Three cheers for the Valley Patriot on it's 5th Anniversary.  This upstart is creating a platform for new voices to be heard throughout the Merrimack Valley.  One of those new voices is us, writers of the Innovation Valley column.  For the past three years our column has been a regular feature and we are grateful.

As readers of the Innovation Column know, it's goal is to highlight the world's leading initiatives for municipal business development and quality-of-life improvements.  Every month we report on a program that provides opportunities for the Merrimack Valley.

For this issue, we thought we'd quickly report on one new initiative that has come to our attention, but also provide a quick overview of what we believe have been the top Innovation Valley stories of the past three years.  As always, please feel free to comment at ivalley.org.

Top New Story: Boston World Partnerships

The Boston World Partnerships is a state-of-the-art portal that combines social networking with entrepreneurship to drive business growth for the city.  Their stated goal is " to raise global awareness of Boston as one of the world's foremost centers of intellectual capital and innovation, offering tremendous competitive advantages to growth-minded businesses".  The partnership is intended to generate high-quality leads for economic development.  It will do this by "creating a global community of people who have ties to Boston's economy, similar to an alumni organization".

Regional stakeholders, or "Connectors", are business leaders and young entrepreneurs who are connected to a global community of possible investors.  The site uses a wide range of social networking tools, such as Twitter and Facebook.  Find out more at http://bostonworldpartnerships.com/.

Retrospect of Top Stories

1. Green Chemistry Business Summit

Our signature Innovation Valley event would have to be the Green Chemistry Business Summit of 2007.  This was the first conference specifically dedicated to the business of green chemistry. Green chemistry is the science and practice of producing products in a manner that is nontoxic and energy efficient.  It is becoming a major thrust for industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to consumer goods.  It's inventor is Dr. John Warner who directed the Center for Green Chemistry at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, and is now President and Chief Technology Officer with the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry in Wilmington.  The summit was a spectacular success and helped once again to put the Merrimack Valley on the map. Writing for a headline story on CNET, Martin LaMonica states,

"...leaders in the field organized the Green Chemistry Business Summit held recently in Haverhill, Mass., where speakers argued that the field is a nascent but promising field for technology investment...Although the term "green chemistry" is still esoteric, the negative effects of traditional chemistry practices are becoming front-page news, in much the way that global warming and environmental problems have."

The story was picked by the New York Times and ran in their Technology section.

2. How to Brand a Region?

Branding the Merrimack Valley as a nexus of innovation is a priority for regional marketing. Most planners agree with that.  But, the question remains, how to do it?  Our February 2008 Innovation Valley column, How to Brand a Region, looked at leadership examples in regional branding with application to the Merrimack Valley.  Key among these is these is the GeneTown campaign championed by the biotech community in the Boston region.  GeneTown is one of eleven biotech "Hotbed" regions around the country, promoted locally and nationally through the national biotech portal, Biospace (www.biospace.com).  Other Hotbed regions include Biotech Bay (Northern California), BioForest (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana), and Bio NC (North Carolina).

3. Predictive Markets for Regional Planning

Predictive market technology is an innovation that is sweeping Fortune 500 companies.  Using the "wisdom of the masses" a virtual marketplace helps determine the most likely ideas to succeed in the real world.  Typically, the ideas are for products or services.  However, in December of 2008, the Innovation Valley team set a precedent by using predictive markets as a tool for regional economic planning.  In order to help drive economic development in the Merrimack Valley, we utilized a predictive market to inform investors and stakeholders of the most likely prospects for industry growth through 2009. To our knowledge, predictive markets had never been used in this way. This further makes the case for the Merrimack Valley as a hotbed of innovation.

In all twenty-five experts from a wide variety of perspectives participated in the predictive market. The following industries were the top picks for growth in 2009 in the Merrimack Valley in the order presented: 1. Devices and diagnostics; 2. Clean tech; 3. Bio-tech; 4. E-Healthcare and 5. Robotics.

The first annual Warren Buffett awards go to the two top players in the predictive market. The two highest rollers that would have cashed out the highest if real money was used were: 1. Dr. Charles Ormsby, Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and School Committee member in North Andover; and 2. Robert Halpin, President and CEO of the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council.

4. Green Collar Jobs of Lawrence

At an economic development conference hosted by Niki Tsongas and the Merrimack Valley Economic Development Council, I was asked how I would spend a million dollars for economic development in Lawrence.  After thinking about the question for a few days, the answer became obvious - invest in Green Collar jobs training.  Of course, this was long before Obama become President or even the Democratic Party nominee.  Since then, it's become clear that Green Collar job investment is a central part of Obama's vision for urban redevelopment, job creation, and energy conservation.  Green collar jobs are loosely defined as jobs in clean technology, renewable energy, and energy efficiency sectors.  They are the manufacturer, technician, assembly and service jobs of tomorrow.

There are now several federal and state programs underway to help facilitate this new thrust for job creation, and there is perhaps no better recipient city and region than Lawrence and the Merrimack Valley.  Our June 2008 column look specifically at this issue.

5. The Way Ahead: Merrimack Valley Regional Innovation Network (MVRIN)

The first step toward creating the Merrimack Valley Regional Innovation Network was to build the www.ivalley.org web site, which is a content management portal dedicated to information and stories about a wide variety of innovative economic development activities in the Merrimack Valley. The overall goal is to facilitate collaboration between industry, economic development planners, academia and all three levels of government to apply their collective wisdom to attract and retain leading edge industries to the region.

The next generation of features for the web site can best be articulated with a tangible example. A mentioned above, Boston World Partnerships (BWP) just kicked off a a new portal and a worldwide innovative global network to attract talent and businesses to Boston. Their stated goals match that of MVRIN. However, one key difference is that they are heavily funded, while we have developed www.ivalley.org with our own out-of-pocket resources. So, they currently have richer features.

In addition to the "Connectors" feature cited above, http://bostonworldpartnerships.com/ offers another feature it calls "Ask Boston" that would also enhance MVRIN. Here is how it works in their own words: "You tell us your business need, and "Ask Boston" puts that information out across our entire global community of Boston business people. Then, whoever has a solution responds to BWP. We vet the responses and facilitate the connections that offer authentic value." That sounds a lot like innovation brokering, a key element of open innovation, which we also introduced to the region at our Green Chemistry Business Summit.