On this Easter weekend, Phil Keaggy's song, "Maker of the Universe" says it best:
"The Maker of the universe, As Man for man was made a curse.
The claims of Law which He had made, Unto the uttermost He paid.
His holy fingers made the bough, Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.
The nails that pierced His hands were mined In secret places He designed.
He made the forest whence there sprung The tree on which His body hung.
He died upon a cross of wood, Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sky that darkened o'er His head, By Him above the earth was spread.
The sun that hid from Him it's face By His decree was poised in space.
The spear which spilled His precious blood Was tempered in the fires of God.
The grave in which His form was laid Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.
The throne on which He now appears Was His for everlasting years.
But a new glory crowns His brow And every knee to Him shall bow."
This is a time to stop and reflect.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Uncle Sam Wants Your ATM!
I read a little tiny story in the USA Today last week encouraging “real geeks” to go and find the new Bank of America ATMs and try them out. The story said that they have now perfected their ATM technology now that you can deposit a check without putting it in an envelope with a deposit slip. Now you just put the check in the machine and it scans it and comes back and has you verify the amount, etc. and then presto you make the deposit with that check right there in the machine in real time. While my eyebrows did raise a smidgen with the advancement, I have already been impressed with ATMs going all the way back to the summer of 1980 when I deposited my first check from Jeff Boat, Inc into the Citizen’s Bank ATM on 10th Street in Jeffersonville, IN. Everyone thought I was crazy. “You can’t trust one of those things”, I was told. “You gotta go in and let them stamp your savings book to be sure”. I have to tell you, in all the number of times I have used ATMs around the world, I have never, never, had a mistake. I mean never. And, I watch them carefully. So, that tells me, along with the newest technology that BofA ATMS now have, that we have the wrong people working on voting machines. Well, maybe it’s not the wrong people, since the same people who make ATMs also make voting machines (the guys that UTC are trying to buy), but it’s that we aren’t thinking about it right. Why are we trying to spend more time building voting machines when we already have everything we need in an ATM. It’s secure, it’s available all over the place, it’s got cameras, you need a password, you need a card, it tallies and posts back to a central location in real-time. What am I missing here? Try it this way. When I register to vote, my voter registration card is not a piece of paper, it’s a plastic ATM card with a magnetic strip on the back that carries all the information needed about me and my party affiliation, etc. It’s up to date at all times. I am given my voter access code/password with my Voter Registration Card (or I choose one). And now, it is election day (or election month, week, or whatever) and I go to any ATM anywhere in the country and I can put in my Voter Access Card. It knows where I am from, what precinct, etc. and it provides me a ballot to vote. I vote using the touch screen. The camera has taken a picture of me. The vote is registered. I can print out my receipt to keep. The vote gets counted. I didn’t have to drive to a polling station, stand in line, sign a piece of paper with my address on it, stand in line again to go into the booth, go into the booth, vote and then watch on TV that night about the irregularities of the voting machines and the problems with hanging chads, etc. Nor do we have to wait hours and days to count the votes. They are already counted the moment the voting time is expired. Tell me again, what am I missing? Let’s do this…get one of the banks to volunteer to test it! That’s right, let’s have one of our fine and upstanding financial institutions step up and offer their ATMs as a test. Imagine all the people who would vote!!! How great would this be?! Wait, is that why we don’t do this, is that what I am missing?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Price of Change?
