Strategic Doing - A Conversation with Liz Nilsen and Ed Morrison

Liz Nilsen’s passion is for creating programs that nurture the
next generation of thinkers and doers, through the development
and growth of innovation and STEM education
ecosystems.  As the Associate Director at the
University of North Alabama Agile Strategy Lab, Liz shepherds the
expansion of the Lab’s programming and manages the Strategic
Doing Institute on behalf of that organization, including
partnerships with other universities interested in deploying
Strategic Doing.


Liz was senior program director at the Purdue Agile Strategy Lab;
she is also a former senior program officer at VentureWell, where
she provided leadership to the Pathways program for the National
Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), an
effort to engage with 50 colleges and universities to redesign
undergraduate engineering education.


Prior to joining VentureWell, she led STEM initiatives at the
Penn State Center – Pittsburgh, was the southwest regional
coordinator for the Pennsylvania STEM Network, and served as
Director of Outreach and New Economy Program Development at the
Institute of Advanced Learning & Research, a Virginia Tech
initiative. She earned her BA from Stanford and an MBA from
Northeastern University.





Ed Morrison is Director of the Agile Strategy Lab at the
University of North Alabama, and was the founder of the Purdue
Agile Strategy Lab. Ed’s work emphasizes the strategic value of
focused regional collaborations and open innovation,
network-based models in today’s global economy.


Ed is the developer of Strategic Doing to accelerate
collaborations, now widely used across the U.S. and is now
gaining attention internationally. His work won the first Arthur
D. Little Award for excellence in economic development presented
by the American Economic Development Council.


Prior to starting his economic development work, Ed worked for
Telesis, a corporate strategy consulting firm. In this position,
he served on consulting teams for clients such as Ford Motor
Company, Volvo, and General Electric. He conducted manufacturing
cost studies in the U.S., Japan, Mexico, Canada, Italy, Sweden,
and France.


Ed started his professional career in Washington, D.C., where he
has served as a legislative assistant to an Ohio Congressman,
staff attorney in the Federal Trade Commission, and staff counsel
in the US Senate. He holds a BA degree cum laude with honors from
Yale University and MBA and JD degrees from the University of
Virginia.





Social Links


LinkedIn: @liznilsen; @efmorrison


Twitter: @STEMetc; @edmorrison