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Subject:

TCI News letter April 2003

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TCI newsletter

From:

Boris Doesborg <bdoesborg[nospamplease]@competitiveness.org>

=========== The Competitiveness Institute News Letter ==========
News from the cluster practitioners network Subscribe for free: http://www.competitiveness.org
================================================================

A word from the president
-------------------------------------------------

Turning up the Chatter ...Within Clusters
During a workshop I held with the Darwin, Australia ICT cluster
last week the comment was made that there was not much 'chatter'
across the cluster. The Darwinians are not alone. The amount of
chatter ( aka 'Social Capital') is low in many clusters, and
amongst value chain members, yet cluster evolution is dependent
on high volumes of informal and formal chatter between the
cluster's stakeholders. Indeed, many clusters could be better
described as 'clumps', with a paucity of engagement and linkages
across the cluster. A cornerstone role for a cluster facilitator
is in turning up the chatter, creatively providing an environment
that enables a wide range of conversations to take place.
?and within TCI
TCI provides opportunities for members to chatter with each
other. As the cluster practitioners organisation, we have
graduated well beyond the infancy stage. This is confirmed by the
level of membership, our geographic spread, and the participation
at our global conferences.
As part of planning for the forthcoming Gothenburg conference,
the TCI Board will be meeting in that city over the first weekend
of May. The Chairperson of our Board of Advisors, Snr. Antoni
Subirà, will also be joining us. We will be taking the
opportunity of reviewing where TCI is heading, and I would
welcome input from all Members prior to the meeting. Key
questions you may wish to focus on are:
" Is TCI working for you?
" If not, why not; if yes, how can we improve?
" Key issues for you as a Member?
" How should TCI be positioned in 5 years?
I would welcome hearing from you before the end of April, and
will provide feedback in the next newsletter.
With best wishes,
Ifor Ffowcs-Williams
President@competitiveness.org

IEDC CONFERENCE- Montreal 4-6 June
-------------------------------------------------

For the first time, IEDC will bring together global partners and
competitors to document who has been successful in the global
economic development arena, and why. Co- sponsored by Montreal
International and OECD this conference will provide practitioners
with the critical knowledge needed for operating in today's
global business environment.
Noted experts from around the world will participate in plenary
sessions providing up to date regional perspectives on Europe and
the European Union, North America and NAFTA, and the Pacific Rim.
Concurrent sessions will present expert knowledge on a variety of
topics including:
Financing Global Development
Visitor Attraction
Workforce in the International Workplace
Attracting International Investment to your community
The International Site Selection Process For more information
visit: http://www.iedconline.org/InternationalCongress/index.html

New web resource from Harvard University
-------------------------------------------------

Harvard University's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness,
led by Michael E. Porter, has launched an economic analysis tool
designed to help companies and industry groups as well as cities
and states boost their competitiveness in the global marketplace.
"The Cluster Mapping Project" is an outgrowth of research at the
Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness aimed at finding
objective, quantitative measures to compare regional economies
over time and to understand the critical drivers of their
prosperity.
Defining clusters using consistently based statistical methods,
and comparing cluster positions across regions, allows a more
detailed understanding of the composition of regional economies
and their competitive position. The 41 clusters in which regions
compete include financial services, biopharmaceuticals, apparel,
information technology, transportation and logistics, and
tourism. For any region in the U.S., the
Cluster Mapping Project can compare overall economic and
patenting performance to other regions, identify the most
important clusters in the economy, and measure their relative
performance over time. To find out more
visit:http://www.isc.hbs.edu/pdf/Cluster_Mapping_Project---Press_
Release.pdf

The Entertainment Cluster of Bahia, Brazil
-------------------------------------------------

The Entertainment Cluster of Bahia, Brazil is one of TCI's most
recent members. Through innovation and collaboration and in
conjunction with the government it has, for the first time
integrated all private companies involving tourism, culture,
entertainment and sports, in order to reach new competitive
levels in the region.
The Entertainment Cluster (based in Salvador) is an independent,
non-profit organization, operational since August 2002. The
Associates include some of the most prestigious companies of the
national entertainment and tourism industry, as well as state and
municipal cultural and tourism authorities. Any organization of
the trade is welcome to join the association.
The mission is to turn the state of Bahia into the number one
entertainment destination in Brazil, whilst working towards
socio-economic goals, cultural values, community interest, and
preservation of natural resources. Main objectives are:
integrating tourism with the local culture, raising the quality
of services and educational levels, attracting private
investments to the state, and above all, increasing the flow of
tourists.
For more information on the cluster you can visit the TCI cluster
database: http://www.competitiveness.org/

