Presented as a kick-off to the 2016 University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Economic Development Academy to provide an understanding of what is economic development, the role of the economic developer, factors that drive success in economic development, recent trends impacting economic development, and lessons from the field.

1. Recent Trends in Economic Development
Prepared for Economic Development Academy
August 22 2016
Presentation By:
Jim Damicis
Senior Vice President

2. Jim Damicis, Senior Vice President – Principal -
Camoin Associates
• Immediate Past President, Northeastern Economic
Developers Association
• IEDC, Economic Development Research Program,
International Economic Development Council & Course
Instructor
• Collaborator – Communities of the Future
• 25+ Years Experience in Economic and Community
Development
jim@camoinassociates.com
www.camoinassociates.com
Twitter: @jdamicis
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jdamicis
Blog: www.camoinassociates.com/blog/
• Economic Development Strategies
• Workforce Development
• Market & Feasibility Analysis
• Impact Analysis
• Evaluation & Benchmarking Indicators
• ED Communication & Marketing

3. What is Economic Development?
Planning, Organizing, and Acting to Support
the Economy
Some commonly used end goals:
 Job stability and creation
 Tax base stability and growth
 Diversification of economic and tax base
 Wealth creation and diversification

4. Economic Development Operates within a
System
•People
•Organizations
•Networks
Key functions: Interactions, relationships,
communications, collaboration

5. common barriers
focus on personalities & positions
o focus on shared interests & goals instead
lack of motivation for working together for change
being in the “comfort zone”

6. Economic Developer as a “Point Guard
Primary role is assessing the environment around
them and making decisions to create scoring
opportunities for others

7. Key Factors Driving Local & Regional
Economic Development
• Workforce, workforce, workforce!
• Quality of place – amenities, infrastructure, housing,
recreation and culture, etc.
• Regional collaboration and holistic approach to economic
development
• Customer service driven – permitting and approval
processes, transparency, accountability
• Networks
• Complex Systems requiring adaptability rather than
predictability

8. Economic Development Tools & Techniques
 Business Retention and Expansion
 Business Attraction
 Global Trade and foreign investment
 Workforce development
 Business technical assistance
 Innovation and entrepreneurial support
 Quality of place/place-based development
As well as supporting the economic development effort
through:
 Planning
 Organizing
 Implementation
 Resource Development

9. Ingredients for a successful economic
development project/program:
Also:
• Organizational
• Technical
• Leadership

10. Factors for Economic Development
Implementation Success
 Trust – internally and externally
 Process and procedures – help build trust
 Leadership qualities – within the organization as well as
among the board and stakeholders; including adaptability
and leading in periods of chaos or uncertainty
 Communications and Engagement – among the board,
committees, and among the many stakeholders and
networks; open and active communications amongst the
partners

11. Factors for Economic Development Implementation
Success – Con’t
 Building capacity - for functioning within a system composed of many
networks, partnerships, alliances, and initiatives
 Adaptability - Ability and respond and adapt to changes in the external
environment
 Building capacity and resources for business intelligence, working smarter –
data, research, digital technologies and information resources
 Incorporating new funding models – reducing reliance on government
entities
 On-going assessment and evaluation - for continual improvement and
effective/efficient use of funding

12. Economic Trends
•Changing nature of manufacturing – advanced and
artisan
•Intersection/blending of sectors - NAICS codes no
longer make sense making traditional “targeting”
difficult
•Health, personal and businesses services continue
on the rise
•Amazon effect – changing retail and logistics
•Globalization - Global supply chains

13. Technology Trends
•Gigabit demand –delivering a gig of speed is the
new goal. Demand being driven by:
• Mobile consumerism, governance, etc…
• Cloud based services
• Big data
• 3-D printing and related manufacturing technologies
• User content provision – uploading data, videos, audio, etc…
• Tele-health
• Entrepreneurs and small businesses
•Demand for redundancy, reliability, and
choice/competition
•Internet of things, artificial intelligence

14. Workforce Trends
•Growth of the independent workers
•Workforce is regional/not local
•Diversity – immigration – movement from problem
to be dealt with to economic opportunity
•No one answer - all of these are important:
• Service jobs
• Middle skills jobs
• High tech
• Technical and soft skills
•Lifelong blended learning – traditional as well as
non-tradition higher education – task economy

15. Placed Based Economic Development
•Geography still maters: access to workers/talent,
access to market, housing, transportation and
logistics, and digital infrastructure & culture
•High quality, diverse amenities - attract and retain
workforce
•Buy local, regional sourcing, local and regional
branding
•Sustainability and resiliency

16. Financing Trends
•Continued pressure on state and local budgets
means less public funds to support economic
development
•Growing public skepticism of tax credits and
incentives
•Greater demand for transparency and on-demand
information/communications
•Growth of crowdfunding (also tied to
crowdsourcing)
•Growth in private funding and continuation of
public/private partnerships

17. Lessons from the Field
 Don’t bite off more than you can chew! Break large projects
into smaller digestible components based on your organization’s
and partners’ capacity to implement
 Get comfortable making collective decisions without perfect
information and predictable outcomes
 Give collaboration and engagement within region, diverse
stakeholders, and the public more than lip service – design and
implement together
 Market externally AND Internally
 Understand what you can have impact over – i.e. at local level
you can impact land-use, zoning, permitting, customer service

18. Questions/Comments/Discussion?

19. Northeastern Economic Developers
Association - NEDA
NEDA’s vision:
• Advocacy
• Networking
• Professional Development
• Thought Leadership
Annual Conference: Transportation At The Crossroads - The
Economic Developer's Road Map
New Haven, CT | September 11-13
www.nedaonline.org