Technology and digital media has become a niche emerging industry along the 10/12 corridor. And you don’t have to think too hard why. We have to consider the inherent advantages found in our region, and the opportunities that exist from our continued effort to build the industry.
Our region has a significantly lower cost of living and a profoundly creative culture. A programmer would cost around $50,000 a year here, compared with $75,000 in New York or San Francisco.
Yet the programmer’s lifestyle would be twice as appealing here, because along the corridor, you can find a sense of place, a value for a dollar, and an overall quality of life that planners have discussed since Jane Jacobs, but few actual regions can offer.
This growing industry addresses critical capacity-building needs. In particular, it attracts young professionals to all parishes in the corridor, who bring with them a much-needed population diversity and energy. That, in turn, promotes a growing diversity within local and regional economies.
Small- and medium-sized business development plays a key role, in that it drives cutting-edge entrepreneurship, which creates new cutting-edge skill set opportunities to encourage a sustained growing work force.
The growth of this emerging industry along the corridor continues to be fostered by several regional initiatives. For example, Greater New Orleans, Inc. recently created the GNO Digital Media Alliance as a task force made up of representatives of digital and new media companies, financing companies and universities to aggressively develop the creative industries of the GNO region and promote a strong culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
The goal is for the Greater New Orleans region to become a world leader in digital and new media, and also provide the network for these professionals to continue to market the niche industry both domestically and globally.
The DMA has identified four areas of focus in the GNO region: business development, especially peer to-peer marketing; policy, specifically looking at incentives and tax structure; workforce; and capital, especially the need to create more early-stage proof-of-concept funding.
Although GNO, Inc. is calling the alliance the Digital Media Alliance, it really could be called the creative worker or knowledge worker alliance. GNO Inc. CEO and President Michael Hecht says it best: “We are not creating anything new here—it was to create a brand.”
And this brand has made the corridor the center of the third largest film-producing region in the country, behind only Hollywood and New York.
