The Truth About Job Fairies.

Changing the Debate about Whether Economic Development Makes a

Difference

Presented by: For:

Introducing the Jobs Fairies ConceptIn May of 2011, NPR’s Planet Money team attended the IEDC Conference in San Diego. They left and produced a piece that became known as “How to Create a Job,” or “Job Fairies.”

In an apology piece called “Planet Money Misfires on Local Economic Developers,” the lead journalist Adam Davidson of NPR said of economic developers:

"I didn't think they were like evil or anything. I just thought they're, like, not making a big difference.”

Introducing Atlas1. Denver-based marketing services company, specializing in

economic development

2. Founded in 2001, with 25 employees

3. Has worked with more communities than any other economic development marketing services firm in the past 10 years: 140+ economic development clients in 43 states and 6 countries

4. Specialize in providing branding, marketing planning, digital marketing, and GIS enabled websites, all for economic development

5. Pioneered the industry’s first metrics based benchmarking approach for marketing, business attraction, and business retention: High Performance Economic Development Marketing

6. IEDC’s High Performance Economic Development Marketing Partner

7. Frequent public speaker and lead speaker on benchmarking marketing, business attraction, and business retention programs, as well as on branding, research, digital marketing, websites, and GIS.

About Atlas’ High Performance Economic Development Program 1. Initially developed High Performance Economic

Development (HPED) to answer questions from clients – “What should our goals be?”

2. HPED, in its third year, is now the the largest and longest running collection of marketing, business development, and business retention metrics available.

3. Hundreds of EDO’s have used the data to benchmark their marketing, business recruitment and retention efforts and outcomes that can prove ROI for marketing, branding and website efforts within economic development space.

4. On Monday, October 6, Atlas launched High Performance Economic Development Online, an interactive benchmarking tool that will allow EDO’s to enter their data and benchmark their business recruitment and retention outcomes by organizational staff size, budget, community population, region, or any combination of these factors.

View the slides, continue the dialogue • Continue the Conversation:

– Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AtlasAd

– Tweet questions using hashtag #ASKATLAS

– Join High Performance Economic Development LinkedIn Group

• View and share the slides with your colleagues (available now): www.slideshare.com/wright0405

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Introducing Ben Wright

Ben WrightFounder and CEO

Atlas Advertising, Community Systems

benw@atlas-advertising.com

benw@communitysys.com

www.twitter.com/atlasad

@BenWrightAtlas

– Former economic developer and tourism marketer for the Metro Denver EDC, and the City of Westminster, CO

– Degree in Quantitative Economics and Urban Studies from Stanford

– Worked for a British MP who focused on urban economic development, housing, and poverty in an inner London Borough

– Industry speaker: business attraction and marketing for economic development

What We Will Cover

1. We Believe that Economic Development Makes a Difference, but Does Everyone?

2. Trends in the Economic Development Profession

3. The History, Challenges, and Rationale of High Performance Economic Development

4. Defining High Performance5. Introducing the Benchmarks6. Profiles of High Performing Communities 7. Introducing the Profession’s “Jobs Fairies” 8. How to Get Your Community’s Report

We believe that economic development

makes a difference. But does everyone?

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Trends in the profession that make performance tracking a moving target 1. Digital is changing the way communities are

being evaluated, and changing our roles in the process

2. Workforce is driving business location, and opening up new ways for EDO’s to influence economies

3. The Debate about whether the profession drives outcomes continues, even as the Great Recession is in the rear view

4. There are more deals happening in communities, leading to more positive impressions of EDO’s

5. The investor/stakeholder mindset is changing, as demographics of those involved in EDO’s are changing

The History, Challenges, and Rationale of High

Performance Economic Development

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History of High Performance Economic Development Methods

1. EDO’s have been measuring their performance for years

2. However, with differing viewpoints, metrics have gotten muddy and misunderstood

3. In 2011, Atlas put together its first survey of EDO outcomes, to assist EDO’s in planning their marketing, business attraction, and business retention programs

4. In 2014, IEDC published its “Making it Count” Metrics for High Performing EDO’s

Challenges to High Performance: Why hasn’t this been done before?1. There is an ongoing debate about the tools that EDO’s use

to recruit and retain companies (incentives), which is really a critique of the value of the profession.

2. EDO’s service companies that comprise a very small percentage of their economies.

3. Often, economic developers are the only ED professional / organization in their community, and work on economic development tasks with non-economic developers.