Asia Pacific Cities Summit - April 2003
-------------------------------------------------

There is still time to register for the fourth annual Asia
Pacific Cities Summit, commencing 13 April. Approximately 600
national and international delegates are expected. The theme is
'Emerging Futures of the City' and will include discussion and
debate on:
"Transforming urban sprawl"
"Greening our cities"
"Creating healthy cities"
"Global and local governance"
"Alternative futures"
Register online:- http:// www.apcsummit.org

Food clusters
-------------------------------------------------

A major study on food clusters is nearing completion. Although
initially focussing on South Australia, the client (Playford City
Council) has broadened it to include other states and overseas.
The analysis identifies the main drivers and idiosyncrasies of
food clusters, and assembles national and international contacts
to facilitate the linking of clusters. The will report provide a
valuable guide to building a successful food cluster, and delves
into investment, infrastructure, exports and marketing,
innovation etc. The report is due for release at the
Manufacturing Prosperity conference in Adelaide on 2-3 September,
and at the TCI Annual Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden on 17-19
September. If you'd like to provide input (e.g. be part of the
food cluster benchmarking analysis), contact Clusters Asia
Pacific: apd@orac.net.au

Development Continues in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam
-------------------------------------------------

Many of you have expressed interest in the article that appeared
in last months edition of the newsletter entitled: Putting the
Pieces Back Together: Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Last
November, J.E. Austin Associates and the Kenon Institute Asia
(KIAsia) began working as part of the "Southeast Asia
Competitiveness Iniciative" (SEACI) in Thailand, Vietnam and
Cambodia. SEACI, sponsored by U.S. AID, is supporting these
countries with cluster development as part of helping them
recover from the 1997 Asian Crisis. The first step involved
workshops and roundtable discussion to educate representatives
from the three countries on what clusters were and how cluster
development has been used successfully in other countries.
Updates concerning the actual strategies in each country are now
available at: http://www.kiasia.org/regional/index.html

Participate in the Global Cluster Initiative Survey!
-------------------------------------------------

Professor Örjan Sölvell is preparing a green book on cluster
initiatives for the TCI Annual Conference. One of the sources
will be a major international survey focusing on cluster
initiatives rather than the clusters themselves. The survey will
be sent out shortly, and the researchers would like your help to
identify as many cluster initiatives as possible. All TCI members
are welcome to suggest cluster initiatives to be included in the
survey.
Which cluster initiatives do you know about? Please send the
following details:
name of the cluster initiative
country/region of the cluster
name of contact person
e-mail of contact person
web site of the cluster initiative (if any)
Please send contributions to the project
manager:goran_lindqvist@cluster-research.org

Environment district - Ravenna, Italy
-------------------------------------------------

Florence Vidal, international consultant, describes the emergence
of an environment district in a review of "France-Italie"
(Sept/Oct 2002) You can see the review at:
http://www.france-italie.net. During the 1950s, important gas
fields were discovered in Ravenna which is 120km south of Venice.
This fostered the fast development of the petrochemical industry,
but produced significant environmental damage. Civil society
became very quickly aware of the fragility of ecosystems but the
main question was how to reconcile industrial activity with
sustainable development.
The answer was found in a co-operative approach. A communication
and information campaign was realised, focussing stakeholders on
the problem. Regional environmental laws were enacted in regard
to investments and infrastructure development. Research programs
have been launched to identify relevant, economic solutions.
During the 1980s-1990s, the territory gained competencies in
heritage protection, waste management, risk prevention etc. "The
Ravenna territory has become a real environment district" says
Florence Vidal.

Copenhagen - cluster policy, 10 June
-------------------------------------------------

The seminar aims to disseminate lessons & best practice in
enterprise policy, and provide input to a more efficient approach
to competitiveness policy. Keynote presentations, plus 3 parallel
workshops on regional, national and international policies -
concrete examples, results and evaluations of good (and bad)
practice. The seminar is funded by the EU's Multi-Annual Program
for Enterprise & Entrepreneurship and is arranged by the Danish
National Agency for Enterprise and Housing, the EC and Oxford
Research (TCI member). For information visit:http://
www.ebst.dk/cluster or email Bjarne E. Jensen, Oxford Research:
bej@oxfordresearch.dk.bej@oxfordresearch.dk.

