creative industries development in regional queensland...my recent professional practice as an...
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Creative Industries Development in Regional Queensland
An Action Research Approach
Michael Doneman B.A. (Hons), Grad. Dip. Teaching
Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre Queensland University of Technology
Submitted for the award of Master of Arts (Research)
December 2005
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Keywords creative industries
action research
commercialisation
regional queensland
entrepreneurship
business
indigenist
social-cultural animation
animateur
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Abstract
Creative industries have significance in considerations of regional
development because of their potential for both social-cultural and
political-economic benefit. This is especially the case in Indigenous
communities, given the potential of traditional and contemporary
cultural expression for industry development and employment.
This research set out to explore and evaluate an action research
approach to creative industries development in regional contexts,
stimulated by a research initiative of Queensland’s Department of
State Development in cooperation with Queensland University of
Technology’s Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre. It
is based on an analysis of seven pilot projects undertaken between
2002 and 2004, most of which involved Indigenous participation and
which gave rise to consideration of the additional value of Indigenist
research perspectives.
The research found that an action research methodology, informed by
Indigenist research values, can assist creative enterprise development
in a regional context through the development of new businesses or by
value-adding to existing businesses, and the consequent generation
and exploitation of new intellectual property. In this process, it found
that there is an emerging role for the creative entrepreneur, such a
role arising from the practices of community cultural development and
social-cultural animation.
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Table of Contents
Keywords 2 Abstract 3 Table of Contents 4 Acronyms and Abbreviations 5 Declaration 6 Acknowledgements 6
Section 1
Introduction
7
Section 2
The Action Research Environment
15
Section 3
Case Study – Arilla Paper
31
Section 4
Other Pilot Projects
43
Section 5
Discussion
70
References
82
Attachments
87
1
Arilla Paper – Business Building Manual
88
2
Arilla Paper – Final Report Stage 1
107
3
Evolution: New World Business - Business Plan
112
4
MITEZ Meta-Network, North Queensland
149
5
Tjapukai Project Notes
152
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An Online Community Capacity Building Toolbox
158
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Report for the Dalby/Bodja Chair Project
161
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Letter - Economic Development Pilot Project - Ooboogee Agroforestry
167
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DigIT – Report
170
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DigIT Draft Training Plan
176
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Pilot Projects – Time Lines
184
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Pilot Projects – Details
185
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Inspiration Lounge DVD - Inside back cover
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Acronyms and Abbreviations ACID Australian Centre for Interaction Design
AR Action Research
CCD Community Cultural Development
CDEP Community Development Employment Program
CEO Chief Executive Officer
Cr Councillor
CI Creative Industries
CIF Creative Industries Faculty
CIRAC Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre
DSD Department of State Development
EO Executive Officer
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
GIS Global Information System
IP Intellectual Property
IT Information Technology
KP KaosPilots
KPI Key Performance Indicator
LGA Local Government Authority
LGAQ Local Government Association of Queensland
M2N MITEZ Meta-Network
MITEZ Mt Isa – Townsville Economic Zone
PCYC Police & Citizens’ Youth Club
QFF Queensland Folk Federation
QUT Queensland University of Technology
TAFE Technical and Further Education
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Declaration The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted
for an award at any other higher education institution. To the best of
my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no materials previously
published or written by any other person except where due reference
is made.
Signature:
………………………………………………………………………………………..
Date:
………………………………………………………………………………………….
Acknowledgements This research documents a considerable period of my practice in the
field of social-cultural animation, and I acknowledge and thank the
many co-workers and professional colleagues who contributed to the
development and realisation of the projects described here,
particularly my Indigenous colleagues and friends.
My thanks also to my principle supervisor, Professor Stuart
Cunningham, for his assiduous advice on the translation of the
grounded realities of my practice into the conceptual world of the
Academy.
Most of all, my thanks and appreciation to my wife, Ludmila, and my
daughter, Ella, for their loving support, their patience and their
understanding of my long struggle with this document.
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1.Introduction
Background
This research conducted for this thesis is based on a program of
regional creative industries industry development commissioned in
2002 by the Queensland Department of State Development (DSD). I
conducted this work over two and a half years with focus on a diverse
range of ‘pilot projects’, of which seven are analysed in this thesis.
The project emerged from representations I made to the Department
in 2002 to trial an innovative approach to entrepreneurship inspired by
Denmark’s KaosPilots business school, with whom I have been a
correspondent and supporter since the early 90’s. This was founded in
my recent professional practice as an educator, workshop and program
facilitator, project manager, producer, artistic director and community
activist, where processes of social-cultural animation, often in the
State’s regions, and often involving interactions with Indigenous
communities, showed indications of inspiring new economic activity –
specifically, new enterprises and new employment. When such
activities succeeded, it seemed to me, this was due to the inspired
leadership of creative entrepreneurs.
The Department saw value in an action research approach to the issue
of developing and commercialising intellectual property in the creative
industries, where innovative approaches to entrepreneurship might
prove effective. This afforded a good fit with emerging academic
discourses on creative industries, particularly at QUT in Brisbane, with
DSD’s own policy development in the area, and also with the
Queensland government’s ‘Smart State’ policy.
“Here in Queensland, (the creative industries) have a key role
to play as we transform into a knowledge economy based on
ideas and talent, and build on the business and cultural base of
the State.” (DSD, 2003: p.5)
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With this in view, DSD initiated a contract with QUT’s Creative
Industries Faculty (CIF) to provide action research into the
commercialisation of Intellectual Property (IP) in the creative
industries, or through CI inputs across sectors. This in turn became a
contract between myself and the Creative Industries Research and
Applications Centre (CIRAC) at the CIF.
In the language of the head contract, the project set out to “increase
activity in the Queensland creative industries through the generation
of a set of experience-based enterprise development methodologies
and ideas for the development of cross-disciplinary applications and
new enterprises.” The contract prescribed the goals of
• Developing a commercialisation research framework resulting in
methodologies for assisting creative enterprise development.
• Establishing an action research environment for developing
innovative cross-disciplinary applications.
• Incubating ideas for new creative enterprises from the
outcomes of the research
• Documenting a plan to exploit the IP generated from these
initiatives (Head Contract, DSD/QUT).
I have derived from these goals a set of three research questions
which provide the orienting framework for this thesis:
1. Is it possible to develop an action research based methodology
for assisting creative enterprise development in a regional
context?
2. Can such a methodology generate ideas for the development of
innovative cross-disciplinary applications, and ideas for new
creative enterprises?
3. Can such a methodology assist in the exploitation of the
intellectual property generated in such a process?
This orientation is reinforced by recent research by CIRAC, which
recommends that “the Queensland government explore the
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opportunities to strengthen creative industries in regional Queensland,
with particular reference to opportunities in content creation and
distribution” (Cunningham et al, 2002: p. 8).
The project generated considerable interest. In one case – the Arilla
Paper Mill in Mt Isa – it catalysed the formation of a viable new
creative industries business, and in another – the Edgeware Creative
Entrepreneurship project – an innovative and ongoing creative
industries development platform.
Industry Context: Community Cultural Development and Social-
Cultural Animation
The origin of community cultural development (CCD) practice in
Australia can be traced to the election of the Whitlam Labor
government in December 1972. This government’s inflection of the
terms ‘access’, ‘participation’ and ‘community’ inspired reforms to
health, education and welfare, as well as “an invocation of social-
democratic ideology in the public administration of the arts” (Hawkins,
1993: p.29). Importantly, it admitted for the first time in public policy
discourse an awareness of “social or non-aesthetic discourses of value”
in the arts (Hawkins, 1993: p. 158).
