There has been a lot of speculation this week about the contents of the regional economic development proposal that Angelos Angelou is presenting this morning at the Benton Convention Center.

Angelou, a consultant from Austin, Texas, is playing his specific recommendation cards close to the vest, but the concept he suggested at a preliminary meeting some weeks ago remains a topic of much conversation. Angelou sees this area as an ideal place to develop a design capability that could be marketed across the world.

This observation has made some local people nervous because they see design as a distraction from the focus on biotechnology. Angelou makes it clear that design is a critical aspect of biotechnology, a way to make it work and work better. The two fields are not separate but complementary and sure to become more so. So much of technology research involves data crunching in massive volume, and that requires software especially designed to handle the task and produce the results accurately. The design of medical devices, particularly as they become smaller and smaller, again involves design as part of nanotechnology.

Furthermore, we have furniture and textile designers and craftsmen in a variety of fields who could quickly become experts in design and all its facets. The design capability would put Winston-Salem in a unique marketing and recruiting position.

Angelou was, he has admitted, skeptical about doing another economic development study for this area. He did a quick calculation when first approached and came up with a figure in excess of $4 million paid for earlier studies, with only limited results to show for them.

But it was a challenge that intrigued him, and he has come up with proposals that he hopes will not wind up like all the others, collecting dust on a closet shelf. The presentation this morning will be an appetizer. The full proposal remains a few weeks off, after fine-tuning in response to comments of those who commissioned the study.

The downtown research park will remain the focus of the effort to boost the local economy. Design, if Angelou's proposal is implemented, will help the park succeed.

There has been some apprehension about this study, but it has mostly been the result of misinterpretation and rumor. Angelou's proposal is not an attempt to shift the focus, but to sharpen it. He's done some imaginative, thoughtful work, and many of the details of his plan promise to excite and energize the local decision-makers.

We may have gotten the study business right this time.