The council has long recognized that the competitive
performance of regional economies drives our national
performance. As a global economy integrates markets
across political boundaries, regional economies are
emerging. Within these regions, business and political
leaders are coming together to diagnose their competitive
position and design investment strategies to improve
their competitiveness: www.compete.org/publications/
detail/220/clusters-of-innovation-initiative-regional-foun-
dations-of-us-competitiveness/.
For example, in the Puget Sound region of Washington,
the Prosperity Partnership has designed an index that
measures different dimensions of
competitiveness within that region.
In west Michigan, civic leaders have
come together to design a similar
index. Increasingly, we will see these
regional indexes emerge as more and
more business and civic leaders recognize the importance of collaborating across political boundaries. The
factors that drive competitiveness are
increasingly regional:
www.prosperitypartner-ship.org/indicators/index.htm.
Important demographic shifts are
driving indicator reports in a different direction. More and more companies are focused on the importance of talent to their future competitiveness. As result, the business
executives are paying more attention
to the importance of education as a
driver of competitiveness. At the
secondary school level, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce now issues a
scorecard that ranks the states based
on their policies to promote educational reform: www.uschamber.com
/icw/reportcard/default.
At the postsecondary level, the
National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education ranks the
states according to their support for
higher education. Both this higher
education index and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce’s effort provide important high-level insights
into how well states are developing
talent with 21st-century skills:
http://measuringup.highereduca-tion.org.
Finally, indicator reports are moving in another direction: innovation.
Massachusetts published the first
meaningful indicator report for innovation, and its efforts still provide
the high quality benchmark. Each
year, the John Adams Innovation
Institute publishes a series of indica-
tors that provide a clear insight into the state’s continuing
support for innovation:
www.mtpc.org/institute/the_index.htm.
Oregon is another state that does a good job measuring
innovation. Business and political leaders in that state
have come together to agree on a common set of metrics
to measure state innovation performance. The Oregon
report organizes metrics along five dimensions: invention,
translation, commercialization, economic prosperity and
innovative environment:
www.oregoninc.org/2007InnoIndexW.pdf.
In Washington state, the Washington Technology
