Dayton Development Coalition preaches to the choir: Dayton Region Rally
The Dayton Development Coalition held a “Dayton Region Rally” today- and everybody who is somebody and still wears a suit to a job paying six figures or more was there. Not exactly the people who make up the “Dayton Region” where unemployment is still around 12% (unless you are a minority where it’s way higher).
I’m not going to report the guest list, but, I was barely through the door when I had seen more of the “powers that be” than I saw during my election campaign. Yep, they were all ready to hear what the messiahs of good fortune (at least for their friendly congressman’s wife with her no-bid contract) had to say. The “political leadership” wasn’t on stage- this was the business community beating the drum, with a good dose of the base and higher ed thrown in. Noticeably absent were the hospitals from the standard of Feds, Meds and Eds routine that has become the rally cry.
The 1,000 or so people in attendance were treated to one scripted speech after another. Delivered like lectures to schoolchildren. Not sure where DDC head Jim Leftwich got the idea he should be MC- but, I kept looking at his deadpan delivery and thinking Jack Parr had risen from the grave (and that was from before my time).
It was an expensive production. Just the AV alone had to run $15 to $20K with three big screens and at least three cameras- plus the channel 7 interviews from the concourse (why?) thrown in. Figure the t-shirts and all the staging and coordination- handled by Real Art (of Get Midwest fame) and you have another $15 to $20K thrown in. All this for an event that was done during regular business hours so only those who can make their own schedules could attend.
There were exactly three people who made presentations that moved the cause forward: Bruce Langos, COO of Teradata, who got the biggest rise out of the audience when he talked about their successful divorce from NCR and their enviable cash position and market strength. We need to hear more from both Bruce and Teradata to put this city back on track. And, in my mind, the real icing on the split from NCR would be for Terradata to move back to Dayton- into NCR HQ and show Bill Nuti how it’s done.
Charlie Shoemaker, executive director of Five Rivers Metroparks, brought a whole parade of people in “outdoor attire” to reinforce his position as the outdoor recreation chief of the region. The only thing I wonder about is giving away $5 coupons to use at the 2nd Street Market to people who don’t need $5 coupons- is that really why you just asked the taxpayers for a levy? To give away some of that money to people who can afford to take a few hours off to listen to the cheerleaders?
The final speaker, was Kellen Winslow Sr. – the Athletic Director for Central State- who did a great job of representing Central State and was using the new “Change is Central” slogan. He didn’t need a script to know that people were stiff (and bored) and got everybody who was still in attendance up- and out of their seats, at least to make sure no one was asleep. If I were looking for someone to coordinate a regional sports program, I’d be sitting in his office asap.
The finale of celebrity painter Michael Israel, was too little too late. People were even trying to head guests off at the top of the concourse, trying to keep people in. I’m not going to guess how much it was to bring him in, but the real question was what was he adding to our message of Dayton? That we have to import talent?
The real question was what was the point? What was the call to action? Could you do something with $7oK+(low ball estimate of how much this cost) that would actually have an impact? The back of the program wants you to go take a two question survey.
The questions:
- What declaration of possibility can you make that has the power to transform the community and inspire you?
- What are you prepared to do to make this possibility a reality?
I don’t make declarations of possibilities- whatever that means. You want to inspire people to transform the community- there is an answer- and it doesn’t involve committees, group think, rallies or surveys- it involves leadership.
Give a leader a mission, hold them accountable, measure progress and evaluate their progress- and guess what?- we may actually have some.
If the people in the room would only learn to march together, instead of to the beat of a hundred drummers, we may actually get the choir to sing together. The first step is to get serious about regionalism- and start referring to us as Dayton- without the word “region.”
Yep, I said it. Time to own your heart Dayton, and it may start beating again.
It sounds like exactly what I thought it would be…
Good assessment of the event. I was curious about it.
Don’t mean to sound like a self-help guru but no one is going to love Dayton until Dayton starts loving itself. Maybe that’s what the rally was intending but good intentions aren’t enough. You are right about needing a leader.
