I'd like to make a few comments about an article I read in Business Week (Sept. 28, 2009) recently. The article discuss the transformation that Pittsburgh has made in recent years in response to the decline of manufacturing in the US. Pittsburgh lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs in the 1980's and the lost doesn't seem to be recoverable. The city could have given up, people could have moved away and stores could have closed their doors. Instead, "eds and meds" stepped up to the plate and offered another way for the former steel town to survive. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has focused on economic development recently and created jobs and opportunities that have more than made up for the lost jobs in heavy industry.
"The cities of the future...will be driven by companies like UPMC and sophisticated universities that take intellectual property and translate it into services and commerce." - Jeffrey Romoff, chief executive of UPMC.
This process is positive, but slow-growing. In an all too familiar phrase, "the city has not yet produced a critical mass of high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers." Are there lessons that Atlanta and Pittsburgh can share? What other cities are focused on economic development through high-tech startups? One lesson that Pittsburgh is sharing is that "persistence with new ventures is critical. Pittsburgh people take the long view". And my favorite quote of the article: "They do economic development the way the Steelers play football. Not flashy. You win as a team. You get the job done."
There has been a lot of discussion about the viability of Atlanta as a startup cluster. If one looks at resources in the metro area, Atlanta can certainly compete with (or exceed?) Pittsburgh - Emory, Georgia Tech, Georgia State, UGA, Piedmont & Northside Hospital, Southern Company/Georgia Power. I don't know that whether the startups are B2C or B2B really matters. I like the focus that UPMC seems to have - "high-tech startups that can grow to be major employers". Actually, to me, 'major employers' mean B2B and health care. I think we're well positioned for that.
KOKO....TELL ME WHY...YOU ARE MY FIRE....
Posted by: Air Jordans | January 24, 2011 at 03:39 AM