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f you’re not keeping score, then you’re just practicing, goes the adage. More and more economic development groups are realizing how true that is as they evaluate their performance relative to other locations. The heated Governor’s Cup contest covered in our March issue is testament to that. But other measures are emerging that can deliver to corporate site seekers a wealth of insights into specific locations’ attributes.
One such benchmark caught my attention, because it gives corporate location managers and site consultants a new tool with which to measure and monitor a certain state’s desirability from a technology-based economic development point of view. And which state isn’t competing to excel in that endeavor? The Mississippi Innovation Index, released in January, is a product of the Mississippi Technology Alliance (www.technologyalliance.ms), a non-profit, public/private agency that promotes technology-based business development in The Magnolia State. The index seeks to measure innovation by gauging the state’s performance using 24 science- and technology-related indicators.
Baseline data is organized into eight categories: wealth creation, research capacity, university research capacity, business research capacity, technology business development, industrial productivity, technology work force development and investment capital. Several data suppliers contributed to the index, including The Mississippi Development Authority, The Mississippi Employment Securities and Tax Commissions, The Institutions of Higher Learning and several national databases. The 24 performance indicators are to be refreshed with current data as they become available from the various data suppliers, and the index will be distributed each January.
Among many other insights, users of the inaugural Mississippi Innovation Index would learn that (1) the state has good federal investment, decreased R&D expenditures in recent years and weak research-commercialization linkages; (2) Mississippi is transitioning from a low wage to a higher skilled manufacturing mix; and (3) the percentage of those enrolled in science and engineering programs who graduate is between 16 and 30 percent, with Masters degree programs having the highest percent graduation rate.
“The genesis of this index was the need we recognized to pull together reliable, statistically valid data sets and to measure ourselves and provide solid information to decision makers, so that they have more than just anecdote on which to make location judgments,” says Dr. Angeline Godwin Dvorak, president and CEO of the Technology Alliance. “The index will be a very valuable recruitment document for external entities looking at Mississippi going forward.” Indeed it will.
“Our goal is to demonstrate what is going on in Mississippi and to provide decision makers in the state with a solid tool for investing state resources,” says Dvorak. “It’s about holding ourselves accountable and monitoring the extent to which what we’re doing in Mississippi is valued by people in-state and around the country.”
I applaud the efforts of those who brought this index into being. As my colleague, Ron Starner’s letter points out, taking stock of what we’ve got and where we want to go — and communicating that to our constituents — is a priority we must all take seriously.
Till next time,
