Kansas City boasts having several important industry clusters: BioNexus, KC SmartPort, and the KC Animal Health Corridor are three industry clusters that get a lot of attention in Kansas City.  An “industry cluster” is a concentration of interconnected companies in an area that have common needs and interests even though they are competitors in business.  An immediate example would be the automotive industry in Detroit, Michigan.  When these competing companies unite their efforts within an industry cluster organization, they gain benefits that they aren’t likely to achieve on their own. 

An industry cluster organization can take actions that help all of the companies in that cluster achieve greater results.  For example, these organizations can work with local workforce agencies and universities to improve the talent pipeline for the industry.  They can establish joint partnerships that increase innovation and entrepreneurship.  They can become a voice for the industry in addressing legislative and regulatory issues.

Kansas City created the KC Animal Health Corridor program when local leaders recognized that our area had a high concentration of businesses related to animal health.  Further research indicated that KC is home to 75% of animal health businesses in the nation.  An industry cluster support organization like the KC Animal Health Corridor unites all of the industry stakeholders into an ecosystem that works together for the overall good of the industry in the region.

IS DIGITAL MEDIA KC’S NEXT INDUSTRY CLUSTER?

A panel of Kansas City industry leaders will discuss this prospect in a panel discussion during the KC IMAGINE: Creating the Future of Digital Media in KC conference on January 12^th at the Westport Commons Plexpod.  Registration information is available at this link:

The panel is moderated by Gary Sage, Principal for Applied Economic Development Research & Policy and former Sr. Business Development Officer at the Economic Development  Council of Kansas City.  Contributing to the panel are Dominique Davison, Managing Principal at DRAW Architecture + Urban Design, Aaron Deacon, Managing Director at KC Digital Drive, and Chris Gutierrez, President of Kansas City SmartPort.  Each member of the panel can speak to the importance of recognizing key Kansas City industries and mobilizing to assure that local businesses gain the benefits of collaborating to grow the overall industry.

Digital media has been a growing industry in Kansas City, but has flown under the radar until recently.  Research conducted by the Mid-America Regional Council in 2014 revealed that there were 34,000 digital media jobs in the metropolitan area and they projected a growth rate of 11.8% over the next decade.  Growth for jobs in that industry has actually exceeded those projections.  A January 2022 study conducted by Jeff Pinkerton, Director of Economic Research at the Missouri Department of Economic Development, concluded that “Kansas Cityhas nearly 50,000 workers employed in industries related to digital storytelling”.  “The KC metro has seen 24% growth in occupations related to digital storytelling between 2011 and 2021.”

To put this in perspective, BioNexus, Kansas City’s life science industry cluster, reports their employee number as 35,000 in that industry.  So why is the larger digital media industry not forming its own industry cluster program?  Part of the reason is that their industry is very decentralized.  Kansas City has a few large companies who hire digital media professionals: VMLY&R, Hallmark and Andrews McMeel Universal.  And KC has some significant mid-sized businesses like Barkley and EVERSANA InTouch that hire a substantial number of digital media professionals.  Beyond that, however, many of KC’s digital media professionals work within other industries or in small studios or agencies.  Typically, a few large companies in an industry take the charge to form an industry cluster and assure its overall growth.  In KC, however, the decentralized nature of the digital media industry has prevented it from mobilizing into an industry cluster with economic clout.

KC IMAGINE (the Kansas City Institute for Media, Animation & Graphic Innovation in Education) was formed to change that.  This non-profit organization convened a conference in 2019 to encourage collaboration between digital media businesses and area colleges and universities.  The program has grown since then and has attracted interest from 15 area colleges and universities and a sizable number of digital media firms.  The program’s co-founding non-profits  were digiSTORY KC and Thank You Walt Disney—the non-profit that is renovating Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-gram Studio near 31s & Troost.  KC IMAGINE programs to support digital media education and workforce development will be offered from the renovated Laugh-O-gram building.  This year’s KC IMAGINE conference addresses many of the issues and challenges that need to be addressed in order for an industry cluster to form and grow in the region.