I have a friend, Jeff Brown, who says that it is going to take an $8.00 USD gallon of gas to get people (drivers, car manufacturers, the government, etc.) to make the changes necessary to really change their ways as it relates to energy conservation. Well, I felt this week that he was half right. There I stood on Sunday morning filling my Mini Cooper up with (the required) Super Premium gasoline at $3.99/gallon. Okay, it’s not really $4.00 yet, but that fraction of Abraham Lincoln can’t fool me…it’s $4.00 a gallon of gas! My tank took $49.76 of Chevron to fill it up. I would have normally topped it off, but I just couldn’t stand to see the numbers roll over to $50.00 to fill up a Mini Cooper! I have no recollection of the cost of gas when I first started driving but I do remember filling up my 1969 MG Midget for under $5.00 back in 1979. It’s 29 years later and I still drive a car that is about the same size but I pay 10X the amount of money to fill the tank! Eeegads! To put that in perspective that means that the house I grew up in that cost $12,000 would sell today at $120,000. Hmmm…I think my Mother can get more for the house than that. Okay, that means that the comic book I paid, $0.12 for would today go for $1.20! Hmmm…I think they are more expensive than that. Okay, one last try…The Gap jeans, I mean the real Gap jeans that that were $14.99 would be $149.99! Ha, see they didn’t go up that much. But, the D&G jeans I bought not long ago?….well….hmmmph. Okay, so Jeff is right, it’s going to take another doubling of the price of gas to get us on the bus, walking to work, car pooling again, riding our bicycles, putting locks back on our gas caps! I’ll be ready when it happens. Of course the question then will be, what do I do about those $300 jeans I have in my closet?
Monday, February 18, 2008
Superdelegates...will you be true?
I'm late to the party...that is late to the Democratic Party. A Reagan youth, growing up in Indiana, taught at home to just pull the Republican lever and walk out of the booth, it was hard to make the change. But, in the last seven years, the Republicans lost the right to have my vote. They lost it because they did not represent me as a person or as a member of the party. Had they lived up to their responsibility to represent us and not just do as they willed, then there probably wouldn't be me and others like me who have left for the left. Now the Superdelegates have the same choice. Those who are Superdelegates because of their elected position should do what they are supposed to do, represent and reflect the views of their constituents. If they do that, then they are living up to their position. If they don't then they will be guilty of the same individual centered attitude of the party I just departed. Those Superdelegates who are in the role because they are appointed or elected through the DNC, then they should vote their conscience. That's the beauty of it, they are different. But not the elected Superdelegates, they get to vote the way the people choose. I hope each one lives up to that responsibility.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Bolts from the past/TalentForce.net blogs, part 2
July 06, 2006
Free Talent Zones
This is the first of a series of posts regarding a concept we developed in our book ‘Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business’.
In today’s post we posit the problem, in the second the solution and in the third a study and review of a State with the problem and suggestions to solve.
Local, State and Federal Governments in the United States and throughout the world are beginning to understand the simple fact that there are fewer people in the world available for work and thus input to the economy. Mortality rates have slowed to zero or zero negative in so many countries that now populating areas to keep commerce and tax rates up are becoming a question and strategy.
In a way, the US over the past 40 years has created what we define in our book Talent Force as a “Free Talent Zone” for our friends and neighbors from the south. The results have been positive and negative and thus the war of words has started and will likely continue for some time.
But there may be a different and unique way to think about attracting talent and the periphery commerce and tax base they can bring to an area. And that is what we introduce and explore here.
Historically, attracting and settling talent was the 40 acres and a mule offer post the Civil War. For most, that process worked. Land was provided with the tools to make the land a valued asset.
In the recent past at least two towns in the Midwest have attempted to attract people to their area in order to secure a depleting tax base as people died and children moved to the city. In these instances free land was offered….but no mule or tractor or work. As a result both attempts failed.
But the efforts caused us to consider just what these towns had to offer and what they could have done to make their efforts successful.
Next week we explore our solution.
July 06, 2006 Permalink Comments (0)
Free Talent Zones
This is the first of a series of posts regarding a concept we developed in our book ‘Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business’.
In today’s post we posit the problem, in the second the solution and in the third a study and review of a State with the problem and suggestions to solve.
Local, State and Federal Governments in the United States and throughout the world are beginning to understand the simple fact that there are fewer people in the world available for work and thus input to the economy. Mortality rates have slowed to zero or zero negative in so many countries that now populating areas to keep commerce and tax rates up are becoming a question and strategy.
