CCI Mainstreaming Idea Jam Challenge 2009

8 June 2009 – 24 June 2009

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ACTION POINTS

EASY

1. Offer media training workshops to all Centre members
Idea: Mainstreaming through the media, Media Training Workshops (Carrie Miller) ‐ An annual
Media Training Workshop which concentrates on developing the opinion writing skills of researchers
and which also encourages collaboration on co‐authored pieces.
a) There is a detailed paper by Andrew Leigh on getting published which we should access
(APO 8‐12‐2004) and use for these workshops
b) It might be worth us setting up some goals re frequency of opinion pieces, and maybe even
a 'roster' for writing them.

2. Develop process to keep CCI website current with member publications

Idea: Use the CCI website to share research results ‐ and publish open access (Amanda Lawrence)
‐ Every CCI researcher has the ability to add their research results and publications to the CCI
website anytime and yet the site is largely neglected by most CCI staff. But as far as the world is
concerned CCI has produced 7 publications in the last 6 months. If you want mainstream impact list
your publications where the world can find them ‐ the second they come out.
a) Some support, ie a person to upload publications might be useful.
b) How might the CCI metrics data on publications be fed into the website?

3. Investigate further international linkages, perhaps as part of Hartley's forthcoming trip

Idea: Building international alliances with similar institutions (Carsten Herrmann –Pillath) ‐ Newly
established Institute for Advanced Studies at Glasgow have some activities there which are close to
CCI's interests. Establish a network with international partner institutions that themselves also face a
mainstreaming challenge.
a) Also Michael Hutter's institute in Berlin. See { Link }

4. Investigate potential for special issues in cross‐disciplinary journals

Idea: Harnessing the Creative Arts to the Innovation agenda ( Carsten Herrmann‐Pillath) ‐ I'd like
to see the Centre of Excellence enlisting comments and inputs from the Creative and
Performing Arts elements of the Creative Industries as to how they may be able to contribute to a
mainstream Innovation agenda.
a) Explicitly valuing marginal user‐led innovation more

IMPORTANT

1. Establish a working group to investigate the potential cost/benefits of developing CCI tools/repositories

Idea: Building international alliances with similar institutions (Carsten Herrmann –Pillath)
Idea: WIkimedia/pedia (John Quiggin)
Idea: Lightweight content generation (Andrew Brown) ‐ Leverage CCI's insights and experience of
user generated content to design and deploy a range of lightweight content generation systems to
enable, inspire and provide tangible outcomes for people in our communities.
Idea: Australian Culture Online (Brian Fitzgerald) ‐ Access to publicly funded Australian Culture
(film, music, text, photos) ‐ especially but not exclusively that which pre dates 1950, and be able to reuse it.

2. Establish initiatives to achieve leadership in emerging NBN space [underway]

Idea: National Broadband Network ‐ NBN‐ Leadership (Brian Fitzgerald) ‐ An applied project, that
encompasses much of the research in the centre ‐ as a way of mainstream impact. The development
of the NBN will dominate the landscape in the next 5 years. Through many in the Centre, CCi is well
placed to play a major role in mapping out a policy framework for the NBN.
Idea: Broadband Services Advisory Councils (Trevor Barr) ‐ CCI researchers consider how they
could lead in the creation of ad hoc Broadband Services Advisory Councils which could draw upon
expert opinion, both from other countries and from within Australia, regarding user experiences in
service domains and develop White Papers to fill in current gaping holes in national broadband
policy.

3. Explore strengthening of research focus on creative production processes

Idea: An increased focus on creative production processes (Phil Graham) ‐ A stronger and more
detailed focus on production within the entertainment industries would ground and round out the CCI's research. Integrating research about the new forces of creative production with the insights
already gleaned by the CCI will ground the research for the mainstream by 1) providing a
comprehensive view of the Australian creative labour force; 2) providing benchmark qualitative and
quantitative data about changes in production for international comparison; 3) developing an
historical picture of the changes in work that have happened over the last three decades; 4)
informing policy broadly relevant to the largest part of creative industries; and, 5) integrating
research across all significant aspects of the creative "value chain".

4. Continue to engage advisory board and key external collaborators on issues of integration with broader innovation agenda and the best role/position of the Centre from that perspective

Idea: The next stage of innovation research, thinking, and policy (Stuart Cunningham) ‐ One reading of mainstreaming is to broaden even further our discipline base, by increasing our capacity in design, for instance, or other production‐based research competencies. This has to be seen in the light of a centre which is already very broad in its discipline base compared to other Centres of Excellence, and thus has an ongoing challenge to maintain coherence, focus and depth under the rubric of excellence. Another mainstreaming pathway is to commit to seeking out every possible way in which the CCI can be linked to and create agendas for the next stage of innovation research, thinking, and policy, in this country and elsewhere.

