“Miami still has some catching up to do”, so claimed the headline of Ronald Bosrock’s “Global Executive” column in Monday’s (February 25th) Strib article. In the competition for global talent, he argued that the Twin Cities was way ahead of Miami.

While recognizing that Miami has attracted multi-national companies and the largest concentration of banks south of New York City, largely due to its location in relation to Latin America, Bosrock said that the city’s current investments reveal that it is trying to catch up with the Twin Cities in at least one area. Miami has not been as successful at “attracting the highly educated, highly trained, and highly paid workers” needed to work for the multi-nationals. Miami’s current capital investment program is focused on positioning the city as a “center of culture and a place that offers a quality of lifestyle”.

Miami has recently built a new symphony hall, a new opera house, and a new museum of modern art. However, it’s not just buildings that create culture, it’s programming to fill those buildings. Miami has had to borrow artists from Cleveland.

The Twin Cities, on the other hand, has launched a public relations campaign called “More to Life”. The goal is to let the world know that the Minneapolis and St. Paul already are a center of culture and a place offering a high quality of life, featuring such offering as the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, the Guthrie Theater, the Ordway Center, the Walker Museum, the Science Museum, the History Center, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Bosrock concludes that in the increasing global competition for talent, you have to recognize your assets and promote them vigorously. Perhaps there are some lessons for Northfield in this story.