Amplifying NESTA at the Conservative Party Conference - Getting Creative

This is a liveblog of the NESTA fringe event on the Creative Industries. I took contemporaneous notes and pulled in a few live comments from Timforchange as he tagged his tweets #nesta and #cpo09.

Immediately after the session, I made an Audioboo thinking about what I’d heard and how different the mood was from a similar session at Brighton last week:

16:08 Absolutely packed session on the Creative Industries at the #nesta fringe meeting in Manchester

Jonathan Kestenbaum says opportunities and barriers are great; lots of issues to discuss; about 5 mins from each panelist. Then discussion.

Timforchange Just realised martha lane fox is on the panel, great online entrepreneur.

Martha Lane-Fox

16:09 Digital is exciting but more technical people don’t always have the necessary levels of business acumen - so this is a key issue not to be forgotten. Digital inclusion is ‘hyper-relevant”. It’s right and it’s economically valid. Unlocking more people and including them unlocks more markets.

16:10 Creativity can be unleashed through inclusion. [mentions her activity as 'semi-royal visits]. Deprived iner city wards can also particpate - example of Knowle West near Bristol and www. greenfootprints.org; an initiative of Lil - a gardener who created gardens and new media with young people - this is a great initiative for the local economy and society.

16:14 Timforchange Martha lane fox recommends social action project between elderly + youth see www.greenfootprints.org.

Simon Waldman - Guardian Media Group

16:15 Fear and excitement characterise the media over the past few years of radical transformation. Very exciting and very scary. Need smart innovative start-ups as well as MSM - need to help media businesses trasnform.

Three specific things to highlight:

• BBC and good governance; need to make sure BBC behaves well
• A more liberal approach to newspaper ownership; especially cross-media
• The world and ecosystem of search and content aggregation

Tremendous times to live in. And possibility of great growth -[ but care needed to preserve what we've got].

Sue Woodward - Sharp Project and Manchester’s Commission for the New Economy

16:20 Second biggest media hub in UK, lots of radio, lots of old and new media. 100,000 students. 60,000 people in hardware and software. 87,000 people in creative industries. Important is the continuing commitment from City government. And Manchester has a major internet exchange. Sue mentions importance of new investment of new networks. Need to expand the infrastructure of the City Region.

16:22 Digital infrastructure needs significant investment to create new businesses and new jobs. Needs infrastructure Capex which cannot come from existing infrastructure. Needs intervention. [Audience approves, perhaps, certainly reacts!]

Jonathan Kestenbaum says we need politicians who have been ‘out there’ in the real world - introducing Jeremy Hunt as someone who qualifies for that description.

Jeremy Hunt - Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

16:24 Started as a publisher and we concluded that the internet would ‘kill’ course directories. So we became an internet company. Spoke to Martha [laughter] at lastminute.com [she obviously has no recollection of this at all]. It’s exciting and there are opportunities. Internet can transform the lives of non-technical users. Anecdote of his Grannie and ‘the Silver Generation’ using a chat room. Groups of people can be lonely and the internet can make powerful connections.

16:24 Timforchange Jeremy hunt went to get advice from martha lane fox, when setting up his company ‘hot courses’. She doesn’t remember.

16:26 There is a broader internet phenomenon which is about the democritisation of innovation and the creation of a new ‘Trade Route’. For the UK this is a huge opportunity and if we get it right we can capture the opportunites. Our regulation is too heavy handed - Communications Act 2003 is not sufficient to deal with the reality of the internet. Media ownership rules are not helpful to new business models.

Need to ‘de-regulate on a massive scale’.

16:29 Intellectual property is an issue and we won’t vote against Mandelson’s bandwidth throttling plans.

16:30 Need new models for local media and we need to look at the potential for local TV - we are unusual in not having our own local TV stations.

Need much faster development of fibre infrastructure - ducts need to be open; like the developments in France of opening up France Telecom’s duct infrastructure.

16:33 Timforchange We need to make much better progress in getting uk connected-roll out of high speed broadband. #cpc09 #nesta

Now moving on to Questions and Discussion

Martin Smith Ingenious Media - alarming talk about the Digital Economy bill not going through. The creative economy is £58.3 bn. Need to get a bi-partisan approach to the bill.

Richard Mollet BPI - tax treatment of IP and innovation is to change. Any comments from Trasury colleagues?
[Couldn't hear name] formerly Dir of Innovation and Strat NHS choices. West Midlands SHA contract on local TV and Health? Any joined up thinking?

“Top-slicing of the licence fee is mad and we won’t support it” - Jeremy Hunt MP.

Sue Woodward makes the point that we can use technology to save cost and help people live longer in their own homes.

Q from Debbie in York (via internet) - about media ownership - but it’s about the print industry being able to consolidate geopgraphically.

Q from: Nick from Channel 4 - re cuts in public spending. How can Govt spend be used to drive innovation and improve health - example of Maverick TV.

Q from: Andy Cook - who represents Magazine Publishers. Cites importance of Google search - a real concern because of the power of Google.

Q from: Jeff - Quadriga Consulting - how can Governemnt act as an exemplar of how to use digital media?

Jeremy Hunt - “The money has all gone and we need to recognise that”

Hunt continues; need to create an environment that supports risk taking. Government can be an exemplar in the sue of IT. But we need to learn the lessons of failed government IT contracts. Mission creep results in over spend. Need small-scale projects that can be innovative and result in useful new initiatives not strangled by bureaucracy.

Sue Woodward gives example of Sharp Project - ’spend buttons’ but get new space from an old warehouse. Doesn’t necessarily need big money. Needs more basic conditions and flexibility.

Simon Waldman - Google does not invest in content in the UK. They are an innovative business. They have grown the internet in the UK probably better than the BBC has.

Martha Lane-Fox. Google is concerning and needs to be watched. But has no solution. Maybe we can encourage diversity in search-engine use?

Q from webcast re tax breaks and tax take from internet users to be ploughed back into new developments.

JH says ISPs are ruthlessly competitive. Can’t see price going up.

Martha Lane-Fox says tax credits made no difference to lastminute.

Q from: Caroline Deal - Media trust - any plans for joining up by taking young people ‘off the dole’ and helping them to be creative and become a new gen of digital and social entrepreneurs?

Q from: Ian Forrester from BBC SW (via internet) re ‘bandwidth throttling’ causing a problem with innovation.

JH says Welfare to Work will incentivise creative industries to create new jobs.

Sue Woodward - some educators see media studies as ‘not proper’ needs a change of tone as they can support new educated software engineers and physicists - creating high value jobs.

[session ends at 1700]