External partnerships and initiatives: Build the Basin project and outcomes Along with connecting with employer partners and other organizations for student internships and job placements, an externally focused element of the Sentry School has been to use our resources to feature public events and speakers. Some of these events, such as the Center for Business and Economic Insight (CBEI) breakfasts are designed to provide focused insight into the national and regional economy. Others, such as the more recently established Business and Society Lecture Series, are designed to be more broadly educational, bringing in speakers that are of general interest to the community. It was one of these events that evolved into our more recent work as a convener of entrepreneurship advocates through the Build the Basin project. Build the Basin History The first Business and Society Lecture was in March 2020 (a week before COVID shutdowns!) featuring business journalist Bethany McLean talking about her experience covering notable scandals in the business world. The series took a more entrepreneurial focus in the spring 2022, when economist, author, and alumnus John List visited to discuss his book The Voltage Effect. Here, List presented his research analyzing why some ideas scale to become great ideas, while others lose steam and flounder. The positive feedback from business and community leaders prompted us to invite another speaker who emphasizes the interplay between entrepreneurship and economic development in October 2022: Liz Nilsen, associate director of the Agile
Strategy Lab at the University of North Alabama and co-author of the award-winning 2019 book, Strategic Doing: Ten Skills for Agile Leadership . Nilsen gave two talks on the Strategic Doing framework, which empowers people to quickly form successful, action-oriented collaborations. Not to be confused with strategic planning (where organizations typically have a well-defined structure), Strategic Doing is designed to help loosely connected networks achieve measurable outcomes while allowing for adjustments along the way. The goal of Strategic Doing is to set up an opportunity to create small wins through partnerships, understanding that no one organization has all the solutions, but if we come together, we can do big things. Although the framework can be used in many contexts, the nature of the process makes it an attractive option for regions working to develop entrepreneurial ecosystems and regional economies. A notable example of the method being successfully employed is the Shoals Shift (shoalsshift.org) creative and tech economy project in northern Alabama. Inspired by the Shoals Shift example, the Sentry School brought together a group of community leaders to meet with Nilsen to explore employing the Strategic Doing framework in Central Wisconsin to achieve similar ends. After ongoing conversations, training, and outreach, the first workshop of what would become the Build the Basin project took place in Merrill in May 2023 at Church Mutual’s offices. The workshop brought together approximately 50 participants from nearly 25 diverse organizations spread
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Center for Business and Economic Insight
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