bring industries to our area, but we also need to be looking at things that will be coming into the market 20 or 30 years from now -- or processes that might be changing. A lot of what we have done in Catawba County has been the traditional heat, beat, and treat. That is the traditional manufacturing process.
Are we looking at things like Nanotechnology? This is really taking off with radio frequency detectors that can detect body processes for security -- such as in Airports. We need to start looking at manufacturing using natural principles. Mother Nature (Biology) may have a solution that helps destroy germs less dangerously.
How do we provide creative people the tools that they need to enable them to stay in this area and still have customers all over the world. Opening doors of Opportunity can allow one to find new avenues of creativity and it will continue to feed off of itself. An example is the Manufacturing Solutions Center. Their basis was developed for hosiery and they have used a lot of the same tools, information, and processes to start testing other materials with the same equipment.
Rick Smyre's Communities of the Future has brought forth the idea of the Creative Molecular Economy. We have moved through several economic ages. we have been through the Industrial age, the information age, and now we are in the age of Creativity. What if Albert Einstein had been able to communicate with his colleagues all over the World via the internet? What would have happened. The possibilities are limitless.
We need to look at the talents and creative resources we have here and look to see what we are doing to support and encourage those. You might say it is only a few jobs, but how many businesses indigenous to this area started out in a garage or basement that grew to become major businesses in this area.
We have looked at educational attainment. We are ranked last. We have great school systems, so what is happening? We are losing our best and brightest. They are walking right out of the county. Think of the kids in your church, in your social group, your friends, and so forth. Once they have graduated from college, are they living here in Catawba County now? Looking around the room the answer was pretty much no and this is the same as what we have seen at FEC meetings or in other places where this question was asked. How do we create opportunities for these people?
We looked at the 18-44 age demographic and the state is saying that we (Catawba County) will grow by over 15,000 people. Terry stated that he didn't know where the state is getting that, when we have only grown by 45 people in that demographic since the year 2000. It is obvious that we are losing the people in that group. If we lose this educated creative group, then that is a problem.
It has been brought up at FEC meetings before, that there is a huge disparity between the people in the room and the average worker in Catawba County. Terry asked how many people in this room (there were about 32 people) were from Catawba County? There were only 4 of us from Catawba County. Most of the education and incomes are better than the average worker in Catawba County. We have a responsibility to go out there and find solutions to now and the future. We need to build in economic resiliency by becoming leaders who can look towards the future and identify opportunities and little pieces that fit into the world and that we can use in Catawba County. This will make us stronger and that is what the Future Economy Council is all about.
The Hound hopes that Terry's summary of what the FEC is all about will help you understand its mission better. We are a solutions oriented group. Please visit Project3P.com to see everything that has been discussed by the FEC going back to its inception. Also here is a link to Terry's Catawba County Technology Blog - Catawba County CIO Blog.
All is not Lost - Catawba County Intra-City Visit and Economic Revitalization Conference
Building a Relationship with NC State's Centennial campus
Fixing Hickory - The Appalachian State Partnership
Fixing Hickory - Education Matters and Workforce Development
Fixing Hickory - “What Will Catawba County’s Economic Climate and Demographics Look Like in 2020”?
Fixing Hickory - A Demographics and Marketing Discussion Panel
Fixing Hickory - CVCC’s New Manufacturing Solutions Center
Fixing Hickory - Economic Development Corporation’s Programming Strategies presented Scott Millar
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