In a way, the US over the past 40 years has created what we define in our book Talent Force as a “Free Talent Zone” for our friends and neighbors from the south. The results have been positive and negative and thus the war of words has started and will likely continue for some time.
But there may be a different and unique way to think about attracting talent and the periphery commerce and tax base they can bring to an area. And that is what we introduce and explore here.
Historically, attracting and settling talent was the 40 acres and a mule offer post the Civil War. For most, that process worked. Land was provided with the tools to make the land a valued asset.
In the recent past at least two towns in the Midwest have attempted to attract people to their area in order to secure a depleting tax base as people died and children moved to the city. In these instances free land was offered….but no mule or tractor or work. As a result both attempts failed.
But the efforts caused us to consider just what these towns had to offer and what they could have done to make their efforts successful.
Next week we explore our solution.
July 06, 2006 Permalink Comments (0)
Bolts from the past/TalentForce.net blogs
August 03, 2006
The Two Company Towns that Could Have…
In the last few months The New York Times has reported on company towns and their demise. In particular, they called out Rouses Point, NY where Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was pulling out and leaving behind 1,250 jobs (of the population of 2.350). Another is Scotia, California where the logging company, Pacific Lumber Company, is abandoning their ownership of the town after 140 years.
We ask the question, “why?”
We are in a time where we fret over the loss of manufacturing and information technology jobs to overseas and many times now to overseas companies, who our corporations now just pay for the labor. Why are we not seeing the beginning of a new trend where states and local governments are not working hard to keep those jobs here and expand even further our skill and talent base?
We do see examples of where it is happening such as in Indiana, which we detailed last week. We also see it in North Dakota, where as Wired reported in their February issue, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering had been created in Fargo. The NDSU’s ResearchPark founder states that the talent among the farming and machinist communities lends itself to the creation and design of new machinery. Add the self-proclaimed strong work Midwest work ethic and NDSU thinks they have a winning combination. The state government is stepping up with a quarter of a billion dollars in funding to promote the creation and research in radio frequency identification technology. The funding and focus is working as Alien Technologies (a silicon valley tech company) is building a plant in Fargo with the commensurate amount of hiring to make North Dakota the global capital of RFID manufacturing. That’s a great story. Talent, plus the funding by corporations to create a new footing for a local economy.
Now what if North Dakota went one step further (further than the incentives that most states see, like Indiana) and created a set of Talent incentives or “Talent Credits” around the state RFID manufacturing initiatives. We will follow the taxonomy of government and introduce our own program acronyms.
· TRI – Talent Relocation Incentive – all existing residents and new talent who come to North Dakota to work in the RFID sector would pay no incomes taxes for the first three years of their employment. Nor would the company be required to match any of those income taxes for payroll tax purposes.
· THIRST – Talent Housing Incentives, Reductions, Stipends and Tax reductions – All employees within the RFID sector would receive a reduction of a third of their real estate taxes on owned properties for the first five years of their employment. Companies and Talent together would have great incentives to bring new talent and businesses to the state. What a recruiting tool.
· TED – Talent Education Degrees – Any state resident who takes a state certified course for the training of RFID technology would be able to do this at state funded institutions with a 50% fee and book reduction.
Let’s go one step further and see what this could mean to Talent and to the Companies who recruit that Talent.
Let’s say that the employee was moving to North Dakota and was going to be an engineer who would make $85,000 and would be buying a $300,000 house.
Here is the math:
Base Salary: $85,000
State Income Tax – 7% ($5958)
Real Estate Taxes
(on a $300K home) @ 1% ($3000)
Net Income after State Taxes = $76,042
After Talent Credits:
Base Salary: $85,000
State Income Tax – 0%
Real Estate Taxes
(on a $300K home) @ .033% ($1000)
Net Income after State Taxes = $84,000
That’s a $7952 positive difference or out another way – a 9.3% income differential to the positive that the employee would receive by making the move or changing employers.
