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VCEDA’s new Triad Consortium for Defense, Homeland Security and Disaster Preparedness is predicated on fostering innovation in a cooperative atmosphere with the goal of improving economic development and community well-being in Ventura County.

One of Triad’s first efforts will be “Dodging Katrina, Part B,” which will be held on Thursday, June 7th. This hands on workshop that follows up on last year’s Business Outlook Conference, will focus on the specific of Disaster Preparedness, such as creating a master response plan for your business, safeguarding computer technology and equipment, and developing post disaster communication strategies.

We hope to engage our local Rotary Clubs in “Dodging Katrina, Part B,”, as much of what we are undertaking has an immediate benefit for small and mid-sized businesses that comprise their membership. If you would like your Club to be involved, please contact me at the email address that follows this article.

Coming up in October VCEDA’s Triad’s Consortium will be hosting our 2007 edition of our annual Business Outlook Conference: “The 21st Century Express: Building a Competitive Edge Through Innovation & Excellence.”

Our goal? To challenge each and every one of you to open up you minds eye to those changes, be they technical, organizational, or inspirational that will enable your business to compete faster, better and smarter.

Coping with competition is not always what it seems to be. Earlier this year I participated in the Human Genographic Research Project sponsored by the National Geographic Society. Through the simple act of DNA sampling, I was able to track back my own family origins to the dawn of human history.

What I learned was a very simple but often overlooked lesson. All of us alive today owe our very existence to an unbroken chain of ancestors who outperformed the competition and successfully survived every life threatening event that stood in the way of their producing children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And when I say they survived the competition, we’re not just talking about the clan in the next cave. Think about out-smarting saber toothed cats, taking down wooly mammoths, enduring the hardships of the ice age or inventing agriculture.

Innovation in the face of competition is in fact one of the elements that defines us as a species. Though some anthropologists might disagree, the real boundary line between us and every other species that has every lived is one seemingly very simple technological innovation: “The Conquest of Fire.”

It was one of my direct ancestors – and one of yours too – that was the first creature to be innovative enough to grasp the competitive edge that fire provided. In simple order fire became the difference between life and death. It offered protection from predators. It proffered heat against the cold. It increased the food supply through cooking food that would have otherwise gone rotten. It gave rise to hearth and home; and it was the birth of science, philosophy and perhaps religion as our ancestors grasped first hand one of the fundamental principles of the universe: the transformation of matter – i.e.: wood - into energy. Our fire-using forbearers outperformed their competition and not only survived but thrived, leaving our ape-like cousins in the proverbial dust bin of history.

Still, the more things change, the more they remain the same. The battle between inertia and innovation never ends.

In one classic business school study on the history of railroads, researchers found that the train tycoons of the mid-20th Century spent so much time trying to outmaneuver each other’s lines than they failed to grasp two essential facts: that their business was not “trains,” but transportation; and that their real foe was not their competitor’s locomotive on the next set of rails, but the growing fleets of airplanes, autos and eighteen-wheelers that held the promise of moving goods and people, anywhere and everywhere, faster and cheaper.

Today we see this same scenario being played out as a result of technology in the form of computers, the world wide web and globalization. Every corporate entity must not only redefine how it does its work, but it also must re-examine the very nature of its business if it is going to not only survive but prosper.

Three quarters of the American economy is driven by consumer spending, yet we live in times where everything is in flux, from how we shop and listen to music, to how we communicate with co-workers and manage our businesses. Can, for example, newspapers as we have known them, survive? Or are people finding that news resources can be had online elsewhere better, cheaper, faster?

Are you ready for change? Will your business model survive another ten years? Five years? Or even until New Years rolls around again?

At this year’s Business Outlook Conference in October, we want to bring you the best ideas about how to look at innovation. We hope to line up a series of experts who can help you re-evaluate your work culture and open up that mind’s eye that leads to success.

At that conference, in conjunction with the Pacific Coast Business Times, we intend to honor and present awards to regional businesses and employers that have found a better way to build, service or manage the proverbial mouse trap with a specific nod toward concepts that all of us can employ in our own business.

We would also love to hear from you. If you are aware of an individual or company that meets Onazuka’s standards of innovation and excellence, and deserves recognition, let us know that too.

Remember…

“Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds… to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.

Your vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but by what your mind can imagine. Many things that you take for granted were considered unrealistic dreams by previous generations. If you accept these past accomplishments as commonplace then think of the new horizons that you can explore. From your vantage point, your education and imagination will carry you to places which we won't believe possible.

Make your life count -- and the world will be a better place because you tried.”

Our ancestors pioneered the Conquest of Fire and set the stage for the balance of human history. In turn shuttle astronauts like Onazuka opened the door to the exploration of outer space.

But for the rest of us now, there really is only one question left: What will we do to ensure tomorrow?

For more information on nominating a business or individual or on Rotary Club participation, write to:

Smythe@ojai.net

For information on the Genographic Project, go to:

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html