Creative Leadership Through Pure Research and Commercial Application

[This is a post by MMM guest blogger Gavin Artz]

What is the future for the economies of developed counties?  Corporations continually exhibit a lack of leadership and strategic thinking when it comes to the type of society and economy we desire (or even they desire).  Strategy for them seems to be limited to short-term gains for a company within an industry, disallowing an expansive future not only for those companies, but also for society.  Creative practitioners and the cultural sector have a more encompassing view of what it means to be citizen and have a greater propensity for this larger vision for our future.  We often take this greater vision from creative practitioners for granted and we also tend marginalise the enormous impact that creativity has had economically.  There is an untapped breadth of leadership for the future of society and the economy that is bound up in creative practitioners and the cultural sector.  To release this potential we will have to work differently and not be shy of grasping the opportunity.

As developed countries have moved from a strong manufacturing base to a service economy it has seemed to many that these countries have been giving away real economic power to be left with the façade of economic power; the service industries (Ralston Saul 2005).  The true value of a developed countries economy though, has never been manufacturing, or services, it has been the creative generation of Intellectual Property (IP).   This creation of IP in developed economies has always been significantly linked to pure research.  As Noam Chomsky (2004) points out our greatest economic drivers over the past decade have been built on ground breaking IP.  The market and corporations have been unable to deliver this IP development, instead it has come from state investment in pure research.  The market meeting short-term customer needs is not enough and it is those who pursue pure research that deliver the future in terms of culture, community and commerce (McQueenie 2005).   And, if we see pure research in terms of culture, community and commerce, we cannot limit our thoughts to science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM).   Pure research happens across the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS).  In the digital age it is beginning to be recognized by business that pure research in HASS is vital to the development of a competitive advantage (Temple 2010) and Artsactive has for a long time highlighted patent outcomes derived from artistic practice.   It is the business that is willing to embrace pure research in all fields that will survive into the future.

The direct link between pure research and economic success in either manufacturing or services often gets lost.  Manufacturing is a powerful economic argument, but without the IP nothing of value can be created, innovation is merely aped and manufacturing gets reduced to a service industry dependent on those that have the IP and the investment to make a product happen.   In those countries where the service economy has taken hold we have seen a service mindset cripple leadership and innovation, the service economy has placed marketing and customer satisfaction in a place it was never intended to be.  Edwards Deming (1996) concept of the customer was about reducing variation, and while sound for evolution of products and processes, great leaps of imagination cannot come from a focus group or a quality circle.  Disruptive technologies (Moore 1999) are the true economic drivers and they require creative leadership.  This type of leadership is not just economic, it is cultural and community focused.  This type of creation comes from envisioning the world, as we want it, looking broadly at what the problems are and then thinking creatively to resolve those problems.  Creative leadership takes the citizen beyond mere consumerism to a place where they can create the society and economy they want.    This impact of the citizen is becoming more apparent as Anderson points out in his article “In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits”(2010).  Extending Anderson’s argument we can see a world where start ups are requiring less investment and this allows for the creation of products that the citizen sees as important to both themselves and their community, while being made commercially viable through access to niche global markets.  This is democratic participation by citizens through the creative development of the commercial.   A vista is opening up where product leadership and creativity is once again important, where it is cheap enough to fail and this in turn opens up where our leaders can come from.  Business and society will require not conductors of an orchestra, as one of the most used creative metaphors in business management would suggest, but those who can play in a jazz band, those that can create and react as a collective to each other, to a plan and the external environment; a group with different roles, but shared goals.  Creative leadership will not come from individuals, but groups who work together with a trans-disciplinary mindset.

This is a more systems based view of society and the role of the citizen emphasises creative practise and the cultural sector embedded economically and politically.  We will see those in the cultural sector working within a team framework that will be much more analogous to the entrepreneurial team.  This is where creative, marketing, business and technical skills are all needed to create a work, product or process.  We are seeing now many artists outsourcing technical aspects of their work.  We seem uncomfortable with this, but to be uncomfortable with this is only a recent phenomenon.  This approach can create great works of art and significant cultural statements; the Renascence can attest to this. The conception of the entrepreneurial team though will reside in a framework of social entrepreneurship.

