I just had an op ed published in Mass High Tech on Governor Deval Patrick’s recent 10-day Innovation Economy Partnership Mission to Israel and the U.K.
Too often, the sole criteria used to judge whether a trade mission is a success is jobs. Unfortunately, this is short-sighted. Economic development strategies must be designed for the long-term.
The Commonwealth’s economic plan needs to have at its core a focus on growing its local, existing business base, while still looking beyond its borders for strategic global opportunities. The right missions, such as this one, are key to our future success.
NAIOP Policy and Trends Watch 
Although the United States boasts a series of successful clusters their true potential has not been fully realized. So for example a successful cluster connects companies with academic institutions research labs and other nonprofit organizations in order to create the kind of virtuous cycle of competitiveness that creates jobs stimulates business formation and improves productivity..What are the kinds of advantages shared by the participants in clusters? As measured by patent rates productivity rates and other innovation metrics an innovation cluster creates new companies and new jobs in a helter-skelter but overall positive direction..The federal government of course does spend money on a variety of innovation programs designed to help communities across our country create some of the ingredients necessary to replicate the success of thriving high-tech innovation clusters such as the San Diego biotech cluster the medical devices cluster around Minneapolis and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.