Magnale is not shy when it comes to advocating our primary objective… to engineer and support distributed commerce networks which drive regional prosperity. This blog is committed to developing a contextual framework for a shared perspective to enable you to contribute to your region. We welcome your insights and observations in developing this shared perspective.

We encourage and support those few individuals and regions that find the ability in themselves to make a positive difference in the lives of others. At this point I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
                                  Margaret Mead, US anthropologist (1901 - 1978)

Margaret Mead was a distinguished anthropologist, intellectual, and scientist who indeed, changed the world. She taught generations of Americans about the value of looking carefully and openly at other cultures to better understand our own culture here in the United States and the complexities of being human.

Margaret Mead had a unique ability to blend knowledge and action but she was not without her detractors. Time Magazine named her "Mother of the World" in 1969. In the political realm she served as a diplomat to many presidents. She had a great interest and concern about the role of science and technology in world politics.

We at Magnale stand on the shoulders of greatness. We find inspiration in the work of other thought leaders who have distinguished themselves and found success. Success achieved through hard work, the will to advocate their position, and the capacity to overcome their naysayers.

Regional prosperity is an obtainable objective for most regions. Regional prosperity is measured by an increasing per capita income for its citizens, high wage job growth above the national average, and thriving niche industry and occupational clusters.

The world of commerce and economic development has changed dramatically in the past twenty five years. Structural shifts in the global market structure have impacted virtually every business, state, county, city, and region.

During this time period the public sector response was to create an economic development organization to attract and retain existing firms, and create new jobs from within the region with varying degrees of success. No area could take its future for granted; as a consequence economic incentives were born. A new regional competition ensued, a constant fight to attract, retain, and create decent jobs. During this same time period a significant economic disparity has grown between U.S. regions due to regional leadership, will, community capacity, and community response to these structural shifts in the market.

Many leading economists including Andrew Reamer, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institute have reported these macro structural shifts. I paraphrase here to summarize:

• Firms’ ability to create and bring to market innovative products and services has grown substantially. The result is increased competition around product and service attributes, and so greater industry volatility. 

The intensity of competition has greatly increased from decades past. The structure of America’s economic base was once largely oligopolistic. That is, in any one industry, a handful of firms controlled the market, prices were stable and sufficiently high, and union power was such that large numbers of relatively uneducated workers could move into the middle class. With global competition and substantially greater productivity, the wages and numbers of jobs available to workers in such industries have declined dramatically.

“Regions are currently experiencing what economist Joseph Schumpeter, 60 years ago, called ‘creative destruction’. In a world of creative destruction, regional economic stability requires creating defensible market niches, ones that cannot easily be replicated in another location.”

In this post-industrial economy, given the international structure of markets and that cost of communications, technology, and capital have been equalized across international borders, regions are now limited in their basis from which to compete to drive prosperity. In fact, regions only basis from which to compete is from a combination of market access, structural cost to include infrastructure and taxation, labor, and innovation driven by tacit and explicit knowledge management. We point out those regions that do not develop this basis to compete as applied to niche industry and occupational clusters are destined to see declines in population, jobs, and stagnant or decreasing per capita income.

In the field of knowledge management the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge which is only known by an individual and that is difficult to communicate. Knowledge that is easy to communicate is called explicit knowledge. The process of transforming tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge is known as codification or articulation. Tacit knknowledge is a crucial input to the innovation process. A regions ability to innovate depends on its capacity to retain and grow it’s level of tacit knowledge.

Andrew Reamer in his congressional testimony outlines these points and the regional needs of development organizations, he states that these organizations need access to: (see Congressional Testimony) 

• Current, accurate information regarding the region’s economic performance and structure; 
  
  
• The expertise to determine the implications of this information for a realistic regional strategy; 
  
  
• Knowledge about how to create and sustain defensible industry and occupational clusters;
  
  
• Knowledge about the various building blocks that make for a competitive economy -- workforce development, technology transfer, infrastructure development (including telecommunications), entrepreneurship, and venture capital;
  
  
• The expertise to create and sustain useful social networks within industry clusters, among entrepreneurs, and other key sectors that promote innovation, knowledge sharing, and new business relationships; and
  
  
• Knowledge of how to learn what businesses need to be successful (and stay in the region) and how to help them get it.

We found Andrew Reamer’s testimony to be extremely insightful and right on point.

Social Networks and tacit knowledge are the life blood of industry and occupational clusters and take variations of three different forms*: 

                     Centralized                       Decentralized                      Distributed

                                                                         
* Source: Barbasi, Albert-Laszio, The New Science of Networks, Perseus Publishing, 2002

As stated in the beginning of this post … Our primary objective is to engineer and support distributed commerce networks which drive regional prosperity. Distributed networks of tacit knowledge workers within niche industry and occupational clusters are the most defensible in support of sustained regional prosperity.

Magnale has leveraged our understanding of commerce, market structure, social networks, and geographically dispersed supply-chains to provide CommerceAuthority the only Web-based system engineered to equip a region’s businesses, governments, and academic institutions to overcome institutional barriers to regional competitiveness.

Concerned citizens, businesses and regions now have a practical, and cost effective means to address institutional fragmentation and the under-served needs of industry and occupational clusters to create high wage jobs and regional prosperity.

With this far reaching post I will leave you with a profound passage that touched me for its relevancy to our community and the subject matter of this blog. It was written by Stephen J. Novak whom I do not know. Given the spirit of the season I quote it here for your consideration.

“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.

We spend more, but have less. We buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We’ve added years to life not life to years. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less.

Say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Give time to love, give time to speak, and give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.”

Happy Holidays!