Ethan Forman
BEVERLY
April 15, 2008 09:38 am
—
From artists to advertisers, business consultants to research scientists, newspaper publishers to Web page designers, the creative economy on the North Shore represents 10 to 12 percent of the region's private sector employment, a study released Tuesday finds.
Creative economy companies focus on industries that are tied to innovation and individual creativity, skill and talent, where ideas, products and services can lead to wealth and job creation.
This economy employs a larger percentage of workers than biotech (2 percent) and manufacturing (7 percent) in the metropolitan Boston economy, the study says.
While economic development officials have been touting the creative economy as a driver of job growth for years, this study represents the first time the size and scope of the creative economy on the North Shore has been fully measured.
"I'm really pleased with the results," said Patricia Zaido, executive director of the Salem Partnership, one of the study's sponsors and a group that focuses on economic development.
"It validates what Christine (Sullivan) and I have believed for the last five years and which all of our work has indicated," Zaido said of the work she and the executive director of the Enterprise Center at Salem State College have done touting the creative economy on the North Shore.
"We saw there were a lot of people working on the creative economy on the North Shore," Sullivan said.
The North Shore no longer has shoe making and Parker Brothers to rely on for jobs, Sullivan said, but it does have its history, culture, museums, performing arts, schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations to draw on, things that can help foster creative economy companies and organizations. Sullivan said the question has been how the creative economy could be fostered, but first economic development leaders needed hard numbers.
That's where "North Shore Creative Economy Market Analysis and Action Plan" comes in. It is being released Tuesday morning at the Cummings Center in Beverly. The full report can be found at www.enterprisectr.org.
In the report, researchers found:
The region includes 28 cities and towns from Amesbury, Salisbury and Newburyport to the north, Boxford and Middleton to the west, Rockport and Gloucester to the east and Lynn, Swampscott and Nahant to the south.
The report found creative economy companies and organizations clustered among 10 cities and towns that represent 73 percent of all enterprises. Beverly has the most with 268 | more than 12 percent of the share | followed by Newburyport, Salem, Gloucester, Peabody, Marblehead, Danvers, Lynn, Rockport and Amesbury.
The report identifies five "creative clusters" representing more than half of all creative economy enterprises:
The Enterprise Center at Salem State College, The Salem Partnership and the Creative Economy Association of the North Shore sponsored the study through a $45,000 state grant won last summer, said Sullivan, who runs the small business incubator at Salem State. ConsultEcon Inc., in association with Karl F. Seidman Consulting Services, prepared it.
The 87-page report follows on the heels of a study commissioned from the Eagle-Tribune Publishing Co., the parent company of The Salem News, to define the creative economy North of Boston with a task force, an effort that led to the formation of the Creative Economy Association, Sullivan said.
The report also surveyed 200 creative economy enterprises and found half their customers are located outside the North Shore, and a quarter of their customers are outside the Bay State.
"Every dollar they earn is a new dollar to the North Shore," Sullivan said of a creative company's exports. "It can be someone in their home designing Web sites for someone in China," she said.
Creative economy business do not typically grow their work force like other businesses and tend to be flexible with their staffing, with about 65 percent of them using contract or consultant resources, the study says.
There is no one size of a typical creative economy business, and they can be single-owner establishments, large companies and nonprofits, with activities that range from computer programming to performing arts, the study says.
The report suggests the region needs to brand and promote its creative economy initiatives with an action plan that suggests local governments, those interested in economic development and others work together and take a regional approach.
The report also suggests finding ways to bring creative economy companies together, and to help foster collaboration by creating a new center with incubator space to foster companies working together.
Part of the recommendations include working with the North Shore Workforce Investment Board and area colleges to help with the training needs of the creative economy worker.
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