Cross Innovation A Report on Local Best Practice
‘Innovation consists of the successful production, assimilation and exploitation of novelty in the economic and social spheres.’1 ‘By the term cross innovation we understand a process by which creative industries share information, collaborate and work with other growth sectors to promote new thinking.’2
What is Cross Innovation?
Cross Innovation (www.cross-‐innovation.eu) is a project exploring collaborative and user-‐driven industrial partnerships that occur across industrial sectors, organisational, technological and geographic boundaries. The focus of the project is on the creative and cultural industries in particular and concerns the kind of policies, practices and support measures that enable cross innovation and creative spillovers between this sector in relationship with other industries. As a result of this exploration, the project seeks to collate insights and to build resources that will aid in the further promotion of cross innovation as a means of aiding the economies and cultural circumstances of project partners. The project partners comprise 11 European cities where ideas and realities of cross innovation can be explored: Birmingham, Amsterdam, Rome, Berlin, Tallinn, Warsaw, Vilnius, Stockholm, Linz, Lisbon, and Pilsen. In considering cross innovation, each of these partners has a role to play in promoting practices for local and regional policy agendas across Europe. The objectives of the project in informing practice aim to break down compartmental or ‘silo-‐thinking’ that sometimes characterizes relations (or their absence thereof) between departmental, sectoral and technological borders -‐ both in industry and in policy making. Working towards the achievement of this goal, the project promotes greater collaboration between policy makers as well as the development of flexible and demand-‐focused support instruments. 1 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/other/n26021_en.htm 2 From: Appendix: Cross Innovation Factsheet
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Objectives build upon a research-‐base that, for the project’s initial phases, examines existing and innovative local practices that enable cross innovation and indeed, the very understanding and conceptualization of this concept.
Reporting on local cross innovation practices
Project partners have solicited details of 44 projects that are taking place in their locality and which investigate and evidence ‘best practice’ in cross innovation. The aim of this report is to survey the knowledge base presented in these various case studies as a means of generating reflection on the meaning of cross innovation and the variety of ways in which the project partners and the projects they have consulted with have conceptualized its meaning and manifestation. This exploration has been guided by four themes that have been formulated as a means of thinking about ways in which cross-‐innovation might work. These themes are: Smart Incentives. This theme refers to innovative modes of finance that by design, or as a consequence, trigger cross-‐collaboration. For instance, these incentives might take the form of vouchers, crowd funding, and research grants or ‘in-‐kind’ contributions of resources. Culture-‐based Innovation. This theme refers to ways in which practices and thinking characteristic of the creative and cultural industries are introduced to the public sector and other industries. Brokerage. This theme refers to services offered by agencies that facilitate connections between sectors and individual firms where none previously existed. Spatial Cross-‐Collaboration. This theme refers to methods for supporting cross innovation in spatial terms. This might take the form of co-‐working spaces, incubators, ‘Fab-‐Labs’, science parks or formal/informal local clusters of businesses. While project partners champion practices characterized by these themes, each is engaged in the project in order to better understand the potential of cross innovation. This report is a means of exploring this process, sharing best practice, attending to local conditions and exploring the transferability of ideas. In this evaluation then, consideration has been given to potential ‘gaps’ and modes of categorizing the work captured in the case studies that might aid the ultimate purpose of promoting cross innovation as a means of informing policies 2
and planning for the creative sector and for cross innovation across partner cities and the EU. To further learn about these themes, the partnership has initiated a participative programme of experience exchange events, including ‘cross innovation policy clinics’ to improve local initiatives. In addition, ‘cross innovation with SMEs’ runs throughout the project. It examines how local support can enable companies that operate in co-‐working spaces and incubators to collaborate in order to develop their products and services for other markets and overcome EU market fragmentation. The report has been written as a public document that allows for non-‐specialised audience assessment and responses as well as feedback from project partners as well as those behind the case studies represented here. It seeks to ‘think through’ the nature of cross innovation and the variety of ways in which these case studies represented here speak to and test the central premise. In this sense, the report is very much a working document and the author welcomes suggestions, corrections and critique as a means of developing the role of this analysis in the project and its wider purview.
Generating and interpreting cross innovation case studies
Sourcing and presenting case study information There are a number of issues to acknowledge here that underline the nature of this report as an early assessment of the cross innovation enterprise. As mentioned, 44 case studies have been collected across each of the 11 partner cities. In each case, a partner institution has identified a project and explored its details through the completion of an information collection template. In each case, the questions posed asked for details about the project: its title, inception date, the names and details of project partners involved and the character of the work in which each is involved. Projects were scrutinized in terms of the issues or problems each sought to address and the degree to which they addressed ‘silo thinking’ and/or helped to nurture ‘spillovers’ between sectors. In each case, the project partner responsible considered the nature of innovation characterising the project in relation to the four guiding themes of space, finance, culture and brokerage. Finally, each partner considered how, based upon what had been achieved thus far, the case and collaboration might be developed and improved. The source material for all 44 case studies can be found on the project website. In this instance, given the apparent variety between presentations, the first aim 3
has been to extract and present salient details in each case. These re-‐ presentations attempt to account for all of the contributions in as transparent and readable a fashion as possible. Any unevenness in the amount of detail can be accounted for in terms of the degree to which the cases address the core themes of the research.
Approach to evaluation
Methodologically, the approach taken has been interpretative and evaluative. In proceeding, it is useful to outline some challenges and issues of parity presented in the gathering and interpretation of such a wealth of qualitative evidence concerning cross innovation between creative and other industries. First, the concept of the creative sector and indeed of the boundaries of industrial sectors has a variety of meanings across the partner cities, for the national bodies they work with alongside structures of the EU. This is a common feature of attempts to make sense of the creative and cultural industries in particular, especially to the degree that they intersect with and diverge from a wider concept of the knowledge economy and digital sectors. Secondly, the interpretation of cross innovation takes on a variety of characteristics in each city in terms of each project captured for consideration. Each case study represents a local interpretation of the terms of reference for cross innovation. This has generated examples where researchers have sought to locate projects within the boundaries of the themes guiding the initial approach to cross innovation. Sometimes, the result of this approach suggests that the nature of these projects seems either fluid – they speak to a variety of the themes -‐ or indeed pose challenges for thinking of cross innovation in too definitive a manner – it is hard to see how they fit in at all in any definition of the concept so far conceived. These issues are discussed below in passing but suffice to say here that the interpretative approach taken seeks to outline the detail of each case presented in order to qualify the analysis of each case on its own merits. This approach does not seek to judge each case study in any absolute terms of its fit to an a priori ideal but rather to use empirical detail in order to assess the utility and practice of cross innovation as concept and term. 4
The primary questions guiding the analysis of this report into these case studies are: 1) How have the four key themes identified as characteristic of cross innovation been expressed or captured (space, culture, brokerage and finance)? 2) What kinds of ideas about innovation emerge? 3) What kinds of commonalities are discernible across the case studies and how are these balanced by overt distinctions in practice, geography and culture? 4) What trends can be observed across the case studies? 5) Are there any ‘gaps’ in the terms of the kinds of case studies selected, in approach and themes? 6) What questions are raised about the utility of the term ‘cross-‐innovation’ for understanding these cases studies? How might it be applied for thinking of policy and for the procurement of creative services? The approach of this report is one of detail and synthesis. While mindful of the variety of perceptions of concepts of creative work and cultural organisations across the partnership, what follows brings the case studies together under the four conceptual themes. Reports from various partners sit alongside each in contrapuntal fashion, inviting comparison. Where appropriate, subheadings give a sense of some thematic aspects that are discernible in the amalgamation of detail. As with the approach here which seeks overall to test the concept of cross-‐ innovation, readers and correspondents will bring their own comments and suggestions to bear upon this in order to refine a further iteration.
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Report and Analysis
Culture-‐Based Innovation
Culture-‐based innovation refers to how practices associated with cultural and creative organisations and the production of what are understood to be primarily creative works and processes are introduced into public sector institutions and wider commercial enterprises with a view to triggering innovation. What kinds of creative flow, inspiration, innovation and practice have been captured here then? Digital commerce, technology and the online/offline experience. Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room While digital marketing and delivery of goods offer new economic models and potential gains for producers, there are significant disparities between online and offline worlds with regards to the experience of shopping for certain items and engendering trust and satisfaction amongst consumers. There are particular issues for online apparel retailers for instance as this sector has the highest return rate in e-‐commerce as an average of 1 in 4 garments brought online are returned to retailers. For fitted and more expensive individuated fashion items, the return rate can reach 40%. Most of the returns are due to bad fit and as fashion is seasonal, such returns present a very high cost for retailers. Summer apparel, sold in August, and returned in October, is difficult to resell at any price. Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room is a project that addresses this problem by offering a virtual fitting room. Fits.me was launched in 2010 and is based in Estonia and London. It is a private company backed by Enterprise Estonia and the Estonian Development Fund. It emerged from a collaboration between partners with a diverse range of expertise and skills including apparel design, graphic and user-‐interface design, anthropometrics, IT, robotics and engineering. The Fits.me technology was developed by the Laboratory of Intelligent Materials and Systems at Estonia’s Tartu University and The Centre of Bio-‐robotics of Tallinn Technical University. These organisations worked in international partnership with Human Solutions GmbH – a leading provider of anthropometrical data in Germany and the University of Bologna, Italy. Based in biorobotic and scientific algorithms, the project uses robotic mannequins that are capable of shape shifting into almost 100,000 different types of body so as to enable consumers to visualise how different sizes and styles of clothing might look on their physique before they purchase garments. 6
Emulating the physical fitting room, consumers are able to see the actual fit of a piece of clothing based on their own unique measurements. From its inception, Fits.me has been an associated member of the Tallinn Creative Incubator (see below) where a culture of collaboration and cross innovation aided in its progression. Like this innovation, the incubator was in receipt of Estonian Development Fund investment. This fund has an objective of aiding the international online presence and sales of enterprises. Thus, this innovation and the problems it addressed has been explored by a range of international clothing companies that have a firm e-‐commerce presence such as Barbour, Pretty Green, Otto, Ermenegilda Zegna and Dunhill. Significantly, the Fits.me service has so far been compared to Skype in terms of its technological innovation and potential reach to the 26 billion dollar online fashion market. Lukáš Bellada The work of Pilsen’s Lukáš Bellada can be compared with Fits.me here, as he is expert in interactive surfaces, augmented reality and computer game development. Bellada produces interactive software and hardware that reacts to human activities. Examples include the use of virtual graffiti, head tracking and avatars, and projects in which people are able to affect projected objects with their presence. His ideas are employed in marketing activities for companies in which innovation is manifest in interactive and dynamic advertisements that make use of large-‐scale work spaces and which enable the cooperation of numerous people in situations such as managerial meetings. In this instance it is perhaps the high cost of this offer that determines the degree to which he advises that ‘partners of our enterprise are our clients, customers and all those who create the demand for our product.’ Innovating with digital technology, online cultures and practices Digital Life Sciences and the Maverick Television Consortium We continue here with a series of projects that are based in an understanding of contemporary online cultures and related creative practices and applications. In the UK, Digital Life Sciences Ltd is a Birmingham-‐based company which designs, develops and distributes digital solutions in response to challenges in the health sector. The challenge that it deals with is that healthcare demand is outstripping available funding in the UK. Thus, it suggests that alternative and innovative models of healthcare delivery are needed which can improve upon the efficiency of traditional practices, maintain quality and offer greater personalisation of services. 7
