Open Opportunity
Open Opportunity Table of Contents Nature of the Problem
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Grand Challenge
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Integration
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Clusters
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Lab Stage Model
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References
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In the past century America has benefited from a set of unique conditions for growth. 14 13 12
2006
11 10
2004
2005
2003
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8 March of 2002 7
6K : DJI Index
History
Brand America
America was built on a foundation of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” People from around the world have recognized America as the Land of Opportunity where everyone, regardless of race, gender or social order, have the freedom to pursue their own dream.
The American Dream is rooted in the growth of post World War II. At the time middle class families prospered rapidly acquiring the things that would create the metrics for standards of living – house, car, family and a white picket fence.
This shared frame of mind has built one of the strongest nations in the world. Feeding the economy with new business growth, innovative offerings and job creation.
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The term actually originates from James Truslow Adams’ 1931 The Epic America where he states: “The American dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to
ability or achievement. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
Entrepreneurship
The American Brand hinges on the motivations of entrepreneurs and the mobility of its citizens.
The access to opportunity of all American citizens is important to preserving the brand.
During 1998 - 2004 small businesses produced half of private non-farm GDP. Entrepreneurs are a key driver of economic growth by creating jobs, disrupting industry dynamics and providing innovative ideas.
Economic Mobility
Nature of the Problem
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14 13 12 11 10
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6K : DJI Index
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Today those conditions are in danger.
March of 2008
March of 2009
Nature of the Problem
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America’s competitive advantages are being challenged. is unparalleled entrepreneurship -2.1%
The environment for
estimated growth in mature economies this year
U.S. entrepreneurship has been fed by a
science, technology, and innovation 30,000
machine that remains by far the best in the world
Indian born technology professionals residing in the US moved back to India in 2005 and 2006
competition and free markets 51%
The country with the strongest commitment to
of U.S. patents issued in 2008 were to non-American companies.
of any nation capital markets $700 billion
The U.S. has benefited from the deepest and most efficient Americans now owe more than
$11 trillion dynamism and resilience
The U.S. enjoys remarkable on their homes.
Competitive Disadvantages The advantages that America has built for themselves are beginning to erode. Michael Porter explains that the federal government has not sustained the policies or created the environment for entrepreneurs to thrive. A lack of investment in science and technology, support of decentralization and increase in access to higher education requires America to articulate a new economic strategy. The competitive landscape is changing and failing to
Nature of the Problem
has been designated for struggling banks and car companies.
address these issues will result in a fall in America’s global competitiveness. At a time when the markets are collapsing and unemployment rates are escalating the government needs to focus on how it might stimulate rapid growth and align the various departments around a common goal.
Dangerous Rate of Growth Paul Romer sites a country’s growth rate as “dwarf[ing] all other economic-policy concerns” in response to an economic recession. The concern in America today is
whether growth in the next few years will be fast enough to pull us out of the recession effectively.
Disconnected Departments The policies required to address the growing issues span across multiple departments. With this dispersion it is easy for the initiatives to fall through the cracks. In order to respond to problems, the government will need to align around common goals.
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Grand Challenge
We will build an environment in America where opportunity is accessible to everyone. This will be done by making it the easiest place in the world to start a business through facilitating cluster economics
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Grand Challenge
Foster Long-Term Economic Growth Through Entrepreneurship
… Now is the time to act boldly and wisely – to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity.
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The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don’t lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth.
-Barack Obama, February 24th 2009
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Getting a passport is easy...
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Integration
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If you have a million dollars.
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Integration
Or a Nobel Prize.
A Complicated Process In order to obtain an H-1B visa to work in the US, foreigners must be put on a waiting list, have a bachelor’s degree in a “specialty” occupation, and have an employer petition for the visa. If they are an “alien of extraordinary ability,” including winning a Nobel Prize, they are eligible for an 0-1 visa. Or, if they are willing to invest $1 million, they are eligible for an EB-5 visa.
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Entrepreneurs need integration.
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Integration
Right now the process is a web, where anybody can slip through
Create a platform to support business start-ups and growth
Create a streamlined platform Take the complication out There are too many departments and too many steps in the process. Each one represents a link that can easily be broken, causing someone to fail.
There is a need for a centralized business hub that explains the process as it guides people through, offering advice and assistance to both citizens and immigrants in starting and maintaining a business.
