Leveraging Creativity

Government Policy

Welcome to this workshop session that will explore ways in which government policy can help ‘leverage’ creativity.

Before we begin, I’ll say a few words of introduction that will explain my viewpoint. I’m Janice Kirkpatrick, I’m am a founding Director of an interdisciplinary, international design consultancy based in Glasgow, Scotland.

I’m also a Director of Glasgow School of Art, a Director of The Lighthouse: Scotland’s Centre for Architecture, Design and the City and a Trustee of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. The UK’s only endowment charged with the task of supporting and encouraging creative people to fulfil their potential so that we can all benefit, economically, socially and culturally.

Can governments allocate sufficient resources and expertise to incubate and groom new creative talent?

I’ve been invited here today by the UK Department of Culture Media & Sport, as a member of the Ministerial Creative Industries Strategy Group. I welcome, and am grateful for this opportunity because I strongly believe that if our economies are to thrive we must quickly find ways of encouraging the creation of, and support for, entirely new kinds of business.

Having spent almost sixteen years running a ‘design consultancy’ I’m now told that I actually run a ‘creative industry’. It’s funny but I had the feeling that something was up when my graphics studio changed shape overnight; phototypesetting disappeared, my interior designers and architects lost most of their drawing boards, and Apple Macintosh computers began to appear. Design was not the only industry to change, all of the industries around me have changed; change touches all of us and it continues to lead us, ever more quickly into a exciting, if rather confusing future.

How can governments create an environment that encourages people to value and take ownership of ideas?

Digital technology finds me working in new ways, at odd times and strange places, and with strangers. Today I’m just as likely to employ graduates from the arts, the fine arts, humanities and business schools as I am to employ graduates from architecture or design. But, every day it gets harder and harder to find high quality people to employ. I need people with specialist and communications skills, people who are team players and who have flexible attitudes to work and life long learning. People with the experience and confidence to identify and value the necessity to take risks, because all innovation is risky business.

Do governments need to change in order to reflect our changing world?

In order to extend the capability of my company, and to ensure that we’re at the leading edge, I employ specialists such as film-makers, financial or software experts, even chefs. Often they’re employed on a job-by-job basis. I also forge informal partnerships with people and organisations that complement my own. I form joint venture companies for specific projects but I keep my core business slim, light, flexible and adaptable—because I don’t know what I’ll be doing tomorrow; and the same is true of my clients. Their future is also uncertain. They’re also interested in extending their capabilities through working with me. They judge my value by the services I offer in-house, by the quality of my knowledge and my experience, but they also judge me by the quality and depth of my business relationships and my contacts; these are additional resources that they can access through me. My clients are even becoming my business partners.

How can governments provide citizens with widespread access to the teaching of thinking skills?

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, my clients would have presented me with a brief, now I compose the brief in partnership with them. Today, my clients demand everything of us; strategy and research, risk assessments, evaluation, business advice, even education. Time spent actually designing things is the exception; sometimes, if I’m lucky, I get to make something: a brand, a book or a bit of a building. People want to pay for my ability to think creatively and productively about their businesses and I, surprisingly, find it straightforward to transfer my professional process (that of controlling the evolution of ideas), from the studio to the boardroom.

Increasingly, I’m expected to work with clients in a strategic role, where once we would have been expected to simply work for them. Increasingly our clients lack the experience, knowledge and skill and they rely on us to advise them.

How can governments build linkages between (themselves and) industry, the creative industries and the educational system?

In order to meet our clients’ expectations we continually re-educate ourselves, our employees and our clients. We invest in endless costly software updates, the constant replacement of hardware and systems, and in research, education and training. We also learn from our clients and gain detailed knowledge of their businesses. Sometimes we understand more about their businesses than they themselves do; this knowledge is of premium value and strengthens our relationship with them; we reinvest it in their businesses, or we use it to develop new partnerships and businesses of our own.

How can governments introduce incentive schemes for companies to adopt innovative and creative practices?

This massive change in the way we operate is costly for us because it takes time, and until recently, time was the only thing we had to sell.

Today we’re paid to ‘think’ as well as to ‘make’. We use our skills to create new ‘knowledge’: new products, new processes and services by working in partnership with organisations who have assets, values and visions that complement our own.

How can governments build links between (themselves and) industry, the creative industries and the educational system?

It seems that at last Art, Architecture and Design are realising their potential; they’re moving away from being secondary, service industries to become primary industries; generating new wealth through creating something from nothing. This presents Education and Industry with unprecedented challenges, including preparing school children and graduates to become employers rather than employees.

Which leads me to the so-called ‘Creative Industries’. I have to ask which industry are we talking about, because Art, Architecture and Design no longer exist in isolation. In their 1998 Mapping Document the Creative Industries Task Force describes ‘creative industries’ as: “those activities which have their origin in individual creativity, skill and talent and which have a potential for wealth and job creation through the generation and exploitation of intellectual property”. They include: advertising, architecture, the art and antiques market, crafts, design, designer fashion, film, interactive leisure software, music, the performing arts, publishing, software and television and radio. But they also, vitally, include the sciences, and partnerships between the arts and sciences.

How can governments increase the emphasis on creativity in order that we can ‘create a way forward’?

While the traditional bastions of creativity; art and design remain of value in themselves, their value is limited if they are allowed to exist only as self-referring ‘departments’. I welcome the term, ‘creative industries’, because it allows us to focus on the creative process that’s common in all we do; in both the arts and sciences, in every aspect of every subject from advertising to zoology. It also allows us to understand and value organisational, as well as individual creativity because it’s creative teams rather than individuals who will create much of tomorrow’s world.

Can governments reward innovation and encourage the protection and exploitation of intellectual property rights?

Today, I believe we share the same problems as our clients, industry in general and our governments. We are all confronted with unfamiliar opportunities and problems that need to be defined, understood, exploited or solved. We therefore need to produce creative professionals in all field of practise who can comfortably operate outside their specialisms and who can see the connections across apparently unrelated disciplines. They must have sound analytical and managerial skills, value intuition, know when to take risks and feel comfortable working as part of a multi-disciplinary team that aims to crystallise and commodify new knowledge.

The government of Singapore is already committed to expanding the teaching of creativity to occupy fully one third of the curriculum by 2020. But where will we be in 2020? Hopefully, not in Singapore. This is a tall order, but speed is a key characteristic of this third industrial revolution. In order to keep pace with it, we need people who’re educated and encouraged to create and innovate and we need them now, today, not in ten years time.

I welcome the opportunity to see if in the next 90 minutes we can come up with some processes that will help leverage creativity not just for the benefit of the economy but also for the benefit of our culture and society.

In 1997, America produced $414bn worth of books, films, music, TV programmes and other copyrighted cultural products. They became America’s number one export, outselling clothes, chemicals, cars, planes and even computers. In 1998 the UK Ministerial Creative Industries Strategy Group was formed because we know that the creative industries are an important sector in the UK economy. In 2001 they accounted for £112.5 billion pounds of revenue, employed 1.3 million people, contributed £10.3 billion to the UK balance of trade, made up 5% of our Gross Domestic Product and continue to grow two to three times faster than the rest of the economy.