Social entrepreneurship seems to be made for this new world.  To date it has been embraced mainly by not for profits, but a concept that places mission before money, but never looses site of the money will have a greater resonance with a world over coming “wicked problems” (Rittel & Webber 1973), finding a sustainable balance and attracting the most creative to a cause (business will have to change to be caused based).  Social entrepreneurship will be needed for sustainable economies, but it also gives a strategic approach, where a citizen can pursue the world they want, while still being able to afford that world.

The entrepreneurial team within a framework of social entrepreneurship will be the well from which we will draw the sustainable creative art and cultural activity of the 21^st century.  This will be a concept of culture and creativity that is all encompassing across the economy and society, as well as keeping its traditionally influence.  Those creative practitioners who can engage in pure research, while working within a trans-disciplinary team will be the core of this future.  In a world progressively more focused on genuine sustainability and where the structures of international corporations will no longer avail an advantage, the citizen will have an opportunity to create the world as they want it to be.

References

Anderson, C. 2010, “In the Next Industrial Revolution, Atoms Are the New Bits”.  Wired Magazine, January 25th 2010. http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_newrevolution -Viewed 25.01.10

Chomsky, N. 2004. “The Militarization of Science and Space”. Technology and Culture Forum (MIT). February 15, 2004.  http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/182 – viewed 03.06.09

Deming, E.W. 1996, “Out of the Crisis”, MIT Press, Massachusetts.

Geoffrey, M.A, 1999, “Crossing the Chasm, Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customer (revised edition)”, HarperCollins Publishers, New York.

McQueenie, J. “3cs- Community, Culture and Commerce”.  Museums Australia Conference (Conference Paper), 1-4 May, 2005.

Ralston Saul, J. 2005, “The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World”, Penguin Australia, Sydney.

Rittel, H. and Webber, M. “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning”. Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, 1973, pp 155-169.

Temple, J. 2010.  “Social science meets computer science at Yahoo”.  San Francisco Chronicle Monday, January 11, 2010. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/10/BUQP1BEDSM.DTL&type=business&tsp=1High – Viewed 20.11.2010

AncillaryIPs: The wave

[This is a post by MMM guest blogger Gavin Artz]

“if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses” – Henry Ford.

Commercialisation of intellectual property by creative practitioners has gone mostly unnoticed by the mainstream economy.  Artsactive have a small catalogue of patents that have been derived from creative practice, but as a standard revenue stream it is poorly explored.  At the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) we work with artists who are at the very forefront of science and emerging technology.  It was noticed that through the processes encouraged by ANAT, artists were creating intellectual property when they encountered a technical roadblock in their work.  They created code, machinery or processes in their endeavours to over come problems in achieving their creative vision.  These AncillaryIPs (Artz 2008) had been mostly overlooked, so a model was developed to attempt to harness this potential commercial benefit and, because ANAT works equally with the arts, sciences and technology, it quickly became apparent that it could be used in all these creative fields.  When presented, the AncilaryIPs Wave Diagram has been a light bulb moment for many.

The IP created in the AnciallyIPs process are like waves created on the ocean.  Waves are generated by the huge and complex energies of interlinked systems. For oceans in the natural world these are the earth’s rotation, weather systems, currents and geology.  Creative practitioners and those engaged in pure research are societies’ and the economy’s creative oceans.  They tap into the complexity of nature, existence, community, economy, politics, scientific laws and humanity.

Pure research are the oceans, the tools they create are the IP waves and we can see business and commercial opportunities as the surfers on these waves.

Surfers may or may not have a deep understanding of the processes that make the waves.  They don’t have to; all they have to know is a good wave when they see one.  They enjoy and benefit from the wave, but they also feel a connection with the ocean, they care for the ecosystem that gives them such great benefit. Surfers give back so they can keep riding the waves.  In essence this is the AncillaryIPs Wave Diagram and the AncillaryIPs concept.

