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October 13, 2006

ZeroOne Festival, San Jose CA

ZeroOne - Where art and technology create compelling experiences

The TV set. Computer. Cell phone. Movie theater. These are technologies that showcase art, but it's hardly what you'd call immersive or remotely profound. Enter the ZeroOne San Jose Festival, a biannual digital arts festival featuring 2000 of the world's most innovative contemporary artists from 40 countries, focused on the intersection of art, culture, community and technology.

The purpose? To celebrate Silicon Valley's technology prowess through art, culture, community, thus attracting the world's top talent and stimulating economic development.

How'd it happen? The City of San Jose won a bid to host the International Symposium of Electronic Arts of 2000 professionals that meet every two years somewhere in the world, and decided that was a great time to add a 7-day festival to attract 50,000 people, with the help of the downtwon tech museum, 40 arts/technology organizations, and the local university, San Jose State.

The festival also hosted a global leadership forum on integrating economic and cultural development with 15 world cities, including Shanghai; Yokohama; Seoul; Liverpool; Helsinki, Finland; Linz, Austria, profiled next week)...

However, the action is at the art and technology exhibits, where people experience emotional connections like never before. A tiny handful of them include: a giant digital tiger running across buildings, an immersion of yourself into nature like the character in Predator, industrial designs from world leader IDEO, a teacup ride that exchanges music when bumping other cups, community karaoke via ice cream truck... and tons more here. Talk about your innovation overload, a good sign of economic growth.

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October 12, 2006

Superbus

Your uh, bus is here? Making mass transit cool

That's the thing about mass transit isn't it? It's extremely practical and environmentally-conscious, but sooooo uncool. Well, one of the only uncool things left about city living is destined to change in a few years as well.

Almost two years ago, this website profiled the benefits of bus rapid transit (BRT), and how it is able to operate on both high-speed paths and regular roads. Well, mass transit is evolving pretty quickly in light of the renaissance of cities around the world, and the Dutch plan to demonstrate its Superbus (see report in English here) at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

What makes it cool?...

- Just look at the thing! The project's chief designer previously worked on Formula 1 cars for Ferrari and BMW.
- It's electric, and switches seamlessly between ordinary roads and dedicated “supertracks” at up to 155 mph, at which it would engage in autopilot.
- There are separate doors for each of its 30 or so seats. Fares would probably be paid by smart cards.
- Holding true to our growing customer-driven, mass customization economy, passengers will text-message requests for stops. See video.

City living will never be the same. The point of this article? Better invest in urban real estate now before you miss the bus.

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October 11, 2006

An Astoria, Queens, NYC bakery

A look at NYC's creative class strategy

Being that New York City is the pinnacle of urban living in the U.S., ever wonder what it's current creative class strategy is? The answer is provided by Beth Siegel, president of Mt. Auburn Associates where she provided a creative sector economic development strategy for NYC. She also headed evaluations for the U.S. Economic Development Administration. You can listen to her via her Smart City Radio interview.

Beth's major accomplishment may be motivating Mayor Bloomberg in establishing a permanent 'desk for creative industries' within the offices of economic development. Every city should have such a person.

She adds that NYC's current economic development strategy actually does not understand the creative class, focusing instead on its financial and tourism sectors, and that the creative sector exists in spite of conditions working against it. To grow the sector, the city needs to provide incentives for creative class (ie attainable) housing, support to small businesses, and proactive assistance in finding them such places.

NYC's biggest challenge: Affordability in working and living spaces, and thus competition from more affordable cities.
NYC's biggest opportunity: Manhattan is still a magnet for the creative industries, just as a renowned university is for future talent. The question is, can you stem brain drain.

What do the creatives really want and need in a city to help them prosper?
"They really want a place to gather. A place that they know on Wednesday nights that they show up, there's going to be a lot of other writers and artists and creative people hanging out. That kind of infrastructure is important."

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October 10, 2006

Software engineer at Googleplex

The creative class isn't just artists!

Because of the name, creative class, many perceive it to consist of those only in the arts, music, design and entertainment. Not true at all. Here's the official definition from the author that started it all with Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida: "I define the core of the Creative Class to include people in science and engineering, architecture and design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or new creative content."

As far as job creation, there are two main levels of the creative class:

Serving primarily local markets
- Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations
- Architecture and engineering occupations
- Education, training and library occupations (ie universities)

Serving primarily national and international markets
- Computer and mathematical occupations (ie software engineers)
- Life, physical and social science occupations (ie scientists)

Of course, arts and culture can become a national industry, but generally not every city is a New York or Sidney. It is important to realize that while job creation is spurred by the growth of creative class industries serving national and international markets, a city won't attract the entrepreneurs and talent behind those companies unless they first establish a local creative market - renowned universities, local arts and music scene and good design prevalent throughout the urban fabric.

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October 9, 2006

Enjoy your Columbus Day...

Enjoy the holiday! Enjoy some leisure time! Have some fun!

Posted by Neil | Link to Article