I'm not sure whether this release got picked up by the local media. COSE is launching its annual business plan competition. Read more or visit the web site.

Business plan competitions are a good way to stimulate entrepreneurial efforts in a region. Here's a good article from McKinsey on the strategy. Read more.

Investing in business plan competitions would be a good strategy for the Fund for Our Economic Future. Here's how it could work. The Fund would challenge every college campus in Northeast Ohio to co-sponsor a business plan competition. The Fund would put up $50,000 in prize money for each campus electing to participate. That would require a commitment of about $1 million per year.

Each year, we would likely generate twenty to thirty good business proposals across the region. Some of these ideas will be small and focused on local markets. Others will be bolder ideas targeting higher growth businesses.

The competitions would deliver to the door step of other organizations -- JumpStart, GLIDE, COSE -- a promising set of business plans. In addition, the schools could commit to providing guidance and support to those who entered the competition but did not win.

Results would be clearly measurable by additional start-up investment.