Building a More Innovative Community

Virtual | 09.15.2023 | 12:25 - 12:55 EST

2. Building Shared Value in Communities

Good things happen when people talk to each other.   In any community of interest, it’s helpful to know who is – and is not – talking to each other.  Network Mapping is a great tool for discovering, navigating and engineering the relationships that make a community stronger.  Even the earliest, raw maps of anything are better than no map at all.

In entertaining style, Grant will present his methodology and results for mapping the Innovation Network in his metropolitan region, connecting it with sister cities in the industrial Great Lakes, and overlaying maps of other communities-of-interest (i.e. Arts, Human Services, Environmental) to strengthen our greater communities. 

Grant Marquit, EDGE

Grant Marquit has been an economic development professional for 25 years, working primarily with mid-size ($20MM-$20Bn annual revenues) companies in northeast Ohio (Cleveland).  He intersects with the arts, environmental, health and academic communities as part of his life work.   Grant has been recognized particularly for his work in pioneering learning experiences that bridge the corporate world to those other communities, each enhancing the value of the others.  If you can imagine CEOs learning from each other, from nature, yogis, sculptors or scientists, you can imagine some of what Grant’s work looks like. 

Leadership, Strategy and Innovation are the central themes of Grant’s educational programs – each driving new value creation and improving quality and performance for participants and their respective organizations and stakeholders.   The premise of this work is that helping companies grow in value creates dividends that improve Quality of Life for all, via well-paying jobs, local spending, philanthropy, tax revenues, more sustainable products and services, etc.

Grant can often be found playing music out in the woods, or tending to his guerilla garden in the city, or taking a kid or two to school.  It's all about improving Quality of Life.