For this organization, an address to current challenges lies in developing alternatives to habitual healthcare processes, clinical and patient interactions. Digital Life Science’s products and services take a cue from contemporary online cultural practices and are specifically designed to break down the barriers between healthcare consumers, providers and staff. The aim is to empower the consumer in order to provide insights that change health organisations and so feed transformations in the workforce and their practices. Digital Life Sciences represents the Maverick Television Consortium, which includes member businesses Clever Together LLP, Illumina Digital Ltd. Maverick TV, is a media producer which itself is innovating beyond its familiar cultural boundaries in this and other projects. Since 2008, the consortium has worked on a number of projects with the public sector National Health Service (NHS). This list offers a wealth of evidence of how Digital Life Sciences has innovated across sectors and includes: • NHS local – the digital health service for the NHS in the West Midlands; • Year Zero – a TSB (Technology Strategy Board) programme to deliver an eRedbook, (i.e. an official log which monitors childhood development and health); • Living it Up – delivering assisted living in Scotland; • Patient feedback apps – giving real time feedback capabilities to the NHS; • Personalised Care Planning – an online environment for patients with long term conditions; • Performance and Opinion – an online environment for patients to engage in heath service performance in real time; • Managing Scientific Careers – an online service to support practitioners to develop their careers. As a result of its activities, the consortium suggests that the health market needs to catch-‐up with its ideas, particularly from the perspective of procurement. It contends that, at the moment, healthcare commissioning does not offer incentives to clinicians to procure the kind of efficient digital alternatives to face-‐ to-‐face traditional models of delivery suggesting that public service health culture requires some rethinking in light of the possibilities of contemporary cultural practice. HE-‐STEM Interactive Multi-‐Touch Table The development and use of a piece of technology called the HE-‐STEM Interactive Multi-‐Touch Table has involved collaboration between a set of agents from distinctly different areas of activity. These are Clusta Ltd (an ‘Interactive Agency’ with 24 employees), the University of Birmingham (the project owner), Junction 8
Media Ltd (responsible for content production) and the National Space Centre (exhibition partner and owner of the project equipment). Together, these partners address particular issues for UK pedagogical practice concerning the claim that topics in Higher Education Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (HE-‐STEM) are traditionally poorly understood and presented, particularly amongst pre-‐University undergraduate candidates (i.e. teens, aged between 14-‐18 years). The technology is employed to offer a dynamic and attractive platform for addressing a core teen audience and their parents/adult-‐representatives. It is populated with bespoke content designed to speak directly to their concerns and anxieties as pre-‐University candidates. This is achieved through the presentation of topics, examining potential career paths and explorations of a day-‐in-‐the-‐life of real-‐world advocates who have successfully pursued a career in HE-‐STEM. Via the table’s 50-‐inch multi-‐touch interactive interface, users can explore subjects, courses, universities and career options, as well as view and listen to the anecdotes of real-‐world HE-‐STEM professionals. The interface has been specifically designed for multiple users, thereby encouraging sharing of information and fostering discussion about the various courses, subjects, advocates and so on. Users can also elect to receive a ‘take-‐home info pack’ email sent directly from the table to their personal account. The table then is itself an innovative means of exploring and discovering information that, to be effective, must elicit innovations in content design and produced for use in this format. Thus, a key aspect of this project’s cross innovation lies in bringing together technologists and designers who understand the scope and function of particular types of material and its presentation in such digital platforms. Such experts comprehend how the table can be effectively aimed at particular audiences, taking advantage of contemporary cultural consumption practices. Likewise, the technology relies upon the expertise of HE experts in presenting their insights in an engaging manner in the context of this platform to address potential users. SmartGateCargo The Game Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is a major transport hub for moving goods. Its aim is to create a safe, innovative and undisturbed chain for the flow of the goods that pass through the airport into the Netherlands and on to other destinations by air. The combination of growing cargo volumes, mounting security requirements and ever more complicated government inspections poses new challenges for the air cargo industry. In particular the increasing social pressure on inspections regarding areas such as security, food safety, animal health, plant 9
diseases, strategic goods and environmental requirements are making the situation ever more complex. Dutch Customs, Schiphol Airport and Air Cargo Netherlands (CAN) have initiated an innovative public-‐private collaboration for enforcing border legislation referred to as Schiphol SmartGate Cargo. This allows for digital monitoring of cargo and, in the case of perceived risks, a one-‐stop physical inspection of goods leaving the EU. SmartGate Cargo has also been translated into a ‘serious game’ that draws upon the attractions of digital culture and aims to create understanding and insight into the operational chain of this cargo flow. Gameplay demonstrates the consequences of transporting ‘green’ and ‘red’ freight and works also in the guise of broker by involving participants in new ways of working and learning. SmartGateCargo The Game targets employees and interested parties at Schiphol. Playing the game offers players insight into the workings of the chain system and in the benefits of using the services of SmartGate Cargo. During the game the player must transport goods at the airport, moving them from the hall where they arrive, delivering them to forwarding agencies, handlers and airlines to be shipped onwards. Alongside the game are e-‐learning tutorials for aspects of the SmartGate process such as handling essential paperwork. The benefits of SmartGateCargo The Game for the player are outlined as follows: It will show you what the implications are of missing information […] and how you can improve efficiency […] increase your turnover […] and safety for all parties. The game is web-‐based, free to access and can be played by anyone – high scorers form a league at its web site (smartgatethegame.nl). It was developed out of the public-‐private cooperation partnership that engaged IJsfontein a specialist in interactive communication and media productions. This company collaborated in the creation of this serious game because of their proven record of developing high quality user driven interfaces and experiences. Within three months of its launch, almost 4000 unique visitors visited the SmartGate The Game page and played an average of three times. Visitors came from among others the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France, Turkey, Belarus and Curacao. Awareness of SmartGate Cargo increased enormously through the use of the game, and companies around the airport became more involved in the whole SmartGate project and are now more open and likely to manage the changes and processes it represents. 10
Sampad Birmingham’s Sampad started out in South Asian dance education and has a reputation as a community focused traditional arts organisation. Recently, it has shown leadership among arts organisations by embracing digital technologies, exploring their role and function in this sector and how they impact upon its practices, working with a range of partners with expertise in this field. Digital technology is viewed as particularly valuable for finding new ways to bridge gaps between arts organisations and potential audiences and the ways in which these two groups might learn from each other and generate innovation as a result. For instance, the City of Birmingham has five times more Asian residents compared to the UK national average, the largest ethnic group within the already diverse West Midlands region. Birmingham also has a rapidly growing population under the age of 24 (2001 census data) making it the youngest major city in Europe. One context for innovation here then lies in the increasing growth in the use of technology, both educational and socially, and the ways in which it might be employed. Evidence such as a claim by the Internet Advertising Bureau for instance, that around half the UK population play digital games, suggests ways of engaging the young and an ethnically diverse demographic, inviting them to explore cultural work through such media in a way that is evocative and relevant to them. Examples of innovative practice inspired by these ideas include a summer 2012 event called ‘Mandala’ which fused art and technology where Sampad worked with Seeper, using its state of the art ‘3D reactive architectural projection mapping’ in order to create a cultural spectacle. ‘Radiu5’ was a collaborative data visualisation project with Substrakt (see below) working with young people to produce a dynamic interactive cultural map showing the wealth of creative activity happening within a five mile radius of the arts centre where Sampad is based. This project has lead to the creation of other cross collaborative community focused arts and heritage projects, such as the forthcoming ‘My Route’, which focuses on migration shifts within a culturally diverse area of Birmingham. So far, major challenges have involved the integration of technology into Sampad’s cultural values as an arts organization and its objectives in the development of its projects. In this way, digital ideas cannot be simply ‘tacked on’ to its core values and sense of culture; organisations such as Sampad need to consider the digital practices that constitute contemporary cultures in order to properly speak with audiences and their needs. 11
Between the city and the country: digital innovations referencing vernacular space The HE-‐STEM project draws attention to the ways in which interactive platforms need content formulated that is attentive to the technology and its possibilities as well as the expectations of its users. This is a portable piece of technology and content while the next projects are very much situated in particular geographies and innovate out of vernacular reference points. The Golden Square Substrakt is a Birmingham-‐based digital media and design agency employing 9 people that since 2012 has been working on a project entitled Golden Square. As technology provider, it collaborates with Birmingham City Council, responsible for planning and architectural partners Capita Lovejoy and Bryant Priest Newman. This project is part of the regeneration scheme for Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter that has been underway for over a decade. This is the site of the manufacture and trading of 40% of the UK’s jewellery and is also an important tourist feature of the city. The historical centre of the city’s artisanal industrial history, this area is soon to be earmarked as a World Heritage Site. The Golden Square speaks to this contemporary activity and historical legacy in order to form a centrepiece of the area, providing new retail and leisure units. It offers a digital visitor centre bringing together heritage objectives, spatial utility and design with specialised insights into user needs from Substrakt’s knowledge of digital practice. Using the wealth of historical data provided by Birmingham’s archives, museums and galleries, the consortium has created several strategies for aiding visitor experience and increasing numbers, drawing attention to new and existing local attractions, and linking the Jewellery Quarter with them. The Golden Square visitor centre will make use of space around it by giving visitors the ability to access information that enriches their experience of the Jewellery Quarter via touch screen terminals. At the centre of the digital visitors centre is a technology platform called Urban Lens, designed and built by Substrakt. Taking the principles of digital way-‐ finding, search and info-‐capture, the objective is to provide a package of information that is personalised to the visitor and their companions, which, guided by them through some basic preferences, provides them with a means of exploring the Jewellery Quarter. In turn, to influence future visitors, visitors will be able to use the Centre to add their own recommendations to a growing database, including reviews, suggested trails or notable historical facts. 12
Smart Vilnius Smart Vilnius began in 2012 and is an example of cross innovation in communication between Vilnius City Municipality and its residents. It is a ‘comprehensive integrated virtual platform for various e-‐services’ (www.vilnius.lt), an informal space designed to facilitate the involvement of citizens into urban planning and social development for the city, collecting new ideas. It represents the collaboration between the city and Vilniaus planas, Startup Monthly Vilnius, Conference Login, IT & developers’ companies. Partners aid in promotion of the project idea as well as developing technical solutions for the web and associated mobile platforms. Smart Vilnius provides a single point of online access to different service sectors, such as archives, culture, education, sport, youth, taxes, preservation of green areas of the city, services provided by the neighbourhoods of the city, services related to construction works and architectural requirements, services for businesses, information on the City Council, questions related to public order, coordination of public events, and agricultural and environmental issues. Smart Vilnius is a form of e–democracy in which users register to the system using e– banking or e–signatures for identification. It is based on an information system which enables residents to participate in decision–making development and implementation, ensuring cooperation between citizens and city government, fostering transparency, accountability and quality of decision-‐making, promoting new forms of political expression, ensuring easy access to information resources for citizens. The system also contains an interactive map of the city with a wide range of information related to urban planning, infrastructure, transport (road load, car accidents, traffic jams, schools, permits for construction, designed buildings, urban problem registry, 3D models, outdoor cafes, bike lanes, public events, local tool zones and animal walking places.). While the development of such electronic services requires financial resources, effort and time, its biggest challenge lies in ensuring that the means of communication established corresponds to the rapidly changing needs of social environment of the city. MILES Too often perhaps, the knowledge economy and digital culture are associated with urban contexts when devices, services and creativity have a role to play across wider geographies and activities. Applying digital innovations in rural settings, Mobile Interactive Landscape Engagement System (MILES) has been produced in the UK by Shropshire County Council, a UK local authority for government, working with Orangeleaf Systems Ltd. 13
