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Lord Puttnam: The challenge for the creative industries

Nick | 10 Feb 2009, 12:22

C&binet comment: David Puttnam discusses how the creative economy can flourish in the current economic climate

Our creative industries are taking on a greater-than-ever degree of importance in these extremely challenging times.  They are also being transformed by the impact of digital technologies.

Lord Carter’s recent report on Digital Britain addressed the consequences of those changes – and in particular the potential of broadband technologies to in effect transform our lives.

As Lord Carter recognised, for the creative industries the transition from the analogue age to a digital one represents a huge opportunity.  But like all such transitions, it also presents considerable challenges for formally successful, and frequently complacent, incumbents - many of whom are still struggling to find ways to make money from distributing content on the internet.

But in this respect there are one or two interesting lessons to be learned from recent history – epitomised perhaps by an organisation which rejoiced in the name of FIDO - the Film Industry Defence Organisation – a seemingly ‘brilliant’ idea dreamed up in the mid 50’s by British film companies; whereby a pool of money was created, sufficient to buy the television rights to all American and British movies in order to prevent them from ever appearing on television; and in doing so, crush television at birth!

Fortunately, our creative industries have shown just a tad more foresight than those who sought to run the British film industry as a cosy duopoly in the 50’s and 60’s.

But my central point holds good – our existing strengths will count for little if we do not actively embrace the evolution of the media, and seize every scrap of advantage from it.

Yet despite the myriad changes which digital technology is bringing to our creative industries, it’s also worth remembering that a few ‘fundamentals’ remain remarkably consistent.

I would broadly place these in three categories: talent, opportunity and distribution.

Let me say a little about each; first of all – ‘Talent’.

I was enormously encouraged by the emphasis the Digital Britain report laid on skills and talent. As Lord Carter put it:

“We cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century.“

I completely agree. 

One of the great successes of this Government in recognising and promoting the UK’s Creative Industries, has been the attention paid to maintaining and strengthening the talent and skill base, through enhanced education and training at every level.

If I’ve one disappointment, it’s that there appears to have been little in the way of a matching commitment from many private sector employers.

An abundance of talent of every kind is the only certain way of ensuring a bright future for the whole of the sector;  combine that with a consistent supply of world class skills and you’ve held down costs whilst creating what would seem to me, an unbeatable combination.

Maybe it’s because this is self-evident that it gets so little mention, but if it is so self-evident why do I get the sense that many employers, who honestly should know better, seek to evade or avoid their very obvious responsibilities in this area?

If we fail to invest in talent for the future, we will very quickly fall behind other nations in seizing the potential offered by the digital universe.

By way of an example, I’m very fortunate in being able to visit Singapore a couple of times a year in my capacity as an adviser to their Media Development Agency.  There I listen to advanced plans to ensure that 2 gigabits of connectivity are available, business to business by 2015 at the latest.  Meanwhile we in this country are giving serious thought to making 2 megabits generally available. hat is in effect, 1,000th of the ambition of the Singapore Government. 

Clearly one of these two options is barmy.  I’ve a nasty feeling that, in our ingrained desire to ‘make do and mend’ it could be us!

Turning to the second of my ‘fundamentals – ‘Opportunity’.

You don’t have to be a genius to realise that talented people will always need a plurality of doors at which they can knock in seeking acceptance, or recognition, of the skills and ideas they have to offer.

In an ideal world, the gatekeepers at each of those doors will be open to original ideas and concepts, and have sufficient expertise to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff; although I would suggest that it’s also a good idea to take a second look at the ‘chaff’ – the history of our creative industries is full of examples of eventual success greeting once rejected ideas.

Our present system isn’t bad; but with an exponentially increasing number of platforms and opportunities we must ensure that the ‘funnel’ that takes ideas into projects and programmes is not allowed, for whatever reason, to narrow.

Imaginative commissioning and creative risk taking have been among the great strengths of our creative sectors, but I’d like to see those same qualities applied to the development of concepts and content that contains sufficient ambition to interest and excite audiences outside of this country, audiences that don’t necessarily share the more parochial of our cultural concerns.

Lastly – ‘Distribution’.

I could offer a blizzard of facts about the way in which the global appetite for content of all types has enlarged and extended in a digital world.

What’s absolutely certain is that today’s global marketplace already offers more commercial possibilities for well made content than have ever previously existed.

If we are absolutely honest, we in the UK have always been far better at creating ideas and products than marketing them. If we are to succeed in the new global marketplace we have to become far better at aligning our traditional strengths with the disciplines and opportunities that marketplace demands.

This ‘trinity’ of strengths – talent, opportunity and distribution – served us well in an analogue age, and given the right encouragement, has the potential to serve us even better in the digital era we’ve now entered.

It’s my belief that an economy based on our creative industries is considerably more sustainable in the long-term than one based on credit default swaps.  Or, as Lord Turner, the chair of the FSA put it in his Economist Lecture recently:

“Not all innovation is equally useful. And in the years running up to 2007, too much of the developed world’s intellectual talent was devoted to ever more complex financial innovations.”

