The OAC Professional Development Curriculum and the State of Ohio Creative-Industry Workforce System
By Gloria Ferris, Tom Romito and Betsey Merkel with assistance from I-Open leaders Ken Homer, Bruce Waltuck, and others.
Our single goal for our Design Lab will be to teach people how to close the gap between creativity (artists) and business development.
The overarching strategy of this initiative is to teach people how to close the gap between creativity (artists) and business development. Here are some high points of this initiative:
- The Ohio Arts Council Professional Development Strategy outlines a State of Ohio Creative-Industry Workforce System that integrates professional development curriculum, economic and workforce development.
- The OAC Professional Development Curriculum provides leadership development and skills training essential to relationship based, information-centric, network economies.
- The State of Ohio Creative-Industry Workforce System is empowered by OAC Curriculum; together, the two forces elevate the collective capacity of Ohio artists in economic and workforce development and strengthen the role of the artist and creativity in emerging global markets.
PROSPECTUS
OUR APPROACH
We will begin aligning our resources through networks, that we will intentionally design, map and strengthen.
THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
Through connecting our resources in new and different ways, we will generate higher rates of income growth. We will drive successful innovations to scale through networks.
OUR FOCUS
We are focusing on the following dimensions of high performance production.
- Strengthen entrepreneurship networks
- Launch next generation cluster initiatives
- Leverage talents of older workers
- Create a process of stronger civic engagement
- Invest in promising innovations to align our resources
GOVERNANCE
We will be adopting a model of “loose hierarchy” to guide these initiatives. A Core Team of partners will be responsible for design and implementation. We will guide individual initiatives through “initiative charters”. A Policy Team will hold the Core Team to account and remove obstacles to stronger alignments within the region.
BUDGET ALLOCATIONS
The following table will outline our budget allocations as our process moves forward. This will be defined by participants of the OAC strategic planning and fund-raising process and will be articulated in the Implementation Plan.
The following table will outline our budget allocations as our process moves forward. This will be defined by participants of the OAC strategic planning and fund-raising process and will be articulated in the Implementation Plan.
REQUEST FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
We request technical assistance in designing metrics for our initiatives. We are particularly concerned about developing strong metrics for leveraging the talent of older workers.
We request technical assistance in designing metrics for our initiatives. We are particularly concerned about developing strong metrics for leveraging the talent of older workers.
REGIONAL GOALS, STRATEGIC ACTIVITIES AND INITIATIVES
OUR STRATEGIC PURPOSE
We will use networks to align and leverage our resources to support high performance production. We will create new opportunities to generate wealth by connecting high performance people, businesses, and organizations.
High performance production leverages our traditional strengths in manufacturing to integrate manufacturing and services to serve a global market. Information we gather in the Design Lab and the Implementation Plan process will inform us as to how we will accomplish this and identify some of the industries we will target. We will transition it away from specific traditional industries and focus investments on high performance focal points.
High performance production leverages our traditional strengths in manufacturing to integrate manufacturing and services to serve a global market. Information we gather in the Design Lab and the Implementation Plan process will inform us as to how we will accomplish this and identify some of the industries we will target. We will transition it away from specific traditional industries and focus investments on high performance focal points.
We will be successful in achieving our purpose if we see improvements in the following regional characteristics:
- Our region’s civic leaders recognize that building a globally competitive region is a shared responsibility that transcends organizational, political and geographic boundaries -- no one organization controls our solutions;
- We see more collaborations in our region that “link and leverage” our assets across organizational, political and geographic boundaries;
- We are focused on a relentless effort to build collaborations that improve the talent of all residents in our region from early childhood education to older workers over 45 years old...from GED to PhD;
- We create dynamic networks to train, support, mentor and invest in entrepreneurs of all ages;
- We create active, dense networks of researchers, students, investors, entrepreneurs and innovative companies committed to high performance production.
OUR STRATEGIC OUTCOMES
- The items to be listed here will be defined by participants of the OAC strategic planning and fund-raising process and will be articulated in the Implementation Plan.
OUR STRATEGIC ACTIVITIES
- Strengthen entrepreneurship networks.-- We will strengthen entrepreneurship education and support networks to accelerate innovation and high performance production among start-up and existing businesses.
- Develop high performance clusters.-- We will develop collaborative clusters of companies committed to accelerating innovation and high performance production.
- Create new talent networks.-- Among other steps, we will leverage the talent of older workers to support innovation and high performance production.
- Build civic collaborations.--We will launch and guide a new discipline of "strategic doing" to develop our civic networks.
- Seed innovative collaborations.-- We will accelerate innovation by integrating workforce, economic development and educational resources to support high performance production activities.
All of these strategic activities will require us to map -- and maintain maps -- of the assets networks within our region and the resources flowing into our region from the state and federal governments. We will also engage in a continuous process of interactive Internet interviews to gather insights into how perceptions of collaboration are changing in the region.
As we evolve our implementation plan, we will be developing regional benchmarks to guide our efforts. The purpose of these benchmarks will be to define the different dimensions of our activity and to define the critical dimensions of an entrepreneurial, innovative region.
SOURCE: North Central Indiana (NCI) Workforce Innovation in Regional Development (WIRED) Implementation Plan, written by Ed Morrison, Co-Founder, I-Open and Economic Policy Analyst, Purdue Center for Regional Development, January 28, 2007.
OUR STRATEGIC INVESTMENTS IN INNOVATION
“Our regional economies are undergoing fundamental shifts. The integration of global markets, coupled with the explosion of the Internet in the late 1990’s, has created a “perfect storm” of deep economic change. To thrive in this environment, regional economies need balanced strategies that encourage new conversations, networks, and investments in the following areas:
- STRENGTHENING BRAINPOWER - In today’s global economy, brainpower provides the only sustainable basis for competitive advantage.
- CONNECTING INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURIAL NETWORKS - These networks convert brainpower into wealth through new products, new services, new markets. Innovation provides the process and entrepreneurship provides the skills to translate ideas into prosperity.
- BUILDING QUALITY, CONNECTED PLACES - Smart people can live anywhere. They will choose to live in regions that respect sound principles of physical development. Equally important, quality places have thick connections to other people, other markets.
- STRENGTHENING CIVIC HABITS OF DIALOGUE AND INCLUSION - In a globally connected economy, no one can go it alone. Prosperous regions will develop civic habits of thinking and acting together. Building collaboration and trust carries real competitive advantages: the regions that collaborate will spot opportunities and move more quickly than regions that do not.
- PROMOTING AN EFFECTIVE BRAND - Prosperous regions have positive stories to tell. These stories create a unique experience, a special identity, a common understanding of core strengths, a shared view of future opportunities.”
SOURCE: The Innovation Framework, a heuristic model for strategic investment in Open Source Economic Development.