The project was prompted by the fact that a key asset for Shropshire County Council is the local landscape, forming a key part of the cultural offer for visitors to the region. The role of Orangeleaf in this partnership was to enhance visitor experience using digital technologies to explore this asset as well as drawing upon the authority’s historical archive and data. As a result, the project offers aspects of social gaming to aid explorations of the landscape, using reward systems and QR codes in rural locations to link to video/audio/images. As with The Golden Square, the aim is to enhance the visitor experience, linking to data and push notifications to mobile phones in order to encourage more visitor spend as well as longer and repeat visits. Beyond its local application, the project has so far engendered interest from the UK organisations Wildlife Trust and National Trust. The particular challenges to this project have been opening out local government controlled data sets, and addressing the legal implications of this process and indeed the degree to which the culture of social media is able to play a role in local government, going beyond the demands of the immediate MILES project. Some measure of success in the potentially transformative nature of such practices are marked in the use of QR codes and social media which has now been embedded within the local authority plans to roll out to its policy and planning in transport and building control. From a limited base, Shropshire County Council now has 30 Facebook pages and 10 Twitter accounts with 7,000 followers. In this case then, the forms and cultural integration of social media activity have been introduced to organisations and places where they were largely absent and so are now ready to meet with the expectations of visitors and citizens in the area, already conversant with such technologies and applications. The CulturApp. A further UK-‐originated innovation that makes use of vernacular references to culture and geography is the CulturApp. This is a location aware mobile application that is designed to deliver cultural content about Charles Dickens. Based upon a choice of characters, the app leads users on an individuated trail around sites in London which are mentioned in Dickens works and which follow particular themes. The Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist leads a trail related to childhood, whilst Abel Magwitch from Great Expectations leads a trail on crime and punishment. Samuel Pickwick leads a tour around Victorian London’s food, drink and leisure sites and Bleak House‘s Lady Dedlock guides users to sites of relevance to women. 14
The app has been developed in partnership with the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury, as part of a London Cultural Quarters project. Technology providers were Seren Partners, a digital agency while MTM Research aided with research into the users of the app. The project was underwritten by funds from the Arts Council of England (ACE) and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta). Nesta’s initiative parallels the Cross Innovation project as it brought together arts and cultural organisations with digital providers in order to aid its prompting of research and development in this sector. This project was achieved in a narrow window of around 6 months from R&D to working app, in order to take advantage of the bi-‐centenary of Charles Dickens’s birth, which fell in 2012. Large numbers of visitors were expected in London during that year, thanks to the jubilee and Olympics, who would want to interact with the archive content curated by Exhibition Road. Cultural values and innovation Luckywaste While the size of the fashion market addressed by projects like Fits.me are testament to the potential scale and rewards of such commercial enterprises, other innovations have a more boutique quality and work with a consciously smaller focus. A signal example is Luckywaste of Pilsen, which works with Bery Designer and Pa3. This project should be understood in terms of the cultural values that underpin the approach to practice and development, as well as the relationship of business and consumer. Luckywaste appropriates discarded material and ‘upcycles’ it into a luxury product. The rationale is that this stands in ‘opposition to large, unindividualised companies, against the uniform fashion style of the young population, and helps emphasize the beauty of natural materials and carries an ecological aspect as well […] from the minimum we can create the maximum.’ Under this ethos for instance, glass bottles are used in a variety of ways to produce jewellery, interior objects and interactive visual/sound art installations of all sizes. John Altman Cookies John Altman Cookies is a Dutch initiative to place alongside Luckywaste in terms of understanding the relevance of its ethical basis to its sense of innovation and indeed the collaboration of groups that would normally be seen as diametrically opposed. The project emerged from a chance encounter between one John Altman, a San Francisco hippie and two Dutch advertisers Hajo de Boer and Onno Lixenberg. The Dutchmen were inspired by the fact that Altman and friend were handing out cookies at the beach, not in order to feed people but to 15
promote a philosophy of ‘Spread the love’. The two advertisers were inspired enough to franchise a recipe, collaborating with a prestige Dutch bakery to produce the same cookies, which were marketed under the ethos of ‘Spread the love’. As the case-‐study researchers report: ‘The innovators didn’t apply a very formal innovation process. They predominantly followed their heart, they relied on their ambition, enthusiasm and intuition, and they ‘spread the love’. They deliberately didn’t use standard methods of market research or common innovation processes because they feared that it would stop special initiatives.’ The cookies are 100% natural and produced under the conditions of fair trade, to some degree emulating the appeal of products such as Ben and Jerry’s, Innocent and other types of product with integrity, which appeal to a particular mode of consumption. Currently they are promoting new products such as wine and books as well as engaging the customer base to contribute to good causes and, by their engagement, directing the John Altman organisation in doing the same. Bee Urban Bee Urban is a social enterprise founded upon environment consciousness in 2011 by biologists Karolina Lisslö and Josefina Oddsberg. Their purpose is to spread awareness and knowledge about pollination and bees and their impact on the local as well as the global scale. With the motto that ‘There’s no business on a dead planet’, they point out that nearly 76 percent of what we grow to eat within the EU and 84 percent of the vegetation is pollinated by insects. However, ‘In recent years, it has been reported from parts of the world that bees, to a greater degree than usual, began to disappear or die. USA, Italy, Canada, France and Germany have been hit very hard. In Sweden we lost about 25 percent of the colonies 2009/2010. If the bees disappear, we would not have access to either fruits or vegetables, and meat prices would probably rapidly increase. (www.beeurban.se). In order to raise consciousness and to do something practical about the parlous situation facing the bee population, Bee Urban offers sponsorship of beehives to companies in the urban environment. Designer hives are placed primarily on rooftops around the city of Stockholm, either on the property of the sponsor or locations that Bee Urban has sought out. Bee Urban caters for the upkeep of the hives and the honey is accrued by the sponsor. The honey is packaged in a format that conveys the sponsor’s role in helping the environment in a positive, innovative and tangible manner. Alongside sponsorship of hives, Bee Urban offers the adoption of bees in an already existing hive, to aid in maintaining local pollinators. Adopters get their names placed on Bee Urban’s Google-‐map as a means of identifying the support 16
for this work; Bee Urban also offers lectures and seminars on bees and pollination, ecosystem services and sustainable urban development for companies. Bee Urban has collaborated on an exhibition with Ekoteket, with assistance from the County Administrative Board of Stockholm and from Environment Facility Stockholm County Council and the City of Stockholm. Street Musicians’ Day Vilnius’ festival Street Musicians’ Day blurs the boundaries between performers and listeners by inviting everybody to play music in public areas. It is a collaboration between Vilnius City Municipality, mobile connection and internet provider Omnitel, WebTemple, insurance company draudimas.lt, BrandWorks, MediaPark, and Coffe Inn. The open and democratic format of the festival has been one of the reasons for the rise in its popularity since 2007. The age, music style, social status, professionalism and other subjective or objective factors of the performers are seen as unimportant. The goal is to fill the city with music sounds and involve everyone in playing. The festival is an example of highly efficient social marketing techniques where the idea to take part in the festival is shared and spread among city community members. Each year the festival organisers launch an interactive map of Lithuanian cities in order to coordinate distribution of the city areas and the times of performance for hundreds of musicians. The festival is an example of cross innovation in the use of artistic content, social and viral marketing and efficient usage of IT solutions for coordinating a large-‐scale cultural event. The festival has become one of the most successful projects of the Vilnius European Culture Capital 2009 programme. Its increasing popularity and potential to encourage people to play music in public fosters social and cultural citizens’ interaction. It also serves as an important example of the power of social communication and city branding. The Street Musicians’ Day has been actively replicated in other Lithuanian cities. It has also been “exported” to other countries and is being organised in Riga, Tbilisi, and Minsk every year. The festival has become a recognisable part of the Vilnius brand itself, where its highly democratic concept has been “exported” East, to the countries of Belarus and Georgia. 17
Creative synergies Native Instruments Based in Berlin and Los Angeles, Native Instruments is a manufacturer of software and hardware for computer-‐based audio production and professional DJing, employing over 300 people. Renowned as a strong brand that connotes quality, the company deals in a niche market and has become most popular amongst electronic music creators and consumers. Since it was founded in 1996, Native Instruments has innovated in audio technology and the production and computer manipulation of sound and has inspired genres and impacted on the ways in which people create and perform music. Native Instruments brings together specialists from different fields to create its products and services for the international music scene, allowing them to play a central part within the process, rather than asking them to act as ancillary technology providers or services. The company liaises with artists such as producer, DJ and Minus label founder, techno icon Richie Hawtin and musician and singer Jamie Lidell. The feedback and needs of such artists is integrated into the conception and continuous improvement of products. Alongside the artists who use the products, the company works with professionals from various fields of expertise, amongst those are product design, hardware manufacturing, electrical engineering, software development and interface design. Its portfolio is organized into three product brands and interdisciplinary teams are structured around them, working together to create innovative products and solutions that can be quickly realized and tested in the market. In this way, Native Instruments has become one of the leading companies for music instruments and software, contributing to the character of Berlin’s nightlife and indeed, to the global music scene. Cross Innovation from within the culture of organisations Slamp and Leading Light Many cases in this review demonstrate the complex interactions between companies, foregrounding where and how cross innovation occurs and indeed, under this theme, the nature of how cultural work is done in conjunction with enterprises usually seen as quite distinct from that category. The example of Slamp suggests that we might also consider how cross innovation can be brought to bear within companies. It is a Rome-‐based company established in 1994. It describes its innovative Leading Light project in tones redolent of what is expected of brokerage service (see below) as ‘a model of bridge building between 18
different activities: design, production, materials, and communication.’ In fact, Slamp’s positioning of cross-‐innovation ideas is articulated within culture-‐based innovation in a very particular manner and embodied in the figure Nigel Coates and the way in which he imported a sensibility from the cultural sector to the company. Slamp’s partnership with Coates began in 2006 when he was Head of Architecture at the Royal College of Art in London and he is now in a position with the company as its arts director. Coates’ profile at Slamp’s website gives a sense of how he himself embodies ideas of cross innovation as a quality within the organisation. Described as ‘one of the few English architects who is also renowned as a designer’. His first success came about in Japan, where, during the 80s and 90s, he designed more than twenty buildings and interiors. Coates subsequently built a wide range of shops, restaurants and museums in Europe and Great Britain, including the National Centre for Popular Music and the Geffrye Museum. Coates’s furniture design and objects in glass, like those for Hitch Mylius and Salviati, are described as playing with association and context and merge their stylistic references into sensual flowing forms. The role of the partnership has been to reinvent the design orientation of the company. Slamp has translated Coates’ inspirations into actual production features, broadening its activity and market purview. In addition, it has fostered the development of a creative staff composed of young people from the Rome area. As in its apparent address to ideas of brokerage, Slamp is therefore one of those multi-‐faceted enterprises, which covers several bases of cross innovation ideas as well as suggesting additional themes. Slamp is investing strongly in the education of what it calls a new creative class by applying the lessons learnt in its own development with Coates. It has set up an office comprised of young designers and communicators, creating a model for breaking the kind of ‘silo thinking' that it has grown out of by cultivating an interaction of different 'cultures': design, industrial production, and communication. Managing image and promoting services online Warsaw Several case studies from Warsaw involve collaborations between organisations and designers where the latter have applied their understanding of aspects of promotion and online culture to support services and products. CoWork, for instance, is an organization which suggests that the kind of experience and service it provides is relatively underdeveloped in Poland and in fact also speaks to aspects of the provision of space for cross innovation and brokerage. It is a co-‐ 19