When we DO get people to come to Dayton for business, they are greeted at the airport with shirts about cow-tipping. I thought Dayton owned the airport. Maybe they need to start taking a larger ownership of the message people are getting there. http://2thebacon.blogspot.com/2009/10/tip-for-dayton.html
One last thing… we met briefly at SummitUp (you blew me off when you found out I wasn’t a voter). That’s not the point. The point is that I spotted City of Dayton Public Affairs team member(s) there–maybe you saw them too. They sat in the front with arms crossed. When is the City going to start leveraging the social media tools that could provide a platform for developing a distinct Dayton brand? How’s that for a “declaration of possibility.”
P.S. Before you go loving on Teradata too much, remember that their CEO is an old guard NCR guy–based in ATLANTA.
My assessment, after taking quite a few hours and martini to digest it is this: It’s the same talking points Rhine McLin rested on during her campaign. Not one person addressed how they are making efforts to stem the 33% vacancy rate downtown. They focused on the creative class as the solution. The creative class plays into the equation but lets not put the cart before the horse. What economic amenities are being fostered in Dayton, what development will ensue? No, this was an effort to make us feel good. I feel sick to my stomach.
The DDN has this to say- mentioning the lack of elected leaders: http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/rally-at-ud-arena-touts-strengths-of-dayton-area-407747.html?showComments=true&postingId=408023
which is part of the problem.
Any showing from the City of Dayton’s Water Department or the Dayton Convention Center?
As one of the speakers at yesterday’s event, I would like to clarify that I am neither a “suit” – in fact I wore a sweatshirt emblazed with “Bullish on Dayton”, nor to I make ANYWHERE near a six figure salary.
My husband, a white collar worker with three college degrees, has been unemployed since April 14th. So I daresay that we are most assuredly one of “them” that are struggling to make our housepayments, keep our daughter in school, pay our taxes and pay our own health care.
Nevertheless, as I indicated in my remarks yesterday, as a resident of the Dayton area – now living in Jeffersonship Township – since 1983, I love this place, its people, and its endless possibilities. While yesterday’s event wasn’t perfect, it was a first start. Will it motivate and move people forward? Only you can inspire youself. I do know this – doing nothing brings its own reward.
Mr. Esrati, so sorry I didn’t get to meet you, as I have heard much about you.
Kind regards,
Kelly Kirsch
Director of Marketing and International Relations
LGT Material Technology, LLC
714 E. Monument Ave.
Dayton, Ohio
I think your point about folks “marching to 100 different drummers” identifies the crux of the problem in getting things done. It was exemplified way back when Dayton’s First Night celebration ended because committee members had the attitude “if it’s not MY way, then I won’t participate,” and it eventually fell apart. Similarly, “if it’s not MY idea, I’m not interested in helping” is common too. I really don’t know what to do about it — it’s just something I’ve noticed over the years.
Bitter David.
Things like these have always been a waste of time (most of the time), regardless of who is hosting and what the message is….. Folks, this is Dayton OH, where people are not all that important. Don’t make things too complicated, it is after all just life.
This town is full of self important people, and the reality is very few of them have any real power to change things for the region. They may be able to change their position, their business, but the reality is the changes that need to be made would cripple their business position most of the time. Again, these things are often a waste of time.
Honestly, with all the money spent on these things over the years, they should create a one man business that donates said cash to small businesses based on that one mans expertise in the business world, kinda like a a collective venture capitalist business. . . at least we would have some new things and fresh ideas in this town for once…….. but too many people would want to put their hand in the cookie jar, so dump that idea….
@Shannon- no representation from any governmental entity that has elected leaders- (unless I’m missing something).
@Kelly- I’ll email you and we can have lunch- and yes, I was aware that you weren’t wearing a suit- but- I think I would have liked it better if your sweatshirt said “bull$h1t” – because it is bull that Dayton can’t compete.
@Gene- what- you are in favor of handouts now? hmmm.
