According to officials in the Economic Development Administration, it's time to put the Strategy back in the CEDS.
The CEDS, or Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, is the planning document that economic development districts - of which HOTEDD is one - exist to create. Districts do lots of things, but their foundation and core purpose, according to their funders at EDA, is creating the CEDS.
Unfortunately, the CEDS is a mixed bag of benefits and burdens. The regulations describing it are fairly dense, and districts are eager to meet the requirements, so many CEDS end up as data dumps - huge, unwieldy documents that are heavy on tables and lists, pages upon pages of specifics, from which it is impossible to discern an overall strategic direction for a region.
Interestingly, districts and EDA both know this and are working from their respective positions toward a better model for the CEDS. Megan participated in a work session in Washington whose purpose was to craft a way forward to a more relevant, more strategic, and more useable CEDS, and one thing that came out of that meeting was an informal list of criteria describing what CEDS should be and do. In the coming months, HOTEDD will use those criteria to make gentle changes as part of our annual CEDS update. For 2013, the new web environment currently in construction, new guidance from EDA and peer best practices will inform the creation of a new five-year CEDS that will be a true strategic document. We're excited, as better tools mean a better economic development effort in the Heart of Texas.
According to discussion at the workshop of some draft CEDS goals, NADO's workgroup thinks CEDS should:
* Be asset-based, respecting the diversity among regions
* Be a strategy on how to align a broad array of resources, not just EDA's
* Be evidence-based, including a variety of measurements and timetables for implementation
* Be strategic, not encyclopedic - focus on big picture, and any thick lists or data tables should be removed to an appendix
* Allow for a flexible, district-led peer-review process
* Ultimately roll up into statewide strategies that are based on districts' needs
* Be framed in terms of a clear strategy in an executive summary, delivered using a nimble communications plan
* Reflect a commitment to innovation, including cluster-based strategies
* Engage the public sector, private sector, and the public both in framing and in implementation
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
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