Three decades of development of the practice sees the retention of the
social-democratic ideal of “building cultural capacity and contributing
to social change” (CCD Net, 2005: http://www.ccd.net/about/
theory.html), though this has often generated friction in discussions of
definition and differentiation of the practice from aesthetically-oriented
arts practice. As a result, many definitions include both social and
‘artistic’ aims.
“Community cultural development … may be described as a
process of community capacity building which uses a diverse
range of arts and cultural tools to spark conversations, facilitate
dialogue and build relationships, resulting in a wide variety of
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artistic and developmental outcomes.” (Qld Community Arts
Network 2005: http://www.qldcan.org.au/index.php?cID=120)
In my experience this encourages a kind of fence-sitting which can
work to disempower CCD in both social and artistic arenas, as
evidenced in the recent dissolution by the Australia Council of its
Community Cultural Development Board. It seems timely to revisit the
social-democratic origins of the practice unencumbered by received
arts policy discourses, and in this effort it is salutary to explore the
European tradition of social-cultural animation, from the French
animation socio-culturelle (Reynolds, 1984: http://www.context.org/
ICLIB/IC05/Reynolds.htm).
In this tradition, the practice of social-cultural animation operates in a
field much broader than received notions of the arts, typically making
use of any resource which can be brought to the goal of developing
social capital or in some way delivering a concrete, measurable
benefit. Like creative industry, which “brings together in a provisional
convergence a range of sectors which have not typically been linked
with each other” (Cunningham, 2005: p. 284), animation operates
effectively in blended, (re)negotiated and hybridised spaces.
With its connotation from the Greek animus of vivification and
enlivening, this practice “mobilizes and organises a community”, and is
initiated and facilitated by an animateur, who operates as “a social
change agent, or catalyst” (Bartle, 2005: http://www.scn.org/ip/cds/
cmp/modules/emp-cul.htm). Thus its first concern is value for a
community, whether such value is generated by aesthetic activity or
not, though there is often a concern for the generic value of creativity,
as in a process of people “channeling their own creative energy toward
a common goal” (Reynolds, 1984: http://www.context.org/
ICLIB/IC05/Reynolds.htm).
We might also coin another term for animateur, especially where
practice is framed by political-economic factors and where there are
clear commercial outcomes – namely, the creative entrepreneur.
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Industry Context: Creative Industries
It can be argued that the category ‘creative industries’, which emerged
in the early 90’s, is a concept determined top-down not by industry
stakeholders but “through high-level policy making in countries and
regions that wanted to win economic benefit from the IT and stock
market boom.” (Hartley, 2005: p. 28) As such, political-economic
drivers can be said to be crucial to any definition of the term, lending
my project’s emphasis on commercialisation of intellectual property
discursive relevance and weight.
In Great Britain, the creative industries concept is anchored in the
values of “wealth and job creation”, yielding a definition of the
category as “activities which have their origin in individual creativity,
skill and talent and which have the potential for wealth and job
creation through generation of intellectual property” (Dept Culture,
Media, Sport, 2003: http://www.culture.gov.uk/creative_industries).
In Australia, the concept might be traced to the Keating government’s
1994 cultural policy, Creative Nation, “scoring another first … in the
tradition of the Hill’s hoist and the wine cask … exhorting the nation to
use its imagination and wit” (Kennedy, 2002: http://www.abfoundation.
com.au/ext/ABFound.nsf/), where the output of such “brain work” is a
trade good called intellectual property (Howkins, 2004: p. 163).
At the same time, while the drivers for the concept of creative
industries may be political and economic, the practical application of
the concept can be seen to have social and cultural impact,
“mainstreaming” the economic value of the arts (Cunningham, 2004:
p. 393). This reinforces the position that, as with social-cultural
animation, creative industries practice seems to be made for blended,
(re)negotiated and hybridised spaces. Citing policy development within
the Queensland government, Cutler and Co imagine a continuity from
the “cultural sector” to the creative industries, and a corresponding
category shift from social to economic policy, as illustrated below.
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Policy Bandwidth - Cutler & Co, 2002
Concurrent with the development of Creative Nation, another Keating
instrument, the Civics Expert Group, pointed to policy influences
beyond the economic drivers of ubiquitous computing and emerging
multimedia industries, specifically to issues of national identity and to
“the globalisation of the world economy, attempts at democratisation
in China, the crisis in Indonesia, the potential of communications
technology to break down barriers of time and space, the
unprecedented movement of migrants and refugees across traditional
boundaries and the inexorable refocusing of Australia towards Asia”
(Print & Gray, 2001: http://www.cybertext.net.au/civicsweb/
Printable_Papers/PRINT&GRAYcivics.htm).
“The rhetoric of Creative Nation recognises the need for a proactive
response. To meet the combined assault of globalisation and new
technology, cultural policy must create the spaces and the resources in
which Australians can invent new images and argue about who or what
they represent.” (Wark, 1994: http://www.dmc.mq.edu.au/
mwark/warchive)
This exemplifies once more that the political-economic, and the social-
cultural, realms are “hybridised … ” in creative industries, “ … at once
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cultural, service-based – both wholesale and retail – R&D based and
part of the volunteer community sector …”, and thus “ … central to the
knowledge-based society.” (Cunningham, 2004: pps 112-113). This
imagines a nation “in which cultural participation is a manifestation of
citizenship” (Uricchio, 2004: p. 82) and perhaps even a new kind of
culturally hybridised economic category, a social function of the
“creative economy” (Wise, 2002: p. 223).
Industry Context: The KaosPilots
A noteworthy contextual element is the influence of my ongoing
relationship with Denmark’s KaosPilots program, which was the
inspiration for my original approach to the DSD for support, and which
has a direct outcome in the ‘Innovative Entrepreneur Training’ project,
discussed in Section 4 of this thesis. This project, and its ongoing
legacy, resulted from the emergence of my social-cultural animation
practice in a field created by the emergent creative industries
discourse. That is, my established practice as animateur has come to
be framed as creative entrepreneurship in the context of the creative
industries.
As a follow-through from a series of successful and influential youth
projects conducted through the late 80’s by its founder, a social
worker, the KaosPilots was established in 1991 as a school for a
particular kind of “project manager capable of tackling organisational
and cultural turbulence ... who wasn’t afraid of chaotic situations and
was therefore capable of using the energy of change to create better
opportunities for people and human existence” (Elbeck, 2003: p. 191).
This background and orientation resonated strongly with my own
practice in the youth sector, especially in Indigenous and cross-cultural
contexts, in the field of community cultural development and
congruently in training and employment work.
As early as 1994 there was a movement in Brisbane to trial a
KaosPilots-style approach to generating new business activity among
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groups of young people attending the GRUNT Youthspace in Fortitude
Valley, which I co-founded. It is in projects of this kind that I came to
a preferred description of my practice as social-cultural animation,
where the KaosPilots’ emphasis on the project manager was related
with the goal of “aiding people to associate their individual
development with the development of their communities, and to
mobilize their energies for participation in furthering that
development” (Adams & Goldbard, 1978: http://www.wwcd.org/policy/
US/proposals/CA_policy.html).