working space that provides its clients with unlimited Internet access as well as with the possibility of working in an Open Space system. Further, it gives a virtual address that may be used to register one’s company. It also provides reception support service, training and conference rooms, and an open bar, as well as the so-‐ called Chillout Zone, where it is possible to relax and talk to other co-‐workers. CoWork collaborated with website creators Enysoft in order to produce an online system for booking physical space and services: One of the assumptions of the project was to present the co-‐working environment as a creative setting for business […] The website strengthens the image of the CoWork brand as a creative place, which translates into new users and thereby into a greater flow of ideas between the partners and users of the CoWork office. Libero Sp. z o.o. is a ‘power engineering’ company employing 40 individuals, which produces wood pellets. It worked with Zstudio to produce a new website, a company which designs both graphics and creates tools for online content management which ‘enable self–reliant construction of interior structure (e.g. creating individual menus) and swift actualization of a website’s content.’ As with other examples of collaborations of this kind, innovation was located in terms of development of the lead company’s image. In this instance the aim was to generate interest amongst Internet users into the work of Libero, identifying the value of the wood pellets and their environmentally friendly qualities, and attracting new trading partners including foreign clients, heat distribution companies, households, municipal services departments and public-‐utility facilities. Thus, ‘a friendly layout for the website, in shades of green, positively influences the perception of the company.’ Polpharma Biuro Handlowe Sp. z o.o. (Polpharma Trading Bureau Ltd) is a biotechnology company. They worked with Huddleston Associates in order to develop design and packaging for ‘Acidolac Baby’ a medicine designed for children. Generic issues for such companies in such instances are identified in candid fashion, ‘medicine supporting the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract for infants is not a popular medicine.’ Essential treatments for children in distress are welcome products yet full of negative connotations. The key challenge is therefore one of communicating with customers with ‘A coherent marketing message and well-‐designed packaging that translates into the image of the company as ‘warm’, translates more or less indirectly into good company financial results.’ Thus, the associate’s role was to ameliorate public opinion and concern about such products, developing packaging that would impact upon consumer attitudes. 20
Spatial Cross-‐Collaboration and Innovation
Regular features of contemporary cultural policy and the management of post-‐ industrial urban economies are initiatives that seek to generate, attract and sustain local creative economies which are often coupled with interventions aiming to cluster businesses together. This clustering sometimes happens in ‘organic’ manner as like-‐minded businesses, competing or complementary, come together to inhabit particular spaces and to mark out ‘creative quarters’. A pre-‐ meditated deterministic approach resulting from policy decisions is predicated on a faith in the virtues to be gained by placing businesses in proximity to each other, that this concentrates expertise as well as nurturing networking and collaboration. It is usual in such instances that soft infrastructural resources such as business advice, training and the active attention of a variety of interested stakeholders such as local government, universities and businesses from other sectors, support the earmarking of physical space for the creative economy, often alongside other cultural offers of an experiential nature. As a consequence, such sites are particularly important in understanding the concept, realities and possibilities of cross innovation. In the case studies offered below by partners from Tallinn, Rome, Lisbon, Pilsen, Vilnius and Stockholm, the nature of each space in terms of its origination, organisation and use also speaks to aspects of the ‘cultural’ theme of cross-‐ innovation outlined above. Each evinces a particular approach or mission to the cultivation of the economy and innovation. While the projects detailed below share and repeat certain principles they draw our attention too to the localised and vernacular qualities of spaces and the practices they enable. Incubation Tallinn Creative Incubator Tallinn Creative Incubator is one of three enterprise incubators in Estonia run by the Business Support and Credit Management Foundation (Estonian acronym ESA). It began to provide support for creative enterprises in 2008, officially opened in 2009. The site has 23 studios and office spaces of 10-‐60 m2, 45-‐50 workplaces. Partners underwriting the Incubator include the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Design Institute of Mainor Business School, the Estonian Association of Designers and Estonian Design Centre. Partnerships have also been established with Tallinn University of Technology and Tallinn Science Park Tehnopol. 21
The mission of the Incubator is to provide a supportive environment for creative enterprises in their formative stages, offering access to a business environment and support services. The Incubator has established a soft infrastructure of support by developing mechanisms of inclusion, cooperation and participation in order to improve the business expertise of the enterprises it cultivates. Synergies are initially derived from in-‐house connections that seek to develop businesses that support each other by providing custom for each other’s services although the aim is to help them become international in scope and reach. The Incubator is located in the Baltika Kvartal (Baltika Quarter), next to Estonia’s largest fashion retailer ‘Baltika’. As a consequence, a lot of activities in marketing and sales have been developed for Estonian design and handicraft manufacturers. Recognised for its innovative orientation to new business initiatives rather than to traditional industries, the Tallinn Creative Incubator achieved recognition with an award 2010 for Combining Entrepreneurship with Creativity and Culture (9th Annual Conference on Science Based Incubation of The Technopolicy Network). EnLabs A regular quality of spaces that enable cross innovation is that they evince the characteristic of brokerage between sectors. This is a key feature of EnLabs in Rome which was established in 2010 which employs 4 people and works in partnership with several organisations such as: MetaGroup, Zernike Meta Ventures, Connect Ventures, Fi.La.S., AnnaPurna Ventures, Microsoft Bizpark, Università LUISS Guido Carli, Italian Angels for Growth, Wadi Ventures. Owned by LVenture and Meta Group EnLabs describes itself as Italy's foremost ‘open incubator and accelerator which also supports co-‐working’. Its founder was inspired by the way in which similar facilities worked from across Italy and in places such as Silicon Valley, underlining the way in which it underwrites start-‐ ups in IT-‐related businesses. EnLabs’ innovation lies in the creation of an open environment that supports sharing and dialogue among startups, entrepreneurs, universities, and industry through events, training, and meetings. The EnLabs space houses 50 workstations that aid 20 startups at a time through its accelerator programme. Each session lasts for six months and is open to innovative entrepreneurial teams who must all locate to the EnLabs site for the duration in order to ‘interact with other entrepreneurs and to develop their ideas.’ Those who are taken onto the programme receive a package including professional business services as well dedicated support from a mentor and cash financing. 22
The main goal of the accelerator program is to create startups with a distinctive product or service that will be able to compete for further funding on the international scene. Thus, at the end of each six month programme is an ‘Investor Day’ event in which national and international investors are enlisted in order to help finance the next stage in the growth of companies involved in the incubator. EnLab’s cross-‐innovation approach can be viewed in terms of the development of an ecosystem that involves start-‐up enterprises, universities, corporations, mentors and advisors, entrepreneurs, business angels, and venture capital companies. It suggests that for ecosystem to prosper, each partner must contribute in a dynamic way to the development of relationships with others, creating a strong network of relationships and improving the businesses involved. EnLabs periodically organizes events alongside its Investor Day and participates in others, including Codemotion, Innovaction Lab, TechCrunch, and StartUp Weekend, in which it interacts with the major players in the industry. Each of EnLabs’ partners provides different skills and resources which give a sense of the ecosystem and cross innovation captured in its work. ‘InnovAction Lab’ offers to nurture skills for potential entrepreneurs in pitching to investors and some of its startups have participated in the accelerator program. ‘Zernike Meta Ventures’, together with EnLabs, provides financial resources to the startups that participate in the accelerator program. Wadi Ventures helps EnLabs discover Israeli startups. Microsoft Bizpark provides software and tools to the startups participating in the accelerator program while investment funds like Connect Ventures, Fi.La.S, are interested in investing in the startups participating in the accelerator program. Unlocking the HE role in cross innovation Design2 In their very diversity, educational institutions are potential sites of cross-‐ innovation although this does not always happen either organically or by design. Pilsen’s Design2 is an interdisciplinary project from the University of West Bohemia that brings together expertise from various faculties, so bridging the discrete boundaries of expertise as well as connecting with industries beyond the campus boundaries. The Design2 project places students into mixed and competing teams combining those from a master’s construction programme at the university’s Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FME) with those from the Bachelor’s programme at the 23
Institute of Art and Design (IAD). Teams are assigned project challenges by external project partners such as Škoda Plzeň and Linet. Resulting tasks cultivate independence and cross innovation cooperation on a project that requires skills and knowledge beyond the boundaries of each individual’s study programme. This project offers a model of the creative incubator, helpings students to learn about communication between themselves as developing experts and with potential clients. Students test their abilities over an intensive learning period, creating a high-‐quality construction and design product. This is examined by experts from external partner organisations as well as other university faculties. A successful project from 2011 involved the design of a ‘Relaxation Transport Chair’ for use in the health sector. Designed at the behest of Linet, the company website relates how this was the seventh consecutive year of the competition run with the University in cooperation with Linet as well as companies such as Astos and Dostal. Working with company experts, students of mechanical engineering, art and design were joined by in this case by colleagues from the Faculty of Health Care Studies: It is precisely this interdisciplinary nature that renders the competition unique among other similar projects in the Czech Republic.; ‘The aim of this approach is to allow students to come up with designs with high applicability in practice, while gaining experience working in a team of specialists from various fields. This is the style of work that they are most likely to encounter in their future careers, says Professor Stanley Hosnedl, senior project supervisor for the Department of Machine Design. In addition to practical application, the panel of judges also assessed the level of construction and design innovation, as well as the overall systematic method of the concept. An important criterion was also the quality of the materials, design models, the level of documentation, presentations, and teamwork. (http://www.linet.com/healthcare-‐equipment/latest-‐news/press-‐ releases/31755/Plzen-‐university-‐students-‐design-‐hospital-‐chair-‐of-‐the-‐future) It is suggested that Design2 represents a system still uncommon in the Czech Republic and its success has informed plans for a further Světovar creative incubator project. Likewise, its success has underwritten suggestions for the establishment of a creative incubator ‘proper’ outside of the period of student learning, which would allow the creation of a base for new, future companies of graduates once they are beyond the university environs. Likewise, those behind the Design2 have argued the case for financial support for implementing projects and models as well as inviting the involvement of Czech companies and others from the Danube-‐Elbe Euro-‐region. 24
Social role of cultural space Beepart As geographically specific sites, cultural incubators, Fab Labs and so on have a greater part to play in a local infrastructure and cultural life beyond the immediate concerns of businesses and entrepreneurs. Established in 2009, Vilnius’s Creative Workshop Beepart (‘Be a part’, ‘bee art’ or ‘bee’ in the sense of the ‘common work’ of the hive) is one site promoting cultural and social innovation, providing space for small community-‐based business initiatives, educational and experimental art projects. As a non-‐profit enterprise, Beepart’s partners include the daily newspaper ‘Vilniaus diena’, mobile connection and internet provider BITĖ, expositions, events and advertising company Ekspobalta and construction company EIKA. Beepart’s character and importance to its community is expressed in the fact that it is run by 5 permanent volunteers and relies upon goodwill contributions of many others in running certain types of project. Likewise, an important feature is its location in the Pilaitė district, one of the peripheral suburbs of the city. As outlined on its website, all entertainment and events in Vilnius, just as in other post-‐soviet cities, are concentrated in the centre, usually the old town. This leaves the bigger part of the city – the so called ‘dormitory areas’ – in a complete cultural standstill. Addressing this issue, Beepart fosters cross innovation in organic fashion, serving as a meeting point for local community members, guest-‐ artists and experts of different backgrounds and qualification. The site aims to be a lab for any experimental idea that could help improve the social and cultural environment of the community and is open to community members as well as encouraging participants to take an active role in cultural and social projects. With the help of volunteers and private companies we created a district‘s tourist map and started cleaning up the forest to make it become a real park. Since 2011 we have organised an international light installation festival ‘Beepositive’, and we plan to continue ‘dining with neighbours’ alongside other small projects. Various kinds of events already are taking place. Beepart’s building was designed by Simonas Liūga and Andrius Ciplijauskas and is notable for its atypical design, use of space and particular approach to environment-‐friendly innovation such as its heating and independent sewerage and waste disposal system. Having established a popular success, its continued challenge lies in attracting financing for further projects and continuing to involve relevant people. A fund for micro-‐projects or individually implemented projects would be very helpful for Beepart initiatives. 25
Fluxus Ministry The Fluxus Ministry initiative is a collaboration with the real estate company Baltishes Haus, the Municipalities of Vilnius and Kaunas and public institution AZZARA. It is a project that has gathered together artists working in the old Soviet building of the former Ministry of Health in Vilnius and implementing a number of experimental and innovative art projects such as the ‘Future City Lab’. It is inspired by the Fluxus Movement founded in 1960s and its originator, Lithuanian-‐born American artist Jurgis (George) Mačiūnas. Two hundred Lithuanian artists established the Fluxus Ministry in the dilapidated building of the former Ministry of Health in Gedimino Avenue, a major street of Vilnius. The Fluxus Ministry Project took place in Vilnius from April 2010 till November 2011 and hosted around one thousand artistic events. In 2012 the concept was transferred to Kaunas, the second largest city of Lithuania, where the Fluxus Ministry was opened in the old premises of a shoe-‐making factory. The Ministry will stay in Kaunas for one and a half years. The Fluxus Ministry initiative supports cross innovation by creating a platform for interaction of artistic ideas and urban planning. It also creates a temporary centre of attraction for citizens thus influencing the cultural and social landscape of the city. At the same time there is no official organisational structure underwriting the Fluxus Ministry and involvement in the initiative is purely voluntary. Supported by Vilnius City Mayor, the private real-‐estate owners of Vilnius and Kaunas provide space for the artistic activities of the Fluxus Ministry. The space is rent free but artists have to cover the costs of the utilities. The Municipal governments provide support to particular artistic projects. Kolonien Stockholm’s Kolonien (The Colony) is a multidisciplinary co-‐working space and studio that develops companies, products and services through design, marketing, communication and concept development. Its creators and specialists aim to inspire and encourage customers to create new values through collaboration. Established in 2008, it encompasses 130 creative companies with about 200 employees. There are freelancers and companies, temporary and permanent. The environment is characterized by networking, collaboration and exchanges between companies – the model of a successful co-‐working space. The most important partner to Kolonien is Vasakronan, the real estate owner at the greater host space Telefonplan in southern Stockholm. Vasakronan is also one of the partners of the steering group at Telefonplan and a leader of the development of the creative cluster. The site addresses the lack of space and 26
