Johnathan Holifield, Esq. is the "Father of Inclusive Competitiveness," a visionary economic framework for America in the 21st century. Mr. Holifield is a co-founder of The America21 Project and the Vice President of Inclusive Competitiveness at NorTech, a tech-based economic development powerhouse covering 21 counties in Northeast Ohio. This presentation is an introduction into the terms and definitions associated with Inclusive Competitiveness.

1. INCLUSIVE
Competitiveness
© 2013
A glossary of terms for communicating in the vernacular used in
the profession of 21st century tech-based economic development
Term definitions
by Johnathan
Holifield, Esq.
Co-founder of The
America21 Project
Vice President of Inclusive
Competitiveness, NorTech
jholifield@nortech.org

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What is the Innovation Economy?
The period in the late 20th and early 21st centuries marked by
radical socioeconomic changes brought about by unique
convergence of further globalized commerce, democratized
information via new technologies, accelerated new knowledge
creation and exponential entrepreneurship growth.
What is Inclusive Competitiveness?
Targeted metrics and strategies to
measure and improve characteristic
performance levels of diverse
populations within innovation
ecosystems and clusters, emerging
industry sectors and other areas
critical to overall economic competitiveness.
Inclusive Competitiveness neither alters nor replaces, but
rather complements and enhances, existing and emerging
economic competitiveness metrics and strategies,
exclusively focusing on the characteristic
performance of diverse populations.
“The future belongs
to those who prepare
for it today.”
Malcolm X

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Inclusive Competitiveness Pillars
Inclusive Competitiveness is girded by three pillars:
• Education, specifically STEM (science, technology,
engineering, math)
• Entrepreneurship, especially high-growth
• Access to Capital, capital formation and investment
(including equity, debt and credit)

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Innovation Ecosystem
An innovation ecosystem is an
interconnected, interdependent and
balanced community of assets:
• people and talent (entrepreneurs/management)
• capital (equity/credit/debt);
• education institutions (K-12/higher education)
• research and commercialization resources
(universities/corporations/tech transfer)
• customers (marquee)
• philanthropy (community wealth)
• government (local/state/federal)
• professional services
(legal/accounting/intermediary organizations)
Elements with the ecosystem work
together to create new enterprises, jobs,
wealth and economic prosperity across the
landscape. However, unlike natural
ecosystems that are organically created,
innovation ecosystems must be
intentionally created.

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T.A.P.I.M.
Inclusive Competitiveness responds to the same needs and
follows the same “T.A.P.I.M.” Progression that created
existing innovation ecosystems and clusters:
Thought, Advocacy, Policy, Investment, Market.
T.A.P.I.M. Progression:
• New Thought and Advocacy produces
new economic narratives.
• New economic narratives break through
to form new Policy
• New Policy is adopted, which forms and
attracts new Investment
• New Investment incents or ignites
new Market reactions
• New Market reactions are needed
to respond to new opportunities
Johnathan Holifield, Esq.
Vice President of Inclusive
Competitiveness, NorTech
Co-founder, America21
a.k.a. “The Trim Tabber”

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Inclusive Competitiveness Diffusion
As innovation ecosystems and clusters help create more
economically competitive regions, Inclusive
Competitiveness helps create more economically
competitive regional innovation ecosystems and clusters by
connecting Disconnected Citizens to new opportunities.
This connection improves ecosystem and cluster
performance, which can lead to more successful overall
economic competitiveness outcomes.

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Inclusive Competitiveness
Regional Innovation Ecosystems and Clusters
Regional Economies
State Economies
U.S. Economy
Global Economy
Enhances economic competitiveness of …
Enhances economic competitiveness of …
Enhances economic competitiveness of …
Enhances economic competitiveness of …
Enhances economic competitiveness in …

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Law of Economic Competitiveness
No city, region, state or nation can sustainably increase
economic competitiveness without growing enough of the
right people to create and take advantage of that increased
economic competitiveness.
If your city’s, region’s, state’s or nation’s economic
competitiveness goals consistently outpace your growth
rate in the right people, you simply will not – indeed cannot
– become economically competitive.
Law of Inclusive Competitiveness
If your city’s, region’s, state’s or nation’s economic
competitiveness goals do not focus on inclusion, you simply
will not – indeed cannot – grow or cultivate enough of the
right people to become economically competitive.
Inspired by Packard’s Law of Hewlett-Packard Co-Founder, David Packard