This is a significant evolution of community cultural development
practice, in that it locates practice beyond received notions of arts and
cultural industries, as for example when a cultural development project
throws up opportunities for participants to consolidate project
outcomes in new employment, or where project outcomes reveal the
need for professional development and training beyond the ambit of
arts practice. Such work led directly to the development of the
Edgeware creative entrepreneurship concept, currently in train. While
this differs in many ways from the Kaospilots model, it shares the
KaosPilots’ values orientation, their pragmatism and their spirit.
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2. The Action Research Environment
Assumptions
I first became aware of the term ‘action research’ through dialogue
with academic associates during my community cultural development
work in the 80’s and 90’s, and as my practice moved more to what
might be called social-cultural animation, the action research
appellation remained, to be finally enshrined as the modus operandi of
a contracted period of employment at CIRAC. I come to the term as a
practitioner and activist, and use it as a methodology and interpretive
framework for the ways in which I have learned to develop and
manage projects in community settings, often involving Indigenous or
socially disadvantaged groups, and most recently with an enterprise
development agenda.
Thus I understand the action research concepts I map to this thesis as
useful frameworks for the congruent engagement of change (action)
and understanding (research) (Dick, 1993: http://www.scu.edu.au/
schools/ gcm/ar/art/arthesis.html).
By virtue of the constraints of personal values and 15 years of practice
in Queensland’s first sector (as client and contractor to government),
second sector (as client and contractor to for-profit institutions) and
third sector (as activist and leader of not-for-profit organisations),
ultimately I find my general professional predisposition moving
towards practice, as animateur, in a notional fourth (‘for benefit’)
sector.
“Fourth Sector - A sector where companies, organisations and
institutions that - more or less consciously – have adopted the
best of all three ‘old’ sectors, and where the starting point is
not only a clearly defined set of values but also a focus on the
public good. A sector that still (almost always) plays according
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to the rules of the free market but is driven by the goal of
making a social and cultural difference by developing new
services and products that both enrich and improve human
lives.” (Elbeck, 2003: p. 153)
This orientation is highly practical, outcome- and customer-based –
that is, pragmatic, understood in James’ terms:
“Pragmatism asks its usual question. ‘Grant an idea or belief to
be true,’ it says, ‘what concrete difference will its being true
make in anyone's actual life? How will the truth be realized?
What experiences will be different from those which would
obtain if the belief were false? What, in short, is the truth's
cash-value in experiential terms?’” (James, 1907:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/prgmt10.txt)
It is my learned orientation to pragmatism which ultimately conditions
my claim that an Indigenist research orientation, maintained in the
context of an action research environment, is a powerful tool beyond
the context of cross-cultural engagement, particularly given the
Indigenist emphasis on concrete benefit as a research outcome
among the research community. In relation to my research’s focus on
the feasibility of developing an action research based methodology for
assisting creative enterprise development in a regional context, it is
my experience of animation practice that considerations of standpoint
and the conflation of knowing, being and doing central to Indigenist
research substantially inform and extend the scope of any
interventionary developmental work, including work that takes place
outside an Indigenous context.
My working assumptions, then, are those of the animateur aiming
pragmatically for real outcomes of political-economic value, and
incidentally social-cultural value, to a client or client group. That which
is ‘true’ is valued insofar as it makes for concrete benefit in the lives
people actually lead, an orientation congruent with the aim of action
research that change and understanding occur concurrently.
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The Action Research Environment
Action research can be understood as a research ‘paradigm’, an
orientation in a research environment which engenders a set of
methods rather than any single method (Dick, 1993:
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/ gcm/ar/art/arthesis.html), and where
‘paradigm’ indicates an intellectual construct “based on logically
unprovable assumptions … (that is) … value choices”. (Swepson, 1990:
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/ arp/pilos.html). It is related in my
research to the paradigm of Indigenist research in order to construct
an overall methodological orientation, an orientation to an action
research environment.
Action research is a post-positivist research (sometimes called
‘inquiry’) framework historically well suited to the research constraints
and potentials of psychology and education. It aims to achieve change
(action) and research (understanding) simultaneously, proceeding
usually through an iterative process generating successive patterns of
‘planning – acting – observing – reflecting – planning (etc)’, thus:
OBSERVE
REFLECTPLAN
ACT
The Action Research Cycle
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Bob Dick proposes that “… the whole purpose of action research is to
determine simultaneously an understanding of the social system and
the best opportunity for change” (Dick, 1993:
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/ gcm/ar/art/arthesis.html).
On the primacy of action, Reason and Torben propose that “the very
purpose of knowledge is effective action in the world. Research and
action, even though analytically distinguishable, are inextricably
intertwined in practice … Knowledge is, thus, always gained through
action and for action” (Reason & Torben, 2001: p. 7).
And echoing Indigenous researchers (or ‘Indigenist’ researchers,
where the inference is that the research effort assumes the value of
Indigenous processes of inquiry, knowledge acquisition and transfer)
Wilson proposes that “action research may have been developed from
constructivist or critical theory models, but it fits well into our
paradigm because the idea is to improve the reality of the people with
whom you work” (Wilson, 2001: p. 177).
Given this conflation in action research of change and understanding,
practice and knowledge, it can be argued that action research provides
a useful general scaffolding for my research environment, particularly
in relation to four key characteristics of the methodology.
Action research values the emergence of supplementary,
complementary, or even competing or disconfirming data, the capacity
to deal with qualities characterised as intuitive or serendipitous, and
the ongoing improvement of methodology and method (Dick, 1999:
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/rigour3.html). It is reflexive,
incorporating the capacity for methodical evaluation and critique, in
the context of ongoing, real or implied enactment/agency/action.
(Dick, 1992: http://scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ar/arp/naïve.html).
These two methodological strategies were often experienced by project
participants as useful elements in taking projects forward. However,
two other common features of action research were more problematic
in this research context. These are participation – empowered input
from members of the research community or community of inquiry
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(Kemmis & McTaggart, 1982; Dick, 1993, 1997), and cyclical or
iterative inquiry routines – the capacity for ‘single loop’ and ‘double
loop’ routines and sub-routines (Anderson, 1995: http://www.scu.
edu.au/schools/ gcm/ar/arp/argyris.html) which militate for ongoing,
iterative clarification, testing, comparative analysis, and validation,
including the testing of the research assumptions themselves (Dick,
1992: http://scu.edu.au/schools/ cm/ar/arp/naïve.html).
The value of this schema in my research context lies mainly in its
emphasis on ‘emergence’ and ‘reflexivity’ and also in the recognition
in action research of the influence of the researcher him- or herself, as
a “reflexive practitioner” (Schön, 1983: p. 8). Most importantly, action
research is adopted here as a general methodological orientation
because of its congruence with the values of Indigenist research, given
the number of my pilot projects taking place in an Indigenous context
or involving Indigenous participants, and what proved to be the
applicability of these principles to the contexts of almost all the other
pilot projects.
“Reflection and deliberation suggest the comparison of
alternative courses of action and the estimation of their
potential costs and benefits. Practical reasoning is iterative,
there is a sense of action and correction, of trying things out, of
making choices and engaging in tradeoffs ... Its aim is to make
wise decisions.” (Eisner, 2001: p. 383)
Significantly, the discourse on action research is preoccupied with the
role of the researcher and his or her practice as active agents in the
research process, as in Schön’s reflexive practice or in Reason and
Torben’s “first person action research” (Reason & Torben, 2001: p.
12). The researcher can be understood as animateur, a facilitator and
animator of latent potential identified in the community of the research
environment.
The consequent interaction between researcher and researched is
congruent with Indigenist concerns with relationality and reciprocity,
and reinforces the mutuality of the research experience, where benefit
is achieved for both the researcher and the research participants, and
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the research process itself carried on as a constructivist learning
process.
