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STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN: ALPHA DRAFT

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GREENE COUNTY NETWORK

APRIL, 2009

C i t y, S t a t e Te l e p h o n e : 1 2 3 . 4 5 6 . 7 8 9 0 w w w. y o u r o r g a n i z a t i o n . n e t

Greene County Network

Our Purpose
The Greene County Network aligns and leverages economic development resources to promote the prosperity for the people and businesses in Greene County, Indiana. We seek individually and collectively to transform our county by focusing on collaborations that encourages productive investment in a dynamic, sustainable economy that protects and promotes the rural character of our county.

Our Vision
The Greene County Network will become a a nationally recognized rural collaboration to promote new approaches to economic development. These new approaches foster entrepreneurship, sustainable development practices, a commitment to long-term investment, and a focus on our next generation. We strive to be a collaboration committed to learning, measuring and improving our performance at every level. We will continuously evaluate our progress in achieving our vision through a range of regular evaluations by our stakeholders and comparisons with leading edge rural communities.

Our Values
As a network of Greene County leaders dedicated to civic leadership, we hold ourselves accountable for practicing our values of integrity and respect; personal responsibility and mentorship; innovation and entrepreneurship; partnership and civic leadership;
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efciency and effectiveness; and continuous learning and improvement.

Our Strategic Framework

The Strategy Base Map for Open Source Economic Development

Our strategy follows the framework of Open Source Economic Development developed at the Purdue Center for Regional Development. This

Brainpower 21 Century Talent

Innovation Entrepreneurship Networks

framework provides clear strategy maps for our network to follow in designing and implementing our activities.

Civic Collaboration

The Open Source model outlines that any globally competitive economy must manage collaborations

Quality, Connected Places

Branding Experiences

and investments in ve areas: Building world-class brainpower

Invest in world class brainpower with 21st century skills Convert brainpower into wealth through innovation and entrepreneurship networks Create powerful stories and branding experiences to communicate a new path forward Develop quality, connected places and innovation "hot spots" Strengthen leadership skills and civic disciplines of collaboration to develop and implement "link and leverage" strategies
Source: Ed Morrison, distributed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License

Translating brainpower into wealth through entrepreneurship and innovation networks Holding wealth in the region by developing quality, connected places Creating a deep sense of community identify expressed through an effective brand

Promoting strong habits of civic collaboration to spot opportunities, align resources and resolve disputes
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Our Strategic Focus Areas

We cannot accomplish everything all at once. We must choose our areas of focus carefully. At the same time, we recognize the lessons that Open Source Economic Development teaches: Prosperity will ow to communities and regions that follow a balanced strategy of investments: in talent, businesses, physical development, promotion and leadership. To begin, we have chosen to promote the development of Home Town Competitiveness, as well as a handful of other initiatives initiatives that focus on: engaging civic leaders and practicing new skills of collaboration through our Greene County Network promoting youth development supporting entrepreneurs engaging our charitable assets to expand productive investments in our county emphasizing quality, connected physical development that preserves and promotes the rural character of our county build the new story of Greene County by providing engaging and fun experiences through festivals and other activities.

Our Commitment to Home Town

The Four Pillars of Hometown Competitiveness

Competitiveness
Home Town Competitiveness provides a practical model for Greene County to follow. It is not, by itself, a complete strategy. At the same time, it focuses our leaderships attention of critical opportunities for us to pursue. The strategy model of Home Town CompetitiveD a t e!

Entrepreneurship

Charitable Assets

Mobilize Local Leaders Energize Entrepreneurs Engage Young People Cultivate Charitable Assets to support these community building efforts.

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Leadership

Youth

ness represents four pillars: Entrepreneurship, Charitable Assets, Youth and Leadership. We have launched initiatives (projects) in these areas, and we will continue them in the coming year.

Other Initiatives to Complement Home Town Competitiveness

A range of other activities are underway in Greene County that will have major impacts on our future prosperity. These initiatives include land use and zoning, large scale infrastructure investments, and the successful promotion of our county through engaging and innovative festivals. That is not a complete list. We have other activities as well that are making signicant contributions to the future prospects for our county.

Mapping Our Initiatives on Our Strategy Map

We need help in keeping track of all these activities so that we can align them. Through link and leverage strategies, individuals and organizations can accomplish far more working together than they can working separately. Each of these activities represents a network of citizens within the county focused on a particular dimension of our development. Very quickly, we can lose track. Thats where a Strategy Map can help. We all know the adage, A picture is worth a thousand words. In putting our county on a sustainable path to development, we need rst to see what others are doing. The strategy map developed at the Purdue Center for Regional Development represents a simple tool to help us see the networks that form around different projects. When we begin to see these networks, and -- more important -- begin to link these networks together, we start down a path of aligning, linking and leveraging our assets in new and different ways.

