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I love listening to Ned Hill. What makes him enjoyable is the verbal wave that he sometimes surfs. Take this quote from Jay Miller's article in Crain's:

"Edward W. Hill, interim dean of the Levin College, whose teaching specialty is economic development, called the plan, “the first time any (state) department of development in the country is being held accountable for something outside of deal flow.”

That would be news to economic developers in Colorado, Oregon, Indiana, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Minnesota, Maine, Wisconsin and California.

Ohio now joins a growing crowd of states embracing innovation and metrics to measure progress. See the national Governors Association publication on state policies to promote clusters. (Statewide Innovation Indexes trace their history back to Massachusetts which launched an index in 1997.)

Ohio's innovation hub initiative follows similar statewide strategies in Pennsylvania (Keystone Innovation Zones), Michigan (Smart Zones) and Washington (Innovation Zones).

Ohio's got a good strategy, but we are late to the game. Execution represents the critical next step. It's important to focus on the heavy lifting ahead and maintaining focus.

Lee Fischer has done a good job barnstorming the state and raising awareness of the stakes. See for example this article from Mansfield or this article from Youngstown. We face some really tricky challenges.

Take the important area of workforce development. Ohio operates one of the most dysfunctional public workforce systems in the country. While the Ohio Skills Bank looks very promising, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the details.

In another important area, Ohio has an antiquated public sector. This "overhead" is costly and places persistent upward pressure on tax rates. Addressing this challenge with government innovation will be tough, as the McKernan-Shepherd Commission is learning in Indiana. The editors at the Chillicothe Gazette got it right:

The Strickland administration has given Ohio a workable, sustainable plan for its economic future. The turnaround comes in how well they live up to that plan's details.

Here's an article from the student newspaper at Youngstown State University.  The article outlines the impact of the new Higher Education strategic plan on Youngstown State and the opportunities to create a center of excellence on the YSU campus.

Youngstown State has the opportunity to create an exciting center that integrates creativity, open innovation and entrepreneurship. Read more.

These areas are entirely new in management education. It creates an opportunity for Youngstown State to develop an expertise that can be easily applied within the region. For some additional background, check out this article by Henry Chesbrough on open innovation and strategy.

Chesbrough points out:

Recently, however, firms and even whole industries, such as the software industry, are experimenting with novel business models based on harnessing collective creativity through open innovation. The apparent success of some of these experiments challenges prevailing views of strategy.

YSU could start focusing on this opportunity as their center of excellence.

Last week, 400 civic leaders in West Michigan to explore action steps they can take to build prosperity in their economy. The West Michigan Policy Conference -- the first of its ckind in the region - is patterned after that statewide Macinac Policy Conference held every spring.

The frustration, though, comes from the Macinac conference's lack of follow-up..an inability to convert talk into action. That's what spurred the West Michigan to launch their own.

The press coverage gives you some of the sense of urgency spurring on the folks in West Michigan:

• West Michigan Regional Policy Conference: 'Start taking action'
• W. Michigan group seeks daring fixes

• Let's bridge Michigan's divide - for real this time

• Educators: Region will benefit if businesses cultivate internships in West Michigan

Of course, no annual meeting is likely to develop much momentum toward action. What's needed in many regions is am integrated civic process, not more events. The mere fact that the event sold out with 400 attendees is impressive enough, though.

The West Michigan event is not unlike the Brookings meeting held a couple of weeks ago in Columbus.

Materials on the Brookings/Greater Ohio summit held this week are available here. In case you missed it, here's the PD story by Tom Breckenridge.

Here are couple of other articles that covered the Summit:

• Report: Competition holding back growth of Ohio’s major citieshttp://thejournal.epluribusmedia.net/index.php/state-news/ohio-news/165-ohio-conference-on-restoring-prosperity-calls-for-major-makeovers-on-state-role
• Ohio Conference Calls for Major Makeovers

Is time right to start planning a NEOhio policy conference? Could a consortium of chambers step forward?