Over the next few weeks I want to go through a process of discovery and planning around the Australian Tech Startup industry. Part 1 of this process is related to clusters.

In one of his seminal works, The Competitive Advantage of Nations (read the introduction to the article if you have time), leading business strategist Michael Porter explains how certain nations get ahead in certain industries – think Germans in cars, or Italians in Fashion, or Japanese/Koreans in Electronics, or the Spanish in football players (OK, maybe I’m a little biased and made that one up)

Getting back to Porter, there are 4 major components of his diamond-shaped model, but the one I want to focus on is firm strategy, structure and rivalry.

The general idea here is that, when you have clusters of competitors, the co-opetition, or collaborative competition, drives innovation faster than elsewhere.

It’s a simplistic explanation and may not even directly apply to a post Web 2.0 flat world, but it’ll do for now.

So, I’m keen to hear your thoughts re: in what areas we (i.e. Australia) have clusters of start-ups working on similar problems.

2 points should be noted here: -

1. By “areas”, I mean areas of work, not geographic areas
2. This is not to say, by any means, that these areas the only areas we can be successful in

It could be something as specific as wine review sites (we have a few of those that always seem to get mentioned in leading blogs) or something more general such as data transfer (we always seem to have good scientists working on ways to improve speed and accuracy of data transport)

Part 2 of the process will flow directly from your responses, so let’s try and knock up as comprehensive a list of suggestions as possible.