“In action research, the task is this: to behave in such a way
that I maximise the chance of finding out when my model of
the world doesn’t work. In this context, ‘work’ means predict
actions which will achieve desired outcomes.” (Dick, 1992:
http://scu.edu.au/schools/gcm/ ar/arp/naïve.html)
The ‘action research environment’ listed in the head contract between
DSD and CIRAC denotes a fit with this methodology, so the action
research environment can, in the context of this research, be defined
as a field in which these principles can apply and function.
I would add, however, two important caveats in relation to reflexivity
and the conventional action researcher’s desire for empowered
participation by the research community.
My experience of the various pilot projects was that these rarely
followed the neat, spiraling lines of the diagrams seen in action
research lectures and articles.
Similarly, the matter of empowered participation was particularly
problematic in the context of engagement with Indigenous
communities. I found it impossible, for example, to enroll the Mt Isa
Aunties centrally involved in the Arilla Paper Mill project as empowered
participants and co-researchers. The imbalance of power was profound
and pervasive, where in the Aunties’ context, “power is engendered
through ‘personal political spiritual knowledge’ within the Aboriginal
world view, a view to which I was not privileged. For a non-Aboriginal,
non-female, non-local researcher, the gulf was ultimately too wide,
despite the mutual support and affability of our working relationships.
Pragmatically, the considerable effort required to map the Arilla project
research along strict action research lines, relative to its potential
benefits, disinclined me from a conventional action research approach
of the four-tiered variety described above, though in my judgement its
emphasis on the use of reflective periods making use of careful
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observation, its conflation of change and understanding in a dynamic,
complex relationship, its capacity for ‘double loop learning’ and
practitioner self-awareness and self-understanding, and its valuing of
‘emergence’ – emergent and serendipitous phenomena – were all
valuable concepts to be retained, considered and practised. In this
way, at least in the context of the Arilla project, action research relates
best to a general research orientation rather than a set of methods as
such.
The distinction I draw here may be explicated as follows. A
conventional action research map of action and reflection can be
represented like this:
Reflect Observe
ActPlan
Assumptions
Conventional Process Map
In the case of this research, a modified map, incorporating Indigenist
methods, more accurately represents the process thus:
Analysis &Evaluation
Research(Understanding)
Action (Change)
Methods
Assumptions
and/or
Modified Process Map
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Indigenous and Indigenist Research
In the construction of a methodological orientation for the research as
a whole, and particularly those projects focused on or involving
Indigenous participants, a logical beginning point for me was the
contemporary discourse on Indigenous and Indigenist research. Even
the contemplation of this point is a political act, undertaken in the
cognisance that Indigenous people have so often been “oppressed by
theory” (Smith, 1999: p. 38), however in this research situation only
Indigenist research procedures, with their emphasis on the
interconnectedness of “ways of knowing, ways of being and ways of
doing” (Martin, 2001: p.3; West, 2000: p. 2), afford a reasonably
authentic, grounded approximation of the lived reality of Indigenous
people, or at least one that fits and is useful in the context of the Arilla
Paper project participants in particular. As mentioned, I also found
such an orientation to be of practical use in projects not directly
involving Indigenous participation, given my animation background
and predisposition to a pragmatic approach to interventionary
developmental work.
In the assertion of an ‘Indigenist research paradigm’, it has been
proposed that feminist standpoint theory is foundational (Foley, 2003:
p. 45). This is congruent with the concept of intersubjectivity as a
central project of phenomenology, the understanding that “in order to
grasp the meaning of a person’s behaviour, the [researcher] attempts
to see things from that person’s point of view” (Bogdan & Taylor,
1975: p. 14), positioning him or herself in the “webs of significance”
that humans spin (Geertz, 1973: p. 5). Not only is the effort to see
beyond one’s own horizons assumed to be a useful orientation for the
researcher, it can also be proposed that it gives rise to research
questions and issues otherwise invisible.
Standpoint theories argue for “starting off thought from the lives of
marginalised people; beginning in those determinate, objective
locations in any social order will generate illuminating critical questions
that do not arise in thought that begins from dominant group lives …
23
(leading to) … less partial and distorted accounts” (Harding, 1993: p.
56). Further, standpoint epistemologies assert the “primacy of
concrete, lived, experience”, an “ethic of caring” and an “ethic of
personal accountability” (Stringer, 1999: p. 205) consistent with the
practice of social-cultural animation and my experience of project work
in non-Indigenous contexts.
One interpretation of the Indigenist research orientation proposes that
only Indigenous researchers have the authority to undertake it, in an
effort to avoid the ‘distortions’ of western research paradigms (“social
theory, critical sociology, post-structuralism, post-modernism”) and
“ … record knowledge for the community, not the Academy” (Foley,
2003: p. 50).
This appeal to Indigenous essentialism can be contested, on two
grounds.
First, concepts of cultural ambivalence and hybridity in post-colonial
societies (Ashcroft et al, 1998: p. 12; Bhaba, 1994: p. 38) significantly
undermine claims for epistemic authority among racially Indigenous
researchers – specifically the fact of the ambivalence of power
relations, coloniser-colonised, given the fluidity of complicity and
resistance, and the potential for the hybridisation of authority once
ambivalence decentres it from its position of power. This is not to
gainsay the tactical functionality of essentialist claims in real-world
contexts, claims brought to bear in numerous situations in the current
research context. Noted postcolonial theorist Giyatri Spivak admits, “I
must say, I’m an essentialist from time to time” (Spivak, quoted in
Ashcroft et al: p. 79).
Second, it can be proposed that Indigeneity is itself is not an ontic but
a negotiated state, reinforcing the functionality of the phrase
‘Indigenist research’ as distinct from ‘Indigenous research’. Langton
invokes the phenomenological project of intersubjectivity, cited above,
in her proposition that
“‘Aboriginality’ arises from the subjective experience of both
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who engage in any
24
intercultural dialogue, whether in actual lived experience or
through a mediated experience … (it) is not a fixed ‘thing’. It is
created from our histories. It arises from the intersubjectivity of
black and white in a dialogue.” (Langton, 1993: p. 31)
Moreton-Robinson proposes that elements of this negotiated
‘Aboriginality’ might be learnable – specifically, “relationality” (the
experience of oneself as part of others and of others as part of
oneself) achieved through practices of “reciprocity, obligation, shared
experiences, coexistence, cooperation and social memory” (Moreton-
Robinson, 2000: p. 16).
It has even been proposed that “a research paradigm that is entirely
Indigenous is not possible”, though “… a multi-disciplinary approach,
drawing on a number of social research frameworks makes
development of a theoretical framework for Indigenist research
possible. Frameworks such as historiography, ethnography,
phenomenology and particularly hermeneutics have some congruence
and cultural safety for research involving Aboriginal people and
Aboriginal lands” (Martin, 2001: p. 5). It is in Martin’s sense, then,
that I claim an Indigenist research orientation. Further, I am strongly
of the view that this orientation has been of considerable benefit in the
framing and delivery of all the pilot projects discussed here, whether
located in Indigenous contexts or not, principally on the grounds of its
emphasis on concrete benefit. The action researcher’s effort to create
change in the world, and simultaneously strive to understand such
change, is congruent with the aim of the social-cultural animateur to
facilitate or catalyse social-cultural and political-economic benefits for
participants and their communities.
