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1. Studying a region's current and past strengths is a common practice that helps leaders and economic development organizations define Industry Clusters. Clusters are important because their intellectual and physical assets can provide a foundation for future innovation and economic growth. However, that future is highly dependent upon the energy and vibrancy of a region's Innovation Ecosystems within its Industry Clusters. These Innovation Ecosystems need to be intentionally designed to encourage entrepreneurial activity across four phases of innovation.

2. At the start, a region's Innovation Ecosystems contain many stakeholders that have yet to form relationships or innovation plans. For example, entrepreneurs, university researchers, large company employees, small company leaders, young people, economic development organizations and many others may not know of one another's motivations or assets. Intersecting people and uncovering their common interests stimulates new ideas and collaborative relationships that spur innovation.

3. Innovation Ecosystems have four groups of factors that should be considered when regions invest to support innovation and entrepreneurship.
• Two groups are social in nature
• Two groups are economic in nature

4. Social innovation Factors relate to people and how they interact. They rely on relationships and trust, are intangible in nature, may be somewhat invisible, take time to establish, and are frequently overlooked in economic development planning.
• The Culture Group includes regional and individual factors. It encompasses informal and formal community-wide factors like associations, collaboration events, community knowledge, media messages, education, mentoring support, and other social network factors. The culture group also includes more personal items like friendships, motivations, values, perceived future rewards or losses, past experiences, personal recognition, and other factors.
• The Institution Group includes items that determine the amount of time it takes to establish relationships between interested stakeholders when they consider working together. It includes things like undocumented agreements, idea disclosure formalities, employment agreements, contracts, investment terms, wealth sharing agreements, property rights (IP), conflicts of interest, and similar things.

5. Economic Innovation Factors relate to investments in funding and assets. Investments are needed to support the overall cluster and ecosystem as well as specific ventures. They are tangible in nature.
• The Resource Group supports both entrepreneurs and the overall ecosystem. Entrepreneur support is funding for testing concepts or or actually starting a new venture. It includes Proof of Concept (POC) funding, prototyping, entrepreneur salaries, legal and IP support, post POC funding, funding for expert consultants and service providers, websites, administrative expenses, and the like. The second is funding for activities and incentives that are used for the social innovation factors described above.
• The Facilities Group is most often capital expenditures. This frequently require large up front investments. They include buildings, lab facilities, research equipment, office space, infrastructure, and similar items. Shared facilities like incubators and accelerator labs can serve this need for early stage ventures.

6. Innovation Ecosystem's social and economic factors need to encourage entrepreneurial activity across four phases of innovation. Phase 1 targets entrepreneur development (people); Phase 2 and Phase 3 target venture development (companies); Phase 4 targets long term growth (ecosystem expansion)
• Phase 1-Idea generation and entrepreneur development particularly supporting first time entrepreneurs whose ideas are not well formed
• Phase 2-Venture support for teams and concepts that show promise
• Phase 3-Company implementation and growth including later funding rounds and peer entrepreneur relationships
• Phase 4-New wealth investing signaling ecosystem sustainability including the retention and recruitment of serial entrepreneurs and management teams

7. Autonomous, Passionate Champions are an important catalyst, some think critical element, for creating vibrant Innovation Ecosystems
• A Champion is the recognized leader for an ecosystem and serves as source of energy as well as a hub for activities
o Bottom-up entrepreneurs need to be understood and heard
o Other stakeholders need to be engaged
o Top-down community leadership needs to be informed and asked to provide resources, community messaging, and affirmation
o Collaborating with other ecosystem champions to uncover innovation opportunities between clusters and ecosystems
o Quickly and instinctively making time and $ investments that spur ecosystem relationships and entrepreneurial action
• Champions often spin off new ecosystems by recruiting and supporting new champions

8. Innovation Ecosystem health can be measured by recording investments, tracking activities, surveying stakeholders, counting outcomes, and discussing ecosystem evolution over time. Things that need measurement include:
• Dollars invested on social and economic factors across the four phases of innovation
• Events, competitions, and social gatherings (# and attendance)
• Idea generation (# ideas)
• Mentoring activity (# ventures, # mentors)
• Growth in ecosystem entrepreneur population, including new entrepreneurial intention (# first time entrepreneurs) and recurring entrepreneurial activity (# serial entrepreneurs)
• Economic outcomes like # new companies, $ in funding, # jobs, # successful ventures, and $ wealth created
• Surveys of ecosystem stakeholders' measuring economic and social innovation factors as well as other items

9. Overall, consciously investing in developing and nurturing champion-led Innovation Ecosystems increases a region's creative energy, cultural vibrancy, entrepreneurial intention, economic growth, and jobs.

Tags: Mentor | Guest | Research & Development