Economists talk about ‘clustering’ – the concentration of companies in a similar field. A computer cluster, on the other hand, is “a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer.”
Brad Danks at Out TV sends along an illustration both literal and metaphorical: “the most amazing map that the Washington Technology Institute has put together about the corporate development of tech companies in Washington State.”
Brad thinks we should do something similar for the film/TV/videogame/new media biz in Vancouver.
I recall seeing a very similar “map” in the early part of this decade — perhaps produced by the BCTIA — for BC companies. Basically, MPR Teltech — the long-defunt spin off R&D company from BC Tel — was a catalyst for dozens of companies.
I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since, and it probably time that BCTIA did something like it (if indeed they did it then).
It was done by PWC in 2001, then again in 2003. BCTIA was part of commissioning the work. It’s a much referenced document in terms of social capital within the tech industry in Vancouver:
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/DocID/C323384AC690DE5C85256DC70041DC7E
I couldn’t find a copy online (we had one on our office wall for a while) but you can see quite a references to it out there via Google.