It's so interesting that Nebraska knows it has a problem with workforce but can't seem to get specific about how to solve the problem and finance those efforts.
Nor are they comfortable with qualitative data, collaborating with outsiders or examining psychological issues (instead of financial or logistical issues).
The NEWbraska consulting firm has periodically attempted to explain brain drain research with young professionals that has been conducted in Lincoln and the strategies emerging from that exercise that tell us:
What the problem is, specifically.
Why business owners and managers are part of the problem.
How to resolve the tension between Nebraska's universities that teach our youth one thing and the business community that ignores those teachings.
Why 1% of all business owners in Nebraska must be trained to change their management style or face the consequences.
Why the Good Life can't be provided without moving on this issue.
Why the local communities can't get on board with the state on preventing brain drain.
Why the downtown environment throughout Nebraska is so important.
Why architects resist innovation despite Nobel Prize research findings that clarify how to attract more youth?
Why business succession is an obvious-but-seemingly-unresolvable problem.
Why building style is so important but dismissed by local city councils.
Why Nebraska's officials refuse to examine the target market.
While the state's officials are so anxious about discussing this fundamental problem.
Why every community must look at itself as a packaged product sitting on a retail shelf competing for the buyer's attention.
Why state officials are afraid to come to grips with the brain drain issue.
Why economic development has been replaced by talent attraction and what that means for Nebraska.