Hello world

Thanks to mrbill for sharing your pics via flickr Creative Commons

Audioboo: lift-off!

http://boos.audioboo.fm/swf/fullsize_player.swf

Geek-in-Residence: register your interest

The Geek-in-Residence is a playful term for an exciting new role as part of the Lab.  The geek will work with the festivals to identify innovation opportunities, build networks and develop projects.  It will be a part-time fixed-term contract and will suit a highly-networked individual with extensive and broad digital expertise and an interest in the creative industries and festivals in particular.  

You can find more details here and register your interest by emailing geek@festivalsedinburgh.com – and the full details/job description/application process will be live very soon 

[thanks to jez' for sharing her images via flickr creative commons]

Why Edinburgh is like the web

Last week I attended the arts/tech/learning conference called Shift Happens in York.  And was fortunate enough to be invited to be one of the speakers and what I talked about what Why the Edinburgh Festivals are like the Web:

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=rohanshifthappensv1-100707061559-phpapp01&stripped_title=why-the-edinburgh-festivals-are-like-the-web

Because my presentation style is to use minimal text with maximal chat, the slides don’t give much away but here are some of the key points [after a self-indulgent beginning]:

3 interesting things about festivals and their importance

Due to digital disruption, the music industry has seen the money move away from recorded content and move towards the live – the boom in UK music festivals is great evidence of that, as is the so-called “reunion” tours of many 80s & 90s acts…this is not due to the love of touring but more that they no longer get their pensions paid by royalties.  The Edinburgh Festival’s business models are firstly all about live and therefore are not directly disrupted by digital.  This feels very important when thinking about digital content, festivals and what innovation means.

Throughout history festivals have been an important part of ritual culture and celebration…and in particular when times are tough.  We know about so many cultures where difficult lives were punctuated by short bursts of intense celebration and festivities…originally these were religious and spiritual but in a secular age we now see these secular cultural rituals such as the Edinburgh Festivals, the World Cup and the Olympics.  And given that we now are now entering what Mr Osborne’s so-called age of austerity…perhaps festivals have never been so important

What makes a festival a festival, rather than just a single event or series of events? In my brief analysis there seem to be 4 essential elements:

1. content (programmed or invited) which typically has a theme
2. a boundary, either in time or space, which gives it specialness
3. social spaces – spaces for participants to have conversations and chance meetings
4. a marketplace – an opportunity for third parties to take advantage of these socialised spaces through sales etc

Different ppl may do different analyses but these elements sound very much like how the web is.  And that leads me nicely to…

Why Edinburgh is like the web

The more I reflect on Edinburgh and the web in the name of innovation the more I see their similarities…that they share deep features. Such as

Something about self-organisation.  Back in 1947 when the first Edinburgh International Festival was held, eight companies that weren’t invited came along anyway, sourcing their own venues and riding off the back of the official festival.  This sounds a lot like an unconference to me, a self-organising participatory event.  And of course it was the first instance of what is now known as The Fringe.  Hence my claim that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the original unconference.  

Users of the web and visitors to Edinburgh face similar challenges – another similarity.  Let’s call this the challenge of the user experience.  Both the web and Edinburgh (especially in August) contain so much amazing content that we need ways to navigate it, be that through sites like digg or Scotsman reviews.  So my question is whether Edinburgh can learn some tricks from how web content is navigated by people and apply that to the experience of being a festival-goer.

Collaboration IQ is essential.  In the good old days of business, competition was always the focus.  But now that we enjoy so much connectivity, if you are not able to collaborate well then you are not winning…collaboration is now competitive advantage.  Companies are finding all sorts of ways to work with and drive value with that they would never have done so before…you don’t have to go far into some open innovation case studies to find some good stories.  And that same opportunity has been recognised by the festivals, through Festivals Edinburgh, they now have a track record of delivering projects and initiatives which derive shared value – taking on the big challenges that are best solved together

Concluding thought 

As the Innovation Lab gets off the ground, this relationship between the features of Edinburgh and the features of the web feels like an exciting one to explore – looking at what learning and practices can be translated between the two.

Producing the future

Hot on the heels of the NESTA report comes Producing the Future by IFF and Watershed.

Subtitled Understanding Watershed’s role in ecosystems of cultural innovation, it looks to answer the question that Watershed and it’s management team of Dick Penney and Clare Reddington get asked a lot…how does the magic happen?

It’s a brilliant read alongside the more traditional NESTA report since it takes the wider view of how organisations like Watershed live in the space between different worlds – translating between what IFF call the economy of money and the economy of meaning.  The IFF or International Futures Forum have been looking at using ecological thinking to the cultural sector for a while now and this report is a good introduction to their thinking style and like the NESTA report, provide a language and a framework for talking about cultural innovation that is as complementary as it is valuable.