Tech Futures: What will the technology economy of Northeast Ohio look like in 2015?

• Will we continue to see our manufacturing base eroded by foreign competition and radical new innovations developed elsewhere, or will "The Next New Thing" involve a local resurgence in this vital sector?
• Will our major corporations continue to merge, consolidate, and move out of the area, or will some sectors decide that Northeast Ohio is where they should call home?
• Are we on the cusp of a breakthrough that will revitalize our economy?
• Where will our next generation of leaders come from, and what impact will they have on the region?
• Will there even be a "next generation" left to care?

What is a scenario?

A scenario is a story about the future. It is not a forecast or a prediction. It is simply a story about what the future might be like if certain things that are beyond our control were to happen.

Stories turn out to be incredibly powerful tools for discovering what the consequences of our actions today might really be in the future. They also help us better understand the kinds of things we can control—along with the things we can’t.

How do scenarios help with strategic planning?

Many strategic planning efforts begin by assessing the current situation and identifying the strengths of the organization (or region) in question. Then, “the plan” shows what can be done to get from where we are today to some desired future, a guide to getting “from here to there.” “If only we do X,” they state emphatically, “then we will be successful.”

Scenario planning turns this model on its head and instead starts by selecting a point somewhere in the future and then identifying the key factors that are beyond our control but which will affect our ability to get “from here to there.” Since it is all too easy to become overwhelmed by how much there is to do in getting “from here to there,” setting the scenarios in the future and then working back towards the present makes it easier to plot a reasonable, prudent course with lots of options packed into it, thus allowing you to adapt quickly to whatever conditions you face along the way.

Why did we take this approach?

Because it changes the strategic plan from a fixed, historical document into an ongoing, public, and dynamic strategic conversation. While the scenarios are not strategies in and of themselves, they do help keep the discussion focused on what really matters, and provide a common framework and language we all can use and relate to. They are designed to help our region’s leaders and technology groups find a “common ground” that will facilitate more effective coordination of our independent development efforts.  You can follow the most recent developments that have resulted from this project by going to www.nortech.org.

But why such an emphasis on factors beyond our control? Shouldn’t we be focused on the things we can control?

One of the ironies of good strategic planning is that by focusing first on the things that are beyond your control, it actually becomes easier to identify the right ways to respond to the real conditions you face.

If you look out your window and see that it is raining (even though yesterday’s forecast said today would be sunny and dry), you will no doubt wear different clothes, carry an umbrella, and take a raincoat with you rather than insisting on “sticking to the plan” of wearing shorts and sunglasses as you step out into the day. When planning for an extended trip, you might pack both sunglasses and an umbrella despite a rosy weather forecast “just in case” the prediction is wrong. As the old adage says, “you can’t predict, but you can prepare.” And since you can’t predict, it is only prudent to prepare for more than one possible outcome.

We began by interviewing 30 key observers of the Northeast Ohio technology environment. The location, background, expertise, perspective and opinions of each of these various interviewees were as diverse and distinctive as the region itself. And yet, from these interviews, we were able to distill enough common elements to frame a workshop to address the question, “What will the technology economy of Northeast Ohio look like in 2015?”

On April 27, 2005, more than 130 members of Northeast Ohio’s technology community gathered for a full-day workshop focused on exploring possible scenarios for the technology future of the region. Fifty-one separate scenarios were developed by 17 groups within the workshop.

A smaller working group took the ideas from the workshop and, again looking for the common elements they shared, synthesized them into the set of scenarios and stories you’ll see here. These are designed to provoke conversations about technology-based economic development in Northeast Ohio. You may not agree with everything you read here, but you certainly will find yourself thinking differently about the region and about what you can do to prepare for the future.

A few smaller workshops have been held to test and validate some of the findings, and to explore how other organizations might use the scenarios to assist them with their own planning or to specify the specific actions they will take that will form part of the region’s technology strategy.

The scenario creation workshop highlighted many issues of critical importance to the future of technology in Northeast Ohio, including:

• Education: funding and reform
• Importance of shared leadership
• Availability and accessibility of venture capital
• Importance of a broad, global perspective on change
• Government structures: local, regional and state
• Questions around a regional identity
• Healthcare
• Environmental issues and considerations
• Tax structures and reform
• Nature and impact of change brought on by new technologies
• Importance of making technology relevant to all people

By far, concerns about education and leadership ranked highest in people’s minds, along with an emphasis on what we need to do as a region to be more innovative. In fact, most of the uncertainties about education centered on leadership and innovation as ways to both improve the quality of our educational institutions and stem the tide of “brain drain” from the region.

The next section describes how the final four scenarios were created out of the workshop material. After you’ve had a chance to see for yourself how these possible futures were developed, we encourage you to explore each one in more detail by clicking on the appropriate icon or by going to the Stories section of the site. Then tell us what you think—we’ve provided opportunities for Feedback throughout the site as well as in the top level navigation.

Questions about leadership and innovation came up in nearly every category discussed. And so in deciding on the matrix we would use to create the scenarios we asked ourselves two fundamental questions:

• What impact will technology and business innovation (world-wide) have on Northeast Ohio during the next ten years? Will we see a technology and business environment characterized by rapid, radical, disruptive change in technologies, competitors, or business models? Or will change happen more incrementally, with business models, technologies and new competitors emerging in a steadier, more recognizable fashion?

• What kind of leadership will we have during this period? Will our regional, civic, and economic leadership come mostly from established, traditional, top-down figures and organizations, or will the next ten years see regional, civic, and economic leadership emerging from more surprising, distributed, non-traditional “bottom-up” sources?

While you may have your own personal preference for one answer or the other to these questions, we did not pose them or use them with the intention of arriving at one “right” answer. Instead when used as axes on a matrix, these uncertainties about the future provide a distinctive set of plausible, challenging “worlds” we might face in Northeast Ohio, based on factors that are, for the most part, beyond our control:

These in turn provided the basis for four distinct scenarios which can be used to frame the real challenges we face as a region, and that allow us to focus our attention on those things we actually can do to prepare ourselves for whatever future comes our way.

It is highly unlikely that any of the scenarios presented here will unfold exactly as written. The “real” world of 2015 will probably contain bits and pieces of all of them, and certainly will contain many things we haven’t even considered here.

The main idea is to get you thinking about all the different opportunities that are out there and how you might play a role by working together with others to create a more positive future for our region, regardless of which “world” we find ourselves in.

Click here to go to the Stories page. Read through each of the scenarios, then tell us not only what you think, but what you will do as a result.