So it is with AngelouEconomics and its recommendations for Lincoln to achieve the kind of economic growth that will give it what amounts to a full-employment economy, more and better-paying jobs, enough to go around and to attract other job-creating businesses.

There are believers such as Jim Fram, president of the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce and the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development, who is committed to AngelouEconomics' recommendations for the city of Lincoln -- and wants you to be.

"People in this community want success," Fram said. "They haven't all gone the same direction to get there. But this will get us on the same team."

And there are skeptics such as David Hogberg, a researcher at the Public Interest Institute, a Mount Pleasant, Iowa, research organization that likes the idea of free markets and limited government.

"The notion there's really a link between state economic development spending or local economic development spending and economic growth is pretty weak,"Hogberg said. "The most you can find is some spending on infrastructure does have some positive impact, but that would be expected.

"But when you get into targeting industries, giving them funds or that kind of thing, the connection is tenuous at best.

"Basically, what you've got going is that government is trying to favor an industry over another. It sort of puts government in the position of picking economic winners and losers and basically trying to make investment decisions."

So how does a Lincoln resident decide whether this study by AngelouEconomics is worth the $100,000 the Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development paid for it? Or the paper it's printed on?

How do people in Lincoln decide whether it's worth their trouble and time to make the commitment the report asks for?

"That's, well, that's the $66 million question," said Angelos Angelou, principal of AngelouEconomics and one of the principals behind the emergence of Austin, Texas, into a bastion of new economic prosperity. "I think Lincoln has to basically trust, first, Lincoln. And people in Lincoln have to trust themselves for making the right decisions.

"It's not about asking for trust in this report. We're not asking anyone to take this for granted. Any economic development strategy should be a dynamic process. Any good ideas should be in the plan. This is not a static document.

"The thing we've talked about over and over again is information does not flow very well in lincoln. People don't know a whole lot of the basic elements of the city. They are probably their own worst promoters of Lincoln. Being excited and energetic and the level of enthusiasm, that is all about economic development.

"People are going to have to trust one another better, trust that there is a need for one single economic development organization, and it must be held accountable. That organization (LPED, in the recommendations) makes the determinations on who are going to be its partners. Those include the city, county, Lincoln Electric System, Downtown Lincoln Association, Lincoln Independent Business Association, a variety of other concerns, (and) first and foremost, the colleges and universities."

Lincoln's economic development coordinator, Darl Naumann, the guy the city pays to keep an eye on these things, falls into the believer camp with Fram.

"If you tried to get any kind of structure on paper, you'd come up with something like LPED," Naumann said. "It's just the logical way to go. It has to be a public-private partnership." LPED's partners now are the city and private business investors. Fram is proposing to broaden its base. To lower the minimum investment and to raise the maximum.

Angelou said his organization was not so much about prescribing a plan, as about getting the community to feel excited and getting behind the process of creating it.

"There are a whole lot of good plans that never see the light," Angelou said. "I'll be the first one to say implement our plan, or implement HDR's." Last year, the Mayor's Technology Council commissioned HDR Management Consulting, which produced a plan for high-technology industrial growth.

"The focus ought to be on implementing the plan, not just talking about it,"Angelou said. "From day one we focused on the process to rally community support for politicians, the Chamber (of Commerce) and the business community at large to make sure this initiative has some life to it."

If it shows life, he said, it is because AngelouEconomics went out of its way in its assessment phase to conduct more focus groups, to interview more people one on one. "In all our visits, close to 400 people,"he said. "And I think the survey was completed by nearly 900."

Then AE talked to every City Council member, enlisted their support, listened to them and university officials, Angelou said.

This morning, as Angelou presents its report in a sold-out event at The Cornhusker, the purpose is to rally even more community support, Angelou said.

"We are also suggesting Lincoln needs to tell its story to its own citizens in an internal communications program," Angelou said.

To that end, Fram has pledged "lots of communication."

One day last week, Fram said he had spoken to two civic groups on the study, two the week before, the League of Women Voters that day.

"What we want to do is not a secret, and we'll make sure people know what we're doing," he said. "Believe me, there will be some skeptics. When we're successful, and we will be, there will be some who still say we didn't do it right."

This self sale, this prescription to look within the people of Lincoln, rather than without, for answers to the city's perceived economic uncertainty, accommodates the beliefs of another local, W. Don Nelson. Nelson has spent years on either side of the divide between private and public sectors, as a community and regional planner, investment banker, government staff leader.

He hadn't read the AngelouEconomics report, but he read the Sunday Journal Star's description of it.

Although comfortable and experienced with systematic studies of public-policy issues, he's predisposed to skepticism.

"I've found that these studies run the risk of paying someone to borrow your watch and tell you what time it is," he said.

But he's also inclined to endorse the idea that the people of Lincoln are in the best position to help themselves.

"I've had two opportunities to move to Lincoln, and I took both of them,"Nelson said. "And now Ihave two adult daughters who are businesswomen and proud to be part of the local economy.

"If this thing stimulates people to look inside and say, `What can we be doing?' then it will have paid for itself," Nelson said.

"But if it stimulates people to fly around the country looking for some white knight, it will fall short. We should never lose sight of the fact that we are the people in charge of our destiny."

Reach Dick Piersol at 473-7241 or dpiersol@journalstar.com.