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Equity Citizens
American citizens with economic ownership holdings or
interests in the U.S. Equity Citizens are entitled and able to
access an equitable proportion of the nation’s best
opportunities to achieve economic empowerment. The
term is used to distinguish from Constitutional Citizens.
Constitutional Citizens
American citizens by birthright enshrined in the Constitution
or by acquisition through naturalization. Constitutional
Citizens are full and equal citizens under law, but they do
not have many, if any, underlying economic ownership
holdings or interests in the U.S. They are entitled, but not
able to access the nation’s best opportunities to achieve
economic empowerment. The term is used to distinguish
from Equity Citizens.
Economic Empowerment
Self-active, innovative and competitive, able to bring about
a sustainable state of economic growth and development,
rooted in education, capital formation and investment,
entrepreneurship and employment.

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Innovation Economy Squeeze
Is the phenomenon of dramatically increasing American
business productivity, enabled by efficiency gains of new
technology adoption and integration and far less
employees, combined with the increasingly “flat world,”
where competition for new jobs is global.
The effect is that Americans are being economically
squeezed in unprecedented ways by the fact that fewer
workers are now needed to produce ever more goods and
services and billions of new workers around the world are
now competing with Americans for new jobs.

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Connected Citizens
American citizens with awareness of the innovation
ecosystem, possession of 21st century skills and
competencies, access to knowledge and resource networks,
and characteristic performance levels to successfully
connect to innovation cluster and emerging industry sector
opportunities.
Disconnected Citizens
American citizens lacking awareness of the innovation
economy, missing skills and competencies to access
knowledge and resource networks, and do not demonstrate
characteristic performance levels to successfully connect to
innovation clusters and emerging
industry sector opportunities.

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TRIM TAB THEORY
Trim Tab Impact
Derived from a metaphor of the same name, the Trim Tab
Impact is a strategy to enable people and organizations to
achieve more missions and deliver more value.
Trim Tab Metaphor
On the rudder of large, ocean-going vessels
is a small high-leverage device known as a
trim tab. While is it the rudder’s job to turn
the large ship, it cannot do so without the
trim tab.
Minus a trim tab, the sheer size and weight of the rudder
along with the water pressure and drag on it, makes the
helmsman’s task of turning the giant rudder, and thus the
ship, nearly impossible.
The trim tab serves as a rudder for the ship’s rudder.
Exerting extraordinarily high leverage, the small trim tab is
the high-impact catalyst to turn the ship’s large rudder, and
eventually turn the whole ship, in the desired direction.

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TRIM TAB THEORY
Three (3) Components of Trim Tab Impact:
• The object or the big ship that’s hard to turn
• The fulcrum or rudder which turns the ship
• The lever or trim tab which exerts exponentially higher
leverage to turn the rudder and, ultimately, turn the ship
in the desired direction
Trim Tabbers
Persons whose capabilities provide the
higher leverage leadership needed to
turn a matter of importance in the
desired direction. Their actions significantly
increase the achievement potential of the
group, considerably enhancing the
probability of mission success –
achieving exponential impact,
rather than incremental outcomes.

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TRIM TAB THEORY
Trim Tab Organizations
Entities whose operational approach to mission impact is
based on aggregating key resources, organizing those
resources into actionable, collaborative forms and highly
leveraging them to achieve exponential impact, rather than
incremental outcomes.
Trim Tab Movement
A series of high-leverage, organized actions and events of
national or global scale, yet local in implementation and
impact, that take place over an extended period of time,
working to achieve exponential impact, rather than
incremental outcomes.

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The America21 Project
About America21
America21 is a nationally networked and regionally focused
social enterprise whose mission is to inculcate a new, 21st
century economic narrative that connects disconnected
citizens to Innovation Economy clusters, ecosystems and
emerging industry sectors, through STEM education, high-
growth entrepreneurship and risk capital formation and
investment.
The approach is grounded in principles of economic
competitiveness, equity and inclusion inherent in the term:
Inclusive Competitiveness – enhancing and further
extending proven innovation- and technology-based
economic development strategies to seed the next
generation of workforce innovators and entrepreneurs.
For more information,
visit blackinnovation.org