New Members From Cairns!
-------------------------------------------------

TCI would like to take the opportunity to begin introducing all
of the TCI members who joined at the Cairns conference last year.
Some of these members have already sent information about
themselves and how they are benefiting from TCI. Members will be
contacted personally with an invitation to send their
information. If you have already received this email and have not
yet sent your contribution, please do so soon!
"TCI has offered a great opportunity to network with other
cluster researchers"

Deidre Giblin (quoted above) is currently studying for her PhD at
the University of Ballarat in Victoria Australia. Her studies
include the investigation of the effects of
dislocation/disruption of the dominant player within the arts
cluster in Victoria Australia.

Lars Eklund has a Ph.D. from the Stockholm School of Economics
and is the director of the Swedish Agency of Innovation Systems.
Lars has worked as a scientist and consultant in the field of
organizational behavior, and he has acted as an investigator and
advisor to the Swedish Government.

'Hugh Forde is one of Australia's most experienced and respected
practitioners in the field of collaborative competitiveness,
collaborative innovation and collaborative research and manages
Australia's most comprehemsive portfolio of industry clusters out
of Adelaide South Australia. His acute understanding of the
dynamics and processes that drive collaboration make him much
sought after at a personal level by other practitioners. Thus" he
is more into conversation than arid presentations. Maybe that's
because he is descended from that most oral of all civilisations:
the Celts of Ireland"

Peter Boyd is the Director of Marketplace Innovation in the
Innovation Policy Branch of Industry Canada. The Marketplace
Innovation Division addresses a range of policy issues,
including: innovative communities, clusters, commercialization,
technology transfer, and economic analysis
related to innovation at the firm level.

Amanda Brumpton works as the Economic Development Manager with
Rockhampton Regional Development in Queensland Australia. The
role of the organisation is to drive economic development in the
region which covers four local government Authorities. Amanda's
role is to help identify opportunities for the region and assist
business to make the most of these opportunities. A steel
fabrication cluster has formed. The Regional Engineering Group -
Rockhampton (REG)has also formed and is working on joint tenders
for construction work, networking on industry issues and looking
at training options. "It is an exciting place to be" The group is
industry driven and looking at linking with other similar groups
across Queensland to expand their networking.

Nigel Gwynne-Evans Has worked for our trade and investment agency
in the Cape, and as Director for Industry development over an 8
year period. Nigel feels this experiance has sensitised him to
the importance of clustering as a key tool in regional
development. His organisation is also involved in supporting a
basket of cluster initiatives, and are interested in government's
role in them. They
currently see themselves as an "incubator" for new initiatives,
and their next step is to looking at benchmarking and expanding
the role of all of their clusters.

Chris Bain explains that his interest in TCI is due to his
involvement as Chairman, with 'Food Hawkes Bay'. Hawkes Bay is
the main food growing & processing region of New Zealand, located
on the east coast of the North Island: their aim is to
sustainably strengthen regional economic performance by increased
value-added exporting. "Linking (regional) resources is central
to progress of this process."

If you would also like to enjoy the benefits of being part of the
TCI global community, register online at:
http://www.competitiveness.org

From Portugal:

Rui Costa, is doing a Masters in "Innovation and Regional
Development" at the University of Aveiro. He works as
investigator in the area of tourism and regional development in
the same University, and is developing a thesis about "Evaluation
of the Potential Growth and Development of the Micro and Small
enterprises in the sector of Tourism"

From the USA:

Kishore Rao: has been working in the competitiveness and cluster
implementation field for the past 12 years. Projects undertaken
include footwear cluster development in Bangladesh; export
competitiveness projects (with SanjayaLall) in Malaysia,
Indonesia and Sri Lanka; development of an agro-processing
cluster in Azerbaijan; ICT cluster strategy development in
Jordan; and cluster development work in Georgia. Furthermore he
leads a trade, investment and infrastructure practice
"BearingPoint" (formerly known as KPMG Consulting.)

From New Zealand:

Peter Harris, Economic Development Unit - Dunedin City Council.
The Economic Development Unit of the Dunedin City Council has
facilitated the formation and growth of a number of clusters in
strategic industries in the city such as: Education Dunedin,
BioSouth, Engineering Cluster, Fashion cluster, Biomedical
Devices Group, Film Southern New Zealand.
Activities/Services

6th TCI Conference - Gothenburg
-------------------------------------------------

TCI continues to work in preparation for the Annual Conference in
September in Gothenburg (see
http://www.competitiveness.org/gothenburg/ ) ). Each month a
different group of the EMEA-Team will be contacted in order to
discuss potential clusters. These contributions will be entered
into a book that will be written by Prof. Örjan Sölvell prior to
the conference. The purpose of the book is to gather best
practices / policies of clusters in the EMEA region, which will
then be discussed in workgroups during the first two days of the
conference. We have already gathered some interesting
propositions. For more information please contact Franziska
Blunck:fblunck@competitiveness.org.