Pure research is a creative place, where personal vision and curiosity push people to do the impossible.  This personal pursuit of a creative vision is paramount.  If we are not asking original questions then we will never seek new knowledge and we will never have to find the paths to that new knowledge.  Those engaged in pure research ask these as yet unthought of questions, it is this outstretching drive of pure exploration that means new and unique problems will be encountered and that new and unique solutions will be found to over come them.

As those engaged in pure research strike out to resolve their questions they come across technical roadblocks for which they need to find solutions.  This is succinctly demonstrated by Dr John O’Sullivan in his search for exploding black holes in the 1980’s as told by the ABC’s Cataylist “WIFI Windfall” program in October 2009.

“We were looking at hundreds of metres of film looking for small v shaped patterns in it …. And I’m I guess I’m inherently lazy so I was starting to think at that time hey there must be a better way of doing this.” - Dr John O’Sullivan interviewed for the ABC’s Catalyst program “WIFI Windfall” October 2009.

Dr O’Sullivan invented the Fast Fourier Transform Chip.

This often happens in the arts and sciences.  A tool is created to further the research, to create the art work, to resolve a problem.  From an IP perspective the research (the profound motivator for creative practitioners and those in pure research) is the ocean.  The tools that researchers create are the waves.  As a society we may respect the ocean, we may love that the ocean is there, but very rarely do we get to engage with what goes on in its depths.   The place that we do engage with the ocean is the waters edge.

We like to play in the waves.

The CSIRO, who Dr. O’Sullivan works for, was coming to terms with connecting portable computers and they envisioned and developed what would become WIFI today, but they had a problem, one that the Fast Fourier Transform Chip could resolve.  The wave (the Fast Fourier Transform Chip) that came from the ocean of pure research into black holes made WIFI possible.  Business, community and the CSIRO have been able to surf that wave to substantial financial benefit.

The metaphor has been well stretched, but it is valid.  Creative people, those engaged in pure research, drive commercial outcomes.  To put it another way, with out the ocean you will not have waves; with out waves surfers are left on the shore.  By looking at the tools that artists and scientists create in pursuit of their personal vision we can have both the pure research and the commercial.  In fact the tools created should be seen as the link between pure research and the commercial.   This is the simple essence of AncillaryIPs and it is a way of perceiving creative practice that benefit practitioners, culture, community and the economy equally.

Artz, G. “Artistic practice and unexpected intellectual property: Defining Ancillary IPs.” 2008. CHASS. http://www.chass.org.au/papers/PAP20080709GA.php . 20 April 2009.

Newby, J., 2009 “WIFI Windfall” ABC Cataylist. http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2708730.htm . 1st November 2009

Creative Cultural Practice and the Commercial in Harmony

[This is a post by MMM guest blogger Gavin Artz]

“No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.”
- Mohandas Gandhi

As CEO of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) I have experienced artists going through the patent process, rapid prototyping, engaging in scientific research and producing new applications in digital media.  There is a myth about those involved in creative practice, that they are not interested in business.  There is a difference though between not wanting to be a businessperson and not wanting to be involved in business.  Many creative practitioners are interested in engaging with business, being commercial, but they want to pursue their creative vision and not spend a majority of there time focused on business outcomes.  We have a creative core in our societies that are some of our lowest income earners (Throsby & Hollister 2003); that seems absurd when we are told the economy relies on people creatively resolving problems.

In Australia I have been particularly struck by the new generation of artists, for whom the distinction between creative and commercial work is diminishing.  The artists that ANAT work with have a practice that often creates work that cannot be shown and cannot be sold in a traditional Artworld context, but contributes greatly to innovation processes and the language a citizen needs to navigate a technological age.  There is a new conception of what a creative culture is and ANAT, like Mission Models Money, is looking for new approaches.  Over a few articles I will attempt to give ANAT’s experience from an Australian perspective and I hope an international dialogue can develop that sees community, culture and commerce (McQueenie 2005) as a vital and interconnected system.

Scarcity

Community, culture and commerce have always been interlinked, although we have tried extract culture from this triumvirate, it is disingenuous to think it would ever stand alone and pure.  Our traditional view of culture comes from an economic perspective of scarcity.  Scarce wall space, storage space and performance space has meant that this resource has had to be rationed rationally.  For this people have been trained, and a whole discipline developed, to place knowledge and cultural creativity into a critical historic perspective.  Because of this we have developed an obsession with attendance, as though culture is something removed from our daily existence.  As technology has become cheaper, and more powerful, and the means of distribution have got cheaper and better, a gap has been further widening between what Marcus Westbury has called the “heritage arts” (Westbury 2009) and a vibrant living creative culture.