That’s a heck of a recruiting tool for the best Talent.
So, why aren’t states thinking this way? Honestly, we don’t know other than once a good idea gets going in government, there are plenty of special interest reasons why it just shouldn’t work or happen.
We are calling on those who can make this difference, to just give it a try.
If more incentive is needed – we have taken our own shot at the obvious that each state could do to differentiate themselves and get going. And imagine what strength we would have if we got this level of focus on very important issues at hand.
Alabama –
Alaska – Clean and green oil exploration and refinemen
Arizona –
Arkansas –
California – Stem Cell Research
Colorado –
Connecticut –
Delaware –
Florida – Oceanic Food
Georgia –
Hawaii – Tidal Power systems
Idaho –
Illinois –
Indiana – Efficient Manufacturing and Production
Iowa –
Kansas – Energy from the wind
Kentucky –
Louisiana –
Maine –
Maryland –
Massachusetts – Nanotechnology
Michigan – Clean and Green Transportation Systems
Minnesota –
Mississippi –
Missouri-
Montana –
Nebraska-
Nevada –
New Jersey –
New Mexico – Solar Energy
North Carolina –
North Dakota – Radio Frequency ID Tags
Ohio –
Oklahoma-
Oregon –
Pennsylvania –
Rhode Island –
South Carolina –
South Dakota –
Tennessee – Hydropower next generation
Texas – Energy, Alt Energy, Agriculture
Utah –
Vermont –
Washington –
West Virginia – Clean uses of Coal
Wisconsin – Dairy efficiency
Wyoming
We hope you have your own ideas as well and we start to see Free Talent Zones emerge and the beginning of the next generation of Talent Towns!
August 03, 2006 Permalink Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Follow the Talent
Since February’s publishing of Talent Force, we have been fortunate enough to have seen many examples surface of what we have written about in the book.
One of those concepts is the partnership with companies and municipalities to recreate the modern-day version of the “Company Town”. Hank likes to say that with 40 acres and a wi-fi, anything is possible.
Earlier this year, we wrote a blog that gave some ideas for the Governors of the United States. We would like to go further with that topic here.
The week before last, Google made the announcement that they would hire 1,000 people in Michigan. For Google, a thousand people is still a lot, but it is not enormous. What is significant is that Google looked in a most unusual place for a Silicon Valley based company. They reached to a state where without a retooling of The Talent Force is facing an economic and Talent crisis. I can only imagine the smiles that crossed the faces of every state university in Michigan when they read the announcement; a second chance for Michigan with a long-term attractive employment prospect for future students.
You can read about the announcement here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060711/ap_on_hi_te/google_michigan_7
It is great that Google (and a founder with ties to the state) were able to make this commitment. But states need to do more if they are to make these opportunities even that more attractive to companies and more importantly to the talent that are necessary to make the ventures successful.
I recently received a letter from the Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, asking me as a Hoosier and a supporter of my university, Purdue, to consider bringing my business and jobs to Indiana. I quote from the letter: “Indiana is transforming its economic landscape by undertaking bold and aggressive initiatives to make it easier to conduct business. We have long been a low cost business state, and now we are making it even easier to start, expand and relocate businesses.” The letter goes on to describe the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), which was created in 2005 to solely assist businesses to grow and prosper in Indiana. And so far, with good results with over 140 deals done and 18,000 jobs committed to Indiana. The letter attached a set of incentives that the IEDC has created for businesses:
· EDGE – Economic Development for a Growing Economy – a refundable tax credit program created to reward companies creating new jobs with a percentage of payroll taxes credits passed back to the Company
· HBITC – The Hoosier Business Investment Tax Credit – credits against Indianataxes for capital spending
· SBIR – Small Business Innovation Research – matching funds for R&D efforts
· SEF – Skills Enhancement Fund – financial assistance to companies for training (note trainees must be Indianaresidents so they don’t apply to imported talent)
· 21st Century Research and Technology Funds – more funding for R&D
· Industrial Recovery Tax Credit – incentives for investing in facilities requiring rehabilitiation
· The Industrial Development Grant Fund – infrastructure funding for expansion of businesses and new jobs into Indiana
· TECH Fund – The Technology Enhancement Certification Program – a corporation reimbursement grant for training employees in the information technology sector
· VCI – Tax Credit program established to provide individual and company investors an incentive to invest in Indianaearly stage companies.
