Creative Britain - A nation of shopkeepers?

Vic Keegan wrote an impassioned piece recently about the creative industries in the UK.

Vic writes

When the 1850 public libraries bill was going through parliament, opposition came mainly from MPs representing the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. They were appalled at the idea of unmediated information getting to people who probably shouldn't have it and in whose hands it could even be dangerous. In 1950, the film industry defence organisation was established to buy up movies so they couldn't be shown on the new rival medium of television. These classic examples of organisations trying to thwart new competition (cited at a recent Westminster Media Forum on the creative industries by Lord Puttnam) have their equivalent in today's efforts by the music industry to throttle the growth of downloads instead of trying to harness them for its own survival.

Yeah - on the last point we have had a few things to say about that But Vic warms to his theme

But behind all this lies an urgent question: is there anything we can do to encourage the recent success of our creative industries - which now account for 7.3% of GDP, according to the Work Foundation - or should we just lie back and let luck take its course? Creative industries - embracing Harry Potter, galleries, plays, advertising, publishing, television, computer games and so forth - are becoming vital for the growth of the economy with manufacturing in decline and the financial services industry suffering turbulence from which it may not fully recover.

Its bizarre being a creative person myself that the UK one the one hand is conservative with the smallest "c" possible - Napoleon called us a nation of shopkeepers - not that I have anything against shopkeepers - but I see the comment in the context of the Le grande idea and on the other within our small island a treasure trove of creativity that we fail to truly value, nor do we fully leverage that capability, nurture it nor exploit it properly.

And this goes right into how we even educate our children from the earliest stages in life. My rant. Creativity is premised upon time, play and discipline. Which means being able ultimately to apply ones' creativity within a timeframe and context to deliver a product - a play, a work of art, a piece of commercial creativity.

Vic Keegan presses the point

This ought to be a golden age for Britain's creative industries. Historically, we have been brilliant at inventing but hopeless at exploiting. The web has hugely reduced the cost of translating ideas into businesses and the emergence of the venture capital industry ought to provide the finance to achieve it. Governments can't grow companies, but they can fertilise the soil and remove weeds that impede growth. Who could have predicted that the amateur coders who cut their teeth on the BBC B and Spectrum computers in the 1980s would move on to create one of the world's strongest computer games industries? Or that the industry would then be largely acquired by foreign companies, just as Bebo , a rare UK success in social networking, and Last.fm , the music networking site, have been? Britain's games industry has just dropped from three to four in the world league because of an exodus of talent to Canada to take advantage of tax subsidies to games developers, a problem not remedied in last week's Budget.

Like dooh - In Power Play , I outlined what many wiser than I believe will be the dominant themes of the nest 50 years. The result?

1). The fight for economic survival

2). The fight for resources

3). The fight for talent – and for the best educated young

4). The fight for the space of mind of consumers

Back to Vic Keegan who suggests there are three things we can do

First:

the government must ensure that the infrastructure is there. This includes establishing UK-wide fast, affordable broadband, including Wi-Fi. This is the equivalent of governments and industries getting together in the 1990s to ensure that GSM was a standard for mobile phones. That was the main reason Europe acquired a big competitive advantage over the US in wireless technology.

Second:

we must improve core mathematical and engineering skills to produce people who can then hone those skills to fill gaps such as the current shortage of engineers for computer games and virtual worlds. One smart suggestion is that maths teaching in schools could be linked to a career in gaming.

Third:

we need to capitalise on the amazing popularity of social networks to make it easier for people with ideas to translate them into products and services. This is already happening with music, where a video can be made for next to nothing to showcase before a potential global audience. But, as with public libraries and films in the past, one big obstacle to progress is the conservatism of current producers.

We have to stop being a nation of shopkeepers. Victorian England was an era for: great engineering, great science, great biology, great industrialisation, great creativity and great urban projects.

We need government to deliver a blueprint for how we enable our creative industries to thrive and survive in the coming years in what will become more intense competition.

Comments

[David Cushman]

Great post Al. Love the music industry example. How could that play for scientists, engineers, teachers???
Time to start talking about life! http://snurl.com/23wc2

[Alan Moore]

Dave expand your thoughts?

Alan

[ノースフェイス]

離れる前に、もっと大げさな子供が単語を落とした：私はそれは臭いチェスを再生するには、あなたのユニットを来ることはありません！

[グッチ]

同社は一般競争入札で１０年２月～１３年１月の清掃業務を委託された。委託契約書では、駅構内での喫煙を禁止しているが、火災発生の約１５分前に男性作業員が倉庫で喫煙していたことが判明。たばこの不始末が火災原因となった可能性が出ている。

　また、市交通局は２４日の市議会交通水道委員会で、市営地下鉄長堀鶴見緑地線の男性運転士（３７）が今年１月、大正駅で停車中に運転席で喫煙していたことを明らかにした。駅構内での喫煙は服務規程で禁止しており、同局は運転士を処分する方針。