Indigenist Research and Benefit
“If a project is genuinely for and from the community it will
involve aspects of that community's cultural life and will have
community development as well as artistic outcomes.”
(Australia Council, Community Cultural Development Board,
2005: http://www.ozco.gov.au /boards/ccd/)
25
It is useful to note the prevalence, in Indigenist research discourses, of
the requirement for research to directly benefit the researched, who
retain a relational and critical stake in research practices. In this it
resonates with the aims of community cultural development practice,
as indicated by the Australia Council, and also with the aims of social-
cultural animation.
In Australia, it was the aim of the Indigenous negotiators of the Native
Title Act 1993, “ … to open possibilities of allowing unruly pluralism to
take root in wider Australian society, to retain space for Indigenous
ways of being-in-place to provide foundations for economic, social and
environmental justice that does not abdicate responsibility to a
depersonalised planning system, but embeds it in the lives of those
who are implicated in the economic, social and environmental
relationships involved” (Howitt, 1999: p. 2).
In New Zealand, the ‘Kaupapa Maori’ approach to research explicitly
demands that research is “based on the assumption that (it) involves
Maori people, as individuals or communities, (and) should set out to
make a positive difference for the researched” (Smith, 1999: p.191),
yielding a set of rules of thumb informing the conduct of research:
• Aroha ki te tangata (a respect for people)
• Kanohi kitea (the seen face, that is present yourself to people
face to face)
• Titiro, whaka rongo … korero (look, listen … speak)
• Manaaki kit e tangata (share and host people, be generous)
• Kia tupato (be cautious)
• Kaua e takahia te mana o te tangata (do not trample over the
mana of people)
• Kana e mahaki (don’t flaunt your knowledge) (Smith, 1999: p.
120)
Among Canada’s First Nations, principles for research have been
proposed as the integration of community members as equal partners,
the integration of intervention and evaluation, organisational and
26
programmatic flexibility, and making the project a learning opportunity
for all (Potvin et al, 2002: p. 1298).
By accepting these propositions, I engage immediately and
continuously in ethical considerations, problematising my
relationship(s) with the researched and prompting such questions as:
“What is my role as a researcher, and what are my obligations? …
Does this method allow me to fulfill my obligations in my role? Further,
does this method help to build a relationship between myself as
researcher and my research topic? Does it build respectful
relationships with the other participants in the research?” (Wilson,
2001: p. 178). Even though the ideal of empowered participation may
be beyond the scope of my project, as I claim above in relation to the
Mt Isa Aunties involved in Arilla Paper, how best can I create an
environment of inquiry which is mutually respectful and mutually
beneficial?
Process
By nature, given its honouring of participant input and emergent
values and concepts, the action research environment resists one-size-
fits-all solutions, and so a range of research and commercialisation
strategies are required. These might include case studies, rich
description, informal meaning-making (such as ‘yarning’), exhibition
and display, conferencing, articles, reports, lectures and presentations,
provenance stories and accounts, image or object making, manuals,
formal procedures and knowhow accounts, planning, operational and
partnership documentation, teaching and learning processes and
documentation and critical friendship. This range of development and
management activities can be seen in the projects included here as
case studies, evidence of which is attached as a series of Attachments.
These are essential adjuncts to this thesis and treated as part of the
thesis, as professional practice outcomes which are mined for concrete
examples of the efficacy of an action research approach to generating
creative industries activity in regional contexts.
27
My application of the action research process tended to follow a broad
pattern, involving interventions and modifications to the action
research environment developed with a view to the achievement of
mutual benefit and through the use of instruments such as yarning,
exhibition, publication and so forth.
The action research process would typically begin with reconnaissance
of an environment suggested as having research potential by members
of my professional network. Having reconnoitred, I scoped the
potential for a pilot project, guided by experience and focused
consultation. This activity continued through the duration of the
project.
As critical action research planning strategies, scoping activities
included meetings and consultation, travels within a locality,
workshops and focus groups, desk research, presentations and
lectures, interviews, conferences and informal explorations and
interactions. The process also involved regular reportage to DSD as
the major stakeholder and consultations with colleagues at CIRAC,
providing the reflexive points desired in an action research orientation.
Scoping activities revealed opportunities for animation, used here to
mean the inspiration and enablement of novel commercial activity
yielding social-cultural and economic benefits. The process of
animation also tended to follow a broad pattern of interventions and
modifications.
First, I identified potential project partners and engaged with them in
an informal brainstorming of ideas to reach a common view and goal. I
then canvassed the project idea as widely as possible with potential
partners and stakeholders, and in the process identified sources of
investment and in-kind support. Where necessary, I militated for
provision of project development, project leadership or project
management ‘seed’ skills, coaching or mentoring. In the context of all
this, I facilitated activities such as team-building, feedback sessions,
documentation, and planning assistance. While I perceived limitations
on the empowered participation envisaged by many action
28
researchers, strategies of this kind often created a substantial sense of
stake among participants in the research environment.
Consistent with this kind of research environment, the project was
planned with no explicit, wholly predictable schedule, and the pilot
projects which emerged from the scoping process were undertaken as
opportunities arose. At the same time, the overarching context and
aim of the approach to project development remained the use of
action research strategies in the development of commercial creative
industries activity.
This thesis presents outcomes consistent with the stated project goals
and research questions, however the requirements of these categories
were not imposed on research environments from outside, honouring
the action research emphasis on the value of emergence.
One process value which emerged from the action research
environment was the pragmatic, operational usefulness of an
Indigenist research orientation, not only for work in Indigenous and
cross-cultural contexts but in non-Indigenous contexts as well, most
especially in the Indigenist emphasis on concrete benefit as a research
outcome (as for example, in the construction of a viable paper-making
business in Mt Isa as an outcome of the Arilla Paper project, but also
in the goal of commercial benefit for the non-Indigenous partner in the
Deep North project. As Attachment 5, Tjapukai Project Notes, makes
clear, the concrete benefit of value-adding to the attractions of the
Tjapukai Park was balanced with benefit to the partnering IT company
in terms of a high-profile demonstration of an application of their new
technology.
Other Indigenist principles emerging as potent research orientations
included the determination not to be “oppressed by theory” (Smith,
1999: p. 45). This can be seen in the emergence of an ethical
orientation (incorporated in an ‘organisational DNA’) central to the
intent of the Innovative Entrepreneurship project. Attachment 3,
Evolution: New World Business – Business Plan, shows that a ‘values
orientation’ is essential to concrete outcomes in a notional ‘fourth
sector’. Such values emerged by negotiation with project participants,
29
rather than an effort to test or apply a preconceived theory to the
circumstances and lived experience of project activities.
Similarly, the Indigenist concern with standpoint (Harding, 1993;
Foley, 2003) stimulated close and non-judgemental consideration of
local considerations and perspectives in the formulation of potential
‘plug-in’ projects along the ‘MITEZ Corridor’, the chain of 14 local
government authorities along the road-train route linking Mt Isa and
Townsville. Attachment 4, MITEZ Meta-Network, North Queensland,
outlines a strategy for locally-developed projects to feed in to a larger,
coherent ‘meta-network’, benefiting both local operations and regional
infrastructure.
The Indigenist conflation of “ways of knowing, ways of being and ways
of doing” (Martin, 2001; West, 2000) provided invaluable assistance in
the development and delivery of instruments such as the translation of
elements of the Arilla Paper Business Building Manual (Attachment 1)
into a set of icon-based procedural and planning charts, and the use of
such materials in ancillary texts such as safety posters. This was also
seen in the grounded, highly personalised process of event-making
captured in the ‘Inspiration Lounge’ stage of the Innovative
Entrepreneurship project, captured in Attachment 13: Inspiration
Lounge DVD.
