Forum d'Avignon Ruhr: reINTERview with Anne Magnus and Jean-Pascale Vendeville (part 2)

The study Kurt Salmon presented at the Forum d’Avignon Ruhr in Essen is on «Cultural Investment and undertaking : from intuition to decision-making». We talked to the deliverers of the study in interview. This is the second part of it (to part one click here).

 

How can artists, creative and cultural workers who lack the self esteem of being an entrepreneur be encouraged to get into business?

 

Anne Magnus: Culture is the future.

In 2008, 8,5 million people were working in creative and cultural industries (CCI) and this represented 4,5% of EU GDP. This puts the creative industries in the same league as the automobile industry or electrical engineering in Germany for instance.

Representing an innovative sector, this growing sector could create more jobs than the financial services sector with 1.3 million people by 2013 in the UK in  the long run according to a recent report from the UK's leading business group.

But one thing is sure: the creative entrepreneurs need and want to learn more, aside from their creative expertise, basic knowledge and tools in management/marketing/IP to be empowered. Their involvement is essential at many stages; coordinating the necessary skills, securing funding, developing possible business models, defining the concepts of “marketing”, driving the “back office”, anticipating the needs and expectations of the public... all the elements which will ultimately allow designers and artists to find their audience.

We could imagine:

- to promote the establishment of cultural and creative industries platforms at a regional level to strengthen the representation and policies adressing the purple economy.

- to create meeting zones facilitating regular contact between artists, investors from large banks to business angels - large cultural industry businesses and new technology. The aim is to encourage initiatives and innovative projects.

- to devise tax incentive schemes to support “cultural entrepreneurs”.

- to create an annual prize for the most innovative cultural entrepreneur, awarded by the public and cultural industry major players in each OECD country.

 

Is digitization a chance for the arts and creative entrepreneurs  to compete with the economy, politics and finance on a level playing field?

 

Jean-Pascal Vendeville: Digital technology creates new cultural products and practices, perpetuates the effects of a cultural initiative, changes professional working practices.

For example the Château of Versailles made new technologies an important focus of its development strategy of innovation with “Versailles live”, in conjunction with Orange (image recognition, 3D videos, geolocalisation, etc). Moreover, the Château of Versailles is the first French museum to have joined the “Google Art Project”, a network of 17 museums from around the world that offers virtual visits of exhibition halls, with access to works of art in very high definition.

But the fact remains though, that the talent of artists and creators is still the basis for cultural innovation. The protection of copyright on the web is a key challenge to tackle  on a global level. Protection of copyright MEANS to protect the creative economy and to ensure fair revenues for creative entrepreneurs. It is THE condition to make digitization a sustainable chance for culture.

 

 

Michael Walzer once said: “Traditions should never be left to their conservative defenders.” What can we learn from that regarding our educational systems (schools, universities, here especially the Bologna Process)?

 

Anne Magnus: Two facts can be underlined regarding our European creative educational systems.

All around Europe, creative minds regret that the higher education system do not transfer the right skills on the entrepreneurial dimension of their future jobs. In Belgium, in another Kurt Salmon study published early 2012, we saw that a large majority of creative entrepreneurs were dreadfully missing tools and basic skills, to start a business: communication skills, management, pricing, copyright protection basics. Some creative programs are in this way inspiring: the Goldsmith University of London offers a nice mix of creativity and entrepreneurship to help the student make the big jump after studies.

Another challenge today for the higher education in Europe is the lack of “lateral thinking” and mix of profiles to speed up creativity and innovation. The school Artem in Nancy (France) mixing Arts, Technology and Management is an inspiring model.

 

The first part of this interview and the speakers´ biographies are available on our site here.

The current Kurt Salmon study on the topic is available here.

 

Since 2009, Kurt Salmon, international consultancy in strategy and change management, is a scientific partner of the Forum d’Avignon, international think tank of Culture, economy and medias.

In 2009 and 2010, Kurt Salmon published 2 studies for the Forum of Avignon analyzing the interrelation between culture and economic performance of 47 cities from all around the world. The panel suggests that territories focusing on culture have a lower and decreasing unemployment rate. Aside from the cultural barometer of cities, the cultural strategies of 13 cities (from LA to Brussels, from Mumbai to Bamako) were explored  in more details (cultural fiscal policies, clusters, festivals, cultural tourism…).