The Birmingham City Centre Masterplan: The Visioning Study - The Digested Read

The digested read, digested: Birmingham, If you make it here, you can make it anywhere. Now go buy a t-shirt.

Staying ahead: the economic performance of the UK’s creative industries - The Digested Read

You were expecting something else weren't you? Not red but green? Well, you'll have to wait as there's a new boy in the top job and we're not really sure how this is all going to pan out.

I'm Will Hutton and the Creative Industries drive me bonkers. I've been asked by the government to distract you from the lack of progress on policy by regurgitating some three year old statistics and putting it in a report that's so long I guarantee you'll never be bothered to get to the end of it. It's got lots of tables in it and tons of stats and every now and again I say something really insightful. And before we go any further I've been asked to point out how great Doctor Who is.

Anyway, first thing to say is that we are really proud of our stats, they're big and fat and meaty. Take this one for a start:

Stat one: The Creative Indutries are as valuable as the Financial Sector. That's 7.3% of GVA.

LIke it? Go on have another:

Stat Two: We employ 1.8 million lovies.

You man enough to take another one? 'Ave some of this:

Stat Three: We're growing faster than the economy as a whole

Hang on, that last one is kind of true but if you look closely you'll find that growth in the creative industries is like a rollercoaster, sorry I mean it's cyclical. Actually it's pro-cyclical. When the economy dips we dip big-time and when it grows we grow big, big-time.

And that's about it really. What? You want to know what's in the other 277 pages? What happened to the endless consultation on a range of topics we did with seemingly the entire UK creative sector? Well don't worry, we've listened to your concerns and put them in pride of place in an appendix at the back. Actually, that section at the back is worth a read as it concerns my favourite subject:

Why measuring the Creative Industries is really, really difficult:

1. They don't follow standard industry employment classifications. For example, the DCMS doesn't give an official firgure for the Video and Computer Games sector and can't do until a new code comes into force in 2009.
2. Although we've got a catergory for 'design' the government don't actually have an accurate way to count it. Instead, like in many other areas, we rely on third party figures. In this instance they come from the ‘Design Industry Valuation Survey’ but they're not comparable with the way we collect data for other sectors and we don't trust them as far as we can throw them.
3. And if you work in 'multimedia' or 'interactive design' or anything remotely web-based then you might be tucked away under publishing or software services or might even be part of advertising.

Overall though everything is okay. Just look at our glossy case studies, they prove it. The Rolling Stones, Kylie at the V&A, kiddies watching flims - it's all marvellous. No really, I may be a bit grumpy about all this but the creative industries are important and we ignore them at our peril. To be serious for a moment, it's now the job of government to learn how to count, to give clear guidance on fundemental issues like copyright and above all shift from a culture of subsidy and grants for the creative industries to one of investment and growth.

The Digested Read, digested: The Long and Winding Road

Creating Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship education for the creative industries - The Digested Read

SCENE ONE:

INT. UPSTAIRS IN A FASHIONABLY DISTRESSED WAREHOUSE
Five shadowy figures are seated against a window. To their right are small tables piled high with cash. NESTA and ADM-HEA enter via the staircase stage left.

NESTA:
Hello, I'm not quite a quango

ADM-HEA:
And I'm not quite a university

NESTA:
Today we'd like to pitch to you on behalf of all the Art, Design and Media students in the UK. We're asking for significant investment on their behalf as they're all a lot better at this entrepreneurship malarky than they get credit for. What's more, people like you and your other sharp-suited friends are giving enterprise a bad name.

ADM-HEA:
Exactly, we're a sensitive bunch and you lot are a bit scary. Hang on, I feel a drawing coming on. Good isn't it. That's exactly the kind of thing we excel at making money at - drawing.

NESTA:
And painting, and filming things, and taking photographs, and erm, designing stuff. In fact being entrepreneurial comes naturally to us creatives as it's in the way we're taught. You see we learn by doing, sometimes we might read a fancy book or two but for the most part we just get on with it and do it.

ADM-HEA:
All we're proposing is that a few things change in order for us to do justice to the latent potential in our student population. Firstly, stop measuring and watching us - it's irritating and counter-productive. Also, stop arguing, it does my head in.

NESTA:
The main point though is not to go mentioning entrepreneurship in passing at the end of a lesson. Students really do need separate lessons in 'how to overcharge for mediocre design' and 'how to never earn enough to have to pay back your student loan.'

ADM-HEA:
In drawing our pitch to a close we'd like to add that in case you forgot, the Creative Industries is just about the fastest growing industry we've got in this country. We'll grow the investment you give us today quicker than you can say Rachel Elnaugh.

Scottish Dragon leans forward in his seat.

DRAGON:
I started with one ice-cream van and now I run a few gyms so I know what I'm talking about - this could be big, we're in.

The Digested read, digested: Art & Design, you're hired!

West Midlands Economic Strategy Draft - The Digested Read

Now pay attention - we'll be asking questions later. In fact we'll be asking questions as we go along but they all generally ask the same thing: "what do you think of this bit? Any good? Want to help?" We're trying to influence £120 Billion here so hopefully you can be bothered to respond to this and you've got until July 31st 2007 to do it.

We're Advantage West Midlands and we kick ass. What we say influences pretty much everything that happens in the West Midlands economy. Okay, so of that £120 Billion we can only directly influence £2.24 Billion, partially influence £23 Billion and the rest we haven't got a hope in hell of influencing. But don't stop reading - because we matter and what we have to say is very scary indeed.

1. For the most part everyone else is better than us. We're below average in Skills, in Innovation, in Business Productivity, in Educational Attainment and Birmingham isn't pulling its weight. Not that we're the worst overall but it ain't good. At least we've got Solihull though - they're the most productive people in the region (and we're really obsessed with productivity).



2. Yes we know manufacturing is on the decline but we're going to talk about it a lot more (24 mentions) than those new fangled creative industries (6 mentions). Let's not get bogged down in bickering though as all we need are more entrepreneurs exploiting our knowledge assets. No we're not sure what that means either but we educate lots of graduates and most of them bugger off after their degree. Please stay, please.... Generally though, as long as you're not killing the planet you're fine by us (carbon: 53 mentions).



3. Birmingham - we need you but you gotta sort your shit out. Without you we're nothing. We were a bit shy about saying it before but we now realise that noone really knows where Uttoxeter is, or even cares. We're a big region and you're our clogged but still beating cultural heart. If we get the world to believe in you then they'll believe we're the world class region our vision says we are.



4. Our vision: now we used to think we could be a world-beater at making everybody wealthy but we were a bit hasty and we now we just want to be "succesful" at making people wealthy since the stats show we've not been particularly succesful at it so far (although don't forget we only influence about a fifth of total spend in the region - it's not all our fault). But if we can pull it off you too could be drinking cappucino by the canal like our friends on the cover. Those canals are in Birmingham by the way - our beating cultural heart, did I mention that already? (59 times).

There's more of course but it involves lots of acronyms, and summaries of strategies I bet you never knew existed from a series of organisations you never knew you needed. Once we've read your responses and we're back from our summer holidays we'll be reprinting this report without the word 'draft' in it and with a binding that will last a lot longer than the current one as we won't be consulting with you again until 2011.

The digested read, digested: Working from the middle outwards; slowly.