University of Central Florida's Incubation Program Sets Sights on Second Stage "Economic Gardening" to Accelerate Business Growth Cycles and Generate More Employment Opportunities
Profits measure success for a business owner, but communities measure business success differently---by employment and wage levels, by taxes generated, by rates of business growth.

ORLANDO, FL, November 16, 2008 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Profits measure success for a business owner, but communities measure business success differently---by employment and wage levels, by taxes generated, by rates of business growth.

That factor---business growth---is getting a lot more attention these days as local communities struggle to generate economic development in an era of dwindling resources.

Dr. Tom O'Neal, associate vice president for Research and Commercialization at the University of Central Florida, ranks as one of the nation's leading experts on business growth. Nine years ago O'Neal founded UCF's Technology Incubator to help emerging technology companies learn how to grow more quickly.

That effort has blossomed into five separate business incubators managed by the UCF Incubation Program, which currently serves 64 individual local business enterprises that range from technology startups to owner-operated service businesses.

They represent the backbone of American economic development, O'Neal says, and they are beginning to change how communities approach economic development.

"Historically, economic development efforts have focused on luring large employers to a community," O'Neal said. "That is still important, but luring a big company from another part of the country or the state doesn't create new wealth, it just distributes it differently," he said.

"When you grow your own, when you create new companies, they tend to stay in the local area. They generate local employment opportunities, pay local taxes, contribute to local philanthropic efforts and play a role in local schools, local politics and local culture," he said.

New businesses that don't fail tend to grow at natural rates. O'Neal and others have been studying how to accelerate successful businesses'growth so communities can realize the benefits sooner. What they have learned is changing economic development models, O'Neal said.

"One thing we have learned is that 'second stage' incubation---what is often called 'economic gardening'---can have profound effects on the growth of an individual business," O'Neal said.

One of those 'economic gardening' efforts---CEO Nexus, funded by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council, UCF's commercialization and incubation program and the Edward Lowe Foundation--is making significant strides in accelerating business growth.

Headed by Steve Quello, CEO Nexus offers a program called PeerSpectives to established second-stage businesses. The PeerSpectives program identifies and serves a network of successful business executives who have already experienced second and third-stage growth cycles.

"It's a hands-on program," O'Neal explained. "A group of some of the best and brightest CEOs in the region will tackle individual problems for hours at a time until they work out a solution that relies on experience, not just intuition or drive. These CEO roundtables and related programs target the stage-specific needs of growth companies.

They are made up of men and women who regularly come together to share experiences and solutions between them, helping CEO peers solve specific problems. A lot of times they have dealt with the same exact problem, so they can share what's worked and what didn't work," he explained.

"In once sense you're helping avoid a mistake because someone else has made that mistake already and in another sense you might come up with a solution that you never would have thought of on your own, he said.

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