Friday, March 17, 2006

The San Diego North Economic Development Council will be showcasing two companies in the high-tech industry this month.

The council has chosen to focus on a select group of companies from a significant industry each month to draw attention to their role in the region.

The council has planned this in conjunction with the North County Economic Outlook, published in February, to highlight economic "clusters" in the area. The 12 clusters are high tech, health care, tourism/gaming, banking/finance, manufacturing, sports and extreme sports, agriculture, military/defense, education, biotech, transportation and marketing/communications.

"As we look to grow and diversify the economy in the county, it is important to build on success and recognize the industries that make up this region," said Gary Knight, CEO of the Economic Development Council.

Chatter Inc., based in San Marcos, provides text message services to cell phone users. Winner of the 2004 "Most Innovative Product Award" from the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the company is developing a system to be used by schools to alert parents in emergency situations.

"It's an effective means to communicate to a vast amount of people instantly," Knight said.

"We hope to give small text startups the ability to think outside of the box, not for technology, but for relatuionships," added David Raine, CEO and co-founder of Chatter Inc.

Cooler E-mail in Solana Beach creates electronic newsletters and does e-mail marketing for the San Diego North EDC, among other companies and organizations. It was founded six years ago.

Clusters are groups of related businesses that stimulate employment to the area and foster wealth creation. The members of a cluster buy and sell with each other and draw from the same pool of employees. This is important to cities because they can target their economic development efforts at clusters that are already strongly represented, according to a press release.

The high-tech cluster includes the computer software and electronics manufacturing industry.

The local software industry developed in conjunction with the defense industry, according to the Economic Development Council.

As defense spending decreased, the high-tech industry began its focus on the commercial market. The cluster has grown tremendously and offers the highest wages of all 12 industry clusters, 120 percent above the regional average wage, according to EDC statistics.

The high-tech cluster accounts for 23 percent of North Inland employees, the highest amount of all the clusters. The North Coastal region has more than 20 percent of its employees in the high-technology clusters. Approximately 95 percent of the businesses are comprised of five or fewer employees, according to the EDC.