JV Freelance

Fighting the flight: When community can help company

While still with Hewlett-Packard earlier this decade, Carly Fiorina offered some long-overdue advice to politicians on how to stimulate economic development.

Fiorina, speaking before the National Governor’s Association, basically told the assembled pooh-bahs to forget tax breaks, sweetheart deals, and other traditional inducements for businesses to come or stay.  If you want to lure HP to your community, she said, convince us that it’s a place where our workforce will want to live.

I’m hesitant to put too much stock in the opinion of someone who has played prominent roles in two sinking ships – HP (back then) and the McCain presidential campaign (still submerging) – but when it comes to luring young professionals (YPs), Fiorina is on to something.

Rebecca Ryan of Madison’s Next Generation Consulting relayed that anecdote during a recent Webcast, where she explained in detail the findings of a Global YP survey conducted by her firm. The survey not only confirmed the importance of YPs, but also their characteristics and preferences. It is the latter two that communities should pay attention to if they have any hope of building a knowledge economy.

Mobile, moneyed YPs

Next Generation notes that 50 percent of YPs in the communities surveyed are comprised of “transplants,” 18 percent are made up of “boomerangers” (returnees), and 32 percent are lifers (the old high school mafia).

This extreme mobility is no surprise, but there are other aspects to YPs that may shock the powers that be, including their financial condition. Their median income is $56,500, and about 71 percent are homeowners with an average home value of $184,000.

While they have a tight-fisted reputation, YPs actually are philanthropic and involved. Fifty-five percent of them had donated over $250 within the past six months, 94 percent are registered voters, and 77 percent voted in the last election (among the reasons the smart money is on Obama this time around).

Another characteristic – they tend to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal – points to potential for a third party that is philosophically structured along those lines.

They are very well educated – 84 percent have a four-year degree or higher – and they are entrepreneurial. The survey respondents include business owners that created 44,000 jobs with annual revenues of $713 million.

All the more reason to hang on to them, right? One would think so, but too many communities have a worrisome flight risk. Of those surveyed, 39 percent plan to stay in their communities for 16 or more years, but 15 percent plan to stay only one to four years, and four percent plan to leave within the next year.

Next Generation has come up with a formula to calculate the cost of YP flight. It incorporates the $56,500 medium income, a conservative accelerator of 1.2, and the number of YPs (693) that indicated they would be leaving in one to four years. The total impact of this YP flight was $47 million, or an average of $3.9 million per community surveyed.

Again, that’s on the low end, Ryan said. “That [1.2] is a small accelerator, very conservative,” she noted.

What do YPs want?

Perhaps the most important information from the survey is what YP’s value in a community. Among the things that matter most were cost of lifestyle, 98 percent; earnings, 96 percent; vitality, 93 percent; around town (how easy to get around), 91 percent; opportunities for learning, 91 percent; social capital, 87 percent; and after hours (entertainment after 5 p.m.), 87 percent.

It’s not easy to satisfy all these categories, Ryan said. Even the so-called “coolest” cities don’t always make it easy to spend money after hours, but others have scored with “stroll” or entertainment districts.

As for quality of life, Ryan expects gasoline to someday climb to $7 a gallon (the current drop in price notwithstanding), so services like thoughtful bus routes and connected bike paths are coveted by YPs. (Cold climates are no excuse: Madison’s bike paths are plowed before the streets are, Ryan said.)

That would explain a lot to those of us who nearly killed ourselves tooling around Madison in automobiles last winter, but you get the picture.

As Carly Fiorina noted, it’s worth providing YPs with what they seek, and most (if not all) of what they value is not out of the reach of Wisconsin communities. What price would you put on stemming the brain drain?

Stem cell concern: Public patience amid all the hype

When I listen to some politicians that support stem cell research, especially embryonic stem cell research, I understand why stem cell research pioneers like Dr. James Thomson try to be realistic when talking about its potential benefits, and the timetable on which these benefits will reach us.

It is the political season, and in the coming weeks we’ll hear a lot about the potential cures and treatments that stem cell research could produce. Be prepared, however, for snake oil salesmen (and women) that trot out families whose members suffer from conditions like juvenile diabetes and make it sound as though stem cell research will produce cures that are just around the corner.

It’s the latest version of “vote for me, and I’ll set you free.” They may be able to hoodwink some members of the public into believing this, but in the long run their baloney may be doing this promising research a great disservice in terms of public expectations and possible disillusionment.

I thought about this recently during the World Stem Cell Summit in Madison, where Thomson once again acknowledged how much work there still is to do, and following a recent chat with Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of law and bioethics. As people who are fully immersed in advancing stem cell research, they understand that the science is unpredictable and could benefit people in ways we don’t expect.

They also understand that the most immediate applications will not be cures for the most debilitating human diseases or regenerative applications like transplants, but in gradual improvements in the fundamental areas of public health.

Stem cell apps

“The most likely applications are not the kind people have in mind, not transplanting a pancreas in a diabetic, or the spinal cord of a paralyzed veteran,” Charo said. “Some of the applications will be things like creating test tube models of diseases so we can screen possible new drugs more quickly, more cheaply, and more safely than we currently do.”

Another important application, Charo said, is going to be the development of a safe human blood supply. At the moment, we rely on donations from individuals, but in the future we might be able to grow real human blood from embryonic stem cells or other kinds of cell lines, she noted. This could produce a blood supply that is manageable, abundant, and free of contaminants or viruses.

Another important application will be the in the study of genetic disease. Someday, we could be able to take cells from people who have genetic disorders and generate stem cell lines, whether through cloning or induced pluripotent stem cell work, and then grow those cell lines in laboratories so that researchers can see how a genetic mutation affects the normal growth of tissue. In this way, stem cells could help researchers understand how genetic mutations cause illness.

“That may give us some insights into new ways that we can try and ameliorate or even cure these diseases,” Charo said.

"A lot of those research applications don't have the wow factor that a human transplant does, but the public needs to appreciate that the most important developments may take place in less obviously dramatic areas of research, which are nonetheless hugely important in improving public health.”

Regarding human transplant work, Charo said the public soon might hear more about experiments in human stem cell lines that have been placed into animals. This will be done in order to test whether those stem cell lines can reliably be directed “to make the kind of tissue you want it to make, and make sure that that tissue then integrates itself into the body where you want it to integrate, and begin to function as that tissue needs to function,” she explained.

The idea of putting human tissue into an animal can be very alarming, Charo cautioned. “It's even generated some Congressional interest, and it is something that can sound science fiction-like,” she said. “It can sound dangerous. It can sound creepy even, but in fact it's a perfectly normal part of research.”

The harm of hype

These applications provide more than enough justification to support human embryonic stem cell research and ramp up federal funding beyond existing lines. (I’ve predicted that rescinding the Bush restrictions might be Barack Obama’s first official act as president, but I’m getting ahead of myself). Investing in stem cell research is both a short and long-term commitment, but it’s an investment that should be tempered with some truth about expectations.

During the World Stem Cell Summit, I engaged in some small talk with a couple of attendees about the cautious tone of Thomson, who serves as the director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research. One man seated in front of me, somewhat annoyed by Thomson’s attempts to fight the hype, actually questioned his commitment to regenerative medicine.

Imagine that. The man who first isolated and cultured embryonic stem cells, and who was instrumental in developing induced pluripotent stem cells, was having his commitment questioned.

Perhaps the hype already has gone too far.