by Karl R. LaPan
The future of our community — its economy, its living patterns, and its priorities — is in our hands, challenging the old assumptions upon which we have built Northeast Indiana. We must be bold about the action required.
A leading scholar on the issue of community vitality, Richard Florida, describes the choice Fort Wayne faces in stark terms: "Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail, don't.
''In the post-modern world, the ability to create and innovate gives a person the ability to control his or her destiny. This is equally true of communities like Northeast Indiana. Empowering people and organizations to create their own jobs by tapping into their thinking power can be accomplished through a toolbox of methods, work practices, culture and infrastructure.
Giving creativity and innovation a destination: This is the promise and commitment of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, and why we are pleased to support Invent Tomorrow, the Alliance, IPFW and Leadership Fort Wayne as sponsors for Florida's visit to Fort Wayne on March 18.
Florida, a professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, explains how a community can benefit by connecting with creativity as a resource for innovation and growth in his most recent best-seller, "The Rise of the Creative Class."
The most successful regional economies are built around clusters of companies in similar or related technologies. Research suggests that the more entrepreneurs "run in packs,'' the more successful they can be because they can share supply sources and distribution channels, buy and sell to each other, co-venture or contract and attract employees with similar technical skills.
Savvy entrepreneurs are drawn to centers of innovation. High tech clusters offer skilled and experienced workers opportunities for networking and possible sources of venture capital.
Are we prepared to make radical structural changes, take risks and prioritize our resources to attract, grow and retain innovators? Not everyone will benefit from the shift to an innovation-led economy. Can we assist those least prepared to make the transition?
Florida speaks of the importance of communities having "low entry barriers'' — places where newcomers are accepted quickly into all sorts of social and economic arrangements. The places that thrive in today's world tend to be what Florida calls plug-and-play communities where anyone can fit in quickly. Are Fort Wayne and northeast Indiana such communities? If the answer is "no," that is something we can — and should — change immediately. How? By fostering and encouraging a pipeline of good ideas.
The creative class is best at breaking down the barriers of stereotypes to put the excitement of the idea first. We see that everyday at the Innovation Center as entrepreneurs come together to work and collaborate. This strikes at the core purpose of the Innovation Center — to provide nascent and local businesses with the tools they need to grow and nurture the talent within their businesses. Our community has always been rich in creativity — look at the inventions that trace their origins to this area. Our goal is to coordinate efforts to improve the work methods and processes of today's northeast Indiana businesses and tomorrow's good ideas. We are a bridge to the future.
Fort Wayne/Allen County can become a thriving creative destination, but it takes investment, focus and the patience on part of the community as a whole. By focusing on enhancing the creative assets our region possesses, we can become a stronger community that gives voice to the innovators who are designing tomorrow's solutions for business, government, education and the like.
As Florida rightly posits. "It is as important for a modern enterprise to have been born in a garage (or perhaps an Innovation Center) as it was for a 19th-century presidential candidate to have been born in a log cabin.'' Fort Wayne/Allen County is ripe for this kind of paradigm change — our future can be reframed as the crossroads of innovation and imagination. The gap between what can be imagined and what can be accomplished has never been smaller. The same can be true for Fort Wayne/Allen County if we set our minds and resources to it.
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Karl R. LaPan is president and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. He wrote this for CreativeFortWayne.net. It also appeared in The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.