Talentopolis

After the dust settles on the 2009 ball it is good to reflect on the elements that made the event such a success. The group has an excellent group of social secretaries to negotiate a great deal for the venue and amenities. However, what really makes these events swing is the diverse characters that attend these events. It reminds me of a recent article I read on Talentopolis by Richard Florida.

Today a highly significant demographic realignment is at work: the mass relocation of highly skilled, highly educated, and highly paid people to a relatively small number of metropolitan regions e.g. Sheffield, Manchester, London, Leeds & Birmingham. Richard Florida of Mckinsey has coined the term talentopolis to define this type of relocation. What’s behind this phenomenon? The presence of great universities is usually one, being a melting pot for smart people and their creative ideas. People do prefer to live in these areas. To be sure, many of them are aesthetically pleasing—beautiful, energizing, and fun to live in—but they can also be cramped, dense, and expensive.

There is a deeper, more fundamental reason to this phenomenon, rooted in economics. The physical proximity of talented, highly educated people has a powerful effect on innovation and economic growth. Places that bring together diverse talent accelerate the local rate of economic evolution. When large numbers of entrepreneurs, financiers, engineers, designers, and other smart, creative people are constantly bumping into one another inside and outside of work, business ideas are formed, sharpened, executed, and—if successful—expanded. The more smart people, and the denser the connections between them, the faster it all goes. It is the multiplier effect of the clustering force at work. Therefore, the old phrase – “its not what you know but who you know” is no more truer than today.

This is particularly evident within the membership of the Sheffield 20 to 30s Walking Group. Most members are graduate professionals from one of the local universities or have been brought to the city due to the demand for high skilled workers. New members are attracted to the group by the diverse range of activities available, viewpoints and backgrounds contributed by its members. The resident amenities of Sheffield provide an obvious platform to build a broad and exciting social calendar of events from restaurants, pubs, and comedy clubs to music & community festivals and the theatre. These events provide the natural “melting pot for individuals to forge long standing friendships. These friendships are then cemented on the hills out skirting the city within the Peak District.