offices that offer the potential to collaborate with other creative entrepreneurs of small and medium sized companies in the city. Kolonien works actively to promote collaboration and sharing among companies. It strives for a mix of current skills and professionalism and can therefore offer office space for freelancers and small businesses. Located over 2600 sqm at Telefonplan, Kolonien hosts web designers, industrial designers, product developers, illustrators, graphic designers, designers, programmers, communicators and marketers who can aid others with web, print, presentations, profile material, WordPress, Photoshop, CAD, Illustrator, InDesign, 3D, Maya, Flash, PHP, photo and film. Lisbon Start Up Lisboa The creation of spaces for cross innovation has been particularly important to Lisbon and the way in which it has contributed to overall thinking in this international project, echoing some of the ways in which creative sites can galvanise both business and wider cultural activity. Here, a number of projects are predicated on the belief that ‘The creation of business incubators is one of the most effective and innovative factors to attract micro, small and medium enterprises and to ensure their survival in the early days of activity’. The starting point, and central to a network of incubators and acceleration spaces (both public and private) that are being developed in the city of Lisbon is Start-‐Up Lisboa. It is part of an urban regeneration project for the downtown area of the city (Baixa), which involves the reuse of historical buildings. This is a reaction to the current economic climate, the particular contexts and issues facing the city as well as displaying the belief that such instances are examples of particularly ‘European’ solutions to current crises. The project is based on a public-‐private collaboration. The three founding organizations were the Municipality of Lisbon, IAPMEI (a public institution) and Montepio Geral, a private bank and a mutual association -‐ which provided the installations and undertook specific work on the incubation building and which also manages the fund – FINICIA – to support the activities of entrepreneurs. Private companies that were decisive to the implementation of the project by providing equipment and services to the incubator include KPMG, Portugal Telecom, Brandia, SBI Consulting, Lisbon MBA, SAGE, Microsoft and Cisco. Most interesting is the fact that Start-‐Up Lisboa was authorised by the citizens of Lisbon who voted for the project as part of a Participatory Budgeting process in 2009/10. 27
It has several aims, which are to: Facilitate the creation and development of entrepreneurship through a combination of infrastructure and specialist support services. Develop a program of pre-‐incubation, development of the business model through mentorships with professionals, specialized training specific and restricted, networking events and additional activities. Provide adequate space to business initiatives […] equipped with furniture, telephone, air conditioning, cleaning, security and broadband internet A number of facts and figures attest to the success of Start-‐Up Lisboa: a) Over 300 entrepreneurs have applied for a place on site (occupancy is now up to the maximum of 33 entrepreneurs -‐ including 18 ‘physical’ companies, 5 pre-‐ incubation projects and 10 ‘virtual’ incubation companies). Those who are in situ have expressed strong support for the project and wish to remain there for as long as possible b) It has created new jobs as over 100 people are at work in the building (the target groups of young and highly qualified individuals); c) Innovative products and services cultivated in the incubator are entering the market; d) There has been an increase in economic activity around the area of the incubator; d) A variety of funds have been raised to aid entrepreneurs. In addition, the project is trumpeted as being truly international and cosmopolitan as it involves entrepreneurs from other countries while the potential markets for outcomes of incubation lie outside of Portugal. Forno do Tijolo Fab Lab LX and co-‐working space Further initiatives are founded in the rehabilitation of Forno do Tijolo Market, a traditional space which, as one EU report suggests, ‘has been losing out to the supermarkets and malls for years and is teetering on the brink of viability.’ (http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Newsletter/newslett er12/todos_en.asp ). This project was originated by the Municipality in order to aid the development of Lisbon as a ‘smart city’, one open to and characterised by the exploration of new experiences, concepts, innovations and motivations for business. The market site is thus earmarked for creativity and entrepreneurship and includes the installation of a co-‐working space with development to be undertaken by the Portuguese Industrial Association – AIP/CCI. By installing such low-‐cost co-‐ working spaces, the city aims to meet the growing demand for such sites 28
demonstrated by Start-‐Up Lisboa, nurturing and promoting activity amongst creative workers and other and young entrepreneurs. Also to be installed on the same area is a laboratory of digital manufacturing – a Fab Lab -‐ for rapid prototyping, custom manufacturing and product testing. The strategic objective of the resulting Fab Lab LX is to act as a link between creative ideas and industry, between development and production of new products. Given the relatively low equipment costs and its easy use, the Fab Lab LX enables democratic access to creativity, invention and innovation. The Fab Lab LX project is to be implemented by a partnership between the Municipality of Lisbon and other organizations from across industrial sectors with a central objective of creating economic value, generating jobs and supporting innovation. This instrument is viewed as having enormous potential for the development of products adapted to local needs, which can be developed with regards to, but also freed from, the logic of the market in the early stages of development. With the installation of this prototyping laboratory, new product models can also be tested and disseminated, as well as enabling the cultivation of cross innovation between the Fab Lab, the co-‐working space, Start-‐Up Lisboa and wider organisations from across industry. It will develop ‘technology education’, a mode of learning by doing which will be open to schools and adults, showing how design and technology need not be inaccessible. Thus, it will be a place to study and test solutions for the community – for example, street equipment or social facilities for the elderly and people with disabilities. The Architecture Creative Cluster of Palácio Sinel de Cordes A final example of cross innovation space in Lisbon is The Architecture Creative Cluster of Palácio Sinel de Cordes’ which comes from a partnership between the Municipality, again, and Lisbon Triennale. This site is predicated not on the cultivation of new skills but in underwriting an area of established expertise. The project arose due to the fact that Lisbon has significant global reputation and expertise in the field of architecture. Winners of the Pritzker Prize attend the Lisbon Triennale, which has a mission to research and promote architecture, particularly that being produced by Portuguese architects, both nationally and internationally. It has a programme that encompasses, competitions, conferences, exhibitions and multimedia productions. Now home to the Triennale, the Creative Cluster of Palácio Sinel de Cordes is a multifunctional architectural community, based in complementary units of study, design and research. Various functional units, such as co–working spaces for temporary use, offices for young architects (who also have an opportunity to 29
present their work in temporary exhibitions), a documentation centre and archive, event spaces, restaurant and bookstore, are also present. It is hoped that the presence of the Triennale will be the first element of a broader program with a longterm view of development: ‘With the appropriate policies and instruments, Lisbon, can be positioned in 10 years between the major cities of the world in the field of architectural research and production. But it is important that the knowledge generated by this dynamic, helps to raise the levels of demand by those involved in the process of building the city and leads the policy direction in urban development, in order to contribute to a better skilled and sustainable transformation over the coming decades.’ 30
Brokerage Services for Cross Innovation
Brokerage is a label given to specific services which manage meetings, introductions and collaborations across sectors – building bridges and opening doors to communication where little existed previously. As in the previous categories, there is an impression of a crossover of activity, particularly between some of the projects offered as brokerage services and those identified as spaces for cross innovation. While the brokerage label may suggest that facilitating such services is rather banal, the range of case studies give a sense of how this can be achieved in innovative and creative fashion. Brokerage through competition Edison Edison is the name given to an annual Austrian ‘competition of ideas’. It is hosted by tech2b in partnership with Business pro Austria and supported by academic institutions, public funds, banks, private commercial companies and other partners. In this competition, innovative ideas are presented to an interdisciplinary network of experts who offer feedback and training. Competition prizes are awarded in categories for ‘technology’, ‘innovation’ and ‘creative industry’ and winners are encouraged to start their own business. Each partner takes on expert roles in guiding the various competition juries and winners. tech2b takes on planning, organisation and project management for Edison and is responsible for ‘technology’ and supporting people who are interested in founding their own high-‐tech company. Business pro Austria looks after ‘innovation ideas’, supporting the people who are interested in founding and developing companies concerned with innovation. Other partners are universities, banks, the Chamber of Commerce, and industrial companies. These partners act as evaluators for submitted ideas, trainers for competitors, sponsors, etc., as well as supporting the award by forming a network for new ideas and start-‐ups. Each year’s winners illustrate the success of this initiative and its contribution to cross innovation. One of the winning projects from 2012 is an interactive whiteboard (see: mi-‐lab.org/projects/nice-‐discussion-‐room): The Interactive Whiteboard enhances the creativity process in companies. It leads towards more innovations and faster innovation cycles for users. The product enables users to create new ideas. Advanced hardware, the mixture of numerous 31
media (paper, digital, images, videos, etc.) and software components, help the users to cross existing borders in thinking and innovation. It combines computer science, usability, hardware and software technology and innovation management tools into one product. The team has also been granted a patent for their innovation. This project has created a fully functional product that is being developed for commercial exploitation. The creators are two young scientists who started their company in late 2012 after support from a number of organizations, who are also partners of the Edison competition. In nurturing this project, tech2b aided with funding, IP support, business coaching, planning and development, and Softwarepark Hagenberg offered supplementary support. The University of Applied Sciences of Upper Austria aided with business development as well as offering support in the science of the project, while the Chamber of Commerce aided with legal affairs. The innovation of the Edison ‘competition of ideas’ lies in the manner in which it enables innovative individuals to develop their ideas into viable business models, leading to fully functional companies. Participants gain from the tutelage of the various partners who cover bases like technology, design, IPR, finance, legal, etc. It is suggested that the combination of more than 10 partners from different backgrounds working closely together with one goal in mind (enabling people with ideas to start their own business) is unique in the region, if not in the entire country. It is also important to coach not only the winners but all participants in the different categories of the competition, to help them develop and improve ideas. Event as broker (and incubator) Festival Mados infekcija -‐ Fashion Infection Since 1999, Vilnius’ Art Service has organized an annual 3 day fashion and art festival. It collaborates with a number of organisations from home and abroad including: Bosca, Panorama, Perwoll, Maybelline, TV 8, Laima, Žmonės, 15 min, Delfi, JCDecaux, Radisson Blue, Brandworks, Institute Francaise, Goethe Institute, Ekskomisarų biuras, Roofsound, Bilietų pasaulis and Sick Service. The fashion festival is called Mados infekcija -‐ Fashion Infection and is an innovative and conceptual event of fashion and art fusion featuring free and ticketed public events. These events bring together professional and upcoming designers with an ethos that such interaction inspires young, creative talents to develop new fashion forms, demonstrating the exchange of knowledge and ideas among participants. 32
The festival is distinguished for its conceptuality. The aim of the event is not to show and create trends or to be a fashion dictator, but to help people to develop an individual style and attitude towards fashion and to apply the knowledge in everyday life. […]. Mados Infekcija breaks traditional boundaries of fashion weeks as it is available for everybody and has the purpose to spread the knowledge of fashion among people. ‘Fashion Injection’ is a contest in the festival that aims to find talented new designers. Winners are entitled to present their first collection on the main ‘Fashion Infection’ catwalk. The festival is supplemented by a public event ‘Mados Inventorizacija’ (Fashion Inventory), in which a wide audience is welcomed to various locations in Vilnius such as boutiques and art studios, as well as the show rooms of designers taking part in the festival. Workshops for young designers aim to foster entrepreneurship and international business. For the organisers, the festival exhibits features of cross innovation in three particular aspects. Firstly, fashion becomes a main focus for the fusion of different fields of art: music, video and photography. Secondly, the festival is neither initiated nor driven by the fashion industry, but is an important venue for new designers and their ideas, with the potential for development in fashion design businesses. Thirdly, the venue -‐ Contemporary Art Centre – is located in the Old Town of the city and over time, the festival has played an important part in the urban and social development of Vilnius Old Town. Bootcamp brokerage Garage48 Garage48 is the title of a series of international startup bootcamp events that generate ideas and take them from creation to prototype in 48 hours as well as generating seed-‐money for the development of viable products. The event originated in Tallinn in April 2010 and has since expanded to other countries in Northern Europe and Africa. There have been 16 Garage48 events, which are held in English and have involved over 100 participants from different countries, who bring a variety of different skills, ranging from software development to design, marketing, sales and entrepreneurship. The type of collaborators on the project have included individual creatives, web and mobile developers, incubators, technology and science parks, and sponsoring companies. Garage48 bootcamps usually start at 5pm on a Friday evening with participants involved in a pitching session. Each idea is made available and participants choose an idea and team on which to concentrate, with around 12-‐15 selected for development. Garage48 provides mentors for teams working on each project. 33
