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Evaluation of the conference
We have asked people to fill out a questionnaire and to give us qualitative feedback on the conference. We thank all of you who have given us a reaction.
directly to qualitative remarks >>
| Question | Votes | Result 1-10 |
| The conference theme and programme was relevant to my work | 30 | 8.4 |
| The conference has enlarged my network of people and organisations that are relevant to my work | 30 | 7 |
| The conference inspired me and provided me with new knowledge on issues relevant to my work | 31 | 8.4 |
| The conference contributed to the public debate on culture, innovation and the public domain | 31 | 7 |
| The agenda helps to further promote the theme of the conference in the public debate | 31 | 6.6 |
| General information before the conference (invitation, contact with secretariat) | 31 | 8.3 |
| Registration and information at the conference | 31 | 8.5 |
| The conference website | 31 | 7.9 |
| The conference box (including reader, city map, participants list, etc.) | 31 | 7.9 |
| The conference reports (published on the website) | 28 | 6.9 |
| The Amsterdam agenda for Creative Capital | 31 | 6.4 |
| Conference venue | 31 | 8 |
| Catering (including lunch, coffee, tea and drinks) | 25 | 7.7 |
| Internet facilities | 27 | 6.8 |
| Information slides and movies in plenary hall (not slides by speakers) | 30 | 6.8 |
| Music performance at closing of the conference | 29 | 7.2 |
| Opening by Job Cohen (Mayor of Amsterdam) | 27 | 6.9 |
| "Connecting culture and economy" by Judith van Kranendonk (Ministry of Education, Science and Culture) | 26 | 5.5 |
| "Swarms and Innovation" by Charles Leadbeater | 30 | 9.1 |
| "The Creative City and beyond" by Charles Landry | 29 | 6.7 |
| Q & A: Leadbeater & Landry. Moderator: Michiel Schwarz | 28 | 5.4 |
| Session 1 : Open Innovation: the concept and how to realise it | 11 | 6.4 |
| Session 2 : The role of artists and creative producers in the economy | 9 | 7.3 |
| Session 3 : Creative SIM City: Development of cultural areas vs. Cultural development of areas | 5 | 8 |
| Session 4 : Creative Commons | 7 | 7.1 |
| Session 5 : A climate for creative industries | 3 | 6.7 |
| Session 6 : Interaction between Creatives and Industry: round tables | 10 | 5.8 |
| Session 7 : Open Source as Innovation Model | 4 | 7.5 |
| Session 8 : Creative Cities | 5 | 6 |
| "Remediating Cities" by Stephen Graham | 17 | 6.6 |
| "The Culture of Creativity" by Pekka Himanen | 19 | 8 |
| "Remixing creativity" by Joichi Ito | 22 | 8.5 |
| Q & A: Graham, Himanen & Ito. Moderator: Michiel Schwarz 13:00 | 20 | 6.7 |
| Session 9 : Publicly financed content | 14 | 7.9 |
| Session 10 : Crossovers as policy challenge | 12 | 7.7 |
| Session 11 : A new agenda for creative cities | 11 | 7.3 |
| Presentation of the public agenda | 15 | 5.7 |
| "The Paradox of Strategies for Creativity" by Geoff Mulgan | 20 | 7.7 |
| Plenary debate with keynote speakers. Moderator: Bert Mulder | 18 | 5.8 |
| Reaction on public agenda by Karien van Gennip (State Secretary of Economic Affairs) | 17 | 4.7 |
| Reaction on public agenda by Frits Huffnagel (Alderman of the City of Amsterdam) | 16 | 4.9 |
| General moderation on central stage by Joeri van den Steenhoven | 17 | 7.3 |
| average | 7.1 |
comments & remarks
Comments are published anonymously, unless commenters have approved to publish their names. Send your feedback to: info@creativecapital.nl.
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Comments by James Burke:
http://lifesized.blogspot.com/2005/03/creative-capital-conference-amsterdam.html
Comments by Colby Stuart:
http://colbys.blogspot.com/2005/03/report-on-creative-capital-conference.html
Comments by Jonathan Marks (different from his contribution by The Dutch Connection):
http://criticaldistance.blogspot.com/2005/03/steps-in-right-direction.html
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The
Dutch Connection has made a report with comments & suggestions. From
the report:
"We are positive about this year’s Creative Capital conference.
300 people from 20 countries gathered in the heart of Amsterdam to discuss
issues that govern the future “creative capital” of this country
– and indeed the whole of Western Europe. In 2015, India will have more
than three times more qualified scientists (60 million) than the ENTIRE Dutch
population (currently 16 million). And that knowledge will cost one tenth
of the price than can be found in Europe. So is Europe, and the Netherlands
in particular, destined to become the retirement home for the world, with
frequent visits from Chinese tourists curious about empires of the past? A
few people are waking up to the fact that something must be done if that future
scenario is not going to become a reality. ...."
