The first UNESCO World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries which was attended by representatives from 50 nations with a great success.  Officials of the Italian and regional government of Lombardy, where Monza is located, created a magnificent event.  Denise Bax of UNESCO played a key role in the success of the Forum.  The Forum was held in the Ville Real, a beautifully restored 18th century palace which was the perfect setting for a gathering around culture and creativity.

The UNESCO Director-General, Mr. Matsuura, opened the World Forum on Culture and Cultural Industries with insightful comments on how globalization can also work in the favor of cultural enterprises.  The Italian Minister of Culture, Mr. Bondi, gave a stirring speech about the importance of culture in Italy.  He pointed out that Italy has over 80,000 cultural enterprises.  Clearly the Europeans understand that culture plays a huge role in economic development.  Most countries have a Minister of Culture, and important budgets to support their activities.  We do not have such a cabinet position for the USA except in New Mexico where we have a Cabinet Secretary for Cultural Affairs.

My presentation on “New Strategies for Cultural Enterprises” prompted good questions and it is viewable on slideshare.net.  My co-panelists were Marcella Echevarria, CEO of Surevolution, and Agatha Ruiz de la Prada.  Both are innovative designers and their presentations were excellent.

Many of the presentations from the Forum will be up on a UNESCO web site soon, and when they let me know, I’ll post about it here.

It is gratifying to see how we have progressed in five years to the point where we now have a global platform to discuss cultural enterprises, cultural industries and the important role of cultural entrepreneurs in the local and the global Cultural Economy.

The Fundacion Prada and the Hermes Foundation were present.  The foundations are supported by luxury goods companies who to this day employ highly skilled artisans.  What is significant to me is that both of these foundations promote culture and cultural industries.

It was good to reunite with Nilda Callanaupa of The Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco whose work to revive Peruvian textiles is widely recognized and admired.

Felissimo was represented by the creaive and entrepreneurial Haruko Smith.  Felissimo has supported young designers for years and continues to collaborate with UNESCO in order to promote promosing designers.

Tony Pigott of Brandaid Project spoke eloquently at the Forum about the importance of brand development for cultural enterprises.  The purpose of Brandaid is to create a strong brand for individual artist groups.  The first Brandaid Project was this past September with two Haitian folk artist groups.  Brandaid Project created logos and marketing material for the artists of Jacmel and Croix de Bouquet.  The introduction of the two groups was held in New York.  The brand development for the two artist groups developed by Tony and his team caught the attention of the mainstream media.

What is a cultural entrepreneur?

New fields of development begin with ideas and then need the practical applied.  With the practical comes the need for definitions.  Over the last couple of years my definition for a cultural entrepreneur has evolved and I would like to share it with you now.

Cultural Entrepreneurs are cultural change agents and resourceful visionaries who organize cultural, financial, social and human capital, to generate revenue from a cultural activity.  Their innovative solutions result in economically sustainable cultural enterprises that enhance livelihoods and create cultural value and wealth for both creative producers and consumers of cultural services and products.

This definition first appeared in Cultures and Globalization: The Cultural Economy published by Sage Publications.  It is an important book that was just released a year ago.  Raj Isar, the Jean Monnet professor of Cultural Policy Studies at The American University of Paris, a friend, edited the book with Helmut Anheier of UCLA.

Let me know your reaction to this definition.

At the UNESCO Forum on Cultural Industries the second major point I want to bring across is that we must begin to form educational and training opportunities for our emerging cultural entrepreneurs.

Innovative approaches to higher education programs for cultural entrepreneurs is being developed at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Institute of Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths College, London University.

For post undergraduate and practical training The Hart Technique is being introduced in Austin, TX after being developed in Oslo, Norway.  The program is focused on developing entrepreneurial skills by “doing”.  Austin Conservatory of Professional Arts.  www.harttechnique.com

Here at the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship we focus on the cultural entrepreneur through mentorship.

Here is a helpful report from the UK that you may find of interest.  “Creating Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship education for the creative industries”, The Higher Education Academy Art Design Media Subject Centre and NESTA, 2007.

Education and training is very important to the growth of our cultural entrepreneurs and their enterprises.  However, the approach to training the emerging cultural entrepreneur across the globe is changing.  Not every entrepreneur can go to college first.  We will have to meet the enterprising creative person at their moment of need for outside support and close to home.  The classroom is OK for some, but on the ground mentoring will be the new approach required for cultural entrepreneurship training.

