[v=NE_BalA6AT8] This bit of renewable energy news was buried in a subhead in Sunday’s STrib: JUHL WIND TO BUY STORAGE UNIT Juhl Wind, the little public company near Pipestone that is a 30-plus year pioneer in community-owned wind power, has agreed to buy a 1-megawatt advanced energy storage system developed by Zinc Air. Juhl plans to […]
Rural Broadband Project Breaks Ground
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services Group (SMBG) Groundbreaking in Lakefield. SMBS will be building fiber-to-the-premise infrastructure to eight rural communities throughout Southwestern Minnesota. The network will consist of a 125 mile fiber ring which will connect the eight communities and an FTTP infrastructure within the communities that […]
You Don’t Know What You Have Until It Is Gone (#EconDev Edition)
[v=rnX9ScL6LLw] Noted on the Economic Gardening mailing list: GrowFL Participant Credits Economic Gardening Program for Helping Secure Major Defense Contract Cocoa-based Coastal Steel Inc. Will Add More Than 55 Jobs as a Result of Contract with Lockheed Martin FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Jul 12, 2011 – COCOA, Fla. – Thanks in part to the entrepreneurial ecosystem cultivated […]
Spoiled Children and Budget Negotiation
[v=ctnRxp4daJk] For six days now I’ve been trying to figure out something (useful, relevant, tactless) to say about the State of Minnesota Shutdown. For those outside the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the Minnesota Legislature and Governor failed to reach a budget agreement by the beginning of the new fiscal year, 1 July. Due to a […]
A New Project: Pipestone Economic Development Authority
At work, we try to customize our services to the needs of our clients. Applying cookie-cutter solutions with standard government templates might be easier for us, but it doesn’t necessarily get the job done. One example would be some recent conversations we’ve had with one of our counties on providing local economic development services. It […]
Keynes’ Revenge Best Served Cold
[v=Hrg1CArkuNc] Milton Friedman, in my book, can do no (economic) wrong. In Anatoly Kaletsky’s recent book—Capitalism 4.0: The Birth of a New Economy in the Aftermath of Crises (Public Affairs, 2010)—Friedman and the rest of us “market fundamentalists” can do nothing right. Following the spectacular collapse of the banking system in 2007-09, a gaggle of […]
Justs the Facts, m'am: Economic Development Marketing for Results
I am a long-time fan of consultant Eric Canada (Blane Canada) and his firm’s periodic economic development newsletters. I came across this bit from a couple years ago while drafting a marketing plan. ~~~Consumer world shifted…“Today, in addition to giving your customer a feeling of connectedness, you must infuse your ads with facts, details, logic and […]
Florida Gov Plows Under Economic Gardening Project
In one of those too-strange-to-be-true coincidences, Florida Governor Rick Scott vetoed funding for the state’s cutting edge UCF GrowFL economic gardening program. This hard on the heals of the National Economic Gardening Conference held at UCF last month. The Daytona Beach News-Journal carried some reactions: Economic gardening is a new approach and alternative to traditional […]
Rational Man Exposed
[v=yWxXvzyb7uY] I’ve lurked on the Econ-Dev mailing list for many years. Chris Gibbons runs the ground-breaking economic gardening program for Littleton, Colorado. In an exchange yesterday, a list member (the list actually migrated to Google Groups awhile ago, but anyway…) recommended a new book called Econned, by Yves Smith. I have no idea if […]
Not Too Many, But Too Few
Joel Kotkin got it right. The Economist last week reported on increasing concern with the impending demographic disaster of China’s One-Child policy. While their 2010 census counted 1.34 billion people, the survey also reveals a “steep decline” in average annual growth rates. China’s fertility rate may be as low as 1.4 now, far below the […]