1. Advancing Innovation in Education, Economic, and
Workforce Development
Civic Forums lay the foundation for entrance into the innovation economy
for regional economies reliant on legacy industries
January 2010
Written by Betsey Merkel
The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), a not for profit economic
development organization based in Northeast Ohio, celebrates over six years of public
service to advance education, economic, and workforce development.
Since August 2003, I-Open led Civic Forums in collaboration with organizations,
universities and colleges, businesses, and government to convene citizens to build
valuable civic networks to advance Northeast Ohio regional business development. Civic
Forums lay the foundation for entrance into the innovation economy for regional
economies reliant on legacy industries.
From September 2006 through July 2007, I-Open Co-Founders and Directors, Susan
Altshuler, Dennis Coughlin, and Betsey Merkel, hosted forty-six face-to-face
conversations in collaboration with leaders in education, government, business and civic
organizations to address timely global issues affecting Ohio communities. George
Nemeth and Gloria Ferris of Meet The Blogger’s, a Northeast Ohio based network of
leaders experienced in guiding conversations focusing on civic journalism, advocacy,
democracy, and government process, led many of the conversations in collaboration with
I-Open.
Civic Forums focus on innovation opportunities in industry. Since 2006, 40% of I-Open
conversations exchanged information and updates in water, advocacy, health care,
creativity, land, energy, transportation, and technology; another 40% of the conversations
targeted innovation in education, economic, and workforce development; the remaining
20% shared insights into lifestyle, civic service, and regional culture.
Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder and Director of I-Open, designed the Civic Forum process to
bring people together to build trust, civic networks and collaborative communities to
identify citizen priorities and entrepreneurial opportunities.
Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland,
Ohio 44103 USA

2. 2
Civic Forums teach “Strategic Doing” – a simple, but disciplined method to advance
ideas to action quickly - designed by Ed Morrison, a member of the staff of the Purdue
Center for Regional and Development and Economic Policy Advisor for the WIRED
initiative in North Central Indiana. He is also Co-Founder and a Director of I-Open.
The I-Open Civic Forum process offers communities and regions a place to start to
strengthen good habits of collaboration, engagement, and civility. Civic Forums model
collaborative behaviors drawing from such disciplines as Appreciative Inquiry and
Servant Leadership – important ‘soft’ skills for every entrepreneur to thrive in locally
based, global business environments.
Since 2006, the I-Open conversations focused on five priority areas for regional
economic development: the importance of strengthening education; the relationship of
social and behavioral economics to build prosperity; how to grow resilient, attractive
communities; how to build innovation and entrepreneurial networks; and the intrinsic
value of quality communications sharing stories of regional culture.
To inform the strategy and design of civic forum conversations, civic leaders have
contributed over 100 interviews, nearly fifty conversations with over 1000 voices
participating, and over 150 hours of content to I-Open research. Interviews share insights,
stories of innovation, and civic priorities.
During the thirty-one month period, I-Open educational communications reached over
195,000 (opt-in) subscribers mailed who read over 48,000 email communications,
exploring 14,000 information web links to people, research, and innovation in energy,
health care, land, food, and water.
Civic Forum conversations are broadcast live with chat and archived to the web in an on-
demand library for public access. Since early 2008, the Midtown Brews channel, for
example, has quickly grown in value, accruing over 250,000 viewer minutes sharing
citizen priorities focused on global issues.
The forty-six public conversations cost an average of $50.00 per month (for technology
related fees) for a total of $1550.00 generating over 4,000 contacts at about $.01 cost per
contact – proving that building the open civic networks for communication and
collaboration to strengthen businesses and emergent cluster industries can be strategic,
efficient, and financially prudent.
Gary Murphy, Professor of Undergraduate Economics Program at Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland, Ohio, describes I-Open as “a sophisticated center of civic
dialogue that furthers the community’s understanding and engagement of issues.”
To conclude, I-Open Civic Forums build the open, neutral spaces for important new
conversations to take place focused on citizen priorities, acting as a catalyst for civic
networks to connect people and resources. The resulting exponential growth of business
strengthens universities, colleges, and libraries, and rewires institutions, organizations,
Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland,
Ohio 44103 USA

3. 3
and government, connecting people and their ideas to revitalize education, economic, and
workforce development in communities and their regions.
The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) shares best practices and tools for
Open Source Economic Development, a method to accelerate enterprise collaboration in
communities and their regions.
All information is published under a Creative Commons License Attribution-Non-
Commercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States. Please share freely with Attribution
to I-Open and Betsey Merkel.
Mailing address: The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) – Cleveland
Innovation Center, Euclid Avenue Suite 306, Cleveland, Ohio 44103 USA E-mail:
info@i-open.org On the Web at http://i-open-2.strategy-nets.net/overview/welcome and
http://i-open.org/
Copyright 2010 Betsey Merkel and I-Open. Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution-Noncommercial-No
Derivative Works. Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) 4415 Euclid Ave 3rd Fl Cleveland,
Ohio 44103 USA