2007: International cultural facilitation

Future tools, future products, future skills

A version of this article first appeared in Futures Magazine 10 in 2007 and summed up everything I learned in my job as Cultural Attaché to the Québec government office in London from 1992-2010.

Abstract

This paper has its origins in the day-to-day working environment of an international cultural relations office in London, UK. The following observations are neither borne of theory nor of academic research, but rather through the ideological analysis of praxis, working for one of the most enlightened Western and First World governments in the cultural field: Québec. 

My time spent working for the Government of Québec was a process of assimilation, transformation and transmogrification of other people’s good ideas. Where I am aware of the source I have indicated this. Theories which were still half-formed, yet useful to my thesis, seem to have occurred spontaneously out of the daily work regime. Many may seem eerily familiar, as I doubt there is now an original idea left in this Internet world. This non-academic approach is not, I trust, devoid of intellectual rigour or honesty. 

What follows is an outline of a changing methodology for international cultural relations in a fuzzy world. The futures described are actual strategies that have been set in motion by the happily disintegrating nature of cultural diplomacy. The ecology of international cultural relations has undoubtedly changed permanently and so too must the tools of the trade.

Changes in the cultural ecology

In the twenty-first century, one corner of the ecology of the international cultural sector has become a conflict zone between a family of notions that seek to harness national creativity to promote a national political agenda; to create wealth; to maintain a diverse set of culturally distinct identities in a globalised world.

We have witnessed first the reality of many disappearing roles in the field of diplomatic cultural action. These days government agencies abroad no longer offer grant-aid to artists, organise a programme of cultural events, act as agent or impresario, arrange contracts or work permits, fund gaps in local budgets or work directly with the consumer. 

More enlightened governments seek to maintain the international strength of their product quality, strategic coherence, accessibility, partnership networks, understanding of client needs, tailored client support; and fundamentally, the notion that longevity breeds reliability. Cultural relations are here being redefined as reciprocal facilitation between cultures.

For others, culture is increasingly being defined by wider characteristics and values, no longer meaning ‘The Arts’, but a way of life, the construction of meanings and a tool of the national economy. 

Cultural relations are being redefined as planned intervention in the trading economy 

This situation is creating space for modern governments to develop a vision of their cultural sector as the finest opportunity for job creation, job protection and wealth creation. 

Governments are now having to share sovereignty multilaterally and so seek reciprocally enriching strategies. The new young creators are leading this through their expert exploitation of the Internet, working via their natural acceptance of a plurality of discourses and of the interdependence of cultures. The economic success of many regions and nations is now demonstrating the lead effect that creativity is having on their general enrichment.

When going to market, our young creators have become expert at exploiting the positive effects of globalisation through the Internet. They are also less obsessed with the platforms for their work, be they TV CD or DVD, and more with the content [14]. The rate of change in the available platforms is rapid and varied, but content will always be needed, whichever ones triumph. Young creators must be encouraged to get skilled up to deliver content of international quality and then, instead of selling their IPRs (intellectual property rights) outright, be assisted to engage in proper licensing deals. This will deliver a longer and more profitable income stream as well as protect their eventual contribution to the cultural heritage of the 21^st century.

Progressive societies are now moving to a position where all cultures can be seen as equally mature expressions of human creative endeavour. However some of the world’s richer societies remain severely challenged by the fact that diversity in its global sense means, and has always meant, both resistance and diffusion. Defining diversity as a local concern for the integration of migrant communities has been a way of avoiding the pain of this realisation but, in a post-Iraq world, there is now maturing a proper concentration on the creative contribution of the cultural diasporas in their host societies. It remains incumbent on all governments to nurture their indigenous cultural expression and content whilst seeking to include the diasporas in their cultural offer.

However, the trouble with strategies, models and organisations is the tendency to entropic rigidity. No matter the initial quotient of flexibility, a strategy will inevitably become a barrier to change. The secret is to know when to ditch them and I, like many others, have been down quite a few now defunct paths. Although not central to the vision of what lies ahead, they certainly linger, for knowing where you have been does indeed inform where you are going.

The benefits of imprecision

Before laying some foundations for future models, and ever mindful of how rigidity can beset any strategy, I want to pause here to sing the praises of the benefits of imprecision [18]. 

In all my professional experience of running a service in a government office I have always resisted the notion that the cultural sector can somehow be tamed by bureaucratic administrations. What follows is a manifesto of core values through which I have sought to further illuminate my own activities in cultural facilitation. I make no apology for their imprecision for I am convinced that ideas such as these are as much a way forward as any of the others yet to be offered.

