Innovation @ Scale: Rhode Island's Meta Clusters

I spoke today with Saul Kaplan, the Executive Director of Rhode Island's Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC). We talked about Rhode Island's Cluster Initiative. During the context of our discussion, Saul brought up a very interesting idea that, he believes, sets Rhode Island's apart from the nation's--perhaps the world's--other cluster initiatives. Rhode Island's cluster strategy is based on the notion of cross-industry cooperation. Instead of seeking to grow clusters along industry verticals, Saul and his team tries to create horizontal clusters. The real innovation with firms comes from x-functional collaborative when people think beyond their narrow functional (industry) silos. Rhode Island attempts to do that at the cluster level. It does so through something called Business Innovation Factory (www.businessinnovationfactory.com) that is a public-private partnership to bring various industries together to do collaborative innovation. "It is a challenge", Saul admits, "but one for which Rhode Island's economy is particularly suited for. We are small enough not to matter much to any particular company and so we have the flexibility to experiment with these news ideas". Saul and his team are trying to transform Rhode Island into a test-bed for innovative economic development ideas. He might have point here. How it would pan out going forward remains to be seen.