4. Economic development projects have a long lead time to show results.

5. EDO’s and EDO governing boards have multiple, and often ever changing, priorities.

6. Each stakeholder defines high performance differently.

How To Vote Via Texting EXAMPLE

Poll Question:As a practitioner, how much do you think you impact the overall economic activity in your area?

“Economic development organizations increasingly operate under much tighter budgets at a time when the need for economic development programming is becoming more crucial to the continued vitality and competitiveness of a community.”

International Economic Development Council in “High Performing Economic Development Organizations,” 2011

Defining High Performance Economic

Development

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Defining High Performance

1. What corollaries are there in the world to measure performance?

2. Definitions provided by an international trade organization for economic development

3. The metrics that Atlas High Performance Economic Development focuses on, and our criteria for choosing them

4. Defining what High Performance means for each key audience

5. Should we measure outcomes or not?

Corollaries for High Performance

"That which is measured improves. That which is measured and reported improves exponentially.”

- Karl Pearson

International Economic Development Council in “Making it Count, Metrics for High Performing EDOs,” - 2014

Why do ED trade organizations believe the industry should measure itself?

Four Ways the International Economic Development Council Defines High Performance

1. Internal Segment (Employee satisfaction, funding sources)

2. ED Program Segment (Business Attraction, Business Retention, Business Creation)

3. Relationship Management Segment (Relationships with internal and external stakeholders)

4. Community Segment (Community well being, in terms of demographics, workforce, household income, etc.)

Atlas High Performance Economic Development Focuses on the Relationship Management Segment, plus Outcomes from those Relationships.1. Internal Segment (Employee

satisfaction, funding sources

2. ED Program Segment (Business Attraction, Business Retention, Business Creation)

3. Relationship Management Segment (Relationships with internal and external stakeholders)

4. (Community well being, in terms of demographics, workforce, household income, etc.)

Outcomes for jobs announced and capital investment announced

Our Analysis of the Data, 2013/2014

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2013/2014 EDO Performance, Benchmarked by Population

2013/2014 EDO Performance, Benchmarked by Staff Size

2013/2014: EDO Performance, Benchmarked by Budget

Who are the Highest Performers in Terms of Jobs, by Population Size?

Who are the Highest Performers Across Other Categories?

Who are the Highest Performers Across Other Categories?

Poll Question:Did your organization set measurable goals for your marketing, business development, and business retention programs this year (2014)?

Profiles of High Performing Communities

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Organizing Performance by Organization type:

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Capacity Building EDOsPromotion Driven EDOsRelationship Focused EDOsCommunity Building EDOsBalanced EDOs

Loudoun County, VA

Leadership: Buddy Rizer, Director

Geography: A 520-sqaure mile

suburb of Washington DC.

Catalyst initiative in 2013: The

retention of the Telos Corporation,

which represented a $5 million

investment and 460 jobs

Inspiration: Loudoun Virginia is one of

the most dynamic places in the

country...always among the fastest

growing in population and jobs, a top

technology location, and home to a

great international airport.

Loudoun County Scorecard

Southwest Michigan FirstLeadership: Ron Kitchens, CEOGeography: Southwest Michigan comprised of the counties of Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren and representing more than 780,000 community members.Catalyst initiative in 2013: Our team believes in an open information strategy, meaning that we want to be the teaching hospital version of an economic development corporationInspiration: When I was just four years old, tragedy struck our family when my father was killed in an accident at work, leaving my mother as a nineteen-year-old widow with two sons, ages four and two. Oftentimes, food was hard to come by, meaning endless meals of rice and beans. One Christmas gift from a church food basket—mandarin oranges—that I hid in my desk, became my personal symbol of education and escaping poverty. Today I still keep one, as my daily reminder of my responsibility to create positive change by bringing jobs to my community.

Southwest Michigan First Scorecard

Questions/Discussion

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Discussion: Should we use outcomes to measure

ourselves?

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How to Benchmark Your Community Using Atlas High Performance Economic Development

1. Take the survey here: 2. View your report online, starting Monday October 6, here

After this session, are you more, the same, or less convinced that you can

make a difference in your community?

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Final

Poll

Thank you!

Contact information:

929 BroadwayDenver, CO 80203Contact: Ben Wrightt: 303.292.3300 x 210benw@Atlas-Advertising.comwww.Atlas-Advertising.comLinkedIn Profile | LinkedIn Group | Twitter | Blog | Slidespace