I am talking about an entirely private funded service. It is not a handout, rather an investment. The return on the investment is debatable.
Giant cultural disconnect between the self-proclaimed movers and shakers, and the rest of the Dayton area.
This comment if from an individual who goes by lz from DDN comment that says it another way:
http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/rally-at-ud-arena-touts-strengths-of-dayton-area-407747.html?showComments=true&page=2&more_comments=true&postingId=408324
@Holly- sorry I “blew you off”- pre-election was stressful for me- too much to do, not enough money or time.
I’m still thinking about this- one thing that’s clear- is we need to get ways to get people working fast- and living in affordable housing.
The story about the RR overpass serving as a homeless camp brings me back to re-looking at rooming houses- Single Room Occupancy (SRO) options- and a centrally operated day labor pool- where people can come to get picked up for odd job day labor. More on these ideas later.
It’s nice to talk about the ballet and the research at the base, but if we don’t get the factory workers back to work- we’re in deep doo-doo.
@David:
I know you are against ‘corporate welfare’, but how do you get manufacturers to even look at Dayton without lowering the transaction costs somehow? The folks in South Carolina may be ‘sell-outs’, but Boeing is putting a wide-body production line in their state, that’s a significant impact on jobs now and an investment in their future human capital. They got that because they lowered the transaction costs (low interest municipal bonds for construction and property tax abatements), and because Boeing needed to diversify its labor pool (manage the risk of the union striking by having a non-union option).
So how should Dayton compete to get these sorts of modern manufacturing jobs?
jstults, you are on the money….
corporate welfare is a bad name for this though. Welfare is giving something to someone or business that has not earned anything nor can produce anything and is simply not productive. Business is a positive, providing jobs, services and products. Yes, some services and products are not needed, but let that be the public who decides what they want and how they want to spend their money.
Although I am not in favor of giving monies to companies, the reality is that big business moves to business friendly environments, and lower taxes and lower costs over all are what make places attractive, as well as a good workforce and such. Dayton should lower costs to business to attract them…. that is not a handout. All businesses should benefit from lower costs, lower taxes in Dayton.
Lower costs/headaches are in another Esrati post, dealing with permits. Streamline that as well.
But Liberals can’t see straight until they tax the hell out of everyone. Big business brings jobs, jobs that pay money, money that is taxed. Money that is spent on other area businesses.
But, with the Esratis of the world, who love to make things waaaaaaaay more complicated than they need to be, their mind set is tax tax tax. Businesses will never locate here until their costs are lowered. Pretty simple folks.
@jstults-
by cutting the number of “governments” in the region from 60+ to maybe 2 or 3- with real leaders, paid to deliver real results. You know how many Mayors we have in “Dayton” pretending to lord over fiefdoms that wouldn’t exist if Dayton wasn’t on the map?
That’s number one. Number two- is we have water- and cheap land, we have rail infrastructure and trained work forces. The IUE probably is our blackest mark- but, boy- Honda sure can make cars profitably in Ohio- so why can’t GM? We don’t have our act together.
It’s time to have a come to Jesus meeting. Get the regional religion NOW- and make it happen. That’s what should have been happening yesterday.
I enjoyed the comment during the H2O presentation to “raid Atlanta” for companies that can benefit from Dayton water abundancy and lower rates.
How about a T-Shirt:
F*ck Atlanta
RIP NCR
I’m Moving to Dayton OH
They’ve Got Water!
maybe I should clean up the first line…
@Bruce- it’s not just Atlanta- the whole SW of the US is in sever water trouble. We should be able to compete with Austin if we try.
