I-Open provides new approaches to civic engagement.

We design and deliver

civic forums to encourage citizens to engage in conversation about complex
topics, while building stronger civic networks. These forums point toward action:
translating ideas into transformative initiatives.

In a very real sense, I-Open is the architect of a new type of civic infrastructure.
This infrastructure connects civic and business entrepreneurs with more
established organizations and institutions.

Through these connections, a community finds new ways to innovate: new ways
to build prosperity by "linking and leveraging" its assets.

• For colleges and universities, I-Open provides a roadmap to stronger

community engagement and new, broader avenues of service learning for
students.
• For libraries, I-Open creates an opportunity to expand the role of the
library into the community and strengthen these vital ties.
• For economic development organizations, I-Open provides a
convenient and flexible format to support high-growth companies and
emerging clusters, the real source of job growth in any economy.
• For workforce development organizations, I-Open provides a roadmap
to build the alliances that workforce development organizations need to tie
together education and training providers, workers, and employers.
• For community foundations, I-Open creates new "civic spaces" for
community leaders to engage in more effective than thinking and doing.

I-Open is a nonprofit spinout from Case Western Reserve University. The

founders of I-Open worked for the Center for Regional Economic Issues (REI).
To explore new opportunities in Northeast Ohio, the founders conducted weekly
civic forums, called Tuesdays@REI.

These weekly civic forums explored the many different opportunities for
economic and workforce development to connect in northeast Ohio, a region
spanning 22 counties and including over 4 million people.
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These forums, held at the Weatherhead School of Business, attracted a diverse

audience of people and explored such topics as the role of early child care in
economic development, emerging business opportunities in creative digital
media, and entrepreneurial opportunities in clean energy.

When the Weatherhead School of Business decided to close REI, the founders
of I-Open continued their work under their new nonprofit.

I-Open regularly sponsored civic forums in libraries and local businesses from
2005 through 2009. Simultaneously, it co-sponsored networked communities,
such as Midtown Brews and the Women's Enterprise Network, with Cleveland
businesses.

I-Open's work in Northeast Ohio has inspired groups in South Carolina, Indiana,
Illinois, Louisiana and elsewhere to launch civic forums with names such as
Evenings@The House; Third Thursday at 3; and Fridays at the Corridor.

In the years since, I-Open has continued its work in Northeast Ohio and
expanded its ties outside the region. I-Open is a "connector" network guided by
Principles anchored in trust building and knowledge sharing with attribution.

Why Civic Forums?

• Civic forums are the first step in rebuilding the civic disciplines we need to
"think together",
• We have largely lost this capability, and many of the challenges we face
across political and organizational boundaries.
• In short, we need to collaborate to compete in today's global economy.
• There's only one problem: We are not very good at collaborating.
• Old habits, the loss of civility, the lack of transparency - all hinder the
formation of the innovative and dynamic collaborations we need to
revitalize or education systems and our economy.
• Civic forums provide the first step to learning how to innovate in the
dynamic, open networks that characterize today's economy.

Our Services

I-Open can assist your organization in launching a series of civic forums

designed to engage citizens, build networks, and launch transformative
initiatives. These forms are not "just talk". They are guided conversations that
give participants a sense of exploration and learning.

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The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 3

By focusing on the lessons of Appreciative Inquiry, our organization has

pioneered the design of both weekly and monthly forums. Beyond that, I-Open
has formed partnerships with a number of technology companies to explore how
civic conversations can be continued on the Internet.

I-Open's services include:

• Workshops.-- We conduct half day to full day workshops to introduce

your organization to the concepts of civic forums and how to implement
them. These workshops also introduce to you the basic Web 2.0 tools you
need to build your networks online.

• Forum Design.-- From I-Open's perspective, civic forums are the process
of building open networks, not a series of disconnected events. Designing
civic forums focuses on creating engaging experiences for the
participants. Standard "talking heads" meetings do not work. Instead, I-
Open designs forums that actively engage participants in focused
conversations, the type of conversations needed for the complex thinking
that our challenges demand.