Take risks. The cultural sector is always presenting possibilities. An opportunistic mind-set and strong-willed risk management is required if one’s clients are to benefit from these. An even-tempered approach to the potential for failure helps. Welcome to the creative world of fuzzy logic and the stochastic process, where you will learn to decipher the positive benefits of the Brownian motion [19] of the cultural sector – and develop the skill of herding cats.

Manage chaos. The great emergent skill in the past decade has been the capacity of cultural leaders to manage chaos. One way of beginning to understand chaos, unfortunately overused but nonetheless eloquent, is to admire the Butterfly effect [20] – how one mere flap of the wing can trigger a tropical storm several thousand miles away. This implies a keen sensitivity to initial conditions. 

Say YES. It is an old truth in the theatre of improvisation [21] that not accepting whatever your fellow actor offers, kills the drama stone dead. Is it not also thus for cultural creators when confronted with the faceless bureaucrat saying no? Saying ‘YES’ is scary because you will be out of control, you will be tired, yet at the same time elated with the energy released from the creator in front of you. Dancers maybe have just 10 years to really dance. Should they spend five of them fighting the nein-sageren? Do not contribute to their pain, ease it.

The terrain is an ecosystem. Governments like their administrations to impose upon the terrain. The topographical view, that planners are somehow faced with a complete landscape to decipher before anything can be done, does not deliver responsive cultural facilitation. It would be far better to see your clients as inhabiting a series of ecosystems – the grass is growing over there, it must be raining, so that is where we must go. This simply prevents one from working in the desert. The way to harness the centres of energy already present, and to not make the mistake of patronising your clients by seeking to ‘animate’ them, is achieved by sustainable development within the ecosystem. 

Work with the grain. Administrations and bureaucrats seek to impose their will also on the market. Going with the grain of the market holds great power for it harnesses progressive forces and adds value to pre-planned action. This will require some generosity of spirit but does in fact allow you to gain some control of the market by providing a valuable link to the weakest link of the trade chain. Repay yourself by piggy-backing another’s budget and another’s event, thereby increasing the cross-selling capacity of the market. By not seeking to escape the prevailing market conditions, you avoid creating that most dangerous of things, a false economy borne of misplaced subsidies.

In all this, any and all cultural action in the fuzzy world of the future should remain flexible to the utmost, yet diligent in application of method and implementation. 

Fresh strategies:

Culture as business

Focussing on culture’s proven ability to build wealth signals the end of its use as a mere instrument for building reputation. Administrators must reconcile the trade definition of “cultural goods and services”, mere market commodities, with their obvious function as vectors of value, meaning and identity. To bind together two seemingly conflicting kinds of value and develop a praxis around which specific ideas may begin to coalesce; to take on the new ecology and the notion that culture equals business; to successfully marry conflicting notions of economic value between presentation of the offer and encouragement of the demand ; to define how a government office might mediate between a business model for international cultural facilitation that delivers values and value; yet support creativity, allow cultural diversity and so not contribute to the perverse effects of globalisation – all in a spirit of reciprocity. The challenge is sizeable. 

Laying the template of the orthodox business model over the organisation of a government cultural service points up useful ways – or reinforces current ones – that tighten up our capacity for facilitation and intervention.

Looked at through that end of the telescope, the principal role of a cultural service may best be described as that of broker, creating income and/or profit by matching up potential buyers and sellers and thus facilitating sales. What, in this age of the digital distribution of information, is more properly termed a filter.  Both of these terms describe a classically reciprocal and interdependent activity. 

The principal assets dealt with by such a service may be defined as intangibles – IPRs, knowledge, goodwill, brand image – and as human – people time and effort, where time and knowledge are rented out for a fee. 

A business model points up four essential pillars of business activity to focus on in a cultural service: the products and services offered; the infrastructure and network of partners; the accumulated capital of good customer relations; and the financing. 

Modern business practice helps us view our assets as investments. These are the selection, acquisition and retention of our employees and customers; the care with which our product offering is defined and differentiated; and how utility is created for both employees and customers. It indicates how we go to market (our promotion and distribution strategies); how the tasks to be performed are defined; how a sustainable presence with respect to the environment and society is developed; and how to configure our resources responsibly. 

