The future of this blog...

After a burst of enthusiasm for this blog last year I've now let my focus drift over to my own site, daveharte.com. In fact I decided to do a personal blog partly to consolidate the writing I was doing in a few different places. But as this blog has a modest but influential readership (at least one newspaper editor and a few people in top-notch consultancies) I wonder if there's life in it yet. However, a couple of things stop me writing more often:

1. It takes a while to read, digest, summarise and then try to be witty about chunky bits of research or government strategy.
2. Since Creative Britain recognised that the Creative Industries isn't something worth legislating about there seems to be a whole lot less to digest. Or have I just taken my eye off the ball?

So what are the options for this blog?

1. Just ditch it - it had a brief moment that's now passed, pull the plug.
2. Just ditch it and promise you all that the riches over at daveharte.com (RSS feed) are worth moving across to (as long you're okay with the occasional piece about my running).
3. Reinvigorate it by calling for co-contributors, interspersing it with comment pieces as well as strategy summaries and hosting it somewhere a bit better than google blogs (would shift to self-hosted wordpress).

Any thoughts? What have you found useful about this blog and is there a way to take it forward?

4ip

Cross posted from my personal blog but of relevance here.



Yesterday saw the pre-launch of Channel 4's 4ip fund in Birmingham. I'm telling you this as although I managed to bring a notepad I completely failed to bring a pen and therefore need to write this down before it empties out of my head. Before we begin, two key things you need to bear in mind and written large on the 4ip homepage:

INTERACTIVE MEDIA, NOT TV
NETWORKS NOT BROADCASTERS

With that in mind, here's a FAQ:

What's 4ip?
Channel four investment fund to create interactive media projects with a public service benefit. The background for it is in the Next on 4 strategy stuff. £50million in total.

Why?
Ofcom are consulting about Public Service Broadcasting at the moment (phase one just closed actually). Part of that is about thinking about how broadcasters can fulfill their public service remit in ways other than showing TV programmes. It's pretty clear 4ip is Channel 4's attempt to develop a solution before one gets imposed. If it works then they'll no doubt be asking for a slice of the licence fee in future.

So they are investing in ideas? Companies?
Both. Unlike the TV commissioning model where the IP remains with the producer there is potential here for Channel 4 to take an equity stake in the company itself. Andrew Dubber thought the issue around IP ownership was vague but I read it as simply too complex to go into at an event like this - real answer is that it will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

How much will they invest?
£20k upwards to £1.5m. They hinted that there will be a small number of £1m+ projects, a decent amount of £200k-£600k projects and plenty at the £20k mark. You'll need to find 50% of the funds for your project from elsewhere - this isn't a free ride. See clarifying comment from Jason at Screen WM posted over at daveharte.com

Interactive Media? Public Service benefit? Seems a bit vague.
I know, it's great isn't it - the door's open to a whole range of ideas given that the criteria is so broad. However, don't misinterpret 'public service' as non-commercial. This is investment funding and the investors are looking for a return. As wide open as this is there should be an emphasis on where the market has failed. An example given around a project for female computer gamers made this clear. Plus, market failure is a criteria used for public sector funding support and that's what this is - public sector funding. Specifically cited were social media, web, computer gaming. 'E-drama' or brand extensions of existing TV programmes (they fund the latter seperately) is the last thing they want.

The reason for a Birmingham pre-launch?
Birmingham, because the regional development agency has put £5million into a West Midlands pot, matched by Channel 4's £5million. 'Pre'-launch, because the formal application procedure isn't set up yet and won't be till autumn. They're recruiting a Birmingham-based commissioning editor as we speak. Screen West Midlands are managing all of this so make sure you become best friends with them. There's a regional test to ensure there's a benefit to the West Midlands (spending 70% of the budget there or 50% of the talent is based there).

What about other regions?
I'm a Brummie, what do I care about other regions? Oh okay, apparently Yorkshire and Scotland are also in on the act. The West Midlands got there first though - remember that. Stuart Cosgrove was the Channel 4 rep at the pre-launch and let's not forget that he's the Nations and Regions guy at channel 4. He specifically said that there's a balance to be redressed in developing regional media economies in this way. He cited the North West and of course, London, as already having had their fair share. I'm actually unsure if that means that this is not a national fund. I suspect that the other partners mentioned (Arts Council England, Media Trust, others I've forgotten) may allow non-West Mids/Yorkshire/Scottish projects to be funded.

So I should spend the summer musing on new ideas?
Yes and no. If you've got an idea even half-formed get it known about now. There's £10million to be invested in a little over two years, that will take some spending. As I said, for the West Midlands, you need to be talking to Screen West Midlands right now about your idea so that come day one, you're at the front of the aplication queue. Talk to Jason Hall: jason.hall [at] screenwm.co.uk. Try not to be put off by what looks like a tortuous application process - this is a lot of public money we're talking about.

Where can I learn more?
The 4ip blog gives really strong hints about what they're after. Go subscribe now. If you look at some of the videos they've posted you'll learn what's in the heads of the people who will decide if your idea is green-lighted.

Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy - The Digested Read

It's a list. To be precise this is version 1.0 of the list as this is a dynamic strategy that will change as the Creative Industries change. When we started all this you probably didn't think we'd end up with just a list did you? Remember all that consultation? Anyway, the 26 commitments we've come up with are a mix of new things, filler, things you already knew about or things that won't happen for ages.

Better than listing the commitments, let's look at some themes:

1. Kids are great and way more talented than grown-ups.
   But they don't get enough culture and are a bit fat. We're giving them an extra five hours of culture that will allow them to go the the theatre, do some creative writing or make films (although actually watching films won't be allowed). If you think your region can run a pilot for this then apply here. There's also a shed load of academies and centres of excellence on their way too to keep that production line of Brit talent moving.
   


2. The right jobs for the white people
   How come, when there are two million jobs in the Creative Industries, do we always hear about too many people chasing too few jobs. And let's face it, if you want to work in the Creative Industries it's who you know, not what you know but if all you know are other white people then you've got a problem. We're putting a stop to this by creating clearer career pathways and 5,000 creative apprenticeships a year. We'll be directing more people to the diverse range of glamorous behind the scenes jobs in the Creative Industries such as, erm, administration, fixing computers and painting and decorating.
   


3. Money for Nothing
   Every other sector gets its nose stuck into research and development producing world-beating new products and spending plenty of government cash along the way. Now it's the turn of the Creative Industries: £10m for R&D, £3m for Creative Innovators, a Knowledge Transfer Network, cash from the AHRC and then further research into whether it's all worth it. If you can't innovate after all that there's no hope for you.


4. Money for Something
   Investment is everything. Companies should be growing and blossoming like sunflowers nurtured with a liberal dose of cash investments. The Arts Council should start to get its hands dirty here and we'll be making it act like a hard-nosed Dragon rather than a philanthropic old Uncle. We'll be installing some 'beacons' to point businesses to the right kind of advice and support (although only in the West Mids, South East, South West , North East & North West) and we'll set up task and finish groups (in the North West and South West) to examine if any of this creative economy stuff is actually making a difference.


5. Stop Stealing stuff
   Intellectual Property matters, we have to stop people stealing it. The record industry is losing lots of money and generally doesn't know what to do. We plan to make the Internet Service Providers responsible and if they don't behave we'll introduce legislation to force them to stop all this wanton sharing of music and films.
   


6. Cool Rule Britannia
   We really need to show the rest of the world that we do the creativity bit better than anyone else. That way we can charge more for it. We'll be staging a World conference on creative business at the same scale as Davos and the the Mayor of London can have all the support he wants for any other London-based creative festivals. We'll also support other regionally-based festivals and events, although right now we're struggling to think of any.

I'm sure you'll agree that although we've announced some regional initiatives here this strategy document is primarily about how important London is. We mention London on almost every page even though our diagram at the back indicates that the density of creative industries firms is just as great in other areas of the UK.

If you care enough to keep tabs on the growth of the creative industries and whether or not we get these many initiatives off the ground then keep an eye on the website. If you're only interested in the bottom line impact on the economy then you'll have to wait until Autumn 2010 for the 2008 Creative Industries statistical bulletin.

The digested read, digested: The time for talking is over, or just beginning, or both; who knows?

Creative Britain - Some West Midlands highlights

Creative Britain is the culmination of the government's lengthy consultation on the Creative Economy programme. For my West Midlands readers I thought it might be useful to summarise what's in it for us:

• Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company are named as two of the organisations committed to providing some of the planned 5,000 formal apprenticeships a year by 2013.
• Under 'commitment 5' ("We will encourage employers and skills providers to set up ground-breaking new innovative places of learning") the recently announced Eastside Arts Academy gets a mention as does Birmingham City University's newly acquired Skillset Media Academy status.
• There's mention of a 'Birmingham International Film Festival' (it must mean this) as something which will be better linked in to London's creative festivals and other key events around the country (Animex being the only other one explicitly mentioned)
• Digital Central gets name-checked (as do other initiatives in the South East and South West) as an useful example of a sub-regional innovation network ("these networks are particularly important at regional and sub-regional level in the fast moving world of new media")
• The West Midlands is one of five regions that will establish a 'regional beacon' for the Creative Industries. Their job will be:
  - raising awareness to ensure that the sector knows what is available and how to access it
  - forging links with specialised providers and mentors
  - developing and disseminating best practice in meeting the needs of the sector
  - assessing the effectiveness of support for the creative industries by collecting and analysing data
• The document has an emphasis on investment rather than support and with that there's specific acknowledgement of the good work done by the Advantage Creative Fund.

I plan to post I've now posted a digest of the whole document. On the whole there's not an awful lot in here that we didn't already know about. This gives some initiatives a bit of a government rubber stamp I guess.

