By Ralph Surette

THE CONDITION of Nova Scotia's economy, where it should go and how it can be stimulated, is a subject never far under the surface.

But ever since the old notions of regional development fell into disrepute, the state of thinking about it has been largely in a muddle.

This makes a non-profit, broadly-based organization called NovaKnowledge, which tracks and promotes innovation, productivity, lifelong learning and a whole range of "knowledge-based" economic activities, a particularly interesting player in the field.

It released its annual "Knowledge Economy Report Card" this week, in preparation for a major conference next week, tracing the province's ups and downs in key sectors, its progress overall (we appear to be catching up, but painfully slowly), and making some suggestions.

However, before I'm caught and accused of praising it too much, let me admit upfront that I'm the author of the report. That's how I spent my spare time this summer - dogging the economists, consultants, business people and institutional types who did the actual thinking. I was paid to do the researching and writing.

The most illuminating part of the task was profiling innovative, knowledge-based Nova Scotian export companies whose ways are meant to be upheld as examples of best practices. I was surprised at the extent to which some of them are equal to or better than the international competition.

There are a surprising number of these, mostly of relatively recent vintage. Enough that, if I might quote my own committee-endorsed prose from the Report Card, "looking at them alone, an observer might conclude that Nova Scotia is a leading-edge economic entity."

Yet we are no leading entity. We lag behind national averages in key spheres - notably exports, productivity, research and development. We're behind, but catching up slowly in a few (availability of venture capital, adoption of new technology), and even ahead in a few others (notably adult education).

The conclusion of the experts was that there's not enough of these companies to make a significant dent in the statistics. We need more.

"Can you energize an economy one company at a time?" is one of the questions the organization is asking at its conference. It's not launched as an academic question. Rather, this and other key points are intensively debated by NovaKnowledge's membership - some 60 or more private companies and institutions which are mostly seekers of innovativeness in the economy and its underlying support system (notably education).

These supporters fund the institution and supply the volunteers that mostly make it go. Indeed, NovaKnowledge is a unique institution in Canada, says director Kay Crinean, in that it doesn't represent industry or anyone else, but is an "enabler" where business, government and education come together to advance the economy by pursuing more creative ways of carrying on. Formally, it promotes advancement through the "knowledge economy," but Crinean admits this has become a clumsy buzzword, often taken in its narrow sense to mean information technology and computerization.

The evolution of NovaKnowledge is itself indicative of certain fast changes in Nova Scotia. It was started in 1993 by a half dozen low-profile leaders in the information technology sector with a bit of government help at a time when such a sector barely existed, and there were questions about whether it ever would in Nova Scotia. "Believe it or not," says Crinean, "the question we asked of companies then was: Are you aware of the Internet?"

This year, it has devised an "innovation scorecard" where companies can rate their innovativeness against the best international practices.

On the whole, NovaKnowledge shies away from making recommendations. It prefers to identify the key points that need attacking: How can we diversify our narrow export base? How can we use our ample public sector research to better effect? And so on.

Is this a formula for economic salvation? No. But someone's out there thinking about our economic state in a fresh way. We need that.