Lincoln Charts TBED Strategy; Calls for Business Leadership

A wake-up call. That's what the final report of the Lincoln Technology Council said the city received after learning one of its top employers was expanding its operations in a nearby city instead of Lincoln because of perceived weaknesses in Lincoln's telecommunications infrastructure. The result was Mayor Don Wesely creating the Mayor's Technology Council in February last year to "enhance the community's core technology strengths and infrastructure to achieve a competitive advantage for Lincoln as a leading city for technology-based businesses and to promote economic development."

Prepared by Kansas City-based HDR Management Consulting Group, Lincoln Technology Assessment provides an assessment of the city's telecommunications infrastructure and its usage by the Lincoln community. The report gives specific recommendations for how to make the community more competitive for technology related businesses and provides detailed comparisons of several benchmarks for Lincoln and other cities — Boise, ID; Boulder, CO; Des Moines, IA; Ft. Collins, CO; Kansas City, MO; Madison, WI; and Omaha, NE.

Citing the need for more public-private partnership and government-university-industry cooperation, the lead recommendation calls for more active engagement of local business in the future economic growth and development of the community through a permanent coordinating committee.

The report centers around three main themes:

• Basic building blocks for success in the New Economy currently exist in Lincoln. The report describes the university's role in supporting economic development in tech-based and biotechnology-based businesses.
• A unifying organization is essential. To make Lincoln more competitive, the report states, the city needs to employ a single approach to developing and implementing initiatives spawned by individuals.
• Benchmark communities: No one has the complete package. Great potential exists to capitalize on many broad-based initiatives, but no single community has a clear advantage in marketing itself as a center for tech-based companies.

More information on the council, including the full final report and larger, interim report is available at: http://www.ci.lincoln.ne.us/city/mayor/tech/