Read more in this report (pdf)
In addition to the report we wrote about the conference, we have a couple
of suggestions as to steps towards next year.
1. The Creative Capital Conference is, hopefully, the start of an annual event.
This first one was designed to show that these sectors can, and should, work
together. But you need to quickly establish a website for an event in 2006
so that all the feedback can be used to plan the next one.If you don't, the
momentum that you started may soon be gone and the comments that it was "just
another load of Blah, Blah" will quickly tarnish the image of CCC. It
would be great if CCC can also keep the international contacts going, perhaps
by commissioning some reactions to the agenda from the speakers/participants
and sending these out as a newsletter between now and the next conference
(once every 2 months perhaps). Just enough to keep the conference legacy ticking
over.
2. The conference talked about swarms, i.e. that great things happen in "public"
spaces and not when government tries to order the population to be creative.
It would therefore be great to hear about some Dutch examples of "swarming
creativity" in the next conference, with perhaps comment from the foreign
speakers about what is tried here in 2005-2006. In other words, more "outside
looking in" rather than too much of The Netherlands looking at great
foreign examples. Don't misunderstand, the input from abroad is inspiring.
But we also need to celebrate (and publicize) some Dutch examples too, thus
drawing interest (and talent) from abroad. It was facinating watching Charles
Leadbeater at the Philips session on Day 1. He had been speaking about the
success of the swarming model against traditional pipeline models for research.
He was tearing what little hair he has when Philips presented their classical
pipeline model to the gatherine and just didn't understand what was meant
by swarming techniques or "PhilipsInsider.com" approaches.
In short, our plea is to keep the momentum going and set targets now for the
discussions in 2006.
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Actually I thought the whole theme of the conference was bunk, or, if you
prefer, 'intellectually bankrupt'. My opinion has not changed afterwards.
I would never have paid 140 Euro out of my own pocket to attend it. That being
given, the conference was not as bad as it could have been. But very little,
by way of new ideas, or even by way of seriously discussing existing issues,
came out of that conference. Important themes like inclusion and exclusion
within the 'creative cities model' (brillantly formulated by your mayor) were
not pursued. The swallowing up of 'culture' by 'the economy' seemed to be
simply accepted as given. There were a few excellent speakers however, besides
a few dismal ones.
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Most of the speakers were really good. However there would have been a lot
to do when it comes to the diversity of the speakers. The lack of women and
people with different backgrounds than Caucasian was rather striking. I also
found it a bit odd that in a Dutch seminar all the speakers were foreign.
The level of moderation was a bit poor in some of the workshops and it seemed that it was not clear whether it was an open discussion or a result-oriented one.
And when talks about the need of dialogue, one should not force the participants to formulate their contribution into questions to the supposed experts.
Despite all the criticism I found the seminar highly useful for my work and especially the open innovation issues are seriously affecting my ways of organising things.
So thank you very much.
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I suggest next time to demand politicians to either be prepared en take the
public seriously or don't show. van gennip was desaster, this time innovation
was the victim!
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I thought that content and form of the conference were diametrically opposed
to each other. Please read my report at:
http://www.zylstra.org/blog/archives/001604.html
(English)
or
http://www.provenpartners.nl/weblog/archives/2005/03/boodschap_en_ve.html
(Nederlands)
All in all a great conference because of the people and the content, but
severely lacking in format.
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The place of venue was not suited for a conference like this. Especially the
rooms where workshop were held prohibited a good debat because of the bad
sound conditions en because the workshops were too crowded.
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The 'conclusion' or 'agenda' was so completely general it was useless. Most
of the visitors still seemed to see themselves as part of the self-proclaimed
'creative class' and therefore of higher value then 'the ordinary folks' which
is a highly disturbing attitude and makes these people rather laughable. During
round table sessions I mostly seemed to encounter people that wondered why
no one saw them for the true geniusses they were and paid them rockstar salaries
for doing what is regular work.
I was one of the very few people that was visiting from a corporate background and with a corporate agenda. One of the questions asked during the round-table session 'creatives and the industry' was why there was no one from the industry... well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the industry can't afford to have a 10 year long debate which results into a 6 powerpoint slide conclusion.
My advice for a next time: make it more tangible, a group of people like that could actually *achieve* something instead of just talking in a 2-day period. If we think having a creative lab in the city centre would be good, why don't we ask corporate sponsors to rent it and think about ways to use it? Why not hook up people from the theoretical to people in the practical? Why not have a big board on which people can leave an idea or concept and a phone number or other way of contact to which others can respond who'd like to work on it?
What, in these 2 days, was actually *achieved* besides more talk, often even conflicting with each other (some still seeing Richard Florida as a hero while minutes later the next speaker debunks him, etc)?