The proposition of the value of an Indigenist orientation, then, is borne
out in the experience of the projects emerging from the research
environment. While each generated – or had the potential to generate
– economic benefit, it did this in a socially and culturally integrated
fashion.
Can a methodology of this kind assist creative industries development
in regional Queensland, and generate ideas for new creative
enterprises? It can be shown that in the case of Arilla Paper, a range
of ideas for cross-disciplinary applications have been generated, for
example in the proposal for a ‘men’s business’ gathering and carting
enterprise to feed the mill, a proposal for a native plant nursery and
gallery on the remainder of the Frank Aston Museum site (watered by
Arilla effluent), an underground market in a disused mine shaft on the
30
hill, Arilla paper being used in fashion and furniture design, and even a
light engineering application producing cheap, water efficient paper-
making equipment.
Can such a methodology assist in the exploitation of the intellectual
property generated in such a process? To continue the Arilla example,
and to anticipate its case study in the following section, the
development of a lock-step ‘how to’ business building manual was a
logical outcome of the process of training and small business
development undertaken by the project team. A copy of the Manual is
appended as Attachment 1: Arilla – Business Building Manual.
In the case of the remaining pilot projects, it will also be seen that the
methodological orientation described here operates effectively and
productively In Section 4, six pilot projects are discussed as case
studies, in an effort to show that an action research orientation to
developmental work can indeed be effective in generating new creative
industries activity in regional areas.
31
3. Case Study – Arilla Paper
“ … there is an additional right and that is the right to a fair
place in the economy, and this is what government and laws
don't seem to be able to deliver. A fair place in the economy
seems to be something that you have to take. It's a hill we
have to climb” (Pearson, 2001:
http://www.brisinst.org.au/resources/
pearson_noel_pbbook.html).
The Arilla Paper project is included here as a prime example and case
study of the kind of pilot project constituting my research
environment, especially as it incorporates elements of action research
and Indigenist research.
The project emerged formally as an outcome of a MITEZ project
proposal. The MITEZ (Mt Isa – Townsville Economic Zone) project
envisaged a set of locally based development activities located on
nodes of the road-rail route linking the terminals of the major inland
mining town and the seaboard port. These were characterised as ‘plug-
ins’ to a ‘meta-network’ provided by the Local Government Association
of Queensland to constituent local government authorities.
Its operational origin was in scoping activities undertaken in Mt Isa in
January 2002, when I first contacted Sue Shield, manager of the
Salvation Army’s Serenity House women’s shelter, and through her the
five key Aboriginal elders who were to become the heart of the
project. The project was enthusiastically supported by elder women of
the Kalkadoon people, traditional owners of the Mt Isa region, in the
persons of five key elder women, or ‘Aunties’.
Inspired by the Euraba Paper Mill project in NSW, which had been
generated through a collaboration between the Indigenous community
of Bogabilla and New England Institute of TAFE and widely publicized,
the project found early support from QUT in cash (through its
32
Community Service Fund) and the Mt Isa City Council and the
Salvation Army in kind. QUT’s investment provided for the purchase of
basic paper making plant and tuition and advice from Principal
Consultant, QUT postgraduate student Christine Ballinger, an
established paper artist instrumental in the development of the Euraba
project. Initial housing for the project was provided by Outback Arts, a
local community cultural development organisation.
The project began with an Establishment Stage, to demonstrate the
potential of the new business through the acquisition of basic paper
making equipment and development of paper making skills and basic
‘cottage industry’ business skills among the owners. Congruent with
this, a consultation and development process, facilitated through the
cooperation of QUT’s Faculty of Business, generated a Business
Building Manual for use in consolidating the company. This is being
implemented in a second stage, Consolidation and Development,
currently under way (see Attachment 1: Arilla Paper – Business
Building Manual).
Arilla Paper is an appropriate key case study, among those considered
in this thesis, in that both its successes and ongoing management
issues demonstrate a critical outcome of the overall research effort:
the imperative of a central role for the creative entrepreneur in the
generation of new creative industries businesses, and the relation to
the role of creative entrepreneur to the practice of social-cultural
animation. This proposition is discussed in the Innovative Entrepreneur
Training project, which stresses the need for self-driven, empowered
and industry-based entrepreneurial experience.
Consistent with the ongoing and emergent nature of an action
research environment, these issues are far from settled, and have led
to pauses, plateaux and a certain amount of tension among
participants. As discussed in the previous section, this extended to
both Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers engaged on the project,
including myself, “(problematising) my relationship(s) with the
researched” most particularly in the conventional AR imperative for
empowered participation.
33
In early 2005, Mt Isa City Council commissioned a feasibility study into
the development of the entire Frank Aston Museum site, a mining
museum superceded by the new Outback@Isa attraction. One aim is
to develop the site as an Indigenous enterprise hub, and it is likely
that the final structure of the Arilla business will be located within a
larger vision of the site’s future.
The project set out to:
1. Impart and develop basic fine paper making skills among a group
of 12 Indigenous women identified through the Arilla-Mob-A
Women’s Camp Out project and by Kalkadoon women elders –
achieved through a developmental workshopping program
facilitated by the Salvation Army’s Serenity House women’s shelter.
2. Establish a small-scale ‘cottage business’ producing fine papers
sourced from local materials (e.g. spinifex, desert grasses, arid
environment eucalypts) using Indigenous knowledge and providing
ongoing part-time employment for up to 12 Indigenous women –
achieved through purchase of equipment, training and
developmental workshopping. Explore and trial the viability of a
new business (‘Stage One’).
3. Establish a safe and comfortable Indigenous women’s space in Mt
Isa, initially hosted by Outback Arts, to be achieved through
identification of suitable venue and venue support, modelled on the
success of Stage One and supported by Mt Isa City Council and the
Salvation Army
4. Stage a high-profile Exhibition and Launch event in Mt Isa, hosted
by Mt Isa City Council – achieved through support as above.
5. Generate a viable Business Plan for Consolidation and Development
(‘Stage Two’) of the business, including identification of prospective
investors (e.g. in the emerging ‘social venture capital’ sector) –
achieved through consultation and a business planning regime.
34
In an effort to identify grounds and justification for intervention,
consultation revealed community needs as employment and enterprise
development, affective needs - role models, self esteem, confidence,
direction, pathways, options, communication across Indigenous tribal
barriers, and safe and comfortable space for women.
It is worth reiterating that this effort was assumed by me as an
outsider, and the intervention was initiated by me as an outsider. As
noted in the previous section, empowered participation in this research
context was systemically problematic.
Consistent with Indigenist research principles, the project generated a
number of concrete benefits. These included viable commercial and
creative skills development among a significantly disadvantaged group
(by virtue of Aboriginality, gender, and remoteness), congruent with
affective outcomes (confidence, self-esteem, group wellbeing,
networks), and specifically up to 12 part-time jobs, along with
employment and enterprise development strategically planned for
ongoing self-sustainability and growth. Projected benefits also include
the affective benefits of increased confidence, esteem, assertiveness
and independence among a ‘doubly disadvantaged’ social group, and
social-cultural benefits congruent with the definition of safe and
comfortable women’s space.
