A Can of Tuna
The new book by Peter Diamandis, and Steven Kotler, The Future is Faster than You Think, is a compelling and tremendously entertaining book about the technology and innovation that will be impacting our world in the next ten years. All economic developers should read this book as it has many implications as to how we do our work. In many ways I have always believed that economic development has always been stuck and mired in a petulant and small-minded self congratulatory gerbil wheel. This may strike some of you readers as offensive, but please, read on.
Our economic development world is made up of stakeholders that have a short horizon as they peer into the future. Not all, but many. They don’t have to elevate themselves too much to see where they want to go. They can stand on a can of tuna to elevate themselves to see far enough into their future. That is not to say there aren’t some very visionary elected and appointed leaders out there that understand the importance of building sustainable “long-now” economic development organizations (I envy those of you who work for these leaders.) And lest you think I am castigating the entire lot of these folks, read further, as many do have the vision and ability to see the future but they often don’t last. I have worked for and with a few of these people.
Another challenge we face is the nature and dynamics of group-think. Our profession is complicated, nuanced and specialized while at the same time simple, shallow and general. It’s like quantum computing wherein a superposition of a quant can be valued at one and zero at the same time (you computing geeks will understand this). The typical corporate leader or entrepreneur is designed and thinks in a totally different way. They are bottom-line results oriented people and when they get into a board meeting of the local EDO they feel out of their realm. “You’re the expert” I have heard them say to me more than once, when in fact they are likely to know as much or more about how a sustainable organization like an EDO can function and succeed as I do. While some of us have specialized in some aspect of economic development many of us are “a mile wide and an inch deep”, which most of the time serves us well.
The point I want to make about this book is the future is not tomorrow but is here today. For example, let’s see what they have to say about real estate:
“Exponential technology is dematerializing, demonetizing, and democratizing nearly every aspect of real estate. Corporate infrastructure has gone virtual; brokers aren’t far behind. Location and proximity, the twin pillars of the industry are next, arguably demonetized before the decade is done. Today’s scarcity of bespoke addresses for the lucky few will become tomorrow’s prime real estate for at affordable prices for the average many.”
My interpretation of this passage is that where people decide to live or relocate, whether it is a big city, rural outpost, or a suburban enclave will become a non-issue or more appropriately an issue left to technology and perhaps the ubiquitousness of artificial intelligence and its companion algorithms. If technology and its impact on the pace of innovation allows us to work from anywhere, and I mean ANYWHERE, (that’s me shouting), then what does this say about corporate location decisions, expansion of manufacturing facilities and talent attraction? If we can live anywhere and work for a company in a far flung location (and I realize this is happening as I write this, but the extent and intensity is nothing compared to what I am talking about here), do we need to adjust our “attraction” strategy to a ”place-based quality-of-place” strategy? Do we get to quit pandering ourselves to site location consultants? Or will all these decisions still require “human-touch”?
I think the future might look grim for economic developers if we are relying on old paradigms, mindsets, and though patterns as to how we do economic development. The communities, regions and places that move forward, succeed and prosper will be those that adopt and engage in the technology of today and have a future-horizon much farther than that afforded to you by standing on a tuna can.
The future can look scary and what is going to happen over the next ten years will pale in comparison to what has happened in the last ten to fifteen when it comes to the pace of change. A smart economic developer can be the leader in their community and be at the cutting edge of change and add value by embracing this pace of change and looking for the weak signals that are pinging them right now. Do that and you and more importantly, your community will prosper.