@David Honda sure can make cars profitably in Ohio- so why can’t GM? The Honda example parallels the Boeing one quite well [1]. Honda is able to shift production from the Ohio operation to the Alabama operation to meet shifting demand, and it allows them to manage the downside risk of the union so their rent-seeking/striking can’t get too out of hand. Not that this helps Dayton, because risk management has a cost, so if you can avoid the risk altogether that’s a win. But it does illustrate just how fluid modern manufacturing is: place really doesn’t matter, any US population can be fairly rapidly trained to do assembly, the people with degrees are highly mobile and go where the jobs are. ‘Place-making’ might be important for the artsy-fartsy set, but if you’re bending metal it doesn’t matter. All of the foreign auto assembly facilities sprouting up in rural no-where south of the mason-dixon provide a tidy existence proof of that. If you want manufacturing jobs, and your argument rests on ‘this place is great’, I think that’s a fail. Maybe you don’t want manufacturing jobs, in which case maybe ‘this place is great’ has some merit (attracting ‘creative class’). But then if part of your ‘this place is great’ pitch is ‘we have water!’, the creative class will just laugh at you. Why can’t GM? I think it comes down to simple cost-benefit, why should they pay to update the out-moded union shop in Ohio when they can shift the work to modern, lean, ‘just-in-time’ shops in Kentucky or Mexico? If the union provided a service that the company wanted to pay for rather than rent-seeking that the company wants to avoid, then being a union shop state could be an asset rather than a liability. I see that happening on the day after you convince all of the little kings in local government to give up their fiefdoms. It’s hard to argue with the goodness of streamlining, but it’s not hard for government to successfully avoid doing it. Big business only does it because… Read more »
Something I think we are saying in different ways is this. Local governemts need to change business killing policy, clean up their act – oust corruption, offer business friendly incentives – David may refer to aspects of this as corporate welfare but not all of it fits this category, and lastly and most importantly get out of the way of businesses/developers who want to invest here.
On another note, local governments are simply not empowered/capable to develop but they sure as hell can kill it.
I agree, David, yesterday felt a lot like preaching to the choir. But, how do we engage the disenfranchised? The laid off worker doesn’t know how to get the BRAC jobs. How does an out of work machinist work toward a Teradata position? Can we develop a “fast track” education program? Then, how do we convince the suburbs to invest in the core? I’ve been told I can lead but my voice is not loud or powerful enough to convince my neighbors it’s safe. We need to stop talking about generalities and get specific.
Teradata is spelled with one r, not two.
The Honda example parallels the Boeing one quite well [1]. Honda is able to shift production from the Ohio operation to the Alabama operation to meet shifting demand, and it allows them to manage the downside risk of the union so their rent-seeking/striking can’t get too out of hand.
Honda in Marysville isn’t unionized as far as I know. I know the UAW has tried to do this, but has been unsucessfull. So maybe the labor issue isn’t a big reason to expand in Alabama.
To the author of the article, it’s spelled “Teradata”, not “Terradata”.
And while it’s good to hear “rah rah” about the breakoff from NCR and a company ‘making it work’ in Dayton, take it with a grain of salt.
How long do you really think they will stay in Dayton? They are not deep rooted here like NCR was, and NCR had no problem saying great things about Dayton 4 months before they dropped the bomb (even though most knew it was coming).
But then if part of your ‘this place is great’ pitch is ‘we have water!’, the creative class will just laugh at you.
A good mark of desperation. Selling a place based on a commodity like water. I guess Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Rochester, & Toronto can also make the same pitch since they are all on very large bodies of fresh water. But, hey, we have less snow. yay.
How about a T-Shirt:
I’ve been considering printing up some “Dayton Sucks” bumper stickers (or maybe simpler ones with a red circle-slash over “D8N”) and selling them online. Maybe I should hire The Next Wave to design them for me?
@Jeff – IMO you may want to look into how metro areas like Atlanta are having major water problems with no end in sight. Also, the southwest USA is in the same condition if not worse. Water is something Dayton should have been marketing long ago since the aquifer didn’t pop up over night.
As for the desperation part…America is in desperation mode at the moment, not just Dayton. So on that note let’s take the logic a little farther. Why don’t you print up some America sucks bumper stickers?
We’re all in this thing together and it goes way beyond Dayton.