• Forum Marketing.-- Civic meetings often suffer when only the "usual
suspects" participate. To expand the circle, forum organizers need to
reach out to nontraditional audiences. Marketing starts with finding
engaging topics around which networks can form.

• Forum Facilitation. -- In these forums, the role of the facilitator is more

active than in traditional open meeting settings. The facilitator helps guide
the conversation with active questioning. Because the agendas of forums
are particularly loose, the facilitator plays an important role in seeing
patterns and making explicit connections.

• Forum Web Casting.-- I-Open forums represent an ongoing

conversation. Capturing these conversations on the web creates several
important advantages. First, web casting expands the audience. Second,
archives of past forums create a rich repository of community knowledge
and connection. Finally, web casting reinforces transparency, a vitally
important value as communities build their networks.

• Social Network Analysis.-- Networks are emerging as a key component

of regional economies. Communities and regions with thicker civic
networks are more competitive. They can learn faster, spot opportunities
faster, and align their resources faster. Social Network Analysis uses

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 4

powerful software tools to enable people to visualize these networks and

to strengthen them intentionally.

• Introduction to Strategic Doing.-- Civic forums offer new opportunities

for participants to learn new approaches to economic and workforce
development based on Strategic Doing. This framework represents an
approach that uses the power of open networks to accelerate innovation in
communities and regions.

If you're interested in more details about workshops and presentations that

introduce your organization or community to the power of civic forums, please
send your e-mail to iopenteam@gmail.com

For Those We Serve

How can community colleges and Universities use civic forums?

Higher education came to use forums in a number of ways. Forums can assist a
college or university to bridge the gap with surrounding communities by finding
new initiatives and connections. Forums can strengthen internship and service
learning opportunities for students. They can also connect faculty to the needs of
surrounding business.

How can libraries use civic forums?

Libraries provide a safe space within which civic forums can take place. At the
same time, libraries represent "the People's University", and they foster a spirit of
inquiry and engagement. By offering civic forums, libraries find a new way to
connect with the public they serve.

How can economic and workforce development organizations use civic

forums?

Civic forums provide new ways to build networks for economic and workforce
development organizations. These organizations need to connect the suppliers of
brainpower -- students, colleges and universities -- with the consumers of
brainpower -- both nonprofit organizations and the business community.

Civic forums can be the first step in building cluster-based organizations that
accelerate open innovation within a regional economy.

How can community foundations use civic forums?

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 5

For years, we've heard about the decline of "social capital" in our communities.
The ending of community over the past several decades -- often accelerated by
geographic sprawl -- has been silent and deceptive.

Virtually every community is facing the same challenge of creating new ways to
facilitate renewed civic engagement. Civic forums offer a practical, convenient
answer.

FAQs

Civic forums appear to be "just talk". Why do you think they're so

important?

As a general rule, communities and regions are not particularly good at

the skills of "thinking together". Here is a simple thought exercise - as a
nation, we are facing a very severe challenge: over 30% of our ninth
graders drop out of high school. Where in your community do people
come together on a regular basis to address this challenge?

Increasingly, we are coming to recognize that our challenges require

collaboration. But collaboration requires conversation. So, in the industrial
era, economic and civic life was dominated by large hierarchical
organizations, conversation was viewed as largely a distraction, "just
talk".

In the age of networks, conversation creates meaning. More important,

through guided conversation, we can align, link and leverage our assets
across organizational and political boundaries.

What are the vital skills that people learn during civic forums?

We cannot gain the power of networks if we do not know how to conduct

civil conversations in which we can engage in complex thinking. In the
industrial era, complex conversations were carefully managed, often by
resorting to rigid rules set forth in detailed agendas or Robert's Rules of
Order.

In the network era, in which we are now engaged, we need to guide

conversations by setting clear rules of appropriate behavior and learning
how to lead conversations by asking questions.

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 6

You mention the importance of civic forums to a wide range of groups,

including colleges, universities, libraries, economic development
organizations, workforce investment boards, and community foundations.
Why do you include such a large group?

All of these organizations are entering an era in which they can no longer
afford to go it alone. Yet, it is often very difficult to step outside
organizational boundaries. Civic forums create a discipline that can be
easily followed to build collaborations that organizations need to thrive in
the care of a network.

