Mudlarks are the makers

Some of us here are still basking in the glow of President Obama's inauguration speech. We particularly liked the bit where he said: "it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things...who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

"That's us!", we collectively cheered. "We take risks. We do stuff. We make things. We're an engine for growth and freedom, absolutely."

Despite the Valley's enormous capacity for self-regard, there is some truth in this. What's interesting is the entrepreneurial culture embedded in the Valley's DNA is only a part of a much broader Bay Area creative scene.

That includes the IT software and hardware geeks working in local garages. In other garages are surgeons making new tools and microbiologists tinkering with DNA.

They may even make money one day. But then there are the open-source believers improving software, editing wikis, creating Google map mash-ups, all for free. Many do both.

Plus they're probably working on a chopped-down bike or remote-control couch to take to this year's Burning Man. Their buddies in San Francisco or Oakland might use steamrollers to make art prints or play punk bluegrass.

It's all interlinked. You can throw in two powerhouse universities (Stanford and Berkeley), an outdoors culture that pioneers extreme sports, and a counter-cultural tradition going back to the Beats and the result is a vibrant creative scene.

It even has a name: "maker culture" and it embraces everything from fine art to DIY, hard science to playing in the mud.

It's something people who try to create Silicon glens, fens or fjords too often forget.

The Valley's hi-tech economic hits emerge from this regional creative soup. You need it all to be genuinely, and sustainingly, economically creative.

Okay, now we're getting worried. Andale, Palo Alto's best taqueria, closed suddenly this week.

Nothing like being denied your favourite burrito to make you accept that this really is a recession.