7th TCI Conference 2004- Calls for proposals
-------------------------------------------------

TCI has decided to launch a call for proposals for the
organisation of it's 7th Annual Conference to be held in 2004.
Following the rotation scheme to organize the conference that
alternates EMEA, Americas and Asia Pacific regions, proposals
from within the Americas region will be particularly welcome.
Individual and supporting members of the Institute interested in
hosting this event should first download the call for proposals
file from:
http://www.competitiveness.org/activities/activities.htm and then
write to TCI's Secretariat General in Barcelona, at the following
address: competitiveness@competitiveness.org

Scottish Enterprise Biotech Cluster Success
-------------------------------------------------

The Scottish Enterprise Network Biotechnology Group was set up to
act as a catalyst for the growing biotech sector in Scotland. The
team is one of the specialised industry cluster groups within the
Scottish Enterprise Network. Besides being extremely successful,
the group also report that Scotland's biotechnology industry is
growing a lot faster than expected.
There is now a new dedicated team of specialists that is working
within the community to develop business further. Additionally,
they plan to commercialise biomedical research strengths through
collaboration with international companies, and to create
entrepreneurial spinouts. This work with industry and academic
leaders has resulted in the implementation of a specific action
plan (1999 - 2004) with a £40million injection from Scottish
Enterprise. This "Framework for Action" focuses on the 3 key
aims:
To Increase the Critical Mass of Companies
To Improve the Competitiveness of the Community
To Improve the Global Connectivity of the Community
They have recently made updates on their reports.
Visit:http://www.biotech-scotland.org

Regional Innovation Forum - Canada April 28-29
-------------------------------------------------

The Regional Innovation Forum aims to promote the growth of
Ottawa's high-tech sector by creating an environment for
discussion and co-operation. Every year, key players from
industry, research institutions and government come together to
discuss obstacles and explore new opportunities for economic
growth. The new ideas and partnerships that emerge are already
shaping the region's economic future. This years forum will be
held in Ottawa and it's Roundtable discussion will be centered
around the convergence of technology clusters and the potential
for new markets and economic growth.
About the Roundtable: For the past seven years, the Regional
Innovation Forum Roundtable has brought critical issues to the
attention of business leaders-from skill
to clusters, from marketing to new technologies that change the
way we do business. The Roundtable provides a focal point for
representatives from industry, financial institutions, community
and government to discuss the ways in which promising regions can
continue to thrive through technology, innovation and growth. The
Roundtable is a 2-day event, beginning with an evening networking
reception followed by a day of plenary sessions and concurrent
workshops.
For more information visit: http://www.innovationroundtable.ca

How can we find them if we are not looking for them?
-------------------------------------------------

Development planners and government officials who find themselves
poised to launch a cluster process often approach the prospect
with some trepidation. They read about private sector
involvement, even private sector leadership, but then find
themselves organizing meetings in which only a handful of
participants are actually from the private sector, but which are
nevertheless called "cluster meetings." Often private sector
leaders are propped up as chairpersons of committees that they
are not really leading, and they founder in that role,
ineffectual and frustrated.
When one questions the organizers, one discovers that many of
these well-intentioned officials think the notion of a private
sector-led process is essentially rhetoric, and that clusters are
driven by the usual cast of characters in most economic
development programs - planners, officials, politicians,
consultants and association executives - with a few business
leaders included to lend legitimacy to the process. Perhaps
unconsciously, they don't believe that a busy, profit-oriented
business owner would choose to spearhead an economic development
initiative in his or her region.
Many accounts of clusters around the world gloss over the role of
these private sector leaders. This article will attempt to
rectify this omission, by focusing on the role of the civic
entrepreneur, and considering the motivations of these remarkable
individuals. With insights into what can bring out the best in
potential cluster leaders, planners hoping to facilitate lasting
change in their regions will be better able to support these
civic entrepreneurs - the individuals whose actions are
ultimately most likely to result in a transformation of a
region's economy.
This is an extract from a terrific stream of articles, covering a
wide variety of economic issues that have been published online
by Donald T. Iannone and Associates.
Visit their online base at http://www.ed-futures.blogspot.com/
================================================================
The Competitiveness Institute - http://www.competitiveness.org

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cluster-based economic development.

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