Over more years than I care to remember I, and other so-called ‘luvvies’ have been accused of promoting ‘fluffy’, or at best ‘marginal’ sectors of the economy like film, broadcasting and design, at a time when more hard-headed ‘realists’ insisted that our true future lay in the area of ever-more sophisticated financial instruments and services.
Well, it turns out that those self same ‘financial instruments’ were the very first things to give way when the global economic storms began to rage out of control.
Our intellectual property, on the other hand, if we carefully nurture and develop it during these hard times, could well prove to be one of the crucial drivers of growth for UK plc going forward.

I think there’s broad political agreement here.

Certainly regarding our policy ambitions – if not always, perhaps, the means of achieving them.

Digital Britain provides an invaluable roadmap for the future, and we all need to step up to the plate and ensure that we really do seize the opportunity to maximise the economic and cultural benefits of our creative industries in a digital era.

The launch of c&binetforum.org

C&binet | 20 Nov 2008, 19:01

By Andy Burnham

Welcome to c&binetforum.org, the website for c&binet – a new forum to debate the opportunities and pressures common to innovative, creative businesses.

Our aim is simple: to maximise the economic power of creativity through better dialogue between the creative and commercial worlds.

But, in the digital age, that dialogue must be international if we’re to find durable answers to the key questions, such as:

How best to protect and exploit intellectual property?

How to raise finance for innovation and where to find commercial partners?

How to unlock talent on an international scale?

How to find new ways for the public and private sectors to work together?

On an international level, this debate has lacked focus and leadership. C&binet aims to change that.

It seeks to promote dialogue at every level – business to business, business to government, government to government – commensurate with the growing importance of creative industries in the new world economy.

Twenty-three influential and internationally-respected figures – names such as Nicholas Coleridge, Satjiv S Chahil, Tom Dixon, Nancy Tellem, Jatin Das and Jocelyn Stevenson – have agreed to act as global c&binet ambassadors, leading the debate.

I will be contributing to this website regularly. As the debate unfolds, and as this website grows, I expect the ambassadors – and other guest bloggers – to provide insight and direction. You will also find industry news, relevant articles and think-pieces here, and opportunities to comment and contribute yourselves.

As the founding hosts and funders of c&binet, my department expects to spend more time listening than talking – and, in time, to relinquish ownership so that c&binet becomes an active network owned by the creative community and run on a not-for-profit basis.

Tonight, c&binet ambassadors will meet for the first time in Liverpool, the European Capital of Culture, at an event I am hosting with Barbara Follett, the Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism.
We will be laying plans for the first c&binet annual conference, set for October 2009. The aim, in time, is to create one of the most significant and relevant events in the international business calendar – a Davos for the creative industries.

Thanks for reading – I hope you find the site interesting and informative. I look forward to your contributions.

Branding c&binet

C&binet | 20 Nov 2008, 11:47

By Martin Lambie-Nairn

Creating c&binet was a really interesting process because the brief was to create a brand that works for me and pretty much everyone I’ve ever worked with. I’m someone who built a business – Lambie-Nairn – that sells creativity. And now I’m trying it all over again with MLN, starting from scratch.  So what could c&binet do for me?

There’s so much excitement around this project that the first challenge when we got the brief was to strip away all the peripheral ideas and focus on the basic elements. We needed to say, in as few words as possible, what it’s for and what it will do.

So here’s what we got it down to:

The reason c&binet exists is to act as a catalyst between creativity and commerce – to make things happen. What it will do is drive the growth of the creative economy by unleashing the power of creativity.

So the brand celebrates the power of creativity. It’s something I believe passionately in.

And it’s a meeting place for the whole of the creative economy – not only “creatives” but people with the ideas, money and commercial scale to make things happen.

There were some other things we had to keep in mind too. Although born in the UK, it’s an international network which will have an international perspective. That meant we weren’t going to be draping it in the Union Jack.

And this is a property that will be owned by creative people themselves. So it had better be good.

A brand has to work on an objective basis, not just a subjective one. It doesn’t matter if someone thinks the name sounds silly or the logo’s the wrong colour – nothing’s more worrying to a brand consultant than when the client announces at the start of the process that they dabble in art and have a few thoughts of their own (I’m happy to say that didn’t happen in this case).

What matters is whether it does what it needs to do, set against some definable criteria.

Before we developed c&binet, we drew up a list of things the brand had to be able to do – some technical, some strategic. If you can agree the criteria in the brief and you come up with a solution that ticks all the boxes, then you know you’re on to something. With c&binet, we knew we were on to something very early on.

C&binet suggests people coming together. The ampersand is the expression of that process – sitting between the ‘c’ of creativity and the ‘b’ of business.  All of the design work featuring the brand will use the ampersand to link images which symbolise creativity and commerce.

Over time, the “Creativity and business international network” bit will fade and the brand will simply exist as c&binet, with the ampersand becoming more and more prominent.

And is it any good?  I hope so. But creating the brand is only the first step. The name and the logo are just a badge. The next – and more important – bit is to live up to the brand values. For c&binet, the test will be whether it does bring people together in new ways, start new conversations and give birth to new creative enterprises.

This site is part of that brand promise, so I’m delighted to be one of the people getting the conversation started.