ANN ARBOR – We’re leading, Michigan. Yes, we’re cornered. But does that put us at a disadvantage to other nations of the world? Are we really trailing the world in change?

Or does that really mean that Michigan is ahead of the world?s nations in adapting to and adopting a new economic model, as Rich Sheridan, president of Menlo Innovations believes, as it moves from the manufacturing-dominated economy of the past century, to a new technology and emerging business paradigm?

Are we in fact leading the pack in globalization?

Recall New England a century ago? It was filled with textile mills. That industry changed massively and the mills closed with work going to southern states and cheaper labor. New England got high-tech.

Recall agriculture and its widespread practice on country farms a century back? And how people moved from the farm to jobs elsewhere, to cities? And how mass producers of foodstuffs ? General Mills, Quaker Oats, General Foods – became dominant.

Paradigm shifts like those are precisely what Michigan is going through these years. We have recognized ? perhaps the first in the world to do so, that we better deal with outsourcing, foreign manufacturing with cheaper labor, vehicles and other goods designed to appeal to customer?s desires and tastes.

Witness ?The Toyota Way? and the way this foreign automaker has captured the market share lost by American car companies by providing products people want. Toyota considers a new product and it sends its chief engineer into the field with an entourage of engineers and consumer specialists. They meet people and discuss their wants in a new vehicle. Only then does the team go back and recommend the product. All based on desires of real buyers and based on finding out what they want in a new vehicle. My, my, what a novel idea: listen to what a user wants.

Witness the emergence of new economies in former communist states where entrepreneurism is rampant, where investors have found people hungry to develop new ideas, sell new products, reach customers with new offering of electronic products and other things that people want.

So if you want to decry our state?s dilemma, then go your way.

But if you want to create a vision of Michigan in 10 years ? and what we do today to create reality and a new economic model, then think and act differently. As Sheridan believes, we may be learning how to deal with globalization before other states and thereby providing leadership for the ?21st Century Age of Innovation? as we move forward from the effects of ?Hurricane Globalization.?

This column was written by Larry Eiler, CEO of Eiler Communications in Ann Arbor.