Later this month I travel to Monza, Italy for the first UNESCO Forum on Cultural Industries.  UNESCO has asked me to present on “New Strategies for Cultural Enterprises”  You might be surprised that I chose Cultural Industries Policy as the first of five major points I want to introduce.  Not being much of a “policy wonk” this is unfamiliar territory for me but I have come to appreciate that policy it is critical to building opportunities for cultural entrepreneurs.  Cultural Industry policy needs to:

1. Foster the development of cultural entrepreneurs
2. Address public and private strategies for cultural industries to grow such as in our city  of Santa Fe
3. Focus on specific sectors and clusters

We have many strategies available to us to build and strengthen our cultural enterprises and it takes policy at the local, regional or national levels to make them effective. I have listed several strategies that can be addressed through cultural policy and support our cultural entrepreneurs:

1. Invest in Market Development and Market Linkages
Locally: http://www.torpedofactory.org/history.htm
Nationally: Denmark
International: Exporting cultural products and services

2. Create Investment Funds for enterprise growth
Creating new funds, private and public, that invest in our cultural entrepreneurs who will convert cultural capital into successful enterprises, enhancing cultural workers livelihoods.  www.socialcapitalmarkets.net

3. Support technical assistance for Product Development
The irony of preserving traditions is the seed of innovation and creativity is needed.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Docey-Lewis/698307412

4. Initiate Facility Development
We need cultural incubators, studios, performing venues, http://www.brewhouse.se/

5. Foster Network and Cluster Development
Linking together creators and markets will create positive synergy

6. Provide supportive legislation that fosters the development of cultural entrepreneurs, enterprises and industries
Zoning for arts and cultural districts
Tax incentives to promote investment and market development
Architecture restoration, preservation and zoning
Simplify enterprise regulations and permits
Laws that protect cultural intellectual property

All of these areas require attention as cultural industries policy is developed.  A good reference book is: “The Cultures and Globalization Series: The Cultural Economy“, Eds Helmut Anheier and Yudhishthir Raj Isar, Sage Publications, 2008.

This weekend I sifted through about forty academic articles on the Cultural Economy, Cultural Industries, Cultural Enterprises, Cultural Entrepreneurs.  My brain is still swimming with terms like cultural geography, the intersection of culture and economics, and regional economic development.  The consensus is evident: creative and cultural economies are the future of innovative regional economic and community development and offer promising paths toward prosperity and cultural diversity.  A bright spot on our otherwise cloudy economic horizon, you might say.

But a theme began to emerge, well, really more of a glaring “gap in the scholarship” that tickled my brain until I had to scratch it.  And here’s what I realized: the Cultural Entrepreneur was written out of the script in all of this research, thinking, writing, and theorizing.  The individuals who start these cultural ventures, and in aggregate, meet the ever-growing market demand for cultural products; the people who are at the heart of cultural economies were not mentioned in the cast of characters in these varied and voluminous articles.

Yet, in my experience, at the heart of every cultural venture – be it a new ethnic restaurant or a burgeoning niche film studio—there is always a Cultural Entrepreneur center stage.  Cultural industries and economies are not abstract notions or distant academic terms: they are vibrant, dynamic sites of cultural exchange between individuals.  So, over the next several weeks I will introduce you to some of these extraordinary individuals. Moreover, I hope to recast Cultural Entrepreneurs and place them at the center of the cultural economy discussion–right in the spotlight, where they belong.

UNESCO will hold its first Forum on Cultural Industries September 24-26, 2009 in Monza, Italy.  I will be attending this inaugural gathering and speaking on New Strategies for Cultural Industries.  The five key new strategies I will present are:

1. Cultural Policy
We need local, national and global organizations to develop and implement policy that cultivates the development of new cultural enterprises through entrepreneurship.

2. Education
We need to develop innovative educational programs that train new cultural entrepreneurs, like we are doing at the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship www.culturalentrepreneur.org, and is being done at the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths, University of London.

3. Investment
We need to develop a new Cultural Enterprise Fund that supports emerging enterprises around the world.  We can demonstrate from several studies that cultural enterprises create jobs, increase tax revenues, enhance livelihoods, attract outside capital, create sustainable economic development, attract other enterprises to the local economy, and enrich the quality of life in our communities.

4. Market Creation and Links
Cultural entrepreneurs are often faced with creating markets.  We must find new ways for our cultural entrepreneurs to tap into markets and invest in their efforts to expand markets and create new markets.

5. Share our Wisdom (SOW)
Those of us who have created cultural enterprises know what it takes to be a cultural entrepreneur; however, there aren’t enough platforms to share our experiences, train new cultural entrepreneurs, and facilitate the growth and creation of more cultural wealth.

I’ll share my thoughts with you on these new strategies in more detail in future posts, and look forward to hearing what new strategies you think cultural industries need to succeed.

Tom Aageson, Co-Founder, www.culturalentrepreneur.org
I can be reached at tom@culturalentrepreneur.org