When I read through the brochure, I was both impressed and depressed at the incentives and programs. Impressed that the state is taking a stand to continue to build the economy, but depressed in that once again, we see another set of programs which miss the most critical ingredient of business and economic success – the Talent to do the work.
While training is great, the reimbursement of training dollars to already state citizens will not provide incentives for new talent to flow into the state, nor will it create a great incentive for new businesses to move to the state only to have to retrain the current talent force.
There must be bolder moves by our legislators if we are to truly break through with innovation and the creation of new types of workers in our country.
Again, we call on our legislators to think outside the box. Next week – we will give examples of what we think can be done.
July 19, 2006 Permalink Comments (1)
July 06, 2006
Free Talent Zones
This is the first of a series of posts regarding a concept we developed in our book ‘Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business’.
In today’s post we posit the problem, in the second the solution and in the third a study and review of a State with the problem and suggestions to solve.
Local, State and Federal Governments in the United States and throughout the world are beginning to understand the simple fact that there are fewer people in the world available for work and thus input to the economy. Mortality rates have slowed to zero or zero negative in so many countries that now populating areas to keep commerce and tax rates up are becoming a question and strategy.
In a way, the US over the past 40 years has created what we define in our book Talent Force as a “Free Talent Zone” for our friends and neighbors from the south. The results have been positive and negative and thus the war of words has started and will likely continue for some time.
But there may be a different and unique way to think about attracting talent and the periphery commerce and tax base they can bring to an area. And that is what we introduce and explore here.
Historically, attracting and settling talent was the 40 acres and a mule offer post the Civil War. For most, that process worked. Land was provided with the tools to make the land a valued asset.
In the recent past at least two towns in the Midwest have attempted to attract people to their area in order to secure a depleting tax base as people died and children moved to the city. In these instances free land was offered….but no mule or tractor or work. As a result both attempts failed.
But the efforts caused us to consider just what these towns had to offer and what they could have done to make their efforts successful.
Next week we explore our solution.
The Two Company Towns that Could Have…
In the last few months The New York Times has reported on company towns and their demise. In particular, they called out Rouses Point, NY where Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was pulling out and leaving behind 1,250 jobs (of the population of 2.350). Another is Scotia, California where the logging company, Pacific Lumber Company, is abandoning their ownership of the town after 140 years.
We ask the question, “why?”
We are in a time where we fret over the loss of manufacturing and information technology jobs to overseas and many times now to overseas companies, who our corporations now just pay for the labor. Why are we not seeing the beginning of a new trend where states and local governments are not working hard to keep those jobs here and expand even further our skill and talent base?
We do see examples of where it is happening such as in Indiana, which we detailed last week. We also see it in North Dakota, where as Wired reported in their February issue, the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering had been created in Fargo. The NDSU’s ResearchPark founder states that the talent among the farming and machinist communities lends itself to the creation and design of new machinery. Add the self-proclaimed strong work Midwest work ethic and NDSU thinks they have a winning combination. The state government is stepping up with a quarter of a billion dollars in funding to promote the creation and research in radio frequency identification technology. The funding and focus is working as Alien Technologies (a silicon valley tech company) is building a plant in Fargo with the commensurate amount of hiring to make North Dakota the global capital of RFID manufacturing. That’s a great story. Talent, plus the funding by corporations to create a new footing for a local economy.
Now what if North Dakota went one step further (further than the incentives that most states see, like Indiana) and created a set of Talent incentives or “Talent Credits” around the state RFID manufacturing initiatives. We will follow the taxonomy of government and introduce our own program acronyms.
