Creative dundee june 2014

!Gillian Easson, Director!

@Creative_Dundee!

@GillianEasson!

Creative Dundee connects creative talent with opportunities and amplifies the city’s creative pulse by:!!

‣ Encouraging collaboration and networking to develop the local creative and cultural sectors.!!

‣ Increasing awareness of the creative and cultural scene, within and outwith the sectors and city.!!

‣ Acting as a partner and broker to impact positively on communities, the city and the local economy.

Creative Dundee is a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee. One part-time staff member, receives a small grant from Creative Scotland, earns income through the provision of external services and has no physical base or overheads. !!Creative Dundee activities:!

‣ Online/social media/news mailout - key activity, promoting and providing info. Top audience locations - Dundee 40%, London 10%, Edinburgh 9%, Glasgow 4%.!

!‣ Pecha Kucha Nights - quarterly events to showcase local scene, low barrier to entry. 200 - 300 people attend each event from all backgrounds (2250 attendees, over 100 speakers, videos of talks reached an extra 10,000 people)!!‣ Events - Mid Week Meet, This Much We Know, creative christmas parties…!

!‣ Strategic partnerships - CoC, cultural strategy, CAN network, We Dundee, sharing resources to do bigger or different.!

!‣ Paid opportunities - commissioning creatives through events + with other orgs.!

Constituted

PKN 5

PKN 1

PKN 2

PKN 3

PKN 4

PKN 6 PKN 7

PKN 8XMAS 13

XMAS 11

XMAS 12

CoC

2012

20112008

2013

2014

INCORPORATED

Kate Pickering, Director, Vanilla Ink!Jewellery incubator for start-up designers.!!“Creative Dundee is the glue that is bringing creatives together. Forcing us out of our lonely studios to come talk to like-minded people, done through many different mediums… Creative Dundee is providing us with something to be proud to be a part of… We are Creative Dundee!”

Martin Baillie, Graphic Designer!

Martin was given the opportunity to design the V&A Dundee Museum of Design’s first ever poster campaign - this collaboration was managed by Creative Dundee. !

V&A Dundee will be an international centre of design for Scotland and will be the first design museum built outside of London. Designed by Japanese architect, Kengo Kuma.

• Creative Dundee IncorpoRated - crowd sourced a guide to the city - built community, trust, reputation of Creative Dundee and was valuable demonstrator project, pre-We Dundee…

!WeDundee.com - a crowd platform which enabled 3,000+ people to be actively involved in shaping Dundee’s UK City of Culture 2017 bid. !It aimed to: !‣Remind people what an incredible place Dundee is.!‣Develop a model for co-curation of future cultural activities.

!We Dundee created a real life network of supporters:

Creative City Network Review - EKOS!!Creative Scotland commissioned EKOS (an economic/social research company) to study the impacts of 3 creative city networks, Creative Dundee, Creative Edinburgh and Creative Stirling. Each is independent, but offers similar services and are part-supported by Creative Scotland.!!EKOS’s review of Creative Dundee’s involved:!!‣ 80 completed online surveys with the CD network!

‣ 6 partner organisation stakeholder interviews !

‣ A focus group session!

‣ Attendance at a PKN!

‣ Review of our background info

Above: Results from the 80 completed online surveys

Meet likeminded people

Engage in cross discipline networking

Gain industry contacts

Develop collaborations

Gain industry knowledge

Promote / advertise business / practice

Access peer support

Develop skills / capacity

Access or signposted to sources of support

Access business start-up information 0 22.5 45 67.5 90

5%

22%

25%

33%

37%42%

45%46%

60%85%

Online survey: reasons for engaging with CD, to…

Online survey: what + how did CD do?

Above: Results from the 80 completed online surveys

Online survey: outcomes of engaging with CD, now + in future

Above: Results from the 80 completed online surveys

Improved local knowledge of creative/cultural activityIncreased willingness to be located within Dundee

Greater confidence to develop/grow practice in cityIncreased number of industry contacts

Greater understanding of support available to youGreater exposure to wider audiences

Enhanced levels of innovationDeveloped collaboration activity

Enhanced market knowledge Improved business brand or improved marketing

Enhanced business skillsEntered or grew in Scottish markets

Brought new products to marketEntered or grew in international markets

None of the above

0 25 50 75 100

15%29%28%

33%30%

25%25%

47%29%

42%24%

36%29%

16%23%

13%3%6%9%

16%17%

26%30%32%

41%47%

52%55%

62%76%

NOW FUTURE

• How important is it to be part of a creative community? !!

91% Rated either ‘Very important’ or ‘Important’!!

• Creative Dundee has had a positive impact on the creative sector in Dundee:!!94% Said ‘Yes’!!

• Ability of Creative Dundee as either ‘good’ or ‘very good’ in:!!

82% Enabling creative industry connections between individuals!79% Enabling connections between organisations within/outwith creative industries !79% Encourage interdisciplinary collaborations!!

• Creative Dundee is having a positive impact on the perception of Dundee as a creative city within and outwith Dundee: !

!89% Within the city!63% Outwith Dundee

Above: Results from the 80 completed online surveys

Online survey: some final stats

Community: !

• Being part of a community is important for practitioners.!

• Coming together allows for inclusion where individuals can share ideas, knowledge and inspiration in a safe, trustworthy environment. !

• Connecting of people has led to some new collaborations, and new contracts. !

• Online platform enables individuals to promote their work/ideas to a large ready-made audience.!!Stakeholders:!

• Bridging the gap between the community and the public sector organisations. The development of relationships with other organisations has been beneficial for the network and also the other organisations to access and connect with this network.!

!City Level: !

• Influential catalyst for the increase in the profile of Dundee, the city as a whole.!

• Involvement with City of Culture, Creative Dundee was able to improve the perception of Dundee (cannot take sole responsibility for this, of course). !

• Played a role in the retention of talent within the city, more people choosing to remain, or move to Dundee to access opportunities. !

• Working together with other organisations to support the development of the creative industries within Dundee is fundamentally Creative Dundee’s city wide role. Creative Dundee is in a unique position, able to speak with the practitioners as well as those influencing policy at a strategic level.

Stakeholder Findings - city wide impacts

• Cross-sector networking/collaboration encouraged - regular high-quality and informal sessions.!

!• Leadership and direction from the sector - programmes of support should be led by

the creative sector in partnership with local agencies.!!• Digital engagement is effective at raising awareness of local creative/cultural sectors -

locally/internationally and helps reach markets - it must be of a high quality. Helps place making - tourism, regeneration…!

!• Strong partnerships and leveraging expertise from organisations is essential –

civic authorities/enterprise agencies/bottom-up networks provide specialist expertise in areas e.g. design processes; crowd-funding; digital innovation. !!

• Local agencies should commission local talent where possible - by providing open and transparent commissioning methods and discussions to talk through where the challenges are. !

My wish list for creative place networks!

!

[email protected]!@creative_dundee!