Renaissance Northwest Presentation

Can culture save the world?

My pitch

- Happiness and wealth fell out with each other more than half a century ago.

- We need to ‘reboot’ economics and find a way to achieve prosperity without growth.

- Non-materialist forms of social capital and experience are part of the solution.

- Culture and the experience economy can win us back from materialism.

- Reaching people, and fighting for headspace, is a core strength of the cultural sector.

- Culture creates the places and spaces that people want to be in, fostering a more compelling and competitive identity.

- Innovation must no longer be the preserve of consumerist ‘novelty’ and desire but has to become part of how we craft our collective future.

- Culture can (help to) save the world.

Prosperity: The Reboot.

“Growth for the sake of growth is the philosophy of the cancer cell.”

Edward Abbey

In the last quarter century...

Global Economy

Carbon Emissions

Global Ecosystems -60%

40%

100%

Redefining Prosperity: UK Sustainable Development Commission 2009

The debt burden

- Personal debt in the UK more than doubled from 1990 to today.

- Even during the 2008 recession, it was growing at the rate of £1m every 11 minutes.

- In 2008 it reached £1.5 trillion, higher than our GDP.

What makes us happy?

Partner/spouse and family relationships

Health

A nice place to live

Money and finances

Religious or spiritual life

Community and friends

Work fulfilment

Don’t know 1%

2%

5%

6%

7%

8%

24%

47%

Redefining Prosperity: UK Sustainable Development Commission 2009

Sell Sell Sell

“Our commonest economic error is the assumption that production and trade are our only practical activities, and that they require no other human justification or scrutiny.

“We need to say what many of us know in experience: that the life of man, and the business of society, cannot be confined to these ends; that the struggle to learn, to describe, to understand, to educate is a central and necessary part of our humanity.”

Raymond Williams

Raymond Williams, Communications, 1962

Advertising is an accident of capitalism.

Consumerism will not save us.

We have to stop selling shit to sleepwalkers

We (the UK) are consuming three planets each.

Use Less. Live More.

Investing in the experience economy

Fighting the (low cost) flight.

Taking part...

- 66% of adults took part in two or more different cultural or sport sectors

- 79% had visited historic environment sites

- 65% had visited a museum, gallery or archive

- 54% used a public library

DCMS Taking Part Survey 2009

The value of ‘taking part’

- Mental wellbeing (or happiness!)

- Social cohesion and stronger communities

- Volunteering and engagement

- Lifelong learning

- Mass innovation and inspiration

Culture and the Fight for Headspace

Taking part...

- 66% of adults took part in two or more different cultural or sport sectors

- 79% had visited historic environment sites

- 65% had visited a museum, gallery or archive

- 54% used a public library

DCMS Taking Part Survey 2009

100:4950

Allied LondonArupBolton MBCBury MBCBridgewater HallCommunity Foundation for Greater ManchesterCo-operative Bank, Smile and CISCornerhouseCTACEmerge RecyclingEnvironment AgencyEnvironment Network for ManchesterENWORKSGalaxy RadioFriends of the Earth ManchesterGeorge House TrustGMPTEGM CVOGroundwork NorthwestITV Granada

Lancashire Wildlife TrustThe LowryMANCATManchester AirportManchester Metropolitan UniversityManchester Art GalleryManchester Pride 2005Manchester Student Christian MovementManchester City CouncilManchester City Football ClubManchester EnterprisesManchester EEACsManchester Museum Manchester: Knowledge CapitalManchester United Football ClubMIDASMersey Basin CampaignMuseum of Science and IndustryMoonfishNornirNorth West Regional AssemblyNorthwest Business Leadership TeamNorthwest Regional AssemblyNorthwest Regional Development Agency

Oz PromotionsNorthwest Trades Union CongressOldham MBCQuantumRed Rose ForestRochdale MBCRWE SolutionsSalford City RedsStockport MBCSustainability NorthwestThe PrintworksSalford City CouncilSheppard RobsonTameside MBCTrafford MBCUnited UtilitiesUniversity of BoltonUniversity of ManchesterUniversity of SalfordUrbisWigan and Leigh CollegeWoodford GroupWigan Athletic Football Club

Culture and Placemaking

Old school brand theories

- Products = Emotion

- Organisations = Personality

- Destinations = Experience

-PLACES = all of the above

Anholt City Brands Index

Presence

Place

PotentialPulse

People

Pre-requisites

Place brand & image

Tourism campaigns

Gets you on the radar; sets the context for visits and promotion

Acts as a driver for image; share campaign tactics and themes

Shared themes, storylines and campaign tactics

Supporting an urban renaissance

Housing market renewal Confidence & community cohesion

Culture and Innovation

The Ten Habits of Mass Innovation- One: Invest in creating

very widespread capabilities for innovation in public and social sectors as well as commercial.

- Two: Innovative societies are good at mingling: they encourage people and ideas to find one another and combine creatively.

- Three: Education systems designed for the innovation economy not the industrial economy.

- Four: Mass innovation societies encourage ideas to be challenged and tested.

- Five: Low barriers to entry make markets competitive and cultures creative.

- Six: Innovative societies are good at turning ideas into action.

- Seven: Innovation is inescapably a public-private undertaking: public platforms often create the basis for a mass of private innovation.

- Eight: Innovation needs to be about how products are used as well as how they are invented.

- Nine: Consumers and markets need to be as much part of innovation policy as scientists and laboratories.

- Ten: Innovation has to be central to the story the nation tells itself.

Creative combinations...

- Two: Innovative societies are good at mingling: they encourage people and ideas to find one another and combine creatively.

- Creativity is often highly conversational and so innovative societies need to be populated with spaces, real and virtual, where people mix, publish, talk and debate.

- This process of creative combination often relies on ... spaces where ideas and people mingle ... institutions like museums, galleries and libraries.

- An innovative society needs strong public platforms in which ideas can be published, debated, tested and then taken up.

- Creativity comes from interaction and dialogue between different ideas not just from diversity alone.

-Innovation by the masses, not just for them: that must be our national purpose.

Provocation 01: November 2006

The Ten Habits of Mass InnovationBy Charles Leadbeater

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Cultural solutions:

- Building social capital

- An ‘alternative hedonism’

- Changing values and shifting behaviours

- Reducing our carbon footprint

- Stronger places and competitive identity

- Genuine innovation

- A happier world