Sunday night 6pm is the deadline to present a demonstration of each project and also where a jury and an audience of peers vote for their favourites and choose the winners. The March 2012 Garage48 event was focused on creating Internet and mobile-‐ based music products where the organizers joined forces with an annual music industry conference and festival, Tallinn Music Week. 100 people turned ideas into working mobile and web applications within 48 hours. From 20 ideas pitched on the first day, 14 attracted a team and underwent initial development. The winner was Easyrider.me who provides the easiest and fastest way to create, manage and share information on a band's technical rider for their live performances. This was an easy-‐to-‐use workflow tool for the use of promoters and festival and venue managers, which could be used to agree technical terms with bands. Garage48 brings together a variety of business partners from different sectors to aid in mentoring those who wish to benefit from the bootcamp format. They are the ones that the organization suggests might have reservations about starting their own business, or lack knowledge, finance and/or understanding of risks. Garage48 announces that it ‘is here to change that mindset and show that it's all about positive attitude, creative team members and a motivating deadline. Less talk, more action!’. Brokerage as ‘contamination’ Creaticity Rome’s Creaticity is a project originated by Associazione Informale to encourage competition in the production environment by promoting encounters between the creative community and other types of business. Informale describes how these encounters are designed to ‘contaminate’ business values with the arts, including the visual, plastic, and performing arts, cinema, and literature. Informale also makes available a space for ‘research and development’ – for new types of activities and encounters that promote the business and creative cultures, furthering the breakdown of ‘silo thinking’ between these two worlds. Creaticity emerged from a 2011 study highlighting the priorities of the Province of Rome’s creative sector: educational opportunities, networking, and a need for qualified human and financial resources for the development of new businesses. As a consequence several initiatives were launched in the following year, including: ‘Creaticity pitching’ are gatherings to involve start-‐ups in knockout competitions and the exploration of business themes. ‘Aperattivi’ is a series of formative-‐interactive encounters followed by networking, in which the focus is 34
on communication, leadership, stress management, etc., which are cast in metaphors from the arts, such as tango, jazz, mask making, cooking, etc., all involving the active participation of the public. Informale collaborates with various for-‐ and non-‐profit entities in the design and planning of events, which are specifically designed to address ‘silo thinking.’ These partners include institutions such as the Rome Chamber of Commerce and businesses such as Zivago srl, Katalys srl and associations like CNA Lazio, Concretamente, Ricrea, Ferpi, Rena, Founder Institute and Indigeni Digitali. Brokerage and networking Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES) The Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES) is a world-‐renowned academic initiative for innovation and entrepreneurship that builds upon the diverse environments of its five member institutions. This initiative covers a range of categories for cross innovation thinking -‐ culture based innovation by unleashing new ideas into other businesses as well as brokerage services. The origins of the SSES can be traced back to several courses taught at Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) and Karolinska Institutet (KI) in the 1990s. Its role was a response to arguments for the importance of entrepreneurship skills in modern economies and to structure teaching and the syllabus for related skills accordingly. A donation from the Erling-‐Persson Family Foundation allowed SSES to establish itself as an independent organisation in August 1999. This was followed by a further donation from the foundation in 2002, which made it possible for Konstfack (The University College of Arts, Crafts and Design) to become the fourth member institution. In 2009 Stockholm University was invited to join as the fifth member institution, resulting in the partnership as it is currently. Since it was founded, the partnership has grown each year thanks to its solid foundation of collective expertise, diversity, international standing and a commitment to provide cross-‐disciplinary studies in applied entrepreneurship. SSES is structured as a non-‐profit association with the acting rectors of the member universities as eligible members. The board of SSES represents the member universities and industry representatives. This construction creates a strong regional and personal commitment to the very idea of SSES. It also provides a sustainable and efficient platform for high-‐level academic decision-‐ making. SSES is also represented by a dedicated team of some 60 faculty and staff 35
members. Over 200 guest speakers, mentors and coaches take part in the education programme every year. Integrated into each of the Stockholm member schools, SSES complements existing educational programmes and offers students the chance to study in diverse disciplines and environments outside their home institutions. The expertise and scope of each can be summarized as follows: Konstfack Public University comprises ten institutions teaching 600 students. Subjects range from art teacher training and a curator program to fine arts and furniture design. Karolinska Institute (KI) is Sweden’s largest centre for medical training and research. It is renowned around the world for innovative research and as the institute that decides who will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) is Sweden’s largest technological university with over 13,000 students and 1,600 post-‐graduate students. The Institute conducts education and research across a broad spectrum – from natural science to all branches of technology. Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) has 2,200 students and its researchers rank among the best in the world in areas such as health economics, finance, business law and economics. Stockholm University has more than 31,000 students and 5,000 members of staff within the humanities, law, science, social sciences and teacher training. SSES workshops are all about expanding and polishing the student’s entrepreneurial toolbox. They are carefully developed in close collaboration with students and alumni to offer hands-‐on behaviour-‐changing training. Although the topics are general in nature, all workshops are designed for the context of the entrepreneur. All workshops are free to attend and open to all students at member schools. Weekend Workshops offer in-‐depth study and exploration of specific skill sets. To ensure participants get the most from each workshop they are held in small groups of no more than 14 participants. Toolbox Fridays give participants an initial glance at a specific skill set. As they are introductory in nature they are held in somewhat larger groups with up to 30 participants. International Bootcamps are held around the globe together with SSES partners and friends. Challenging but rewarding they are designed for the most engaged and devoted students. The SSES has supported hundreds of start-‐ups, graduated several thousand students and today offers an internationally renowned 36
portfolio of activities. Alumni companies include: Appear; Front; GlocalNet; JayCut; Klarna; Readmill; Redbet; SoundCloud; Tasteline; Videoplaza; Vironova; WESC and several hundred more. Netzwerk Gründen Linz’s Netzwerk Gründen includes Techcenter, the aforementioned Tech2b, Association Akostart, Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Institut for Entrepreneurship at the Johannes Kepler University, Wirtschaftsservice der Stadt Linz/Creative Community and Softwarepark Hagenberg. Others involved include the City of Linz, the Federal State of Upper Austria, the regional-‐management, Creative Region Linz and Upper Austria, and the TMG. All these institutions work together to aid start-‐ups in the creative industries. By taking a problem-‐solving approach, expertise from across the network is enlisted to address issues and questions at the early stage of business and idea development. Project originators suggest that before this network was properly established, organisations were rather inward-‐looking and concentrated in local responsibilities, meaning that start-‐ups took a while finding the variety of input that might be needed to aid their projects. Now, a tight connection and efficient working system across Netzwerk supports creative spillovers and helps people to meet partners who are appropriate to their development, accessing information in an efficient way, all of which aids the rapid promotion of success. The nature of aid offered by Netzwerk Gründen also touches upon aspects of spatial cross collaboration services, as contributing partners constitute an infrastructure of Fab Lab, science-‐park, incubators and co-‐working sites. Likewise, there is a form of smart incentive in evidence as start-‐ups are aided with applications for financial support. Berlin brokerage Berlin’s well-‐developed brokerage initiatives demonstrate the way in which various services that nurture cross innovation may work together. Likewise, they illustrate instances where brokerage emerges in particular cultural activities and spaces, again blurring any tendency to ‘silo-‐thinking’ in making sense of cross innovation. 37
Planet Modulor Berlin’s Planet Modulor is an association of small and medium sized creative companies from the fields of merchandising, manual crafts, design, art and culture. More than 30 companies comprise the association, which inhabits an 11,000 sq. meter space located at Moritzplatz in Berlin-‐Kreuzberg, thus benefitting one of the most economically underdeveloped areas of Berlin. The project was initiated by Modulor Material Total together with its sister company Modulor Projekt GmbH. Modulor is a specialist in materials such as plastics, rubber, cardboard, paper, wood, cork, metal and textiles. Planet Modulor aimed to expand this offer and align it with the expertise and services of material processing companies and workshops. To date, more than 30 partners have joined the initiative which is supported by a private investor as well as The Senate Department of Economics, Technology and Research and the Mayor of the borough of Friedrichshain-‐Kreuzberg, who aided in the procurement process for ‘Aufbau Haus’ which houses Planet Modulor. As a site, Planet Modular includes, amongst other things: workshops for laser cutting, milling, wood, textiles, synthetics and metal; manufacturers of mosaics, wall papers, interior furnishings and audio systems; space for model making, goldsmiths and photographers; labs; a printing business; bookstore; cafés and restaurant; a youth integration and training centre; as well as a kindergarten on the roof. With the space as a broker for creativity and innovation, this underwrites its community sensibility and the aim of creating a culture and experience founded in qualities distinct from purely consumerism-‐oriented ‘shopping centres’. The broad and unique offer of Planet Modular has triggered cross innovation which is manifest in the way in which new products and services; new combinations, collaborative projects and creative spillovers emerge from the proximity of the different businesses and initiatives. Examples include the way in which the architect of the kindergarten is based in the building and is a member of the association, having designed and produced the interiors with a carpenter and textile designer also based at Modulor. Another is an audio manufacturer that orders material from Modulor, processes it with an on-‐site laser cutter and assembles products in the workshop. Likewise, co-‐workers, an urban gardening community, maker labs and various SMEs around Moritzplatz are transforming the urban space into a new ecosystem for people to work and live. As a space for brokerage and co-‐working, the development of the association has facilitated wider relationships amongst various stakeholders in the city and neighbourhood. Modulor Projekt GmbH, as a consultancy and spin-‐off of Planet 38
Modulor, and its development of the Moritzplatz area, now professionalizes the know-‐how gained throughout the project. The company further develops models for interdisciplinary projects and experimental spaces. Other groups of companies as well as investors and policy makers have been approaching the team for advice on new initiatives, formats and spaces inspired by this project. Club Consult Club Consult is a project initiated by the Clubcommission Berlin – the association of Berlin’s club, party and event organisers. The ‘Initiative für Musik’ and the ‘Projekt Zukunft – Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research’, fund the project. Club Consult provides consultancy for the management of clubs and event locations in Berlin, with a focus on sustainability. The rationale for brokerage around sustainability is that music, events and entertainment are energy intensive industries. The production, distribution and staging of performances require high levels of lighting, air-‐conditioning and sound, as well as a need for cooling systems. Carbon emissions are also high. Projects like the Green Music Initiative demonstrate that the average club consumes as much energy as forty three-‐person households. Club Consult aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the industry. Clubs are also faced with adjustments they need to make within the urban environment, dealing with sound emissions, the impact of events on surrounding neighbourhoods and residents, which, if handled poorly, can lead to sanctions. Club Consult organised a survey to identify company needs around these issues. They found that fragmented structures, small independent businesses and individual artists characterize large parts of the sector making it problematic to address sustainability in an efficient form. As a first step, it was therefore important to create awareness for the issue. Beyond this, Club Consult demonstrates the benefits and opportunities for saving costs by applying sustainable solutions. As a result, Club Consult brings together experts from the club sector with companies offering workshop services and open surgeries on acoustics and noise emission, sustainable energy concepts, fire safety and air condition, new technologies and software as well as finance, legal and administrative services. In this way Club Consult acts as a broker bridging the gap between the culture-‐based music sector and traditional construction and technical support services. Some examples show the variety of benefits emerging for the SMEs. One club optimised their sound system by working with acoustics engineers who aided with sound level measurements, adjusting frequency controls to protect neighbours from sound emissions. The club can now remain in the mostly 39
