By Andy Owens
aowens@scbiznews.com
Published Feb. 11, 2009
Robert Prioleau, a partner and strategy director for the interactive marketing company Blue Ion, told several hundred attendees at this morning’s ThinkTEC Innovation Summit that the creative cluster needs hard numbers to define itself.
With dual interactive giant screens to deliver the first keynote address, Prioleau used photos and typography to weave a picture of Charleston’s creative cluster and illustrate how it has always been a vital part of the region’s economy.
He said having hard data would help validate the creative industry and would allow for connections among those involved in creative endeavors, even if they don’t identify themselves with a so-called creative class.
“We need to know what is the impact of the creative cluster in Charleston,” he said. “That’s something we’re desperately missing right now; we need those hard numbers.”
One of the biggest problems facing the development and growth of the creative class in Charleston is access to affordable and collaborative space. Prioleau said Charleston could follow the model of some other towns, such as Atlanta, where the creative class has engineered its own economic development by energizing an area of town that wasn’t being used commercially.
Prioleau pulled up an industry cluster chart that was identified in the 2004 Angelou Economics study of the Charleston region. He made the case that the clusters the study identified — bioscience, aerospace, automotive, creative industries and advanced security — all shared creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
“What is Charleston’s most important industry?” Prioleau said. “As you can imagine, I would argue the creative industry.”
The individuality built into the creative class naturally resists some of the traditional organizational structures that facilitate collaboration with other industries, Prioleau said.
More important is “creating energy and connections, and something might bubble up,” he said. “It’s really kind of irrelevant anyway; by the time you define it, it’s going to change.”
Prioleau listed several individuals, businesses, efforts and organizations operating as creative industries in the Charleston area, including:
Culinary Institute of Charleston
American College of the Building Arts
The ThinkTEC Innovation Summit, an effort by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce to facilitate new, existing and startup high-tech businesses, features a full day of breakout sessions on publishing, startup, sustainable energy and other topics. The event concludes tonight with the naming of the winners of the New Ideas for a New Carolina business competition.