You talk about a "civic space". What does that mean?

A civic space is both a physical and emotional space. Within every

community or region, there are comfortable spaces to which people will
come in order to participate in potentially controversial conversations.
They perceive these spaces as "safe". Colleges and universities and
libraries often provide these "safe" spaces.

Indeed, colleges, universities and libraries can play a vital role in

strengthening the civic networks within a community or region by offering
to be a convener of these regular forums.

What is the connection of the civic forums to "Strategic Doing"?

Strategic Doing is a civic discipline that teaches people how to think and
act strategically in open networks. We are all familiar with the disciplines
of strategic planning. These disciplines were developed in the industrial
era to deal with the complex choices facing hierarchical organizations,
like large corporations.

The disciplines of strategic planning do not work in the open networks

that now characterize community and regional economies. Yet, we need
to think and act strategically. Strategic Doing provides the framework.

We do not know what enough about the Internet. What is the connection of
Web 2.0 to the civic forums?

Building networks is a process that integrates face-to-face communication

and online collaboration. The Internet is becoming easier and easier to
use. Web 2.0 refers to a set of technologies that enable people to write to

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 7

the Internet with the same skills needed to write e-mail. In other words it's
very easy.

What is the first step to engaging I-Open in helping us?

Simply connect with Susan Altshuler, Dennis Coughlin or Betsey Merkel

by sending e-mail to iopenteam@gmail.com

Web 2.0: Our Workspaces - Leveraging the Internet

As I-Open conducts civic forums, we also build new communities. It's important
to leverage the Internet and to explore how new Web 2.0 tools can facilitate the
formation of these networks.

I-Open actively experiments with new tools as it builds new communities. We

invite you to explore some of these communities to get an idea of how
technology can strengthen the connections among us.

Here are some of the web spaces you can explore:

• Midtown Brews explores opportunities in Northeast Ohio.

• I-Open's collaborative platform explores a range of topics relating to open
networks and how communities can use these networks to find new
opportunities.
• Women's Enterprise Network provides an on-line base for a regular forum
on an emerging women's network in Northeast Ohio.

Midtown Brews
Midtown Brews explores new opportunities for the Northeast Ohio economy.
Midtown Brews continues the practice of open civic conversations in Northeast
Ohio. I-Open started this work at Case Western Reserve University in 2003. Visit
the Midtown Brews web site at http://midtownbrews.net/overview/welcome

Women's Enterprise Network

Women's Enterprise Network provides an on-line base for a regular forum on an
emerging women's network in Northeast Ohio. Visit the web site at
http://womens-enterprise-network.strategy-nets.net

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/
 8

White Papers

To provide you with some background on how economic and workforce

development is shifting in an age of open networks, we have produced some
white papers. You can download them here:

Civic Forums as an Economic Development Tool

http://www.scribd.com/doc/17180205/Civic-Forum-White-Paper-Final

Strategic Doing: The Art and Practice of Strategic Action in Open Networks
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17180144/IOPEN-White-Paper-Strategi

By Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder and Director, I-OPEN

COINs: An Economic Development Tool for Education, Economic, and
Workforce Development in Open Source Economic Development
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23295366/COINS-2009-Paper-10-12-09

The Role of COINs in the Civic Space: Building a Pathway to Prosperity

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23295056/COINS-2009-Presentation

By Ed Morrison, Co-Founder and past Director, I-OPEN

Re-employment Networks
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13500451/Reemployment-Networks-White-Paper-v2

A New Workforce System for a Green Economy

http://www.scribd.com/doc/12781437/A-New-Workforce-Development-System-
for-a-Green-Economy

Stimulus, Green Jobs and Re-employment

http://www.scribd.com/doc/13701397/Stimulus-Green-Jobs-ReEmployment

For more information contact:

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open)

4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306
Cleveland OH 44103
Office Phone: 216-220-0172
E-mail: iopenteam@gmail.com
Web: https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/

Copyright 2010 Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), 4415 Euclid Ave Suite 306,
Cleveland, Ohio 44103 Phone: 216-220-0172 Web:
https://sites.google.com/site/instituteopeneconomicnetworks/