Web:http://cmeconomy.blogspot.com/
We are currently in a “weak signal” stage of the next iteration of an economic system. This system demands economic developers who are able to shift their thinking and action back and forth among the current and rapidly changing future needs of business attraction and expansion (declining in importance over time); the development of a workforce capable of moving beyond continuous improvement to continuous innovation; the formation of individual collaborative connections and disconnections; and many other interrelated challenges and opportunities to help new knowledge emerge. It will be the connection of new knowledge to new resources in the creation of transformational projects that will seed what we call a “Creative Molecular Economy,” a term that is further explored and defined below.
The recent economic recession has raised questions among economists regarding how long this downtown will continue and when will we recover. For economic developers however there is a more fundamental question: “are we in the process of shifting from an Industrial Economy to a Creative Molecular Economy?”
Our answer to this question is that we are in the midst of a fundamental systemic change. The idea of developing a new type of economic resiliency in our communities and society is at the core of preparing for a different kind of economy that will need to adapt to constantly changing conditions. Furthermore, this resiliency cannot be achieved through just reforming the current practice of economic development. In other words, we can’t just tinker at the margins.
Adding to the complexity over the next twenty years is the fact that there are three different types of economies that are in churn and mixed together for the first time in the history of the world.
1) The first is the very last stages of the old Industrial Age Economy based on hierarchies, economies of scale, mechanization, and predictability.
2) The second is a transitional economic phase called the Knowledge Economy that was recognized a decade or so ago, and is based on knowledge creation and diffusion.
3) This transition phase is reaching its maturity and will quickly shift within the next ten-to-fifteen years to an emerging Creative Molecular Economy (CME) in which biological principles will form the framework for how the CME will be organized and operate.
This newly emerging economy will flow with the speed and strength of a surging river, constantly overflowing the banks of traditional economic principles and thinking. A key principle in preparing for success in this new economy will be the need to have leaders in communities who are open to new ideas and begin to understand the challenges they face in transforming their approach to the future systemically - how they connect ideas, people, processes and methods; how they develop a culture in support of continuous innovation; how they build new capacities for a new type of economic development involving as many citizens as possible with distributive intelligence; how they create an environment for individualized, autonomous education/learning; how they shift paradigms of governance using mobile technologies - and the list goes on and on.