Research project on UK Maker Culture

We were recently approached by a researcher working on a very interesting project for O’Reilly media, which is all about trying to understand maker culture in the UK.  It looks very worthwhile so if you’d like to take part here is some info:

O’Reilly publishers (the people behind Make magazine, Makezine.com and Maker Faire in the US) want to understand UK Maker culture, what people need and how they could engage with and support the community.

And the research team would like to speak to:

• Makers of all sorts (hackers, craftspeople, artists, DIY-ers, etc.)
• Suppliers of products or services for Makers (e.g. rapid prototyping, laser cutting, 3D printing)
• People working in technology, creativity and innovation
• Anyone teaching or learning about physical/technological creativity
• Hackspaces and other community/grassroots groups

So if you’d like to help share your own learning and your thoughts on how you think we might grow and support the Maker community in the UK you can…

New report on Digital Audiences

This is pretty essential reading as a baseline understanding of digital audiences for cultural organisations. It’s MTM’s report on digital audiences for the arts/culture in the UK which has the very headline results that:

The findings from this report clearly show that the internet is changing the way we consume, share and create arts and cultural content and experiences. As a result of these changes, arts and cultural organisations are faced with a dizzying array of opportunities for broadening and deepening their engagement with their audiences.

The internet is a marketing and audience development tool, but also a core platform for booking tickets, distributing content and delivering immersive, participative arts experiences (be that a Twitter book club, a location based mobile app guiding us through an exhibition, or something entirely different). However, this research also shows that the direct revenue opportunities associated with many of these opportunities can be limited. Although exciting, the internet can represent additional cost without any guarantee of additional revenue: arts organisations will need to strike a balance between ambition and pragmatism when deciding where to invest their money in digital media.

One area of investment which can yield clear financial returns is marketing and audience development. The internet is a key route to finding out what is on and then filtering and planning attendance at live events. Arts organisations that are skilled in digital marketing will (all other things being equal) see more people through their doors than ones that rely on a brochureware website and email newsletters. Equally, it is important not to relegate the internet to the role of marketing channel. Our respondents saw the internet first and foremost as augmenting the live experience rather than replacing it, but this did not just mean providing listings and e-ticketing. The Leading edge segment welcome and already use the (sadly few) genuinely immersive and participative arts and cultural experiences that are already available online.

This report confirms that there is an appetite for the sector to innovate and create a new generation of experiences that take advantage of some of the internet’s unique characteristics – however challenging that may be given the current economic climate. The opportunities are exciting, but they do represent an additional cost. Arts organisations will need to strike a balance between ambition and pragmatism when deciding where to invest their mone It’s MTM’s new report

Still lots of questions and not necessarily news per se, it’s great data and worth reading.  And you can find out much more about the report, including some video here.

What’s App?

As you’d expect, 2010 is the biggest year yet for festival-related phone apps.  Earlier this year we saw the Film Festival’s app and the start of August saw the launch of the official Fringe app with the cross-festival app to be launched soon.  And on top of the official apps, there are the other festival-related apps such as iFringe and Theatre Ninjas, for which you can read a good list and review from Thom Dibdin here.

So with apps being the new black – it was great to come across this recent short report, commissioned by NESTA and written by Wired’s David Rowan which is a great little intro the app economy and the promises and the perils therein.  Particularly interesting areas are the various revenue models, the issue of which platform(s) to build on and also the challenges of getting past the gatekeepers. 

And also when thinking about the app economy in the cultural industries it’s also important to consider how to use the technology not only to provide valuable, functional services like festival event and venue information but also how can it be used for creativity and deeper public engagement – such as in projects like Hide&Seek’s Tate Trumps and life.turns which is part of this year’s Art festival and which I look forward to reporting on later this month.

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.

Culture of Innovation report

Have just started reading the Culture of Innovation report recently published by NESTA.  From a quick skim of the exec summary it’s interesting to see how the authors have classified four types of innovation:

1. innovation in audience reach
2. innovation in artform development
3. innovation in value creation
4. business model innovation

However given that it looks like the NT Live case study dominates the scope of the overall report I’m hoping that it frames innovation within a wider context than just broadcast versions of existing content.