The owner of Budget Suites of America, Bob Bigleow, has had a secret operation at work for the past several years in Nevada, building a space hotel. Not surprisingly, one of his closest associates is Burt Rutan, owner and designer of SpaceShipOne, which flew into space just a couple of weeks ago.
Bigelow and Rutan together are creating synergy. Rutan's spaceships will attract a lot more paying customers if he has somewhere to take them, and Bigelow's space hotel needs an inexpensive (i.e. non-government controlled) spaceship to get folks to and from orbit.
Sound crazy? No, it's the global Knowledge Economy at work. The article is long, but well worth reading to the end, where Bigelow describes how he has cut costs ($200 million versus the $50 billion Nasa has spent) by shopping globally. Bigelow cited one example of a subsystem he needed; an American aerospace company wanted $100 million to design and build it. Instead, he bought it in Europe for $1.3 million.
Like it or not, we're at the dawn of a new age. No, it's not the Information Age; that was over 2 years ago. In the Knowledge Economy, as Bigelow is demonstrating, who you know is more important than what you know. Bigelow has been able to reach out globally, forge business relationships with firms in other countries, and design and build better and faster than NASA. NASA is stuck trying to make "old" relationships work; the government agency has had numerous failures and despite all the money it has spent, has not been able to advance its program.
What about your region? Are you still stuck trying to make "old," Manufacturing Economy relationships work? Are you helping your existing businesses learn to shop globally for the parts, products, and services they need to be competitive in a world market? Are you throwing away the rulebook and starting with a fresh sheet of paper to create your economic development strategy?