a) I think we need some more strategic focus, and that will be the key to achieving more mainstream impact. The phase 2 bid fore grounded cultural science but left us with an apparently generic organisational structure. It might be useful for us to identify additional strategic themes which can then help us make decisions about how we use our resources, and also inform our participation in public debate and policy development. An example of such a strategic theme might be 'digital inclusion', but presumably there would be lots of other suggestions and possibilities.

b) What can we learn from the CI discursive experience ‐ because that wave has broken and whilst not abandoning it we need to create a new wave. Why did it work? 1. It coopted a high order master discourse ‐ economic impact. 2. It got traction in a government of the day (Blair) of a major power. Why? See 1? There is great turbulence in master discourse currently ‐ turbulence creates lots of little waves.... So lets do some content analytic work on those waves globally and find the next master discourse to coopt.

Idea: Creative Industries to be identified as Ministerial responsibility in Government (Ellissa Nolan) ‐ Ensure 'Creative Industries' has Ministerial identification and representation at Government level, separate to the Arts. Filtering the Creative Industries into mainstream media and the community through policy generation, awareness and advocacy at Ministerial level will ensure awareness and adoption in mainstream topics and formats. It might be useful to explore how the creation of a government portfolio encapsulating Creative Industries, Arts, Digital Economy and Communications would contribute a new perspective on contemporary social, cultural and
technological issues. It may also provide a springboard for staff into new roles beyond 2013, while ensuring that the concept of Creative Industries continues to flourish and be recognised and respected in national and international contexts.

Idea: Harnessing the Creative Arts to the Innovation agenda (Lelia Green) ‐ I'd like to see the Centre of Excellence enlisting comments and inputs from the Creative and Performing Arts elements of the Creative Industries as to how they may be able to contribute to a mainstream Innovation agenda. A creative‐innovation agenda might also add value to the post‐Cutler review, post‐Powering Ideas perspective, and lassoo the creative and atomised margins into the mainstream.

IDEAS FOR DEEPER CONSIDERATION

1. Investigate potential role and benefits/costs of a CCI consulting group

Idea: Industry Connections ‐ Convergence Culture Consortium Model (John Banks) ‐ How to connect our research with companies and creative industry leaders seeking to understand new ways of doing business in the rapidly changing environment of co‐creative consumers, social network
platforms, user‐led innovation etc? What about an approach similar to MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium (http://www.convergenceculture.org/). Bridge the gap between academic and market research by running events such as workshops and other events in which our research is presented in appropriate format for industry participants and we also hear from them about problems they are grappling with, does our research address their concerns and challenges etc.

Idea: Short Courses? (John Banks) ‐ Disseminating research beyond academic world to include creative industry companies and industry leaders ‐ short courses that draw on the centre's research outcomes and cross‐disciplinary strengths.
a) Another angle on this is getting our seminar series more regular and frequent
b) This seems like something CEA (Creative Entrerprise Australia) is seeking to do, and also Creative Cluster (Simon Evans). Its also something we can do offshore (China, Indonesia, Singapore, HK) where there is a new wave of interest in this; we might co‐partner with AFTRS here or X|Media|Lab offshore in Asia.

Idea: Hold specialist 1 or 2 year forums funded by participants (John Howkins) ‐ A maximum of around 15 leading corporate/institutional members would agree to meet four times a year to discuss a topic of immediate importance (eg, getting national broadband, regulating Internet content, the
future of games). They would pay a membership fee to cover all costs. Each meeting would include 2‐3 presentations followed by a discussion. The aim would be to get nationally (internationally) important members and charge enough to pay for first class dedicated research.

Idea: CCI consulting (Jason Potts) ‐ Might we create a viable consulting arm of the CCI, focused on new media application in the innovation context. Possibly also design, fashion etc, but a new media & innovation strength seems appropriate.
a) We would need to resource a dedicated person or persons, learn as much as we could from those who do it at larger scale and successfully within academia, and work out ways in which we might collaborate more effectively and in a less ad hoc way, with dedicated consultancy firms. The
fact is, for a Centre of Excellence, the cultural bias and the institutional imperative is away from consultancy. On the other hand we have broad based links and we need to develop sustainable sources of external income other than the ARC.

2. Investigate potential strategic links with CSIRO
Idea: Join CSIRO (Jason Potts) ‐ They work on the socio‐cultural side, a bit (e.g. institutions, changing behaviour (fatty foods, environmental preferences), uptake of new technology). We can help with this in the cultural science, new digital media, creative industries as part of an innovation system approach. How: Whether as a CRC as part of an exit strategy from ARC funding, or as an attempt to seed a cultural science node within CSIRO that would then be across a number of its programs. Benefit: they're big and they're science. We could be very useful to them in the demand side of new technologies and in the study of the effect of new media technologies, etc. Against: they don't traditionally 'do' humanities. There's no H is CSIRO, as they say.

See also the results for the RHD students mainsreaming jam.