REGIONAL: It’s the creative economy, stupid

In the early 1990s, a little-known southern governor fought his way to top of the Democratic ticket and on to the White House under a three-word slogan famously scribbled on a war room whiteboard. “It’s the economy,” became Bill Clinton’s backroom battle cry. Somewhere along the line somebody decided the slogan lacked punch, and jazzed it up as “It’s the economy, stupid” and a pop culture legend was born.

Since the February release of the ‘Building the Creative Economy in Nova Scotia’ report, suddenly the creative economy has buzz in the world of Nova Scotia biz. And as the Legislature rumbles toward an election, suddenly “It’s the creative economy, stupid” seems a likely addition to Nova Scotia’s war room whiteboards this spring or summer.

In the report, the Nova Scotia Cultural Action Network dismantles a number of prejudices and misconceptions, revealing surprising statistics that show Nova Scotia’s creative sector outperforms the provincial economy and, increasingly, the activity of Nova Scotian professionals like artists, artisans, researchers, architects and designers is driving growth and job creation in the province.

Unfortunately, it remains to be seen whether Nova Scotia, the only province without an independent arts council (See also: Department of Tourism, Culture and Heritage) is ready to get serious about the creative sector.

Think globally, act locally

In Annapolis County, a number of recent projects show how local business, science, culture, and political leaders increasingly appreciate that the creative economy is serious business.

Here are three examples of projects that are drawing people together to share ideas and work toward creative solutions for economic development.

TECH SOCIALS

For the past year, the Annapolis Digby Economic Development Agency (ADEDA) has organized a monthly series of talks called Tech Socials. These Tech Socials are held in an informal environment, typically Bridgetown’s End of the Line Pub & Grill, to encourage business and community leaders to get to know one another, share ideas, learn and explore opportunities of mutual interest.

Past presentations include a lead iPhone programmer talking about his work on the revolutionary device (completed from his sun porch in Clementsport), programmers previewing soon-to-be-released software called Gaiamatics, which allows point-and-click conversion of 2D photos to 3D models; and the official launch of the Ingeonuity business incubation centre.

As a result, entrepreneurs, administrators, politicians, and technophiles gather once a month from as far afield as Yarmouth and Wolfville. While, a single Tech Social is a quiet affair drawing attendance in the dozens, over time the snowball effect of these monthly encounters contributes to the development of the sort of community of ideas that underpins any successful creative economy.

INNOVATIVE IDEAS COMPETITION

The launch of Ingeonuity, a business incubator affiliated closely with an applied research group (Applied Geomatic Research Group, AGRG, in Middleton) and a world-leading technical college, the College of Geographic Sciences (COGS) in Lawrencetown, is news in and of itself.

But manager Jeff Wentzell’s choice for an opening project is perhaps equally intriguing: a Dragon’s Den-style event called the Innovative Ideas Competition.

At last week’s inaugural edition, students presented business ideas to compete for $5000 in prize money donated by Innovacorps, N.S. Association of CDBCs and Annapolis Ventures. Confidentiality was promised to protect participants’ intellectual property, but it should be safe to describe the winning ideas as related to consultancy for green IT solutions in small and medium businesses, an application of existing technologies to track harvests from ‘field to fork’, and a new design which would allow windows to retain heat when it is cold, and release heat when it is hot.

As one of the judges, David Upton of the N.S. Association of CDBCs, said it can be difficult to get engineers, researchers, technicians and knowledge workers to think entrepreneurially, but such thought is key to business innovation.

An economy of ideas is heavily dependent on scientific and technical innovation. Wentzell’s competition is designed to encourage a culture of imaginative entrepreneurism among the hundreds of students at NSCC’s Valley campuses, the same body that generates the core business clients serviced by Wentzell’s Ingeonuity incubator.

CULTURAL MAPPING AND CREATIVE ECONOMY WORKSHOP

Team Annapolis may be more of a nickname than an organization, but in the last year Heather Leblanc, Linda Brown, Bob Maher, Amery Boyer, and friends have accomplished some pretty unique projects, including last fall’s Living for Today and Tomorrow Energy and Climate Change conference in Annapolis Royal, and the totally unique Ride the Lobster event, an 800-kilometer unicycle marathon which drew over 100 unicyclists from 13 countries to race through 130 communities from Yarmouth to Baddeck. Imagine, this is a group that recognizes a unicycle race tracked online via GPS-units strapped to each racer can draw international media attention for Nova Scotia’s tourism industry and form the core of entertainment events along the route. Frankly, Nova Scotia could use more of that kind of thinking.

So, it isn’t surprising that Team Annapolis is responsible for spearheading a recent workshop on Cultural Mapping and the Creative Rural Economy. The event attracted participants from varied backgrounds ranging from artists and artisans to engineers, development agents, entrepreneurs, research scientists, naturalists, real estate agents, elected officials and CAOs.

What does a creative economy mean? Why do we want a creative economy? And, what do we do in the short term in order to build one for the long term?

By day’s end, these questions still hung heavy in the air, but the workshop was successful nonetheless. Although it asked more questions than it answered, it asked good questions and drew together exactly the people most likely to work together over the coming years to answer them, and that’s a very good start.

Now that Team Annapolis has opened the toolshed on discussions like how to develop a Banff Centre for the Arts-like education institution in Annapolis Royal, we can roll up our sleeves and get down to the nitty gritty of building the creative rural economy.

Or, in the words of Team Annapolis member Heather Leblanc, “Let’s stop talking about things that can’t be done. Let’s talk about what can be done. I don’t want to study this anymore – I want to move forward.”