I, as a corporate visitor, would have loved to see more of how other corporations deal with creativity and innovation, would have loved to have had a talk with creatives on how they try to get the most out of their people, etc.
I think the biggest point that was missed is this: creativeness is most often
not in the talking, it's in the doing, and by doing learning. There was too
much talking and too little doing and sharing what was learned while doing.
--
Thank you for this inspiring conference. Good place to meet people, nice mixture
of speakers and workshops.
I'm still thinking about the agenda. I'll give you my response shortly.
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Overall, the conference was a really beneficial experience for me, especially
in terms of becoming a bit more familiar with some funding models. If I have
one criticism, it would be that it was a fairly exclusive event designed for
cultural administrators, goverment bureaucrats, a few business representatives
and, certainly, a substantial number of CC advocates. In other words, it struck
me that very few people involved in creative production - artists, designers,
media producers, architects, students, etc - were present. I may be wrong
on this count, but that's impression I had. As a result, I think the politics
of 'creative cities/industries' was substantially underplayed. THen again,
different events have different aims (and constituencies), and perhaps the
discussion of politics is best left for other occasions (although, frankly,
it is a discussion that govt admin/politicians, and business folk need to
listen to).
Overall, as I said, a conference I came away from with a better insight into business models.
Thanks for the opportunity to attend and participate - most appreciated.
--
Karien should get a new speechwriter. She obviously was not briefed on the
audience and didn't respond to the points on the agenda. Cohen kept talking
about "your" conference as though he wasn't interested in being
part of its results. Felix Meritis has atmosphere, but the classic "classroom"
layout of the chairs does not encourage debate from the audience. The facilities
to drink coffee and debate were all concentrated in the bar area and that
was severely cramped with 300 people. Would have been great if they had served
coffee in other rooms. But that must have been verboten.
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The conference titel: creative capital and references to Richard Florida interested
me because I am interested in the creative class. But unfortunately during
the conference the creative class did not get that much attention as I hoped.
--
lectures/keynotes were very interesting; for breakout sessions-contact with
audience could be better. New agenda is a bit out of the blue to me. [i mean,
how could education be left out of it?]
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dank! het was een succes. CCC trouwens ook. de indiase dame en de fin hadden
echter wat mij betreft thuis kunnen blijven. de politiek had
behoorlijk wollige en voorgelezen verhalen. goed dat ze er waren, maar inhoudelijk
zeer matig. de afsluitende Amsterdam promo vond ik
beschamend en zonder inhoud. m.n. voor de buitenlandse gasten. leadbeater
was zinnig als vanouds. landry was goed echter langdradig.
de discussies en fora en catering en networking prima. 'k vond de westergasfabrieksessies
van vorig jaar meer sfeer hebben en bruisen. ga
ik volgend jaar weer, en voor 140 euro? ik weet het nog niet. ik heb me op
deze spontaan ingeschreven omdat in de eerste uitnodiging Lessig als
spreker genoemd stond. tot mijn verbazing en teleurstelling schitterde hij
door afwezigheid. ik heb nooit een melding gehad dat hij weer van
de agenda af was. als ik dat had geweten, dan had ik sterk overwogen te annuleren.
niet getreurd, ik heb twee waardevolle dagen gehad.
Succes en plezier,
--
Teveel mensen & organisaties die op het buzzword "creative industry"
afkomen. Modereerde zelf 1 v/d tafels "creatives and industry":
van de 12 mensen waren 2 creatives (waaronder ikzelf) en geen industrie.....het
gesprek gaat dus ook helemaal nergens over.
Volgende keer dus tafels maken met deelnemers die daadwerkelijk deelnemen...d.w.z.
als het over educatie gaat: dan mensen die opleiden, als het over artists
en industrie gaat: dan ook artists en industrie-mensen.....
En zet alle beleidsmakers, geinteresseerden, "mensen-die-graag-prater-over"
bij elkaar aan 1 tafel.
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Naar mijn idee was het aspect 'Cultuur'(onzekerheidsmijding,
masculien-feminien, individualisme, machtscultuur), wat een belangrijke factor
is voor wat betreft innovatie in het algemeen, enigzins onderbelicht. Voor
innovatie is het naar mijn idee belangrijk om eveneens aandacht te besteden
aan cultuurinherente motivaties achter beleid/gedrag. Gebrek aan bevlogenheid
bij studenten is daar een voorbeeld van.(in het onderwijs wordt het fundament
gelegd voor de ontwikkeling van creatieve visionairen) Verder was bij de sessie
Creative Industries de industrie de grote afwezige.
Ik zie uit naar het vervolg.
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Do you want to comment on the conference? Send your remarks to info@creativecapital.nl.
