THE NEXT LOS ANGELES / TURNING IDEAS INTO ACTION : How can we take advantage of the mosaic of entrepreneurship that makes business life so vital in Southern California? : Solutions : Give Movies a Starring Role

FROM: Jeff Berg, chairman of International Creative Management, one of the nation’s largest talent agencies.

Many familiar Southern California businesses--movies, television, telecommunications, publishing--will be redefining their operations in the next few years. And those businesses employ directly and indirectly 534,000 people and contribute $16.3 billion to the Southern California economy.

So, Berg says, it is important that Los Angeles remain a major part of the global information industry.

The area needs to do more than expedite permits for movie production. “We want a new partnership with our institutions of higher learning: Caltech, UCLA, USC, CalArts, the Cal State schools, the Claremont Colleges,” says Berg.

REALITY CHECK:

Universities are already focusing on information sciences, but they are also chronically short of money. The entertainment industry could endow more academic chairs and companies could gain big public relations points by donating time and money.