Barrie and the surrounding area has rapidly grown from a small manufacturing based community with a manufacturing based economy to a large urban community with a budding technology based economy.
Barrie has recently been ranked by KPMG as the best place in the world to start a digital services business. Yes … thats right … IN THE WORLD.
This environment has also become a hotbed for entrepreneurship with hundreds of new innovative businesses starting up right under our nose, without us even realizing it many times.
Companies like Napoleon, South Medic, Prodomax and Moore Packaging just to name a few, are startups born in Barrie and have become world leaders in what they do.
How did this happen?
Around 2002, city council made significant investments in infrastructure with an eye towards attracting technology based businesses to Barrie in hopes we could become a hub.
This was a bold and brave move. Usually when politicians spend taxpayers money its for some sort of immediate visible benefit and usually without a lot of consideration for future advantages or ramifications.
This investment included creating redundant water and hydro services along with access to land that could be easily secured by the large data centres. These things are not “sexy” to citizens and not easily explained to voters, nor are they visible, thus this type of investment is rare for politicians.
Almost without delay after that investment had been committed, BMO announced a large worldwide data centre that would employ hundreds of employees in well paid jobs and create excellent spinoff for the local economy. Soon after, TD, Cogeco and IBM data centres followed.
Barrie lost its manufacturing base earlier than many communities. At the time it seemed like a horribly traumatic blow to our economy but in reality it gave our community a head start.
It forced us to determine what would come next in the coming age of global competition. We had to think differently and invest in our future economy by strategically developing our physical and social infrastructure.
So now, when we see other communities struggling with the loss of traditional industry we have positioned ourselves to potentially be a destination of choice for budding innovative entrepreneurs and large companies that have an eye on the future.
However, there are two things that may be holding us back.
The first is our lack of the properly educated workforce that would supply the demand of the future economy. We are the largest city in the country that doesn't have a University. Despite the strong case and years of lobbying Queens Park it doesn't look like we will see one any time soon. The good news is that we have probably one of the best colleges in the country that makes a point of supplying specialized programs suited to the demands of the economy.
Georgian College is a jewel of our broader community.
The second is our attitude. Part of the charm of Barrie is that we are a large, rapidly growing city yet we still behave as though we are a city of 15,000.
Although that has its charm, it breeds the danger of not seeing the forest for the trees and not aggressively taking our place in an exponentially changing economy.
In general we need to not be afraid to “think big” and create an environment that will help us continue to be a step ahead. At the same time lets remain the charming place we want to raise our kids in.
Can we do both? So far so good . . .
