Creative Clusters

They Come to Creative Clusters, By JOHN M. EGER
Friday, Feb. 17, 2006

Excerpt from Voice of San Diego

Over five years ago Business Week magazine reported that "the industrial economy is giving way to the creative economy and corporations are at another crossroads. Attributes that made them ideal for the 20th century could cripple them in the 21st; they will have to change dramatically. The main struggle of daily business will be won by the people and the organizations that adapt most successfully to the new world that is unfolding."

Today, corporations and the communities they serve must put themselves at the forefront of this sweeping change in the structure of the world in which we live and work. It is imperative that we begin in earnest to attract, retain and nurture the most creative and innovative workforce we know we need; and in the process, create a new overlay of our land-use planning too.

Michael Porter in his book The Competitive Advantage of Nations, first published in 1990, pointed out the importance of "economic clusters." These "geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized suppliers, service providers and associated institutions in a particular field that are present in a nation or region" are central, he argued, to survival in the wake of an uncertain global economy.

Porter championed the cluster concept and communities around the world eagerly embraced it.
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