Bridget got it with “We need to stop talking about generalities and get specific”
I firmly feel lots of great brainstorming starts here (thank you David) yet, what happens then after the next post is added & it’s the new hot topic of the day…where do all our great & open conversations go? What are some ideas for short term goals that we all could work towards?
I think looking at the vacated GM properties, like the Moraine Truck & Bus facility would be a great start. What could this facility be converted to? What types of companies would be interested ?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/26/water-drought
“Dwindling water supplies are a greater risk to businesses than oil running out, a report for investors has warned. Among the industries most at risk are high-tech companies, especially those using huge quantities of water to manufacture silicon chips; electricity suppliers who use vast amounts of water for cooling; and agriculture, which uses 70% of global freshwater, , says the study, commissioned by the powerful CERES group, whose members have $7tn under management. Other high-risk sectors are beverages, clothing, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, forest products, and metals and mining, it says.”
Are Dayton leaders reaching out to companies in the above industries, that are located in drought
stricken areas of the US & beyond?
@Will:
I did some googling, Atlanta has water problems because of a booming population and a drought. A problem that is caused by a rapidly expanding tax-base is one Dayton could do worse to have…
People are willing to put up with this ‘problem’ because it doesn’t actually impact their lifestyle, they still have plenty to drink and take showers with (they may just not be able to water their lawns everyday of the week). The ‘we have water’ silliness is grasping at straws, it is not a useful discriminator because water is a commodity that people are willing to pay to have piped in (see California). I’ve lived out west and down south, and I’ve ever noticed anyone in either area wanting to move to the midwest because of the abundance of water…
I just think Dayton has (or ought to have) more to offer than water.
“In 2006, The Coca-Cola Company and its franchised bottlers used approximately 290 billion liters of water for beverage production, an amount equivalent to roughly one-half the annual water use in the metropolitan area of the Company’s headquarters, Atlanta, Georgia. Of that amount, approximately 114 billion liters were contained in the Company’s broad portfolio of beverages sold in markets around the world, and another 176 billion liters were used in beverage manufacturing processes such as rinsing, cleaning, heating and cooling. ”
http://www.ameinfo.com/122535.html
http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/11/17/smallb3.html
If properly marketed, companies would be interested to see how Dayton’s water supply could benefit their bottom line. Instead of throwing a rally here, the $ should have been spent on throwing a rally in Atlanta.
I fell in love with Dayton’s possibilities when I read about goHypersonics test facility on Linden Ave: http://www.gohypersonic.com/locations.php
The fact that a tiny startup can afford to buy a facility like that and turn it into a high speed wind tunnel test facility is just awesome. No way they could afford to build something like that from scratch; no way they could afford the facility if Dayton wasn’t in such dire straits. Creative destruction at its finest.
@Jennifer:
Maybe a hybrid rapid prototyping/engineering services concern? Maybe a cooperative owned facility that provides a ‘makerspace’ [1] for that sort of limited volume, high value added production; proof of concept or concept refinement sorts of stuff.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace
@jstults Google won’t locate their data warehouses where there isn’t a lot of water- cooling all those microprocessors and hard-drives requires lots of electricity and lots of water.
Water is more important than oil- but, only if we get smart and start building walk-to-work communities.
Water is something Dayton should have been marketing long ago since the aquifer didn’t pop up over night.
I suspect that the aquifer is already known to industries that require a lot of fresh water, which is why there was a big paper industry in the Miami Valley. I think the last remnant of that is the Appelton Papers plant in West Carollton. Appleton is named after Appleton, Wisconsin, which is in another “paper valley”, the Fox River Valley between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay. A Green Bay paper company, Fort Howard, used to own that abandoned paper mill off Edwin C Moses, next to the railroad bridge. Good question as to why this industry survives in Wisconsin and not in Dayton. Maybe easy access to pulp from the north woods.
The water thing will be big years from now. Not helping Dayton for the next 25 years, so drop it for now.
Answer the original question Esrati. The question was how do you get companies to even look at Dayton?