· TRI – Talent Relocation Incentive – all existing residents and new talent who come to North Dakota to work in the RFID sector would pay no incomes taxes for the first three years of their employment. Nor would the company be required to match any of those income taxes for payroll tax purposes.
· THIRST – Talent Housing Incentives, Reductions, Stipends and Tax reductions – All employees within the RFID sector would receive a reduction of a third of their real estate taxes on owned properties for the first five years of their employment. Companies and Talent together would have great incentives to bring new talent and businesses to the state. What a recruiting tool.
· TED – Talent Education Degrees – Any state resident who takes a state certified course for the training of RFID technology would be able to do this at state funded institutions with a 50% fee and book reduction.
Let’s go one step further and see what this could mean to Talent and to the Companies who recruit that Talent.
Let’s say that the employee was moving to North Dakota and was going to be an engineer who would make $85,000 and would be buying a $300,000 house.
Here is the math:
Base Salary: $85,000
State Income Tax – 7% ($5958)
Real Estate Taxes
(on a $300K home) @ 1% ($3000)
Net Income after State Taxes = $76,042
After Talent Credits:
Base Salary: $85,000
State Income Tax – 0%
Real Estate Taxes
(on a $300K home) @ .033% ($1000)
Net Income after State Taxes = $84,000
That’s a $7952 positive difference or out another way – a 9.3% income differential to the positive that the employee would receive by making the move or changing employers.
That’s a heck of a recruiting tool for the best Talent.
So, why aren’t states thinking this way? Honestly, we don’t know other than once a good idea gets going in government, there are plenty of special interest reasons why it just shouldn’t work or happen.
We are calling on those who can make this difference, to just give it a try.
If more incentive is needed – we have taken our own shot at the obvious that each state could do to differentiate themselves and get going. And imagine what strength we would have if we got this level of focus on very important issues at hand.
Alabama –
Alaska – Clean and green oil exploration and refinemen
Arizona –
Arkansas –
California – Stem Cell Research
Colorado –
Connecticut –
Delaware –
Florida – Oceanic Food
Georgia –
Hawaii – Tidal Power systems
Idaho –
Illinois –
Indiana – Efficient Manufacturing and Production
Iowa –
Kansas – Energy from the wind
Kentucky –
Louisiana –
Maine –
Maryland –
Massachusetts – Nanotechnology
Michigan – Clean and Green Transportation Systems
Minnesota –
Mississippi –
Missouri-
Montana –
Nebraska-
Nevada –
New Jersey –
New Mexico – Solar Energy
North Carolina –
North Dakota – Radio Frequency ID Tags
Ohio –
Oklahoma-
Oregon –
Pennsylvania –
Rhode Island –
South Carolina –
South Dakota –
Tennessee – Hydropower next generation
Texas – Energy, Alt Energy, Agriculture
Utah –
Vermont –
Washington –
West Virginia – Clean uses of Coal
Wisconsin – Dairy efficiency
Wyoming
We hope you have your own ideas as well and we start to see Free Talent Zones emerge and the beginning of the next generation of Talent Towns!
August 03, 2006 Permalink Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Follow the Talent
Since February’s publishing of Talent Force, we have been fortunate enough to have seen many examples surface of what we have written about in the book.
One of those concepts is the partnership with companies and municipalities to recreate the modern-day version of the “Company Town”. Hank likes to say that with 40 acres and a wi-fi, anything is possible.
Earlier this year, we wrote a blog that gave some ideas for the Governors of the United States. We would like to go further with that topic here.
The week before last, Google made the announcement that they would hire 1,000 people in Michigan. For Google, a thousand people is still a lot, but it is not enormous. What is significant is that Google looked in a most unusual place for a Silicon Valley based company. They reached to a state where without a retooling of The Talent Force is facing an economic and Talent crisis. I can only imagine the smiles that crossed the faces of every state university in Michigan when they read the announcement; a second chance for Michigan with a long-term attractive employment prospect for future students.
