Musings on the LSO Digital Symposium

I’ve just got back from the LSO “All Change?” Digital Symposium. Both Anwen and I were in attendance and I think our feelings about the day are about the same – lovely to network and join in the debate as always but we really need to move on this conversation now and talk about the impacts, actions and responses of digital development. One thought from the day stood out for me in particular:

Government should have led the way in testing and researching digital content and social media, much as they tested new school learning frameworks in laboratory conditions in the 50s and 60s, we should expect them to finance and develop models for the public to engage with online media, test them, refine them and release this information to publicly funded organisations.
Although I think it might have been an interesting approach, my argument with this is that approaches to interactive social media (by which I mean not videos or podcasts, but a platform that genuinely allows the audience to participate) should be unique to each organisation due to online content’s very nature of transparency and openness.

Hmm, I could have phrased that better, but it’s been a long week!

You can view comments from the day at twitter.com/AllChange_LSO. Were you there? What did you make of the day? And can you refine my response above?!

Doing it for the kids

The latest briefing from the Arts Council’s 05/06 Taking Part survey reveals a profound correlation between childhood experience of the arts and later adult arts attendance. According to the report, exposure to the arts as a child dramatically increases an individual’s chances of being an adult arts consumer, and is almost as strong a predictor of arts engagement as education.

The research emphasises the importance of current policy and initiatives designed to encourage young people’s engagement with arts activity; projects like Find Your Talent and the current under 26 free theatre campaign, A Night Less Ordinary (check out Anwen’s post to see how AL are involved in this one). Instructively titled Encourage children today to build arts audiences for tomorrow, the full Arts Council Taking Part report is available  to download here.

P.S. This might be old news those of you receiving Audiences London’s bi-weekly newsletter. If you’re not already on our mailing list but would like regular tasty morsels of audience candy like the above, sign up to the newsletter here.

Should public funding be decided by the public?

The Directory of Social Change have aired their thoughts on BIG Lottery’s proposal to allow the public to have a say win who receives public funding. Their response was a resounding NO! What do you think? You can read the article here.

Arts policy: through the recession and beyond

In the current economic climate it’s more important than ever to keep scanning the policy horizon. How might shifts in policy – or potential changes of goverment – affect arts organisations already under pressure from an increasingly fraught economy?

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham warned  in January of potential government spending cuts in 2010, reminding subsidised arts organisations that they are not “immune” from downturn-prompted savings drives.

The proposed Arts Council England restructure announced on 25th February aims to save £6.5 million per year in administration costs, and to redistribute this saving directly across the sector. Read their briefing document for details of this vision for a streamlined ACE.

As David Cameron’s personal approval ratings reach an all-time high this week, and with the Conservatives still leading Labour in popularity polls, the cultural sector needs to consider the potential impact of Tory arts policies if the party comes to power in the next election. Read Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s keynote speech here, and see an Artistic Director’s response to it here.

Digital Britain…

Here it is, from the horse’s mouth… the future… the Digital Britain Interim Report

Suck it and see! And Charles Leadbeater’s response is helpful too.