Finally, it shows us how all these investments give us the right and the opportunity to build business relations in three important ways: through institutional cooperation; the promotion of products and skills; and market development. Our ultimate success or failure (as with all businesses) will depend primarily on how well our business design matches our customer priorities. 

The trade chain strategy

The notion of government as producer of events has become increasingly unacceptable, leading to the progressive disappearance of cultural diplomacy and cultural relations work as it was once known. Facilitation is replacing action and informed, alert and enlightened governments are now working more with the grain of the market where activities need to be less offer-driven and more demand-led. 

This is not to say that governments should stop being proactive in the sector. Closer attention is being paid to the trade chain – of which it is a truism to say that it is only as strong as its weakest link [17] – in order to develop products that add value to the chain, without seeking to create a false economy by insensitive financial allocations or distorting local cultures by inappropriate interventions. 

Servicing the trade chain requires the maintenance of actual client relations and the acquisition of new ones, and the identification of products and services of use to them. The accumulated capital of professional relations and networks remains essential for success, and the role of sales facilitator mixes creators, investors and distributors to the benefit of each. 

Sales effort is directed at cultural businesses and not at the consumer, who remains the responsibility of the distributor. Specifically tailor-made support products add value to the potential of other investments already in place. Close collaboration with core partners promotes a perpetual re-adjustment of trade objectives and regulates the anticipated reach of government intervention somewhat advantageously for both parties.

Creators are accompanied into the heart of the market by means of sector strategies for promotion and distribution, which recognise the often intangible elements of assets such as IPRs, savoir-faire, goodwill and brand. The trade chain is a single template that can be applied across all creative industries through a series of facilitation plans. 

So how does this work? The heart of the activity remains the distribution of cultural goods and services in those markets that are sufficiently buoyant. All clients, be they creators investors or distributors, share the same preoccupation: how to put cultural product or skill in front of the consumer and generate revenue, even profit?

Trade chains may therefore be identified as a sort of typical route, by sector and in a local context, which allow one to bring a product to market in the most effective way. These chains can be made more explicit for both creators and investors and clear linkages identified in industries such as literature and translation, film and television, popular, folk, world and classical music, the performing arts and the visual arts.

The accumulated networking capital is exploited, and profit drawn from the maturity of professional relations, to produce an ‘A’ list of distributors who become the preferred operators. These entities can be individuals (agents, managers, producers), distribution platforms (galleries, venues, cinemas, festivals, trade fairs) or institutional (the big museums, prizes, NGOs, agencies for technical cooperation). 

New products and services can be created to strengthen the weaker links identified in each trade chain. The objective of these new tools is to improve returns on the investments of the client base by adding value to their activities. This might be through a publication, a white CD, an Internet link, a visitor programme, a grant, a prize, an industrial immersion encounter or an information session. Such products become an essential and very contemporary visiting card.

The public budget needs a coherent architecture to deliver the principal objective. This is especially true in relation to the creation of revenue and profit from distribution by matching activities to the wishes of clients. A cooperation budget establishes sustainable institutional relations; a promotions budget services the marketing needs of the distributors; an overheads budget pays for physical presence at selected activities, including travel, hospitality and other costs of commercialisation. Finally a market development budget supports a more business-like approach and favours the entry of the goods or services into the selected international market.

A joint allocation plan for these resources exploits the synergy between budgets and so improves returns on investment already being made by Ministries and state agencies. One does however need to remain conscious that success also comes from a capacity for flexible response, so the plan should not overly determine the amounts to be allocated nor the list of potential beneficiaries: the concentration is more on the decision processes that offer support. The success of the plan depends on a proper level of trustworthy commercial information to provide a reliable portrait of revenue and profit potential.

A trans-frontier strategy

The trade chain has the further merit of allowing extension into exploded topographies via invitations to participate to international partners who are available locally. The primary objective of this parallel strategy is to break the distribution vice-grip and increase returns on current piecemeal investments. 

A raft of “push” products can thus be implemented area-wide by exploiting the extensive continental or international networks of cultural centres or festivals. This maintains good relations in each city where the government is present, and provokes what might be termed ricochet invitations – my invitation follows what my network is inviting.

Other modes of intervention would include mobile response teams offering practical assistance using local expertise: a demand/offer development team involved in strategic networking well upstream of any facilitation; a catalyst team that would coalesce around an existing development idea to seize the moment offered before it became dissipated; a caravan to educate the commercial choices of continental buyers made up of those public bodies best equipped to present buoyant sectors and offer a portrait of emergent creators; a technology showcase and a mobile added-value bureau to manage potential extensions of activities across a whole continent. 