The enablement of the project was based in the lived experience of the
creation of a new enterprise in an Indigenous context, consistent with
an action research environment. It began with sitting under a tree,
that is, in yarns among the Arilla group, me and others. Yarning
framed and enabled the research, first by identifying and clarifying the
roles of the researcher and project participants, then by suggesting
action, then by reflection and evaluation, including considerations
relevant to further action. In this engagement, researcher and the
other inhabitants of the research environment are enrolled as
reporters, commentators, interpreters, and critics, as managers, social
activists, and artists.
A good example can be seen in a conversation I had with one of the
project’s leaders, Aunty Joan Marshall. We were standing on the main
35
street of the town, looking up towards the old Frank Aston Museum,
now home to the Arilla Paper mill. This site is physically higher than
the surrounding country. I asked Joan how she felt about the mill
being set up there. “I’m over the moon, mate,” she said, “This makes
us real” (Conversation, May 2003).
Struck by the term, I asked her to explain. Typically, she didn’t give
me the dot-point responses I had assumed when I asked the question,
beginning instead a yarn about the project, her own background, and
the wishes and aspirations of the Aunties. But what I could derive from
the yarn, after some reflection, was that she was making two points.
First, the mill made them real because it made them visible – people
can’t look through you when you were sitting up above the town on a
hill. Second, it provided them with choices – enhanced economic
power to make decisions about important aspects of life – family,
mobility, shelter, health, justice and so forth. This resonates with
Pearson’s exhortation for a ‘fair place in the economy’.
This formulation of terms – ‘real’, ‘visibility’ and ‘choice’ – became
touchstone concepts for the ongoing development of the project, and
was deployed in written reports, public presentations and speeches,
and informally in follow-through yarning.
Action research and Indigenist research principles operated as the
anchor research orientation in this work. This orientation incorporated
a range of pragmatic processes and located the project physically,
temporally and discursively, yet permitted (even encouraged)
variability, contestation and hybridisation.
As noted in the previous section, the ‘moments’ of Action Research are
generally recognised as planning, acting, observing and reflecting,
enacted iteratively as a cycle (or, given its propensity to incorporate
and test emerging ideas and practices, a spiral), which might be
represented as follows.
36
OBSERVE
REFLECTPLAN
ACT
The Action Research Cycle
Accordingly, the project ‘spine’ can be mapped across the Action
Research continuum to create a methodological map in this way:
OBSERVE
REFLECT
PLAN
ACT
CONSIDER WHERE WE'RE
WORKING, WITH WHOM,FOR WHOM AND WHY
WORK OUT WHAT
RESEARCH REGIME WILLDO THE JOB
COLLECT. COLLATE,WRITE
WORK OUT SOME
METHODOLOGY AND TRYIT (AND TRY IT AGAIN)
SIT UNDER A TREE AND
HAVE A YARN
or
or2nd iteration
SIT UNDER A TREE AND
HAVE A YARN
ORIENTATE
Arilla Paper - Action Research Methodological Map
As mentioned, my professional predisposition, and the foundation of
the assumptions I made upstream from the research project, is that of
the action researcher and animateur (and incidentally what I came
later to identify as a ‘creative entrepreneur’) aiming pragmatically for
37
real outcomes of value to a client or client group – with particular
consideration of methodologies for assisting creative enterprise
development, ideas for development of innovative cross-disciplinary
applications, ideas for new creative enterprises, and a plan to exploit
the generated IP. That which is ‘true’ was valued insofar as it made for
a concrete difference in the lives people actually lead, an orientation
congruent with the aim of an Indigenist implementation of action
research where, for the purpose of tangible community benefit, change
and understanding occur concurrently.
However, in the Arilla project there were several constraints on the
action research schema proposed by practitioners such as Dick and
Kemmis, the classical action research spiral based on the ‘Plan – Act –
Observe – Reflect’ process.
As mentioned, critical affordances of the action research process are
its capacity for participation by the whole or part of the research
community, and the cyclical reiteration of processes informed by
periods of reflection, such reiteration incrementally refining and
focusing both the action and the research efforts.
In the case of Arilla Paper, this approach to action research had to be
modified. While there was a strong sense of ownership and a sense of
stake among the Aunties and their families, and while there was a
clear understanding of the benefits the project and the research would
bring to the community, the ideal of fully empowered participation was
constrained by the social-cultural gulf between myself as (white, male,
city-based) researcher and a numerically variable group of Indigenous
women, most of them elders. This was reinforced by the substantial
relativities in political-economic status among members of the
research community - myself, the women, and the various local
supporters and project backers.
Another constraint on the level and dynamic of participation stemmed
from the internecine arguments of the Mt Isa ‘mobs’, a source of
frustration for the Aunties and one of the drivers for the community
movement which inspired interest in the Euraba Paper model and led
38
to the establishment of Arilla in 2002: the women primarily wanted
reconciliation between and among different Indigenous groups.
Nevertheless, it was necessary to build the Arilla business and make
decisions, and the Aunties gave broad support for business-building
decisions to be made without broad participation and consensus on
each. This resonates with a case of non-Indigenous led inquiry in an
educational context, where researchers reported that “as the focus
was participants’ perspectives and embedded knowledge, we were
determined not to direct the conversations with participants. Yet, the
only way to genuinely use a collaborative … approach was to situate
ourselves centrally within the action and determine to some extent
those issues to be discussed” (Ford, Fasoli, 2001: p. 14).
Another modification concerned the thematic cycling or spiraling
pattern prescribed in classic AR models (‘Plan – Act – Observe –
Reflect – Plan’). It was not useful to map this closely to the progress of
the Arilla project. That is, it may have been possible to map project
milestones such as the acquisition of paper making skills, say, or
business management skills to formal points of reflection – but a
reliance on these maps would have exposed the process to the risk of
discounting incidental or serendipitous experiences which had a real,
albeit subtle, bearing on the project – for example, in the not-
unrelated, convoluted and informal politics of the local Indigenous
families involved in or touched by the project. This brings to mind
Kincheloe’s claim that “the complexity of … (some modes of inquiry) …
precludes the development of a step-by-step set of research
procedures” (Kincheloe, 2001: p. 689).
Rather, it is more appropriate to claim that the grounded realities of
cultural difference, including the diversity of Indigenous standpoints
involved as well as the incipient power differentials, can be more
accurately represented as a program of ongoing revision (“analysis
and evaluation”) conditioning and re-conditioning working methods in
order to better implement both action (“change”) and the research
itself (“understanding”). Such conditioning and revision occurred in a
very fluid, interactive manner and in the context of complex and
dynamic interpersonal relationships, where an iterative conceit is of
39
minimal value. I illustrated the methodological difference between this
way of working and the conventional AR process in the Process Map
illustrations of the previous section
In summary then, one can claim that an action research environment
was created, and action research proceeded in a broad sense, but the
ideal of empowered participation was modified in favour of informal
decision-making processes determined informally among the members
of the research community, and the linear mapping of reflective
processes was subsumed in a more complex, and largely informal
process of dialogue and yarning.
The project generated considerable media attention, with very positive
coverage in the local newspaper (The North West Star), the Townsville
Bulletin, the Koori Mail, local ABC radio, national ABC radio, Channel
10 and National Indigenous Media. Anecdotally, the project has put
Aboriginal Mt Isa ‘on the map’, seen particularly in the forging of close
working links with the new Outback@Isa (Heritage Trails) tourist
complex. Local and State-wide word of mouth is growing, with good
evidence of brand recognition in key government departments
(Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy
Development, Department of State Development, Department of
Employment and Training, Department of Premier & Cabinet,
Education Queensland). It has won and acquitted substantial cash
funding from the Australia Council, QUT, Xstrata and others. It
employs three women through the CDEP scheme, with another 5-7
working at the Mill, boasts “a retail shop and excellent workshop
space, a high profile site with room for expansion, a powerful logo and
business signage, professional promotional material, phone, ABN and
bank account, corporate sponsors, and a foundation product range”
(Attachment 2: Arilla Paper – Final Report Stage 1: p. 105).
