I recently reviewed the mission statement of this blog and was struck by how it sums up my own "mission."

The purpose of this blog is to connect topics in economic development, community development, and new media technology and identify practical actions readers can take to make a difference in improving our society.

I want this to be more than a writing project. I wrote a series of posts about a business plan, a sort of thematic arrangement of content topics I would write about to create a popular blog. That's not really a business plan--the business plan was just to get more traffic and use google adwords to make some money off clicks. But for that to work, I need hundreds of thousands of visitors...I need the blog to be an end unto itself...and that is not what this is about.

The blog is a tool, a communication medium that has connected me with people who share ideals and passions about improving society. I think there are many of us who are engaged in what Ed Morrison of the I-Open Institute describes as "Strategic Doing." Some of the things I'm "doing" strategically are to:

• create a blog in Westwood to encourage greater participation of residents in our community
• form a Pedestrian/Bicycle Safetey Committee in Westwood to look for opportunities to make the town more walkable
• get a Community Access Television station up and running in Westwood

Now what does any of this have to do with economic development?

The older, traditional ideas about economic development were about attracting business to locate in town. It was about creating a regulatory climate friendly for business and identifying opportunities--then clearing obstacles. I'm not a practitioner and I cannot claim expertise about the work that continues in that conception of economic development. But I think there is a "New Innovation" growing based on an increasingly engaged and creative Citizen 2.0.

If we can find ways to connect the people who are innovating--problem-solving individuals who care passionately about issues of sustainability and growth--I believe people will be begin to see opportunities to invest. This will become "Enterprise Collaboration."

Again, what does it mean?

To revitalize a town, you need people, not just business. You need the people who will shop there and the people who will open stores. You need people who live there and care about the community and who choose to make their stake in town, rather than hopping in a car and driving to a job in the city where they can collect a paycheck and go home to sleep and watch TV. You don't need EVERYONE to do this, but you need a critical mass of a few people who are no longer fighting the good fight alone, but who network with each other, draw strength from each other, and see opportunities they would not have seen alone.

It is the same principle in schools--to make them better, we don't need more money alone, we need parents to be involved. We need that elusive and powerful force of responsibility and activism that is more evident in its absense in the anonymous suburbs and isolated communities of regions in decline.

What next? What do I do?

That's the $100,000 question, really. I need to find a way to take these ideas and passions and not only accomplish things, but generate income for me and my family. My website describes one approach of the type of consultative advice I believe I could deliver. But talk is cheap...or, more realistically, just sitting around talking about theory is not something cash strapped town can afford to bankroll.

I could create a non-profit, an association not unlike a chamber of commerce, but more of a business facilitator...then choose projects to tackle and start delivering value to the members of the organization. Perhaps opportunities come out of more of these discussions...perhaps it is as basic as helping civic organizations set up blogs and facebook pages. But I think fundamentally, I need to identify some real, specific needs of the community and find how money is currently being spent towards that need--then propose a less expensive alternative.