Digital Folk Art

Digital folk Art (Artz 2009) is becoming a big part of this new creative culture.  Folk art is a decoration of daily items, it is a community creativity that is used to communicate something about ones self and culture.  Digital Folk Art does much the same thing.  There are kids in their bedrooms making Star Wars stop motion movies, there is 8 bit fan art and even sophisticated physics modeling being shared.  Just as with folk art much of the Digital Folk Art is not a profound creative experience, some times though it does reach that level, but more importantly the people creating it don’t care.  People are doing what humans have done since there have been humans, they are actively creatively communicating in a community.

Abundance

The conception of Digital Folk Art is creative communication based on the digital economy of abundance (Anderson 2006).  This model says that the capacity for production and access to markets and consumers is high.  Instead of an Artworld giving permission for others to view your work, it is all available. There are no curators, no one is placing concepts into predefined contexts, so culture can do what culture does and develop in unexpected ways, bridging disciplines and creating new disciplines.

The Trans-disciplinary

This abundance is leading to people who are not bound by specialisation.  ANAT calls these people creative practitioners and has defined them as “people with experimental, future-focused and trans-disciplinary mindsets, engaging with new ideas and technologies, articulating a process of discovery, letting innovation emerge”.  They can be found in the artists, humanities, sciences, engineering, design and research from all fields.  These creative practitioners are coming together and terms such as Trans-disciplinary, Extra-disciplinary and Supra- disciplinary are being used: (the following definitions are those used by ANAT, finding a definitive use of these terms is a rich source of research and argument.)

Trans-disciplinary: A whole ecology of creative and productive activity leading to creative practise being embedded within culture, community and economy.

Extra-disciplinary: When looked at from a trans-disciplinary perspective the new joint disciplines create an as yet unknown and unexpected discipline; a different way of viewing knowledge.

Supra- disciplinary: This is where professional and amateur knowledge engage and cross over to enrich trans-disciplinary practice.

This breaking down of amateur and professional, of specialities, of the barriers between community, culture and commerce demands a new way of thinking about creative practice and what cultural activity is.

Will an artist in the future be seen as a crucial part of a scientific research team, be adapting IP for commercial products through Ancillary IPs (Artz 2008), be valued for a capacity to imbue big business with cultural insight, be empowering citizens with a language to participate democratically in a technological age?  In the arts we are seeing a breaking down of a century of individualist expression and a rise of a collaborative imperative to return to a more Renascence style studio practice.  This recognition of collaboration is a new sense of community.  This type of cultural activity can take some direction from business concepts, the entrepreneurial team is possibly the future framework for a practising artists career, and social entrepreneurship its over arching business model.  Cultural activity cannot artificially keep itself excluded from the rest of human existence if it is truly to have meaning to us; to be our culture.

Anderson C. Long Tail, The, Revised and Updated Edition: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More. New York:  Hyperion 2006.

Artz, G. “Artistic practice and unexpected intellectual property: Defining Ancillary IPs.” 2008. CHASS. http://www.chass.org.au/papers/PAP20080709GA.php . 20 April 2009.

Artz, G. “Digital Folk Art: A whole new world of art that is not art.” 2009. Collections Australia Network. http://keystone.collectionsaustralia.net/publisher/Outreach/?p=3437 17^th November 2009.

McQueenie, J. “3cs- Community, Culture and Commerce”.  Museums Australia Conference (Conference Paper), 1-4 May, 2005.

Throsby, C.D. & Hollister, V. 2003, “Don’t give up your day job: an economic study of professional artists in Australia.”  Australia Council for the Arts, Sydney.

Westbury, M. “The ABC and Ozco: Cultural change and how (not) to adapt to it”  November 2nd, 2009. http://www.marcuswestbury.net/2009/11/02/761/. 17^th November 2009.