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The Four Pillars of Hometown Competitiveness

Entrepreneurship

Charitable Assets

Leadership

We can map Hometown Competitiveness on to the Strategy Base Map of Open Source Economic Development

Youth

Mobilize Local Leaders Energize Entrepreneurs Engage Young People Cultivate Charitable Assets to support these community building efforts.

Brainpower 21 Century Talent

Innovation Entrepreneurship Networks

Youth Charitable Assets Leadership

Civic Collaboration

Entrepreneurship

We can also map other initiatives underway in Greene County. By putting all these initiatives on one map, we can keep track of them. More important, we can see connections among them.

Land use and zoning Infrastructure

Quality, Connected Places

Festivals
Branding Experiences

Putting it all Together: Developing the Habits of Strategic Doing

Pulling a strategy together is no longer an event; it is a continuous process. Most of us learned the disciplines of strategic planning, an industrial age set of practices that works when the world is relatively stable, and command-and-control organizations dominate the landscape. That is not the world in which we now live. Change is turbulent, and to be effective in economic development, we must rely on consensus and alignments. Open networks -not stiff hierarchies -- dominate. In a word, no one can really tell anyone else what to do. Yet, we must undertake some very complex projects to build Greene County in this open environment. We undertake these projects in a civic space outside the four walls of any one organization. Coordinating festival promotions, strengthening entrepreneurship networks, managing land use, implementing effective youth initiatives: none of
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these projects are easy. At the same time, we cannot do everything, and we want to focus our efforts on initiatives that matter. In short, we need to think and act strategically. Strategic Doing is a set of practices developed at the Purdue Center for Regional Development to meet the challenges of designing and implementing strategy in an open environment. There are three components to Strategic Doing: Strategy Maps.-- Keeping track of a strategy requires visual tools. The Strategy Map we have introduced earlier provides the basic tool for keeping track of who is doing what and how different projects connect (or dont). Disciplined Conversations.-- We need to learn to manage our conversations. The reason is simple. We have a limited time together in the civic space. We need to use this time wisely. Strategic Doing teaches us that four questions are critically important: 1. What could we do together? We must continuously explore the connections among our assets and initiatives. By spending time on this question, we open ourselves to the possiStrategic Doing guides conversations
What could we do together?

bilities for linking and leveraging our assets together. 2.What should we do together? We need to focus our attention

Find

How will we learn together?

Learn

Focus

What should we do together?

on a handful of priorities. In order to develop enduring partnerships, we need a clear view of the outcomes toward which we are working. Without a clear understanding of our outcome,

Execute
What will we do together?

our collaborations can quickly break apart at the rst sign of difculty. In contrast, if we have a deep understanding of where we are heading, our partnerships are far more durable.
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3. What will we do together? We can only accomplish complex projects if we each contribute something. Gone are the days when civic leaders could come up with ideas and expect someone else to do the work. This question insures that we re clear about the tasks ahead and who is committed to completing them. 4. How will we learn together? Strategy is a process, not an event. It requires continuous adjustments as circumstances change. So the last key question of strategic doing develops a clear understanding of how we will come together again to evaluate our progress. Commitment to a Process.-- Complex projects take time to complete. They require a clear, simple and continuous process of evaluation and readjustment. These Strategic Doing gatherings (or forums) should be conducted every 30, 60 or 90 days. Each gathering can be short -- from 1 to 3 hours is enough to review a strategy and make adjustments.

Keeping it all Together: Managing Our Projects in an Open Network

We will organize our projects within the Network with a exible structure, one that can accommodate both focus and exibility. The Network is not designed to take over the responsibilities of any individual organization. Rather, the Network connects these organizations into a larger, easy-to-understand pattern.

Our Initiatives for 2009

For 2009, we are focused on the following transformational initiatives: Initiative 1 Initiative 2 Initiative 3

We will add transformational initiatives from time to time.

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Managing Our Strategic Activities

The Network Core Team.-- Our Networks core team is committed to carrying forward this process. The core team consists of leaders of civic organizations -- business, government and non-prots -- committed to working together for the future of Greene County. We will start with a relatively small core of individuals, and we are committed to expanding this circle with people who share the commitment to work together and contribute their assets, networks and resources to a shared future. The Role of the Professional Staff.-- The professional staff of our civic organizations are individuals best in the position to guide this network. They have the skills, networks, and experience to guide the network. At the same time, they cannot do the work of the Network. That is a responsibility that must be more broadly shared.

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