Finally, research and information are more readily available now that more coherent exploitation of information tools is available online and open channels might be used to capture third party inputs to create multilateral facilitation as a preferred route.

Each overseas office should seek redefinition as a regional hub. Fresh resources can be attracted by offering a monitoring and commercial information service; clustering events; piggy-backing; encouraging triangular relationships (the skill, reputation and presence for introducing third parties to the networks). This all goes a long way to changing the distribution landscape. 

By way of conclusion

If you want to develop your capacity for international cultural facilitation, the old dictum ‘act local, think global’ was never truer. One must first define what that culture is and nurture it locally, providing coherent industry pathways where professional training leads to employment. Grouped or individual creators require a professional infrastructure to be constructed in order to bring their work to market. If they are to grow, and the economy to grow with them, then support for a comprehensive distribution system is essential when the local market becomes saturated. Continuous financing systems which move cultural production units from state support into public profit will, therefore, become the preferred choice. 

To achieve this there is an urgent need to kill off instrumentalism in the cultural field, which is itself killing off tomorrow’s creativity. Terms and practices like cultural diplomacy, cultural relations, access policies and public diplomacy are all part of this generally misguided baggage where international cultural action is informed by the injection of external policy concerns such as the need to combat the growth of Islamophobia or a government’s obsession with social policy.

It would be far more profitable for all concerned were governments to turn their attention to phenomena like ‘The Long Tail’ [22], that ‘world-turned-upside-down’ of profit from niches, not hits, in a market of abundance, not scarcity. Analysis of The Long Tail would allay many of our concerns over distribution and resolve the availability of a culturally diverse product: “Where the Long Tail works, minority tastes are catered to, and individuals are offered greater choice. In situations where popularity is currently determined by the lowest common denominator, a Long Tail model may lead to improvement in a society’s level of culture” [23]. 

If we are to believe in this telling business forecast, then it may prove more beneficial in a saturated cultural market to spread oneself thin and enter into numerous, smaller, eclectic projects rather than put most of our eggs into one basket.^[1]

References

1. See Québec Ministère des relations internationales website (http://www.mri.gouv.qc.ca/en/pdf/Sommaire.pdf)
2. Conversation with Niclas Ljungberg (www.iconzest.com), London 2005
3. See www.placebrands.net
4. From John Williamson, former director of Wolff Olins (www.wolff-olins.com), in collaboration with the author 2002
5. From Dr Ulrich Sacker, then Director of the Goethe Institut London (www.goethe.de), in collaboration with the author 2002
6. From an unpublished workshop delivered by the author in on behalf of the Swiss Foreign Ministry (http://www.eda.admin.ch/eda/e/home.html), Bern 2003
7. John Grant, The New Marketing Manifesto, Orion Books 1999
8. Conversation with Yvette Vaughan Jones, then Director of Wales Arts International, Cardiff, 1998
9. Grant, ibid
10. Céline Gagnon, Économie du savoir, unpublished internal memorandum, DGQL, 2003
11. Conversation with Andrew Massingham, Clore Fellow, London 2003
12. http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=11281&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
13. Mark Leonard, Going Public: Diplomacy for the Information Society, Foreign Policy Centre London, 1997
14. ibid.
15. Massingham, 2006
16. Leonard, Small and Rose, British Public Diplomacy in the ‘Age of Schisms’, Foreign Policy Centre and Counterpoint, British Council, 2005
17. Conversation with Michel Brunet, Québec Ministère des relations internationales, by telephone, 2006
18. Variously attributed to American philosopher William James or the revolutionary V. I. Lenin
19. Speech by Dr Martin Rose, then Director of Counterpoint, British Council, The Great Civility: Cultural Relations and the Future, at Kajaani, Finland, on 2 September 2004 
20. ibid.
21. James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New Science, Viking Penguin, 1987
22. Johnstone, Keith, Impro: improvisation and the theatre, Theatre Arts Books, New York, 1979
23. Anderson, Chris The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is selling less of more, Hyperion, 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_long_tail
24. ibid.

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^[1] Special thanks to Céline Gagnon, Cultural Attachée at the Québec Government Office, for her insight and contributions to this article. Also to Gavin Nardocchio-Jones, of the Canadian High Commission for his help cutting and editing the finished product.