residential area it is located in untroubled by complaints or legal action. Another example involved a technical inspection company, which advised on the refurbishment and location development of a listed heritage building used as a club venue. The engineers consulted the management with a concept for the usage of the building, the building materials, fire protection certificates and with the building application. Such SMEs benefited from the support of Club Consult and the contacts the project facilitated. They saved costs by profiting from a discount with the contracted consultancies and in the long-‐term may could develop solutions that help sustain their business. Club Consult is aiming at establishing the project as an agency after the three-‐year funded project period. Design Transfer Bonus Design Transfer Bonus is an incentive tool which has been designed specifically with cross innovation in mind, enabling, in particular, collaboration between design-‐led industries and companies from ‘traditional’ sectors. At the same time it opens up new markets for the creative industries and design products. The scheme helps innovation in SME businesses with a programme that brings together companies from technology sectors, e.g. manufacturing, engineering, transport or logistics, brokering relationships with design companies, agencies or universities. Its aim it to develop technology-‐oriented products and services as a result of transferring innovation and knowledge within design companies and universities to SMEs. In this initiative, technology developers at an early stage of production development are provided with the opportunity to engage with design experts and develop new innovative solutions, products and services. In addition, the Design Transfer Bonus provides financial incentives for SME proposals, offering up to 70% of costs and a maximum of 15,000 Euros for external design works as well as design consultancy, project and design management for new or improved products, services and processes. These incentives are similar to innovation voucher schemes as they provide access to R&D and know-‐how from design experts. In addition to voucher schemes that relate to SMEs and higher education institutions or research centres, the Design Transfer Bonus is also designed to support business-‐to-‐ business relationships and consultancy. The programme was established by the Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research. The funding agency B.&S.U. Beratungs-‐ und Servicegesellschaft Umwelt mbH is the administrator for the programme. 40
Together with business support agencies in the city and districts, the Design Transfer Bonus is being promoted at matchmaking events where SMEs from technology-‐oriented companies can meet potential new partners from the design industries. The events support the businesses in finding suitable partners for development. They provide company profiles, presentations and speed dating sessions. The organisers also assist the follow-‐up meetings and application process. Design Transfer Bonus provides an innovative new format. Compared to common voucher schemes designed to bring together research institutions and companies, the Design Transfer Bonus also focuses on the potential that lies within the creative economy and design businesses. The approach addresses silo thinking by promoting this business-‐to-‐business knowledge transfer. In the creative economy where ‘practice’ can be ahead of research, or at least has a different more developmental symbiotic relationship, it becomes clear that knowledge flows are not primarily in one direction – from higher education institutions to SMEs. The Design Transfer Bonus engages with the knowledge intensive design industries and makes the expertise and creativity that lies within those companies more widely accessible. The scheme is a trigger for innovation and the development of new collaborative projects, products and services. This programme is currently in the pilot phase and examples of projects developed with the Design Transfer Bonus will be completed soon. The first projects approved show a focus on web applications and user interface designs. Product designs are the second important group. The examples also demonstrate the success of the business-‐to-‐business approach -‐ most projects bring together SMEs from different sectors, whereas SMEs teaming up with higher education institutions is a less frequent occurrence at this stage. Those behind the initiative point out that one of the challenges of working with different sectors lies in the effective circulation and presentation of the offer through different channels. In some instances, ‘traditional’ industries and design businesses work in close proximity but still do not necessarily meet and connect. It is key to create opportunities were companies from different sectors can meet and share information. 41
Smart Incentives for Cross Innovation
In the current global climate and facing the challenge of austerity measures in public finances across Europe in particular, we can anticipate that the practice of smart incentives in finance for cross innovation is likely to be increasingly desirable but also under substantial pressure. Nonetheless, and in spite of a low number of examples offered by project partners so far, this is one area in need of serious evaluation for understanding prompts for cross innovation. Micro-‐finance for under-‐developed spaces Lisbon Municipality In Portugal, Lisbon Municipality has a micro-‐entrepreneurship project that is designed to respond to depressed business activity in particular areas of the city. The project aims to create spaces in these neighbourhoods for services and information by facilitating and strengthening micro-‐businesses, creating jobs and opportunities for enterprising people who experience difficulty in accessing bank credit. The project offers online micro-‐credit as well as facilitating the clearance of municipal licensing channels and aiding in the alleviation of municipal taxes in the first year of business. This is an initiative targeted at cultivating the entrepreneurship of those with little or no access to regular strategies for the development of economic activity such as niche companies, incubators, technical advice or bank financing. Several partners are involved. António Sérgio Cooperative Social Economy (CASES) is responsible for aspects of micro-‐credit, supported by public financing under favourable terms. The Union of Associations of Trade and Services (UACs) is an entity that provides services to merchant partners, including support in accounting and legal matters and is developing projects to encourage commercial activity, including a business incubator. A local ‘Parish of St. Disputable’ and ‘Project ‘Ai Mouraria’’ have authority and administrative responsibility for the neighbourhoods subject to the project and have both made space available for operations. The process supports the dynamism and spread of the city’s commercial activity and it is intended to extend it to further areas of the city through other established outreach points and authorities such as Lisbon’s School of Commerce. This will aid a more exhaustive monitoring and support for business plans, as well as offering training for employees in the target areas. 42
Embodied financial aid: human capital Officina Innovazione Rome’s Officina Innovazione employs 6 persons from different fields such as electronics, informatics, environment and management. A public development agency, it offers innovation and technology transfer related-‐services to local micro business and SMEs. Its innovative practice appears in the way in which it merges smart finance processes with brokerage services based on an understanding of the character and needs of different industrial sectors. Its particularity lies in investing in highly professional human capital able to trigger and develop innovation processes in traditional environments. Officina Innovazione relies upon local entrepreneurial associations to provide contacts with their member companies in order to identify the most appropriate SMEs for technological check-‐ups and project attention. Support is focused on the identification and hiring of highly skilled personnel to aid development as opposed to paying for equipment or other project costs (consumables, travels, etc.), which are covered by SMEs themselves. This incentive then stimulates activity by the inclusion of an ‘innovator’ with technological and interdisciplinary competences within companies that have limited numbers and finance for personnel. The project analyses SME needs and scouts competences and technologies available amongst partners. This is done by a door to door approach where staff get to know each of the SMEs, which allows the offering of a tailored assistance path planned on an individual basis Once a match has been made, a series of meetings is organized to introduce the SME and researcher in order cultivate communication, allowing the stakeholders to understand each other, tell their stories, discuss solutions, and let reciprocal confidence grow until concrete proposals for collaboration emerge. Local SMEs then can access a public service that is free of charge, that serves to build bridges with research centres and universities located in the region, the scope of which speaks to the diversity of this project and the way in which this smart finance incentive acts simultaneously as a brokerage service. These partners include: University of La Sapienza, University of Rome 3 -‐ Informatic and Automation Department, National Research Council -‐ Department of Bio-‐ Agrofood and Institute of Industrial Technology and Automation, University of Tor Vergata -‐ Department of Mechanical Engineering and Laboratory for Interactive Systems and Multimodal Interfaces 43
In its attention to brokering contacts between sectors, Officina Innovazione seeks to address an absence or gap in communication among companies and researchers as well as a situation in which it perceives a very limited, or totally absent, process of knowledge transfer between research activities and industrial companies, which has consequences in the lack of industrial exploitation of applied research results. This attentiveness is demonstrated in ‘Technological Promoters for Innovation’, a project launched in 2009 and which has thus far financed 26 projects of collaboration between researchers and SMEs. The result of these collaboration projects has been the creation of 26 new products or services that have been prototyped and tested as well as the establishment, to date, of 2 new companies. Officina Innovazione’s series of activities has resulted in some critical analysis that suggests how processes might be improved. Within the Technological Promoters scheme for instance, it is suggested that further funding should be allocated to projects that achieved results that were significant in terms of applicability as well as evincing reduced time between development and reaching market. Such support would develop a focus on the ‘pre-‐production’ phase of development, including market testing. Likewise, it has been suggested that many SMEs have limited scope and experience in supervising and managing a research/innovation project. As a result, Officina Innovazione’s brokerage work could be further developed by offering detailed project management services, following up promising collaborations between SMEs and researchers, in order to cement the relationship and its translation to project development and implementation. Business on show: attracting finance online and ‘on-‐air’ EU1 TV Platform A Dutch project offered as an example of smart incentive services is EU1 TV. The project transcends locality as it is an online film and TV platform, which offers opportunities for directors, producers, actors, scriptwriters and others to exhibit or broadcast their work in an environment resembling a regular TV channel. The EU1 TV Platform offers non-‐linear, online and on-‐demand cable TV that is available free of charge or on a payment basis. Creative workers are able to seek support for new projects in development, pre-‐production or at the production stage via financial models that are efficiently and ‘smartly’ facilitated in the digital world, such as sponsoring and crowd funding. The main objective of EU1 TV is to create a pan-‐European platform to pitch, fund, produce and distribute consumer audiovisual material. It will bring together the creative industry, viewers, financers and distributers across Europe through 44
different distributing channels. The multi-‐linguistic platform will enable makers to control the distribution of their own content. The project is at an early stage of development and it is hoped that it will be consolidated with contributions from film and TV makers in conjunction with their audiences. To the degree that contemporary digital platforms blur distinctions between both poles of producer and consumer, this might look like the most challenging of the cross innovation projects and thus suggests perhaps a new category for our thinking. EU1 TV works in partnership with its corporate backers who are the Netherlands’ largest cable companies – UPC and Ziggo. In this way, EU1 TV has enormous potential reach with an estimated audience of 10m available across the EU. In their roles as sponsors/endorsers, UPC and Ziggo are able to offer content from EU1 TV straight to their clients. Their role is also to participate in innovative activities online or across digital TV, such as premiering significant content, as well as leading in other marketing opportunities. Alongside UPC and Ziggo, EU1 TV cooperates closely with its technology partner TTY Internet Solutions and ‘Rights Stuff’ which deals with Media Rights & Content Acquisition/Distribution. EU1 TV’s creators argue that the platform gives contributing creatives freedom over their content in ways that are not available in regular frameworks for TV production. This is because they influence the degree to which brands, investors and other stakeholders are actively involved in decision making. Content on the platform is also distinguished from the widespread amateurism of other online work, as only producers with a ‘proven track record’ are allowed to upload content directly. The aim here is to ensure a ‘safe haven’ for established stars and new talent in the management of a professional, supportive and innovative environment There is an interesting duality to the project here that balances an interest in commerce and culture. The cultural reach of a project badged as EU1 TV is such that creatives across the world can contribute. In addition, EU1 TV services notions of cultural heritage as it makes a variety of archival Dutch films available on its platform, a characteristic that, depending upon rights issues, can be extended to other countries. Alongside this is a suggestion that its model invites relatively commercial approaches to creating content in conjunction with sponsors. ‘The traditional way of advertising is losing its impact and brands are looking for both new ways of storytelling and alternative ways of distributing their stories. They are also looking for alternative ways of engaging viewers to associate stories with their Brand message, perhaps more subtly and less ‘in your face’ these days than in the earlier days of ‘sponsorship’ or ‘product placement’ models. So […] 45
