Implementing an Economic Gardening Program

From Chris Gibbons, Founder of the Economic Gardening Concept

“It is important for cities to understand that Economic Gardening is not a quick answer to economic problems. It is not a fad diet, it is a lifestyle change. You cannot expect silver bullet solutions to sudden economic woes. Economic Gardening takes time to put into place and time to reach a critical mass of growing companies.

Our approach focuses on bringing sophisticated corporate level tools like database researching, geographic information systems, search engine optimization and social network mapping to the small, growing company. Economic Gardening is also founded on scientific principles that address things like survival in uncertain times.

In a typical engagement, the Economic Gardening team will assist a company with core strategy, market analysis, competitor intelligence, using temperament to slot teams and undertaking custom business research. Normally the team works quickly – within hours or days at the most.”

Geospatial Information Services (GIS) for Economic Gardening

GeoWize provides:

• site prospecting
• market development
• market analysis services
• Competitive intelligence

Using the world-class, state-of-art geospatial analyst tools, demographic and expenditure data and a fourth generation customer profiling database. We can provide your organization with pilot project support, program startup services, training, and long-term GIS outsourcing services. See more services.

 

 

 

Getting Started

Chris Gibbons, founder of the Economic Gardening concept, came up with this solution to starting up your community’s Economic Gardening program.

“We have created a jump start team consisting of a database research company, a GIS company and a web optimization company. The purpose of this team is to contract with communities that are interested in starting an EG program but don’t have resources for a full blown project. A community may only want to stick their toe in the water to see how the tools would work and if they are useful to their local business. Or a community may want to hire the team to provide a turnkey start the next day….producing research and marketing help while the community builds its infrastructure (hire staff, buy software, get up the learning curve, etc.) The team can work three months, six months, a year or whatever time period the community desires. Or a community may not be large enough to need a full time program and only want to tap into these resources now and then for selected businesses….it can hire the team at various times during the year.”

Market Research: Provides our stage-2 clients with strategic decision support data that includes: executive summaries, market trend analysis and market research, competitive intelligence and analysis, research on public records and court documents, and hard-to-find articles , books, and proceedings.

Search Engine Optimization & Social Networking: Many small businesses have a website that is little more than an online business card. Understanding how to design a website and optimize it, so it actually brings in business, is critical to growing business and finding new customers. Social media, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., because they are not understood, are often viewed as little more than “black holes of time”. Knowing how to use these tools to quickly find and connect with potential clients can quickly grow a customer base and revenues.

Economic Gardening History

In 1987, the City of Littleton, Colorado pioneered an entrepreneurial alternative to the traditional economic development practice of recruiting industries. This demonstration program, developed in conjunction with the Center for the New West, was called “Economic Gardening.”

Economic Gardening is based on the the simple concept that small, local companies are the source of jobs and wealth and that the job of economic developers is to create nurturing environments for these companies.

Today, support of entrepreneurial activity is spreading as a policy approach due to the energetic work of a number of national and regional organizations including the Edward Lowe Foundation, Kauffman Foundation, Milken Institute, Progressive Policy Institute, Center for Rural Entrepreneurship and Babson College. States like Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Tennessee, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have either formal entrepreneurial policies or pilot projects underway as a part of their economic development efforts. Major states like California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and Missouri regularly include “economic gardening” as an agenda subject in their state economic development conferences. Even bigger cities like Oakland and Berkeley have small pilot economic gardening projects underway.

The real issue for municipalities, or government organizations, is how to make Economic Gardening deliver results in a “reasonable” amount of time. For municipal and state officials “reasonable” means YESTERDAY. However, the reality of the situation is that it typically takes anywhere from 6 to 12 months to staff up an Economic Gardening organization and make it functional. Governmant officials want IMMEDIATE gratification!

Contact GeoWize today for a free estimate on the Economic Gardening services that you need for your organization!

PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION: THE ECONOMIC GARDENING NATIONAL STRATEGIC RESEARCH TEAM & GeoWize can help you get your EG program up and running TODAY!! 

 

To get started TODAY!!!

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