Leadership Institute Session #9
Friday, June 11, 2010
Final Session and Graduation

The Puyallup-Sumner Innovation Summit Cafe'
featured opening remarks from special guest Senator Jim Kastama

This event was the culminating project of the 2009 - 2010 Puyallup / Sumner Leadership Institute. The Innovation Summit was designed to spark our local economy by becoming a community that fosters innovation. This was a unique opportunity for our leaders and community members to think strategically and work together to shape our economic future. Forty-seven folks participated in this interactive workshop "Innovation as an Economic Development" facilitated by Dr. Egils Milbergs, Executive Director of the Washington Economic Development Commission. Quizdom Inc. collected and recorded the data in real-time and used hand-held electronic voting "remotes" just like a real game show might use. It was a fun opening activity and gave the room a gauge on what are beliefs and perhaps misconceptions are about the current economic situation.

The summit was held at the Best Western Park Plaza in Puyallup and was co-sponsored by the Puyallup/Sumner Chamber of Commerce, DM Disposal Inc.and the Abbey Road Group. It was agreed among the group that we are still in a deep recession and we can expect 24-30 months to return to "normal" traditional industries in NW and SW Washington. We are in what Milberg's called a "mancession" where lots of manufacturing jobs lost, translates to jobs lost by men. But some good news is that Seattle was recently rated the 2nd best city of the future by Kiplinger.

The Vision: Make Washington the most attractive, creative and fertile investment for innovation in the world as a means of achieving long-term global competiveness, prosperity and economic opportunity for all the state's citizens.

The key to prosperity is innovation! Innovation is replacing something old with something new. We want to take a systematic approach to innovation and that approach is bottom-up, beginning at the community level.

Most strategic growth opportunities for Puyallup and Sumner included:

• Environmental/Green Technology
• Talent Development
• Education
• Transportation
• Fiber Optics
• Health Care and Military
• Downtown

Action items for creating our Innovaion Ecosystem include:

• Doing more of what we currently do in Pierce County. Solid waste, environmental planning and sustainability. Continuing to foster the private and public sector relationaships
• Distribute information, especially using social media to increase awareness
• Encourage car dealerships to sell green cars, suggested tagline "Cars Run Greener in Puyallup"
• Create collaboration between WSU faculty and River Road planners
• Prioritize action items in education and continue to reach out. Get business and education working together
• Create contest for students and/or community members to start changing the world, perhaps an annual challenge?
• Be strategic about preparing people for practical economic opportunities that are useful now. Apply education to practical things and get educators on-board
• Pursue both on-line and face-to-face education
• Develop a group to address parking and transportation issues
• Have everyone visit the downtown corridor and create a greater demand for developing this area
• Offer a healthcare summit at the Fairgrounds along with the Washington Economic Commission's support. Possible piggyback with the Pierce County Health Care Summit coming up?
• Develop an iphone app for checking glucose by collaborating with Microsoft and King County
• Target the LIFT grant and develop it strategically because it will have a large impact on this area

"The leaders in this room are the ones to establish Puyallup and Sumner's innovation economy" Senator Jim Kastama

The Innovation Summit Cafe' notes and ideas were captured by Veronica Smith, the Founder and Managing Director of Data2insight in a format called a Prezi.

Following the workshop the leadership institute graduates attended the Chamber Luncheon - featuring guest speaker Dr. Tana Hasart, President, Pierce College Puyallup. They celebrated their graduation with community and chamber members and received their certificates of completion.

Recommended Reading: The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley

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