In January, the 2012 Maine Innovation Index was released, containing 24 indicators that measure Maine’s economic capacity and progress toward competing in an innovation-driven economy. This report is commissioned by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development annually. In this year’s release, the 24 indicators were divided into categories that represent key components of an innovation-based economy: research and development capacity, innovation capacity, employment and output capacity, education capacity, and connectivity capacity.  For all of these indicators, the State of Maine was compared to the United States as a whole, the total or average of the New England States, and the total or average of states that participate in the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

This idea and method of benchmarking key innovation indicators is something that any state can benefit from.  As Maine was able to compare itself to the New England states to see how it did within its region, other states can compare themselves against their neighbors or other states with which they are similar or have a distinct connection.  Also, states that participate in the EPSCoR program can use each other as a reference group and the national numbers are always good benchmarks to include. 

So why should a state do this?  Why compare yourself to others instead of just seeing where you have improved or lost ground over the years?  Well, nothing should be looked at in a vacuum. If you want to really understand how you are performing, you must gauge your progress against that of others.  Picture a state that shows that the number of patents issued is steadily increasing. If the other reference groups are also increasing steadily, then it appears that the state is following the national trends and that of other localities. However, if all other reference groups are flat or show a decline, that’s a much different picture; the difference between the two trends suggests that something special may be happening in this state to drive up the numbers. 

The saying is that knowledge is power. Having the knowledge of how your state is performing by itself and being able to compare that to other similar areas will give you the power to develop strategies to make your state a leader in the global innovation-driven economy.

The Maine Innovation Index is one component of a more Comprehensive Research and Development Evaluation.  For more than 10 years, Maine has been investing in research and development (R&D) and innovation-based industry clusters to support the development and growth of globally competitive businesses and jobs.  Nearly every other state and country around the world also invests in R&D and technology industries to increase their economic competitiveness.  Using data from indicators found in the innovation index combined with data from surveys of individuals and entities that received some form of R&D assistance and information from Maine research institutions, a broader picture is shown of where the State is succeeding or lagging compared to the goals that have been set. 

Additionally, every year as part of the larger Maine R&D Evaluation, a case study is presented to highlight a significant feature in Maine’s innovation economy.  This year’s case study looks at the role of middle skill jobs in driving Maine’s innovation economy, including a review of why these jobs matter and how key stakeholders are doing in terms of producing middle skill workers to meet the increasing demand. 

To read the full reports discussed above, please click here to be taken to a page where you can download PDF documents of each report.  For many of our indicators, we collect data for all 50 states. If you are interested in how your state performs on these indicators or want to know how benchmarking may be useful to your state, we invite you to contact Justin Gifford for more information.

A decade ago, many of us would not have spent much time thinking about what social media was, not to mention what it could potentially do for us.  As Facebook and MySpace and other sites appeared and grew in popularity, we have started to realize the wide array of uses for social media.  As the graph above shows, when looking at how marketing professionals are growing businesses, eighty-eight percent of them saw the benefit of social media for generating exposure for their business and seventy-two percent saw increased traffic and subscribers to their services.  With new websites and products showing up at every turn, the ability for social media tools to cut through the pack and distinguish your business can mean the difference between leading in your field and getting lost among the competition. 

Many people have associated Facebook with a way to keep in touch with friends and family, to share pictures and to play online games.  However, this graph shows that Facebook was reported as the number one tool of marketing professionals coming in at ninety-two percent.  Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs also show a significant usage compared to other social media tools such as internet forums and geolocation applications such as FourSquare.  

Why This is Significant 

Relying on traditional modes of reaching people such as websites and static ads is no longer sufficient if you want to grow and succeed.  People are increasingly wanting to interact with your brand and to see constantly updating information which can be provided more easily through the variety of social media platforms out there.  

Source

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2011/ 

This indicator shows the top twenty-five states and the United States in percent of growth in gross state product (GSP) between 2009 and 2010. North Dakota increased at a much stronger rate compared to all other states, with a growth of almost 10%.  Alaska and Louisiana also ranked significantly higher at 7.11% and 6.70% respectively.  Indiana, New York and West Virginia were all right along the 6% line.  Almost all of the top 25 states grew at a higher percentage than the United States as a whole (3.83%).  This shows that while many states fall around 3.5 to 4.5% growth, there are several states that significantly rise above this in terms of their economic output.  

