Creative Work in Savannah, Georgia Assessing the Technical and Artistic Climate in a Coastal City Mark Farmer Enterprise Innovation Institute Georgia Institute of Technology 11 August 2006 Page 1 of 87 Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction 5 Creativity and the Economy 5 Methodology 7 Results 10 Discussion and Further Research 21 References 24 For Further Reading 25 Appendices 1 -- Web of Science/Science & Technology 26 2 -- Compendex & Inspec 30 3 – PubMed 31 4 -- Interview Responses 32 5 -- Cultural Affairs Commission Major Funding 36 6 -- Cultural Affairs Commission, GAP Funding 62 7 -- Suggested Interview Questions for Science and Technology Individuals 64 8 -- Web of Science; Science Citation Index, List of Institutions Appearing in Database 66 9 -- Web of Science; Country and State Collaborations 70 10 -- Compendex; Affiliations 71 11 -- Compendex Key Words 72 12 -- Inspec Affiliations 77 13 -- Inspec Key Words 78 14 -- Cassis Database; List of Savannah Inventors 82 15 -- Community of Science Database; Savannah Assignees 85 16 -- Community of Science Database; Invention Titles 86 About the project 87 Page 2 of 87 Executive Summary This research seeks to provide economic development professionals in Savannah, Georgia, with information aimed at enhancing the climate for creative work, both technical and artistic. Toward that end, it employs data mining techniques that uncover some types of creative work under way, as well as the names of individuals engaged in that work and which institutions they collaborate with outside of Savannah. The mining approach is largely used to reveal technology- and science-based creative workers. This consisted of finding academic journal articles and patents originating in Savannah. Additionally, some overall counts of articles and patents were compiled for both Savannah and Charleston, South Carolina, as means to provide some comparison statistics. This approach contrasts with techniques used for finding insights into the City’s artistic climate. For that information, personal interviews with arts participants and observers were conducted, as well as the gathering of lists of arts organizations that are funded by a City agency. The research shows that Savannah, with a slightly higher population than Charleston, has far fewer articles and patents for the study period (1995-2005). However, Savannah’s patent-to-publication ratio is far higher than Charleston’s. Also, Savannah has a strong presence in marine biology research, with several published authors working at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. On the artistic side, the findings suggest that a City effort called The Creative Coast Initiative provides a good platform for collaboration among commercial artists. But, interviewees gave mixed reports on the levels of collaboration and institutional support for fine art. Additionally, several interviewees suggested that the City and the students of The Savannah College of Art and Design should interact more. However, a method for achieving that interaction was unclear. Page 3 of 87 Knowledge-based economic development is relatively new. As such, the research that supports it may not have immediately applicable action items. Indeed, many of the findings herein largely point to more needed analysis. However, this research suggests some of the following observations and recommendations: • Perhaps some of the external academic collaborators would consider relocating to Savannah. • Interview newly identified creative technical individuals to glean information and establish relationships. • Savannah might consider focusing on areas where it has a substantial base of creative work, such as marine biology. • Investigate whether a trade association could be used to boost the fortunes of all Savannah art galleries • Consider contacting arts funding applicants that were not given money to see whether collaborations of two or more of these organizations would benefit each and perhaps lead to funding in the future. • Review institutional assistance – for instance with studio space -- for fine artists to determine whether this could lead to collaborations that push artistic output to new levels • Some evidence suggests Savannah has the potential to develop a significant fine art reputation. More analysis of this would be warranted. Page 4 of 87 Introduction This report documents research aimed at assessing creative work, both technical and artistic, in Savannah, Georgia. A key objective is to provide economic development professionals in Savannah with lists of individuals engaged in creative work as a possible means to help establish or nurture networks and collaborations, which should in turn enrich the creative climate. To the extent that such lists prove elusive, as when assessing the arts community, the research instead seeks to reveal other information or general insights that may prove useful to planners. Along the way, this paper will also provide some comparisons between Savannah and Charleston, SC, for context. In 2003, Savannah took a significant step toward enhancing its knowledge work by establishing The Creative Coast Initiative (TCCi). The TCCi website states “The Creative Coast Initiative (TCCi) is a public/private partnership responsible for attracting and growing knowledge or brain-based businesses in Savannah.” [1] Hence, TCCi is focused on business, presumably with its resources thus far aimed in that direction. The purpose of this research then is to provide TCCi, and other interested parties, with material that may not necessarily be immediately in their sights, but that proves useful for refinement of development strategies and practices. Creativity and the Economy More and more in recent history, researchers are studying the effects of knowledge work1 on local economies. Of creativity, Richard Florida, author of the popular book The Rise of the Creative Class, writes it “is matter of sifting through data, perceptions and materials to come up with combinations that are new and useful.” [2] 1 For the purposes of this paper, the terms “knowledge work,” “creativity,” “innovation,” and the like will be used interchangeably. Page 5 of 87 One school of thought asserts that greater success in economic development will flow to areas that form clusters of businesses capable of innovation. Indeed, some researchers believe that future industries will be knowledge-intensive or else they will not exist. The trend might be thought of as a “third wave” of economic development. The first wave, prominent in the 1960s and 70’s, consisted of recruiting large companies into the region, while the second, from the late 70’s and throughout the 80s, focused on entrepreneurial promotion. [3-5] Florida’s work, while widely known and often cited, uses an approach to rank cities in terms of creativity levels. The indices are aggregated and so present challenges to developers as to how use them. [2] The indices speak to broad swaths of the city’s characteristics, factors not easily changed in the near term. To the extent that these indices can be changed, they might be thought of as a macro approach. The research herein might be thought of more as a grassroots approach. That is, by finding less visible individuals and organizations already engaged in creative work (and other disaggregated data) and taking this information into account when crafting knowledge- based development planning, new networks can be established and existing networks might be revealed and nurtured. Given that creativity is a soft concept (in contrast to hard concepts such as water and sewer capacity), one challenge is finding new ways to asses innovative work under way. Some have used occupational data from the census, [2, 6, 7] but questions of timeliness, given the spans of time between the counts, raise reliability concerns. Moreover, the census data doesn’t reveal names of individuals engaged in creative work. Another approach to the challenge is to find academic journal articles and patents that originate from authors based in Savannah. The rationale here is that each of these items is an artifact of knowledge work, and thus speaks to the city’s propensity for that work. Moreover, in addition to saying something about the quantity and nature of work Page 6 of 87 going on, this approach also reveals the names and institutional affiliations of creative workers. [4] The Role of the Arts Arts contribute to the creative climate in two ways. First, art itself is creative and thus represents knowledge work already under way. Second, the presence of artistic endeavors in a community helps establish the quality of life that other creative types seek out. Indeed, high levels of artistic talent have been shown to correlate with concentrations of high tech industry. [2, 8] Methodology With the foregoing section as a backdrop, this project involved searching online technical and scientific databases, (Web of Science, PubMed, and Engineering Index) for authors working in Savannah. The time frame for the search was 1995 to 2005, the period coinciding with the expansion of the Internet (which has boosted the rate of knowledge work and collaboration). The research also mined databases of patents, which are considered indicators of innovation. (Cassis for Savannah-based inventors and Community of Science for patent assignees). [2, 4, 9] Additionally, one database that contains information related to the arts was mined. Finally, similar searches were conducted for Charleston, SC, as a benchmark against which to compare the Savannah