Innovation drives productivity and prosperity. Increasingly, innovation depends on relationships that form outside of the four walls of any organization.

The term, "open innovation" has moved center stage in our drive to stimulate innovation.

I-Open believes that regional civic leaders can nurture innovation through conversations. As Willliam Page, founder of Verifone has said, "Most really useful information comes from conversations."

But these conversations are not haphazard or disjointed. Nurturing regional innovation takes reliable civic processes that involve both open participation and leadership direction. Civic leaders need to guide conversations quickly into action, because it is through action that we build trust. And it is through higher levels of trust that we build speed.

One of the court disciplines now involves weaving networks in our "civic spaces".  Economic development takes place in the civic space outside the four walls of any one organization.  One of the key insights of the second paragraph, becomes an understanding that we need to organize our civic spaces more effectively.

Many of the challenges and opportunities we face today require us to innovate in new and different ways.  Yet, most communities have no common practice to generate or test new ideas. Even worse,  in some communities the practices of civility have deteriorated dramatically.

Working with our colleagues, Valdis Krebs, June Holley and Jack Ricchuitto,  we have developed training to teach civic leaders the new skills of weaving open networks in their communities.

What is Open Source Economic Development? 

Open Source Economic Development is a set of models, tools and disciplines that enable diverse groups of people to engage in complex development projects in "the civic space". 

How is this approach connected to open source software development?

Open source software development encourages the formation of voluntary open innovation networks. Through a set of simple rules, a complex community evolves to develop complex projects. These rules balance open participation with leadership direction.

How is this approach related to the idea of clusters?

They are closely related. Clusters represent open innovation networks. Open Source Economic Development represents a set of tools and disciplines to develop clusters. 

Why is this approach needed? 

Economic development takes place in a "civic space" outside the four walls of any one organization. In the civic space, no command and control system works. Instead, we must build and align resources through networks. 

In order to scale these networks, we need a set of practices and tools that deliver value to the participants, while at the same time are simple to teach. 

Open source has its "source code" that is open. What is the "source code" of Open Source Economic Development? 

Participants are sharing their networks. They are making these networks visible and "open". Regions that figure out the importance of networks will prosper in the Second Curve economy. They will learn and align their resources faster. 

What does the Second Curve economy mean? 

The Second Curve refers to how wealth is created. Its a broad classification of business models. In the First Curve economy, business models relied of hierarchies, functionally organized corporations that could "command and control" resources. In the Second Curve economy, business models are based more on open networks. This shift is business models creates a fundamental challenge to create new approaches to economic development.