New measurements, still top 10
We’ve made various Forbes lists before so for many of us this becoming old hat. But it’s always nice to be noticed even if we’ve slipped to #7. And as much as people rail on Micron (I’ve taken a few shots myself) they are the main reason we keep making these lists. It’s their huge patent portfolio that continuously puts us on these maps.
Auerswald surveyed specific pockets of science–including advanced materials, nano-crystals and quantum dots, polymers and plastics, micro-systems and cell microbiology–that most experts consider today’s most promising frontiers of innovation.
Borrowing a method devised by Anthony Breitzman, a researcher at 1790 Analytics, an intellectual-property valuation firm, Auerswald then looked for important relationships among patents within each general technical area. The most important patents are generally referenced by other inventors in the field when they file for their own patents; lesser patents garner fewer citations. The greater the increase in the number of important patents in a given city, the higher it ranked on Auerswald’s list.
In order to find the short blurb about Boise you’ll have to click through to the In Pictures section. Thanks to Robert Deen for the tip.
The article also noted that in 2006 Boise was 11th in the nation for concentration of high tech workers and ranked 7th for percentage increase of venture capital investment.
These rankings are fascinating- but in checking with some of the people who’ve been involved in designing them, one interesting commonality arises - nobody checks for predictive validity.
That is, do we actually know what predicts what? (Milken’s guy has done some nice correlational work, but he’s actually trained in this.)
What I can find so far suggests that people HAVE tested for predictive validity and haven’t found it. (Scary? LOL)
However, we DO have a sense of what tends to predict job creation & local GDP growth. (If anyone is interested, I’ll post more.)
The issue of metrics is hot for economic development experts and that means there is funding out there.
One thing is for sure - that the metrics we need to measure entrepreneurial development will be a lot different than those we usually collect to assess development.