You can read about the announcement here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060711/ap_on_hi_te/google_michigan_7
It is great that Google (and a founder with ties to the state) were able to make this commitment. But states need to do more if they are to make these opportunities even that more attractive to companies and more importantly to the talent that are necessary to make the ventures successful.
I recently received a letter from the Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, asking me as a Hoosier and a supporter of my university, Purdue, to consider bringing my business and jobs to Indiana. I quote from the letter: “Indiana is transforming its economic landscape by undertaking bold and aggressive initiatives to make it easier to conduct business. We have long been a low cost business state, and now we are making it even easier to start, expand and relocate businesses.” The letter goes on to describe the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), which was created in 2005 to solely assist businesses to grow and prosper in Indiana. And so far, with good results with over 140 deals done and 18,000 jobs committed to Indiana. The letter attached a set of incentives that the IEDC has created for businesses:
· EDGE – Economic Development for a Growing Economy – a refundable tax credit program created to reward companies creating new jobs with a percentage of payroll taxes credits passed back to the Company
· HBITC – The Hoosier Business Investment Tax Credit – credits against Indianataxes for capital spending
· SBIR – Small Business Innovation Research – matching funds for R&D efforts
· SEF – Skills Enhancement Fund – financial assistance to companies for training (note trainees must be Indianaresidents so they don’t apply to imported talent)
· 21st Century Research and Technology Funds – more funding for R&D
· Industrial Recovery Tax Credit – incentives for investing in facilities requiring rehabilitiation
· The Industrial Development Grant Fund – infrastructure funding for expansion of businesses and new jobs into Indiana
· TECH Fund – The Technology Enhancement Certification Program – a corporation reimbursement grant for training employees in the information technology sector
· VCI – Tax Credit program established to provide individual and company investors an incentive to invest in Indianaearly stage companies.
When I read through the brochure, I was both impressed and depressed at the incentives and programs. Impressed that the state is taking a stand to continue to build the economy, but depressed in that once again, we see another set of programs which miss the most critical ingredient of business and economic success – the Talent to do the work.
While training is great, the reimbursement of training dollars to already state citizens will not provide incentives for new talent to flow into the state, nor will it create a great incentive for new businesses to move to the state only to have to retrain the current talent force.
There must be bolder moves by our legislators if we are to truly break through with innovation and the creation of new types of workers in our country.
Again, we call on our legislators to think outside the box. Next week – we will give examples of what we think can be done.
July 19, 2006 Permalink Comments (1)
July 06, 2006
Free Talent Zones
This is the first of a series of posts regarding a concept we developed in our book ‘Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business’.
In today’s post we posit the problem, in the second the solution and in the third a study and review of a State with the problem and suggestions to solve.
Local, State and Federal Governments in the United States and throughout the world are beginning to understand the simple fact that there are fewer people in the world available for work and thus input to the economy. Mortality rates have slowed to zero or zero negative in so many countries that now populating areas to keep commerce and tax rates up are becoming a question and strategy.
In a way, the US over the past 40 years has created what we define in our book Talent Force as a “Free Talent Zone” for our friends and neighbors from the south. The results have been positive and negative and thus the war of words has started and will likely continue for some time.
But there may be a different and unique way to think about attracting talent and the periphery commerce and tax base they can bring to an area. And that is what we introduce and explore here.
Historically, attracting and settling talent was the 40 acres and a mule offer post the Civil War. For most, that process worked. Land was provided with the tools to make the land a valued asset.
In the recent past at least two towns in the Midwest have attempted to attract people to their area in order to secure a depleting tax base as people died and children moved to the city. In these instances free land was offered….but no mule or tractor or work. As a result both attempts failed.
But the efforts caused us to consider just what these towns had to offer and what they could have done to make their efforts successful.
Next week we explore our solution.
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