why not connect Brands and Makers directly to each other and let them tell their stories together?’ Innovativ Kultur There is a lack of seed financing within the creative industries in Stockholm; supported by the city, the Innovativ Kultur project aims to boost small innovative businesses with support in this area. It announces funding for projects twice per year and advises on other funds and sources of funding. It is run by Innovation Impact Ltd, a consultancy specializing in innovation processes. Ten calls have taken place since the start of the initiative in 2008. Innovativ Kultur is a resource for anyone involved in creative arts and cultural projects, exploratory experiments and ideas that create collaborations between culture, business and academia. The institute aims to contribute to Stockholm’s growth through cross-‐border cooperation, inspiring innovation and cultural renewal through project support, expert advice and an extensive network. Alongside its financial smart incentives, Innovativ Kultur helps entrepreneurs to develop their ideas or project by offering: • Advice by mail, phone and personal meetings in each step from the formulation of ideas to their practical implementation. • Idéloft is a venue at Innovativ Kultur where entrepreneurs pitch ideas and get expert advice directly from the institute but also from other advisors and specialists. • Networking for companies, organizations and individuals. The institute facilitates contact between innovators and who may have an interest in the idea or project. Additionally, Innovativ Kultur is a site where creators and entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas and meet experts, investors and crowds who will support the most popular or commercially interesting ideas, with a view to concrete realisation. 46
Reflection
The accounts outlined above present the varieties of ways in which cross innovation has been detailed and understood by researchers identifying case studies, as well as those behind the cases themselves. The four explanatory themes used to organize thinking are clearly unevenly distributed in terms of projects represented, with a heavy weighting to culture-‐based innovation at one end of the scale and fewest examples of smart incentives at the other. Of course, there is no logic that demands that there should be equal weighting between these themes. As is suggested above, in the current climate one can appreciate that the existence and availability of financial incentives is likely to be increasingly rare. Likewise, the provision of spaces for creative work and collaboration is likely to be capital intensive and brokerage services require some support and logistical organization. It should be noted that the themes were used as conceptual maps to aid researchers in seeking out and making sense of what kinds of work is taking place between the creative sector and other industries. They were, in part, derived from EU frameworks, as well as familiarity amongst the team with the kinds of work already taking place that originally prompted the project concept and design. What is apparent perhaps is that the boundaries of these categories are rather permeable in application and understanding. To some degree, the themes and ideas have been overlaid onto each case study a priori in the research process. As such, a number of projects offered under the various categories do perhaps serve to test the value of the themes, if not the core concept of cross innovation. For this author these include the following projects, which are not explored in the sections above: The Kyboka Mizigo is a Dutch project that comes from a collaboration of a company specializing in producing customized tents and building prototypes, to optimize construction of its products with Dovkis Design. The resulting product created is a personalized means of transport for luggage that looks not unlike the kind of play cart that young children pull around. The design company offered insights into the potential market, of how design can be used to improve the functionality of the product, which is based upon a complaint that current means of transport are too heavy, take up a lot of space, and are unusable on many uneven surfaces. Thus, the Kyboka Mizugo has a lightweight construction, is easy to fold, strong, and is weatherproof. The Warsaw-‐based entrepreneur, sole-‐trader, educationalist, Bartłomiej Stolarczyk – „trener asertywności’ (‘Assertiveness Trainer’) worked with 42net 47
CreActive to create a website; ‘Its exclusive task is to present the package and acquire potential training and course participants. ‘ The result aids education in personal assertiveness training, allowing subscription to a newsletter and links to a downloadable free e-‐book. Another Dutch project SchoolVision applies knowledge and insight from the lighting industry into the educational sector. Different departments within Philips (development, marketing, production, sales) have participated in developing research carried out by the University of Hamburg and Twente, working with different schools from the Netherlands and Germany. This innovation introduces the dynamics of daily light into classrooms and allows teachers to control the classroom ambience. By recreating the dynamics of natural daylight in the classroom, SchoolVision provides an optimum learning environment that engages and stimulates or relaxes and calms. The technology was tested in Hamburg by local government and the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-‐Eppendorf. A total of 166 pupils and 18 teachers took part in the year-‐ long scientific experiment, which recorded significant improvements in student performance. After the existing lighting in each classroom was replaced with the SchoolVision system, attention span, concentration and the behaviour of pupils all improved significantly. Under the dynamic daylight conditions, not only did their performance improve, they also read faster and made fewer mistakes. Seen from one perspective then, the manner in which cross-‐innovation has often been interpreted may appear to be little more than a description of the kinds of services provided by one sector -‐ web designers for instance -‐ for those in another. The degree to which collaboration and exchange has taken place in such cases is not entirely clear. However, even if all such instances labelled as cross innovation here were viewed in a limited fashion, it is still possible to value the way in which revealing aspects of the nature of the relationships between cultural businesses and other sectors come into view. In such instances, questions arise about the permeable boundaries of expertise, especially in relations with the digital sector. For instance, many of us might nowadays claim to be digital natives: social media use, as well as off-‐the-‐peg formats such as WordPress or Posterous, mean that building and managing blogs and websites is a common activity. Certainly, most of us have experience of online formats in our cultural consumption and engagement with services, much of which is attentive to the nature of our needs and often responsive in inviting feedback. Thus, while web-‐designers may offer specialist skills arising from an aptitude for coding in order to build bespoke frameworks according to need, as well as aesthetic sensibilities in individuating the look of sites, each of us as consumer is familiar with what works for us as consumers, a familiarity which translates into understanding something of the product that one seeks to produce and its function. 48
By way of example, Warsaw’s CoWork said of the results produced by Enysoft that ‘The website lacks the possibility of sending e-‐mails, that is, a specific link that would allow to enter a question and send it to the system […] it also lacks a mobile version of the website for smart phones as well as for tablets and other mobile devices.’ The CoWork insider is au fait with current conventions and expectations for websites, noting too that what was also missing was a system for generating feedback from users. A detailed follow-‐up into such collaborations may reveal whether there was an issue in the innovation process and communications between the partners. Either way, both have something to gain in understanding this process and the interaction necessary to produce a website that functions effectively. Such instances do lead to questions about the nature of innovation presented here. It is, on one hand, a quality viewed from within partnerships in terms of working processes, materials, connections and opportunities. On the other hand, it is manifest in public results – in the physical spaces, products and partnership opportunities advertised for further participants. Based on this review then, here are some itemized ideas about trends, features and absences that we could use as a basis for further investigation as well as discussion about the function of policy clinics for cross innovation. Uniqueness and core values: One of the characteristics of work outlined is the way in which processes and products exhibit aspects of the individuated character of creative work. This is manifest in the unique qualities of artefacts produced, working practices, the individuated and bespoke character of digital experiences and others outlined. All of this is underwritten in many cases by an overt address to values – whether ethical, aesthetic or even expressed in forms of authenticity and dispositions towards outputs. This is not to say that other forms of industry are not invested in values of this nature but that these are foregrounded here even amidst the very broad sense of culture and creative work. Networking and collaboration: In studies of ways designed to nurture the creativity of the creative economy, the special qualities or ‘mystique’ of the central process of inspiration or talent is largely bypassed in favour of facilitating contexts for exchange of ideas and experiences between creative workers. Acknowledging the often sole-‐trader, SME, basis of much of the sector, initiatives have focused on aiding networking. What is apparent in this project is the success of attempts to overcome ‘silo-‐thinking’ which occurs within, across and between sectors. To make an observation on what is perhaps most obvious about these case studies, and wherever and whatever the nature of innovation takes place; they are in all instances the result of collaborative partnerships. This 49
observation is worth underlining for the way in which in each case, organisations approached the way in which they work together, sharing ideas and exploring each other’s expertise as opposed to maintaining compartmentalised roles – or silo thinking -‐ in a conventional division of labour between commissioning agent and service provider. Education and training: Universities play a role in a number of the case studies, producing potential creative workers as well as supporting cross innovation activity. How then do HEIs work locally and more widely across disciplines and with a range of actors? What are the resources within HEIs that might be freed up for cross innovation with outside agencies and indeed, within them and their various departments? Beyond a consideration of HE institutions, the importance of activities of education and training in business and innovation are apparent. Whether in terms of implicit education in terms of sharing expertise and transferring knowledge or in formal modes of instruction in business methods etc., how these are conceived and optimized for underwriting cross innovation beyond a level in which experience and insight is embodied in individuals, is in need of exploration. Likewise, something akin to ‘intrapreneurship’ in education, within organisations, could be named and understood here. Absences and problematic case studies: At the moment, the case studies are couched in rather promotional terms. While this offers an encouraging tone to ideas of cross innovation there is a need for details from these examples, and elsewhere, about things that have not worked, about misunderstanding, frustrations, barriers to cross innovation, cultural parameters and dead-‐ends. Negative examples have an equal part to play in determining advice and planning for future policy and this is a signal absence. Readers of the case studies summarized above will inevitably come to their own conclusions about the nature of evidence for cross innovation. Likewise, as this author has discovered, the information as originally presented and re-‐worked in this document, raises a range of questions about each of the cases, the four themes for framing cross innovation and indeed the meaning of the core concept itself. What is needed in order to progress the value of the concept and its application for the forthcoming policy clinics is further discussion, feedback and understanding of these case studies. Given the range of ways of thinking about and defining creative and cultural industries (and the conjunction with a wider knowledge economy) across the EU and the partnership represented here, there is a need for further investigation and discussion about the terms of cross innovation. What are the dynamics of 50
public and private partnerships for instance? What is the relationship between the dynamics, opportunities and limits of local culture, geography, and organisation, for cross innovation? In what terms can this locality be translated into wider activity? Furthermore, given the weight of evidence presented by so many individual case studies (some of which themselves represent a range of projects and successes), there is also a need for more detailed insight into the complexity and value of cross innovation ideas captured in accounts from key actors. Above all, and notwithstanding the value of the work done so far, research needs to be predicated on an open-‐ended, exploratory basis in order to further comprehend the nature of cross innovation. Dr Paul Long March 2013 Comments, corrections and suggestions to: paul.long@bcu.ac.uk
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Appendix: Cross Innovation Factsheet In the first year of the project we have explored the topic of “Cross Innovation”. The following short overview gathers some of the thinking, definitions and elements we have collected so far. In writing the Report For Period 1 (Jan – Jun 2012) we defined “Cross Innovation” as this: ‘By the term cross innovation we understand a process by which creative industries share information, collaborate and work with other growth sectors to promote new thinking.’ The definition above was informed by the Short Study, which investigated what “Cross Innovation” means in the partner cities. Partners described it as: ‘Co-‐operation between different sectors that would not normally work together to address key challenges’ ‘Connecting the bohemian and entrepreneurial parts of the city’ ‘A system of knowledge exchange to get information across about innovation and creativity in a city’ ‘It’s about new products, services and systems… the added-‐value the creative industries can bring to other sectors’ ‘It’s about culture-‐led innovation leading to social outcomes with a strong community focus’ The project works along four sub-‐themes of Cross Innovation Smart Incentives – innovative types of finance that enable cross innovation; Culture-‐based Innovation – schemes that unleash innovation in business and the public sector by introducing artistic and creative practices; Brokerage – services that build bridges between sectors by connecting cross innovation enablers with beneficiaries; Spatial Cross-‐Collaboration – supporting cross innovation in a spatial context: co-‐working spaces, incubators, fab-‐labs, science parks and local clusters. With the experience from the case studies and study visits we can now further define specific areas of interest for all of the sub-‐themes. Smart Incentives (Finance)
Culture-‐based Innovation (Culture)
Brokerage
Spacial Cross-‐ Collaboration (Space)
Smart finance in times of crisis
Design thinking in SMEs
Intermediate roles – SMEs and policy making
Creative spaces, (labs, co-‐working, management)
Public tendering
Cultural management strategies
Growth accelerators (through networking)
Ecosystems location
Vouchers
Communication
and
We think the following approaches should be used as a framework for understanding how to engage with each of the four sub-‐ themes. How you find the finance to make Cross Innovation happen
Identifying the new thinking
How you bring people together
How you create places where Cross Innovation happens
Steve Harding, Tom Cahill-‐Jones, Nina Lakeberg, Dec 2012.
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