Create a Solid Foundation for Starting a Business Here at Home According to the Small Business Association, “small businesses have created 60 to 80 percent of the net new jobs.” However, only 31% of these small businesses last more than 7 years. The process for starting and growing a business is convoluted, with multiple agencies to register with, tax codes and insurance issues to learn, and other costly services like lawyer and accountant fees. And once the business is up and running, keeping it fresh and innovative provides new challenges to the small
business owner. Most owners are already stretched thin and don’t have avenues to learn about new strategies and techniques, or how to hire new talent.
Overseas What once made America grow--the immigrant workforce--is now being threatened. A March 2009 Kauffman Foundation report shows that over 56% of Indian and 50% of Chinese immigrants indicated plans of starting a business in the next 5 years. However, of those immigrants, over 53% of Indian and 60%
of Chinese immigrants stated that there were better opportunities to start these businesses in their home country. In today’s American economy, where over 70% is based on services rather than production, we need these bright, talented, and most importantly, motivated individuals to start these businesses here. We need to attract new immigrants wanting an opportunity, and retain those who have come over on work and study visas. We need to make it not only more desirable to start a business, but easier to come here to be entrepreneurs.
Precursors Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. created the world’s largest corporation by giving customers a convenient, onestop-shop to do all of their shopping, thus eliminating the need to go to different outlets to get tasks done. A central business hub could offer potential business owners the same convenience by making it the only place they need to go to obtain advice, permits, and other necessary services.
Contact Singapore was created by the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Ministry of Manpower to attract global talent to not only work, but to invest and live in Singapore. They link employers with global talent, and work with the private sector to facilitate interest from potential investors.
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google maps
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Cluster
It takes a valley...
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to raise an industry.
http://www.gepworld.com/images/siliconvalley.jpg
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Regional industry clusters—geographic concentrations of interconnected firms and supporting organizations—represent a potent source of productivity at a moment of national vulnerability to global economic competition. For that reason, the federal government should establish an industry clusters program that stimulates the collaborative interactions of firms and supporting organizations in regional economies to produce more commercial innovation and higher wage employment.
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Karen G. Mills, MMP Group, Brookings Institute
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Clusters
Policy Trends Supporting Clusters and Regional Innovation Systems
Policy Stream
Old approach
New approach
Cluster program focus
Regional policy
Redistribution from leading to lagging regions.
Building competitive regions by bringing local actors and assets together.
• Target or often include lagging regions. • Focus on smaller firms as opposed to larger firms, if not explicitly then de facto. • Broad approach to sector and innovation targets. • Emphasis on engagement of actors.
Science and technology policy
Financing of individual, single-sector projects in basic research.
Financing of collaborative research involving networks with industry and links with commercialisation.
• Usually high-technology focus. • Both take advantage of and reinforce the spatial impacts of R&D investment. • Promote collaborative R&D instruments to support commercialisation. • Include both large and small firms (often spin-off and start-up firms).
Industrial and enterprise policy
Subsidies to firms; national champions.
Supporting common needs of firm groups and technology absorption (especially SMEs).
Programmes often adopt one of the following approaches: • Target the drivers of national growth. • Support industries undergoing transition and thus shedding jobs. • Help small firms overcome obstacles to technology absorption and growth. • Create competitive advantages to attract inward investment and brand for exports.
OECD Policy Brief, May 2007
Cluster Initiatives
Regional Policy Makers
Federal Government
Catalysts and intermediaries will be identified to help organize cluster initiatives and communicate the needs (money, talent, resources) to regional policy makers. Organized clusters will be able to collectively communicate opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs that bring growth to their cluster.
Regional policy makers will utilize funds provided by federal, state, and local government to enhance cluster conditions. This may include securing talent, facilitating collaborative research, providing support to firm groups in areas such as technology absorption and new business acceleration. Constant communication with the cluster intermediaries will ensure transparency and accountability for the use of funds.
The federal government will leverage the scale of the United States by building an information database that analyzes regional clusters. It will foster knowledge sharing between regions and industry clusters. The government will also enable faster economic growth by granting regional policy makers control of the appropriation of federal funds.
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Lab Stage Model
What We Did
Stage 01: Opportunities
Stage 02: Context & Stakeholders
Stage 03: Agenda
Starting with the broad topic of “Opportunity,� we explored what that meant. Using Era analyses to discover trends over time in America, we focused on entrepreneurship as being valuable in providing citizens with opportunity along with economic and social mobility.
