Economy expert to speak in Columbia

Knowledge-based specialist to address EngenuitySC, New Carolina board

By C. GRANT JACKSON - Business Editor

Richard Florida, author of “The Rise of the Creative Class” and guru of the knowledge-based economy, is coming to Columbia next month.

Florida will speak to the annual meeting of EngenuitySC, a strategic leadership group, and to the board of New Carolina, South Carolina’s Council on Competitiveness.

Florida will speak for an hour at the EngenuitySC meeting on Oct. 10 at the new Columbia Hilton Center.

This year the organization’s annual meeting will be an evening affair and very different from previous EngenuitySC sessions.

The event will start at 6 p.m. with dinner at 7. A short program will follow dinner and then Florida will speak for an hour, said Neil McLean, executive director of EngenuitySC.

A book signing will follow the dinner.

“It is a very different kind of event for Engenuity, less interactive” McLean said, “but we feel like we’ve kind of got one of the rock stars of the knowledge economy coming. So we are excited about that.”

In past years Engenuity has had members of the S.C. Congressional delegation and the S.C. Legislature address the group. Last year’s meeting focused on fuel cell initiatives.

This year’s meeting is going to focus on talent, McLean said.

Talent is one of the three T’s, along with technology and tolerance that Florida touts as critical for economic development.

Florida, a popular economist, says successful economic regions are those that can “attract, cultivate and mobilize” the creative class. He defines that class as people who work in creative occupations, such as engineers, scientists, artists and knowledge-based professionals. It also includes anyone who uses creativity as a key factor in his or her work.

Creativity flourishes best in places that nurture it, Florida says. “Places provide the ecosystems that harness human creativity and turn it into economic value,” he says.

Florida is professor of business and creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Previously, he has held professorships at George Mason University and Carnegie Mellon University.

He is also founder of The Creative Class Group, a global advisory services firm headquartered in Washington, D.C., that develops strategies for business, government and community competitiveness.

“I think it is the right message at the right time for Columbia,” McLean said. “Everything he talks about is in alignment with what we are selling now in Columbia.”

Companies come to where the talent is, not to where the tax breaks are, McLean said: “Tax breaks are good but ultimately companies come to where the talent is.”

That is one of the founding principals behind USC’s research campus Innovista. “We think Innovista will be a people magnet. We think everything that is going on in Columbia right now will ultimately be a talent retainer,” he said.

Florida’s appearance is being paid for through sponsorships and the sale of corporate tables for the event. BlueCross and BlueShield of South Carolina has stepped up as the presenting sponsor, McLean said. Two platinum sponsors are USC and the Municipal Association of South Carolina.

The event will be intimate by some standards. The capacity of the Hilton ballroom is limited. “There won’t be 500 people here. We expect 200 or so,” McLean said.

Seating will be very limited, McLean said.

“There are opportunities to sponsor tables. That is one way to get there. There will be a very limited number of individual tickets that will be available to the public,” he said.

For more information, call (803) 233-2466.

In the afternoon before the EngenuitySC meeting, Florida will be part of a roundtable discussion with the competitiveness council, said George Fletcher, executive director of New Carolina.

Fletcher said Florida’s thinking and work mirrors much of what he hears other successful people talk about: Create an environment where bright, talented, young people will remain in the community.

“We are educating them and losing half of them. So efforts to create the kind of environment that keeps them here are huge, and I think that is what Florida represents,” Fletcher said.

“If you looked at 15 of the biggest thought leaders in the country, I suspect Florida would be right there,” he said.