At least I said lower taxes, our wannabe leader said water.
Lower taxes is a good start, for individuals income taxes to property taxes to any business tax to sales tax. Lower them!
Kings Island may get nailed with a 3% entry fee tax and 5% parking tax……. is that OK? It just never ends, and the public will have to pay for that with higher ticket prices. Then less people will go to the park, then they shut down some concessions and services at the park because they are not as busy, so therefore they lay off a few folks or scale back hours on people. Yes, taxes are REAL productive.
Wake up and smell the coffee folks. Taxes are bad. We need them, we pay them, but they don’t need to be high. Personal Tax at the Fed level is 40% almost, tag on every other tax and basically successful people work for money and pay over HALF to taxes……. How TF is that fair? And that is just a tax on an individual. Think of all the other taxes…….
The fact that a tiny startup can afford to buy a facility like that and turn it into a high speed wind tunnel test facility is just awesome. No way they could afford to build something like that from scratch; no way they could afford the facility if Dayton wasn’t in such dire straits. Creative destruction at its finest.
That’s a neat site if it’s the building Im thinking of, the old Davis sewing machine factory. I thought there were other tenants in there, too.
That’s neat, I didn’t know about Davis sewing machine, a case of ‘corporate welfare’ from the 1890’s:
http://www.ismacs.net/davis/history_repeats_itself_story_of_the_davis_sewing_machine_company.html
@jstults – I’m talking about companies that rely heavily on water for cooling or other uses in advanced manufacturing / advanced technologies that look down the road and project their water needs. Not people moving to a place because there is water. I don’t believe that people congregate somewhere and companies follow. Our cities grew around economic amenities. Now we are trying to regenerate them around cultural amenities, also touted as the creative class. While the creative class plays a vital role we need businesses that are providing jobs. When there are jobs in an area people will move there. Water is something a lot of businesses need to operate and the cheaper and more accessible the better for the companies bottom line. It sells itself. However, Dayton has many other issues to iron out before water factors in.
With that said, Dayton has to get on the ball and offer more than water. The DDC is the group saying we have cheap water. I’m not saying that water will solve our problems. I believe Dayton needs to cultivate a business friendly environment by revamping policies and sweeping out non-business friendly practices from City-Hall. Then someone needs to pitch Dayton from a development/business perspective, market the place as Gary Leitzell has so aptly pointed out. This effort should be aimed at job creation as a priority.
But make no mistake an abundance of cheap, easily accessible water is an economic amenity that companies are very interested in.
@Jeff – I am sure that Dayton’s aquifer is no secret to many of the existing and/or departed manufacturing efforts. However, what are we doing to promote it in the context of a newly revamped business friendly environment? – Not much, and I am hopeful that will change in coming years.
@Gene – I hate paying taxes. How does the city make up the difference of lowering taxes at a time when the tax base is shrinking and there is a looming $20,000,000 deficit?
Tax incentives have been used to entice businesses. How much can Dayton afford to offer since we are broke?
Have you ever seen a government “spend” money?
Cut jobs, cut services. Life ain’t perfect. Cut taxes, recruit new business (they will want to relocate or start up if the taxes are low) they bring jobs, people buy homes with those salaries, tax base increase with more people and employed people. Yes, it is that simple.
@Gene – I wish I could raise an argument to disagree. I can’t. No doubt the way money is being spent by our elected officials would make us all sick. I also believe in not spending more than you have within reason. I am not a fan of deficit spending. Only problem about cutting services and jobs is they have to be the right ones. The bloat first, I bet it would set us off to a good start to terminate the mayor’s assistants. Part time job with assistants. I only pray that Gary Leitzell lets em go.
I do think it will take a lot more than tax incentives to bring businesses to Dayton or to grow new businesses. We REALLY need to look at what City-Hall is doing to foster these efforts. Government can’t grow business but they can foster an environment where developers/businesses would rather go someplace else that “gets is”.
Government can’t grow business but they can foster an environment where developers/businesses would rather go someplace else that “gets is”.
