Occupation Focus: Scientists
Workforce Economic developers from communities that provide incentives to workers in targeted occupations should be aware that other countries are now using the same tactics to target research professionals in science,...
A Visit to the Wayback Machine
Redesign Your Data Several of my most recent data visualization posts have been about data that is at risk of disappearing. Sometimes policy disappears data and sometimes the budget cuts that come from policy disappear data. Recently,...
OCCUPATION FOCUS: PHYSICIANS
Workforce Roughly 1 in 4 practicing physicians in the United States are either foreign born or received their training outside the United States. In rural areas, the proportion is closer to 1 in 3. Though only 1-2% of students...
A Place I’ll Remember – September 2026
A Place I'll Remember The Michigan Central Talent Innovation Training Fund is a great example of philanthropy partnering with economic development to provide direct funding to companies facing common workforce challenges. In this case,...
Second Chances
Workforce Promise programs are getting some new twists, and Birmingham’s Second Chance Scholarship pilot, supported by The Aspen Institute, is a great example. This program is targeted at recent high school graduates who...
Disappearing Data Update
Redesign Your Data Thousands of government data sets have been removed from public access and data collection programs have been suspended since early 2025. In May, the Guardian published a piece detailing 5 ways that average Americans...
A Place I’ll Remember – August 2026
A Place I'll Remember I spent a day traveling from Dublin to Birmingham, UK and back again this month. In truth, I never made it past the airport complex, but what I saw there left a real impression on me. The flights were kind of a...
Delete before you delegate
accelerating execution This is not an anti-AI rant. This is a post about taking a beat before you delegate something to your AI agent. Even before we had a host of AI friends to help us out, we all had a problem distinguishing between...