Creative Region Initiative Kicks Off

Bill Pote at Dayton Most Metro reports on the Creative Region Initiative getting underway here, and there is a Dayton Daily News story, too. Both provide a list of 30 catalysts, which is sort of the local project team. Looking at the list one can see this is group that is diverse in age and gender, and also a bit in race, so there is certainly a commitment to reaching beyond what seems to be the local good old boy network.

That this list (names as well as organiztional affiliation) is public is perhaps due to Richard Florida and his consultants committment to a transparent process. Kudos to the DDN for playing ball and printing the full list vs editing down the article.

This effort is based on Florida's creative class theory of economic development, but also incorporates populist and inclusive principles.

Florida's consultancy will be coming to Dayton this coming week to lead a two day workshop. One of the products the consultancy will provide are some statistical benchmarks and rankings, showing where the region stands in various categories. Here is an example from a pdf available at the SOCHE website (SOCHE was the promoter of the effort):


Some of these I am famliar with like the Milken indexs, others I am not, so there is going to some original work from the consultant brought to the table.

Another thing is that may be provided is this analyses of occupation change, which should be quite interesting to see if made public as it shows growth and decline as well as concentration/specialization (the "location quotient").The Florida consultancy will be coming to Dayton this week to facilitate a 2 day seminar with the catalysts. Looking at this excerpt of a sample schedule one can see how this progresses from analyses to visioning (presumably based on the analyses) and then an execution plan where various projects (called "initiatives") are indentified and planned out to make progress toward the vision.
So it's a bit of data-driven strategic planning, but also working on an execution strategy, too.

Pretty neat, and I like that they are looking at execution as part of this (the "iniatives"). Apparently there will be heading checks throughout the year to measure progress, and that there is supposed to be cross-talk between the catalysts working on different initiatives.

So one can see that the catalysts will be project managers of sorts. But there is something else that makes this different from other ED plans.

Note this catalysts job description:


The red box is key. This requirment moves the Creative Region Initaitive into the realm of community organizing and social entrepeneurship. Sort of Saul Alinsky meets Economic Development, this emphasis on community engagement, volunteerism, and particpation.

If one reads the Dayton Most Metro site, one knows the board host, Bill Pote (one of the catalysts), is very much up on this aspect. In this post he calls this community participation "crowdsourcing", and he plans on using his website to facilitate community involvement.

Daytonlogy will be following the Creative Region Initiative effort as it unfolds.