Two years ago at a leadership café at Marquette University, I heard Dr. Daniel Kim say, “Human development is economic development.” As an economist, I’ve mastered the laws of supply and demand, price elasticity and I look forward to Tuesdays with my Morrie, Alan Greenspan. But what Dr. Kim said so eloquently takes economics out of formula and function and puts it cleanly where it belongs: the human level. All of our resear...

Have you gotten religion about how important YP networks are to attracting and retaining talent to your community? If so, you're part of a growing consortium of cities doing so. I frequently get asked HOW TO do this. Following is a short list of Do's and Don’ts, followed by a list of YP networks from across the country. These folks are tremendous at sharing what they know...so go visit, invite their leaders to your communit...

Had Andy Law been born in Colonial America some 235 years ago, this Next Generation Leader would likely have been in the vanguard of our effort to establish a new democratic form of government that represented the interests of all its citizens. Had he been in France a few years later, he might have stormed the Bastille and helped to establish the French Republic in the name of liberty, fraternity and egalitarianism. Fortuna...

Where are all the geeks? I recently attended one state’s well-publicized “high tech” events. Not a single unkempt microserf in sight. Lawyers and suits galore, but no untucked, bespectacled, brilliant digi-geeks. If geeks HAD shown up, they would’ve felt awkwardly outcast. Most people treat geeks like alien life forms. This is a big problem. The undisputed economic engines in this country are knowledge workers. Geeks are th...