Why this is significant

Gross state product is a comprehensive indicator of statewide total economic output.  Growth in GSP relative to other states indicates a strengthening of a state’s overall economy.

To obtain a downloadable version of this indicator, click here.  To download an Excel sheet containing data for all states, click here.

Source

Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce, Revised Estimates for 2006-2010; http://www.bea.gov/regional/gsp/; 2006-2010 is based on NAICS industry classification

If you are part of a group or organization, at some point you will probably wonder if what you have been doing has been successful or if the people involved are satisfied with the group.  There are many different ways you can go about evaluating this, from getting the group together and asking for feedback to conducting an online anonymous survey with questions that people can respond to.  However you decide to find out if you're doing well, you'll need to make sure that you carefully plan out what you want to ask.  Few things can be more frustating than asking a group questions with the intent to evaluate performance, only to end up with answers that are of no help to you because you didn't ask the correct questions.  This can happen if someone is not familiar with the purpose or atmostphere of the group or organization that they are looking at.  So how do you know that you're asking the right questions?  How do you make sure that you're getting responses from the people that you want?  There are a few things that you can keep in mind that will help you to answer these questions.  

Make sure that you really know what you want to learn - If you aren't sure what it is that you're looking to find out, then you will not be able to ask the right questions.   If you don't know what it is you want, how can you expect anyone else to?

Make sure they understand why this is important - Even worse than getting answers that aren't helping is getting no answers at all.  Make sure that you convey to those involved why this is important and how it will help things to work better.  

Don't operate in a vaccuum - Run your questions by someone else in the organization.  Don't assume that you got it right the first time and instead let others to point out ways things can be worded to get better results.  

Make it work for the group -If you're looking at a group of people who are technically challenged, conducting an online survey may not make a lot of sense.  You need to big a method that works for those you are trying to get answers from.  

The Membership Committee of the Maine Gay Men's Chorus recently conducted an anonymous online survey of the singing members asking about their satisfaction with the organization so far for the 2009-2010 season.  Before sending this out to the membership, the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors was consulted about the questions that would be asked to make sure they reflected the organization and what information was important.  The reason for this survey was also conveyed to the membership, letting them know what the information would be used for and how their contributions would help.  Because of these important steps, almost every member who received the survey completed it and provided valuable information that was in line with what the Membership Committee was trying to find out.  The results they have received will enable the organization to now improve for the remainder of the season and going forward in the future.  

A mind map is simply a diagram that is used to represent any number of words, ideas or tasks that are linked to a central idea.  It can be a much more effective way of tracking ideas than using an outline or just taking notes because it helps to better connect ideas together.  A map can either be very simple with multiple central ideas and single "spokes" to convey ideas attached to that central idea or a map can be more complex with ideas that branch off in further idea sequences from the central idea.  However you use the map it helps to connect the ideas together in a way that doesn't happen with just making a list.  

There is no one set way to do a mind map.  Some people will freehand draw a map while others like to have something that is more structured.  There is also software that is designed to help with keeping your mind map organized and can let you print and/or share with others in a variety of ways.  You can find a list of some of the software at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mind_mapping_software

Project management is not a new idea.  As long as things have needed to get done, people have needed to come up with a plan for how to do them.  There are few things worse than having something that needs to get done and not knowing who is supposed to be working on it or what the steps are in getting it done.  To get started with project management, you don't need any special skill sets or certain software (however there are many tools out there that can assist you), you just need to start with a few basic steps.

• What needs to be done - You probably have a long list of tasks that you know need to be completed.  The first thing is to organize these tasks by project in order to better keep track of them.  This can be done in a simple word processing document or a spreadsheet or even just with pen and paper. 
  
• Who needs to do it - Now that you have a better handle on what you need done, you need to make sure that you know who's going to do it.  By assigning people to tasks, you can accomplish two things:  You will know that someone is working on a task and that they are responsible for it, and you will be able to make sure that people are not getting overloaded by taking on too many tasks while others aren't working on as many things.  
• When it needs to be done - Arguable the most important of the steps is setting the timeline for when things need to be done.  Each task should be assigned the day that it is due and how much time is alotted to work on it.  By doing this, you can see what are the prioritized tasks as well as if you have many tasks that need to be completed at the same time so you don't get overwhelmed when a deadline approaches.