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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Blue Print Birmingham and the North Jefferson Area

I looked for you, but the turn out, “tell us about it” crowd was so huge that I could have easily missed you on Thursday evening at the Birmingham Business Alliance launch of Blue Print Birmingham held at the new Pavilion at Railroad Park downtown. I did see several from our area with previous Gardendale Mayor Clemons in attendance as well as DeWayne Taylor from Alabama Power, and Kara Kennedy of Brock School of Business and our Fultondale Arts Council. Sharing the podium was Birmingham Business Alliance Interim Director, Barry Copeland, Hoover Mayor Tony Petelos and Birmingham Mayor William Bell.

Very cool, very beautiful, and certainly very exciting. I could say all of these words and it would be true, but what I really want you to understand is the role that business, and pro-business agendas play in bringing this type of vision to a crisp reality. The vision, put simply, is that the goal of the Birmingham Region will be to provide abundant economic opportunities, excellence in education, and an unparalleled quality of life for all of its citizens. Sounds like a nice place to live, work and raise a family if you ask me.

Blue Print Birmingham reminds us that we succeed or fail by the success or failure of our neighbors, and of course we all want to be surrounded by good neighbors that are not just successful, but active and engaged partners in our community. Blue Print Birmingham is a road map for Regional Cooperation of seven counties, of which Jefferson is but one, with a collective recognition of our strengths and opportunities. Our strengths have been recognized as health care services, natural beauty, cost of living, southeast location and of course our people. Our consistent top challenges and opportunities include quality public education, government cooperation, and leadership, creation of quality jobs, public safety and the attraction and retention of young professionals.

This road map is a 5 year plan for strategic growth of the greater Birmingham area. Birmingham has awakened to the understanding that it can not work in isolation, but needs the surrounding strength of growing communities in our region to move forward. Perhaps your city is the same. If you call yourself the Greater “Name your favorite city” Anything, perhaps now is the time to look up and around at the strategic partners that are found in the cities right next door. Partnered smartly, they can be your strongest ally. This 5 year plan is very specific with respect to goals for the first year. In the first year, effort will focus on new business, collaboration, and development of capacity for competitiveness, marketing, business retention, and the development of leadership councils. I serve on the Region IV Workforce Development Council, and it has been my exciting privilege to participate first hand in the opportunities that continue to develop daily from this work. Workforce development focuses on the improvement of pre-K to 12th grade education, with the ultimate purposes of growing our own talent. Efforts to accomplish this pull from our region’s two and four year colleges and universities with a heavy focus on making education relevant and pertinent to the learner and marketable and productive to the employer.

Work Force development is but one of the key four pillars of the Blue Print Birmingham. The pillars are 1) Workforce Development 2) Public and Private Leadership 3) Economic Prosperity and 4) Community and Regional Support. Every business person, civic leader, community leader, municipal leader or elected official has a way to plug in to one of these pillars. And you know what, it is just like voting. If you don’t participate, then for goodness sake do not complain. Want to learn more about Blue Print Birmingham? You will find more at http://blueprintbirmingham.com A cousin to this effort is the Greenway Master Plan that is working to connect neighbors, businesses, schools and create a strong sense of community here in the North Jefferson area. More on this to come but you can find information at the http://fivemilecreekgreenwaydistrict.org

Take a look and learn more. If you live in the Fultondale area, or work and live in the North Jefferson area in general, you are a stake holder is this endeavor.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The More Things Stay The Same.......

Our recent remembrance of 9/11 brought back many stories of courage. It is an event in our collective memory that will not soon fade as we recall tales of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Something struck me as very compelling as I watched the news coverage off and on last week on 9/11. Looking at the economic indicators for 9/11/2010 they were remarkably similar to the benchmarks recorded on 9/10/2001, the day before our attack. The Dow closed on 9/10/01 at 9605.41, and closed on 9/11 of this year a bit above 10,000. Not that far off. People were coming and going to work and school much in the same way that we are doing today.

But there are some differences that are striking though. In 2001, home ownership was common and existed as the primary savings investment of the average American. Financial crisis was triggered then by some business excess inventory or the more typical corporate malfunction or malfeasance. Now it is different. Now the instability is of a different nature. Now 1 in 7 homeowners are at risk of loosing their home. Now we have pervasive mistrust of government and its ability to put us back on track. There is pervasive mistrust of the ability of our fiscal policy to right any looming financial wrongs. According to Mort Zuckerman, CEO of Boston Properties and interviewed on Fox News (9/11/10), “The country has not forgotten. But we have lost our sense of unity. Now is not the time for everyman for himself.”
Listen to Bill Johnson, CEO of HJ Heinz, with his direct, no nonsense perspective on the effects this has on business. According to Johnson, put simply, there remains a lack of consumer confidence. Business is not buying. Business is waiting on concrete, structural change from leadership that will encourage spending. Short term policy fixes just do not work. Look at the 2003 Bush Taxcut effects for example. As businesses knew these cuts would be around 7-8 years, we saw the economy rise. It is not surprise that the economy stalls when there is discussion of removing those cuts. Consumers have basically gone underground and are looking for long term, predictable, sustainable policies. We would be wise and advised to remember this if short term economic stimulus is put into place to put a nice blush on the rose just in time for election only to see it whither and fall as soon as the ballot box closes.

According to previous Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, we are indeed safer because of the Patriot Act and cooperation around the world, but mainly because of the work of individual men and women like you and me. Men and women, who work hard, take care of their families and each other remaining constantly vigilant and engaged. The alert individual, paying attention to the daily details as we have learned, is more valuable than any government agency or watchdog. The big message here: if you find yourself in the next big storm, don’t wait for someone to pluck you from your roof. Prepare for the storm in advance. Now is the time to take inventory of your financial house and work to educate yourself. It is okay to demand more of yourself, and I would submit that it is okay to demand more of our politicians. And perhaps now is a good time for our politicians to demand more from themselves.

And remember, take care of your customers, or someone else will.