Expanding on entrepreneurship, we utilized experience maps to track the process of starting and running a business. This identified the strengths of starting a business as well as identifying pain points, weaknesses, and failures in the system.
For the Opportunity Team, when to implement was not as important as how to implement. Understanding how all the pieces of the puzzle went together, as well as how the separate government entities (national, regional, and local) worked together was the biggest challenge we faced. Our proposals relied heavily on sorting through the maze, as well as precursor programs from other countries.
Also, extensive secondary research was necessary to understand the landscape and identify current trends. Identified end users as well as government-level positions and cabinets that would be necessary or assist in the process of starting a business to create economic growth.
Where the Innovation Lab can help
Providing macro trend and up to date era analyses to scope the current state of problems and opportunities in America based on past performance and contrasts with other countries. Help creating the case for change in specific areas. Recognize problems quicker and with more flexibility to stop them from growing into crisis. Example: Google predicting flu virus 2 weeks before CDC.
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Quickly identify all necessary government personnel who would be responsible in execution. Also, help in creating networks and links between the different departments and end users. Grant access to library scientists, statisticians, and bibliometricists to accelerate the research phase.
Network mapping and communication plans and strategies would be needed when dealing with different departments and levels of government. Workshops would be helpful in providing hands-on information to all parties involved.
Lab Stage Model
What We Did
Stage 04: Explore Options
Stage 05: Evaluate Options
Stage 06: Implementation
In order to explore options, different scenarios were developed for both end user and government implementation groups.
At this point, we are in the process of creating and visualizing our final proposal. This includes use of text, scenarios, and animation, to tell a comprehensive story that supports co-creation.
The Opportunity Team’s last step is to identify the logical and most efficient progressional roll out of possibilities and opportunities. This is done through staging and roadmapping. It must start from the national level, but grant immediate access of funding and control to the local level in order to facilitate the rapid growth of industry clusters.
Extensive activities were also explored to understand the full spectrum of scenarios. From this point, visualizations are created to understand and convey the message. These tools are also useful in forecasting future scenarios.
Where the Innovation Lab can help
A “double check” of user groups would aid in understanding the outcomes of a proposed system. This would include use of tools such as conceptual prototyping, dynamic visualizations, and time staging techniques.
Our biggest challenge is finding a story or multiple stories that support the needs of each stakeholder group.
One of our proposals based on the European Cluster Observatory is centered around a massive cluster database and intelligent archive that would enable departments to connect and communicate as well as set and measure entrepreneurship goals and metrics. This database must be initiated from the highest government level and would have to be evaluated through the Innovation Lab.
The Innovation Lab’s expertise in roadmapping and communicating with the highest levels of government are of utmost importance. For industry clusters to develop and grow there must be support from all levels. Comprehensive planning and frameworks are needed at these different levels in order to facilitate rapid adoption and accurate representations of the frameworks and plans.
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References
Hardt, David Leon. “The Big Fix.” NY Times Magazine, January 27, 2009 The Heritage Foundation, “Index of Economic Freedom.” 2009. http://www.heritage.org/index/ The Heritage Foundation, “Leadership For America.” 2008. http://www.heritage.org/ LeadershipForAmerica/entrepreneurship.cfm Isaacs, Julia B., Isabel Sawhill, and Ron Haskins. “Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America.” The Pew Charity Trust, http://economicmobility.org, February 2008. Mills, Karen G. “Clusters and Competitiveness: A New Federal Role for Stimulating Regional Economies.” The Brookings Institute, http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/04_competitiveness_ mills.aspx, April 2008. Kao, John. Innovation Nation. New York: Free Press, 2007. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “Competitive Regional Clusters: National Policy Approaches.” OECD Policy Brief, May 2007. Porter, Michael. The Competitive Advantage of Nations. New York: Free Press, 1990. Porter, Michael. “Why America Needs an Economic Strategy.” Business Week, October 30, 2008 Small Business Administration, “SBA FAQ” www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs299tot.pdf Vivek Wadhwa, AnnaLee Saxenian, Richard Freeman, Gary Gereffi, Alex Salkever. “America’s Loss is the World’s Gain: America’s New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part IV.” March 2009
References
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Open Opportunity Team Scott Mioduszewski Ruth Nechas Amanda Wirth