Beyond the Creative Industries - The Digested Read

This is all about counting and about how for all these years we've been doing the counting the wrong way. All that stuff you've heard over the years about how the Creative Industries is the greatest thing slince sliced bread and will ultimately save us all has been based on poor quality counting. Now we plan to tell you the truth about the Creative Industries and you will be shocked and disturbed by what you hear. You ready? Here goes:

Our new, improved and all-round excellent counting has concluded that the original poorly counted figures were largely correct.


No, hang on it's a bit more complicated than that as we've also discovered what creatives earn. And for this one we really do have a bombshell:


In some sectors creatives earn less than the management and admin staff who support them but on the whole you'll earn more by being creative in the Creative Industries than you will working, for example, as the in-house deisgner for KPMG.


Let's tease out the salary thing a little, it's kind of interesting. We've invented a complex new way of counting called the 'Creative Trident Model' for which we've identified three different kinds of creative workers:

• Embedded - creatives working in non-creative industries
• Support - those who work in management, administration, legal or accountancy in the creative industries
• Specialists - the creatives themselves, but only those who work in a creative industries company.

We looked at census data from 1981 through to the Labour Force Survey of 2006. Our fab new counting model even allows us to compare the Creative Industries to the financial sector and to Australia where they have much better ways to count things than we do.

Of course all you really want to know is who earns the most money?

• Nearly every sector (except for music - you guys earn next to nothing) earn way more than the national average salary.
• If you're in Software, Computer Games and Electronic Publishing you earn the most (over 80% more than the average salary).
• A 'support' worker in Film, Television and Photography earns more than the creative specialist.
• On the whole specialists earn just a bit more than the staff who support them.
• Creative specialists within a creative company earn a decent amount more than the creatives in the non-creative industries.

It's worth knowing (and gloating about the fact) that on the whole the Creative Industries do turn out to be as substantial as every one says they are. Since 1981 the sector has doubled the amount of support staff but tripled the amount of creatives.


BUT: the rate of growth in the number of jobs has slowed to about 1% a year (whereas the rate for jobs in the ecnomy as a whole is about 1.2%). Worse still, salary growth has slowed to a level below that of other jobs. However, that's largely due to a downturn in the advertising industry dragging the rest down and if you work in Film, TV, Radio or Photograhy you're earnings have been going up 4.7% a year even if the amount of jobs has dropped by 1.5%.

By and large the data for counting the Creative Industries is a bit rubbish. Okay so the half-arsed guesswork that counts for government statistics wasn't far off the mark but really, we've been counting this sector for over 10 years now, a bit more accuracy would be welcomed. Here's a fab new fact that our fab new model found out:

There are more creative roles outside the creative industries than in them yet estimates of the size of the creative economy fail to take this into account.


So if we based our estimates of the Creative Industries on the amount employees earned rather than the Gross Value Added measure that's always been used then:

Instead of being 7.3% of the economy we'd be talking about the Creative Industries as having almost 10% of national earnings - not bad eh?


The digested read, digested: Creatives everywhere - it's time to stand up and be counted

Creative Economy Programme - almost here....

At long last it looks like we'll see something tangible come out of the Creative Economy Programme consultation. The DCMS CEP website announces that the strategy document launches this Friday 22nd February. For advance word on it take a look at this article in the Times.

It's worth noting that this process began with a meeting on 29th November 2005. That makes Friday's launch the culmination of an 815 day process. You could probably usefully fill the time between now and Friday by looking back over the results of that consultation:

• the summary of the working groups;
• the full reports from each of the working groups:

• Education and Skills; Competition and IP; Technology; Business Support and Access to Finance; Diversity; Infrastructure; Evidence and Analysis

• the online discussion that ensued (scroll down to comments);
• last summer's holding paper from Will Hutton;
• the proposed changes to how we count the Creative Industries;
• and of course the latest Creative Industries stats.

You're probably wondering if the new paper bears any relation to the conversation the government has had with the creative industrues over the last three years. We're wondering too and we'll be digesting the strategy document here when we get a chance. Can't wait.

Update on West Midlands Economic Strategy

See previous post for digest of the consultation draft of the West Midlands' Regional Economic Strategy (RES) but there is now a news update....

The final RES will be published on 10th December along with the Regional Spatial Strategy but there is another draft of it published online now (see bottom of this page).

So, just to update you on those all-important word counts:

• 'Creative Industries'
  Down from 6 mentions in original draft to 3 mentions in the current draft.
• 'Manufacturing'
  Up from 24 mentions to 34 mentions.
• 'Carbon'
  Up from 53 mentions to 105 mentions.
• 'Birmingham'
  Up from 59 mentions to 109 mentions.

One I didn't mention last time was:

• 'Digital'
  Up from 4 mentions to a mighty 9.

What does all this tell us? That the region's Creative Industries didn't shout loud enough during the consultation period? Maybe; or that this stuff matters less than we think (the North West's RES, for example, pays equally scant attention to the Creative Industries).

It's all in the delivery of course - the strategy comes into effect from April 2008.