Redacted.
It shouldn’t be the governments responsibility to grow business but rather the business community / a.k.a free market.
I know one of the Teradata execs (won’t say who) and I can tell you that they have no immediate plans to move out of Dayton. They work in IT, their business scope is international, and they have people placed all over the world when person to person interaction is needed with clients and potential customers. Sure, they may have no incentive to STAY in Dayton other than saving on relocation costs, but due to the global, technologically based nature of their business, they don’t really have an incentive to leave, either. NCR spun off their ONLY profitable division in Teradata, so in a way, whether NCR left Dayton now or just went out of business 10 years from now, at least this way they didn’t take Teradata from Dayton. Silver lining and all that.
People also need to understand that Dayton’s problems are in some small part also the state’s fault. Large businesses looking to build plants in Ohio routinely choose our neighbor Indiana due to a more favorable business and tax structure. It is a PAIN to start up and do business in this state, let’s face it. So when the regulation is less, or more streamlined in other states, along with already lower TCO and taxes, it’s not surprising to see companies pick Indiana, Kentucky, or Alabama over Ohio.
Besides, with the out of control obesity in Ohio, the pool of desirable workers to hire from for manual labor jobs is dwindling, while the white collar, college educated workers flee the state, continuing to turn government revenues/expenditures upside down.
But yeah, monopoly casinos run by out of state carpetbaggers will save us. This country is being run into the ground by criminals claiming they’re doing it for our own good.
@ D. Greene – It’s hard for me to think that companies are looking at Ohio’s demographics and saying “we don’t want to open a plant there because they are just too fat” If I am wrong please educate me with verifiable facts.
You make some interesting points on what it takes to start a business in Ohio. I seem to have remember that sentiment echoed on many occasions. What can a city do to buck the state’s restrictions?
Ditto on the carpetbaggers and criminals.
Why the hell would the Dayton Development Coalition call themselves http://www.getmidwest.com??….
From GoDaddy”
Hell froze over- the Dayton Daily News agreed with me: http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/opinion/entries/2009/11/18/editorial_dayton_region_rally.html?cxtype=feedbot
And- now says the Dayton Development Coalition has failed twice at marketing (imagine that).
Too bad they are talking about old news by now.
You can spend time debating the virtues of the aquifer or the cause of Dayton’s woes. You can whine and moan about taxes and discuss changes needed in the future but, we have to live within the parameters we have now. We don’t, however, need to wait for governmental or quasi-governmental agencies to make this happen. They don’t own the process. Frankly, I wouldn’t care about Get Midwest or Get Dayton or Get Here Now, whatever they want to use, if they had the skills to back up the development part of their name.
Specific Idea #1
– Identify 20 (or whatever workable number) companies, ready for move/expansion, with whom we could develop a mutually beneficial relationship.
What companies come to mind?
It’s fun that Get Midwest’s newsletter is called the Advocate. http://www.advocate.com — oh, wait, wrong Advocate.
There are some people who worked hard on this rally- and are extremely hurt by the “negativity”- fully missing the point that this is a learning experiment- there will be set backs.
Leadership is never for the thin skinned. Trust me.
If we could do this as a do-over, what would it look like? What time of day would we hold it? Who would speak? Who would perform? Who would MC? Who would do a painting (lol)?
If nothing else- this discussion has sparked a few good ideas- and things we need to look at. My mind hasn’t stopped- just thinking if we had presented Bcycle, Dayton Streaming Originals, Walk to work tax credits, H1B for HubZOnes, or any of a bunch of other ideas- along with a showcase of what we’d look like as a REGION of ONE instead of a region of many.
To those who are feeling hurt right now- I’m not going to let you twist in the wind. We will get this right on version 2. That’s how innovation starts- with mistakes.
Celebrate them.
You are almost right David except innovation does not start with mistakes.
Innovation starts with empathy!
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/the-substance-of-things-not-seen/innovation-starts-with-empathy.html