Digital Britain vs Creative Britain – FIGHT!
4th February 2009
It’s a year since the government published its Creative Britain report, the culmination of a long process of consultation with the creative industries. The publication was seen as a positive cross-departmental initiative that re-stated the government’s commitment to what is a significant part of the economy. A year on we get Digital Britain and in general, everyone seems a bit grumpy about it. So what did ‘Creative’ have that ‘Digital’ doesn’t?
The Creative Industries are essentially easy to ‘get’. Its products are all around us, on the TV, in the games console, at the theatre etc. We rightly revere the talents that produce this stuff and do all we can to ensure we’re seen as world leaders in design and the arts. Digital is a bit different. We’re beginning to realise that it affects us all. That to not have it, or to not have enough of it, might leave us lagging behind our competitors. Perhaps the most contested part of the new report is the proposed speed of the broadband to be provided as part of the Government’s universal access promise. Two megabits per second won’t put us up there with South Korea many say. In fact the South Korean Government committed itself to universal access by the end of 2005 so on that front alone we’ll struggle to compete whether or not we see a UK commitment to Next Generation Access.
The full list of 22 actions are up for debate until Lord Carter reports back in the summer. Perhaps the most striking difference between the two reports is that Carter is keen to promote a ‘TED-style’ event as part of the discussion, so pitching itself in line with one of the coolest knowledge resources on the web. Meanwhile Creative Britain is to get its own Davos, so attempting to cement its position as an economic heavyweight.
Creative Britain, the document, seems to have taken a bit of a back seat in all the digital discussion. Perhaps becuase it didn’t suggest much in the way of legislative action, something more likely as an outcome of the Digital Britain recommendations. Also, we seem to have moved on to bigger themes, to a realisation that the opportunities afforded by digital will extend far beyond any impact on creative content producers. That I guess is what makes the territory so contested. Expect more fights to come.
“The full list of 22 actions are up for debate until Lord Carter reports back in the summer. Perhaps the most striking difference between the two reports is that Carter is keen to promote a ‘TED-style’ event as part of the discussion, so pitching itself in line with one of the coolest knowledge resources on the web. ”
Unfortunately, the Digital Britain Interim report was published with no obvious way for commenting back?
So we stepped in with somewhere to do exactly that:
http://writetoreply.org/digitalbritain/
The http://writetoreply.org/ website is also capable of hosting other discussions around other public documents, so maybe if something related to Creative Britain was uploaded there, we could look at ways getting a proper conversation going…? Or would you prefer a FIGHT?;-)