From 1 – 13 October, 2003, Craft Queensland hosted a major
exhibition of Arilla Paper artworks and other products, under the title
Arilla Paper - Women of Place.
“Arilla Paper embraces all women in a life and work
relationship, where energies constantly change and adapt to
40
promote common ground, a sense of place.” (Craft Qld 2003:
Women of Place catalogue)
Five Aunties attended and held a public program on Saturday which
involved the creation of a large pulp painting. Over $5,000 in sales
were made and the work continues to be sold through CQstore. A
number of commission opportunities also arose from the exhibition.
The show was organised by Christine Ballinger, the consulting artist
and trainer on the project, and author of Attachment 2: Final Report,
Stage 1 – Arilla Paper Mill. Ballinger is now EO of Craft Qld, and
continues to champion the Arilla cause.
Arilla’s success, on many levels, remains compromised by a lack of
local Indigenous entrepreneurial leadership. The dynamics of this at
Arilla continues even as these words are written, with drivers as far-
ranging as the inevitable loss of the ageing Aunties (three have passed
away since 2002) to well meaning, serial interventions by well-
meaning Indigenous and non-Indigenous agencies at all three levels of
government. It produces more politics, I was told, than it can
consume. This outcome of the research contributes significantly to the
claim that the development of creative industries in regional
Queensland would greatly benefit from the professional development
of a class of ‘creative entrepreneurs’, and this will be discussed further
in Section 5.
Arilla Paper enjoys extremely strong cash and in-kind support from the
Mt Isa City Council and particularly the Mayor, Cr Ron McCullough,
who sees the project not only as an Indigenous initiative with
economic and social benefits but, taking the long view, as a
component of an alternative future for the region, a future in which its
mines are no longer viable and the town becomes the services centre
for the Far West and Gulf. He relates it, in this way, to Outback@Isa
tourist attraction and museum, of which he is also a champion.
The Arilla project is a compelling model of developing and
commercialising IP in a creative industry, and in doing so developing a
platform for a range of other commercial activities – a project, for
example, locating a native seed and fibre gathering business on part of
41
the site, where this (mostly men’s) business operates in tandem with
Arilla, sharing resources and services. Similarly, there are local
conceptions championed by the Mt Isa Institute of TAFE and DSD’s
State Development Centre of businesses owned and operated by
Indigenous people in the fields of education and health services, and
even the potential for a light manufacturing business based on cost-
effective paper-making machinery for arid climates. Other plans
include a proposal for a native plant nursery and gallery (watered by
Arilla effluent), an underground market in a disused mine shaft on the
hill, the use of Arilla paper in fashion and furniture design, and even a
light engineering application producing cheap, water efficient paper-
making equipment.
Specifically, outcomes included a viable business registered as a
Partnership, currently employing five people through the Community
Development Employment Program, with self-funded staffing planned,
a comprehensive product range of ‘signature’ local papers and value-
added products such as cards, art works and packaging, and a fully
equipped paper mill and retail outlet situated on prime real estate in
the centre of town. The project has provided paper making and paper
product value-adding skills among a fluid community of around 24
women, including the owners/elders at the heart of the project, a
Business Building Manual for use in planning and development, a
website, promotional materials and a strategy for promotion and
marketing of Arilla products. In the affective domain, outcomes
included new channels for communication between and among
Indigenous elders and young women, and also women from non-
Indigenous backgrounds, a platform for the incubation of new
Indigenous enterprises in a range of industry sectors, and a safe and
comfortable space for Indigenous women in the region, reinforced by
its association with the Salvation Army’s Serenity House women’s
shelter.
To echo the claim made in the previous section, the variety of
outcomes described here, and indeed the ongoing dynamism of the
Arilla Paper project, are outcomes of an action research orientation to
enterprise development, albeit one in which the exigencies of an
Indigenist standpoint compel some degree of modification. They stem
42
from ideas for the development of innovative cross-disciplinary
applications, they have inspired new creative enterprise activity and in
the most successful cases have begun to exploit the intellectual
property generated in the process.
43
4. Other Pilot Projects
This section includes descriptions of six pilot commercialisation
projects which emerged from the action research environment,
arranged in chronological order. These are chronologically tabulated in
Attachment 11, Pilot Projects – Time Lines. Along with the account of
the Arilla project, they form the basis for the concluding section in this
account, mapped to the imperatives of the research goals defined in
Section 1. A schematic outline of the projects, providing further
details, is provided in Attachment 12, Pilot Projects – Details.
1. Innovative Entrepreneur Training (January 2002 – Ongoing)
This was a key pilot project, and in fact the foundation of the original
proposal I put to the Department of State Development. Its value
proposition, which has been reinforced by the experience of this
research, is that there is a wide range of commercialisable IP
embedded in complex social-cultural contexts, which for one reason or
another remains untapped. To capture and exploit this latent IP, to
address ‘current gaps in entrepreneurship development’ (Attachment
3, Evolution NWB Business Plan: p. 111) in the context of creative
industries, a particular approach to entrepreneurship is necessary.
Such an approach corresponds strongly to the role of the animateur as
generalist worker, “ social change agent, or catalyst” (Bartle, 2005:
http://www.scn.org/ip/cds/ cmp/modules/emp-cul.htm). A compelling
model for development along these lines can be found in the
KaosPilots program in Denmark.
The effect of this pilot was to generate the current development of the
Creative Entrepreneurship Project (Edgeware) under the auspices of
Creative Industries Precinct Pty Ltd (CIP), funded by DSD, QUT
(Creative Industries Faculty), Arts Queensland and the Department of
44
Employment and Training. An extract from its core document, the
Evolution NWB – New World Business (now Edgeware) Business Plan is
attached. This aims to provide “a complete, tailored package for new
business development with a focus on creativity and entrepreneurial
leadership” (Attachment 3, Evolution: NWB (New World Business) -
Business Plan, p. 111).
Following initial contact with the Danish KaosPilots school during a visit
to Scandinavia in 1990, I visited again for purposes of professional
development in 1993 and 1994, and CONTACT Inc, my local
organisation, hosted a KP internship in Brisbane in 1995 focused on
the development of the GRUNT Youthspace in Fortitude Valley. This
was part of an industry development pathway which generated the
foundation of Youth Arts Queensland, the State’s youth arts peak
network, and provided the inspiration for Brisbane City Council’s
Visible Ink youth facilities and services in the Valley, both significant
community capacity building outcomes.
Consistent with an action research orientation and a role of social-
cultural animation, I developed, between November 2001 and August
2002 and in consultation with the KaosPilots, a case for DSD and CIF
co-funding of an introduction and promotion of the school to
Queensland businesses, community groups and higher education
providers. In September 2002 I visited the KaosPilots headquarters in
Aarhus to negotiate the visit with KP Principal Uffe Elbeck and staffer
Kristen Birkelund. Uffe also suggested the inclusion of the KP’s South
African colleague, Ketan Lakhani, because of recent experience in
Durban of a KaosPilot ‘outpost’ program.
The Australian visit took place in July 2003, with our three guests
addressing a wide variety of audiences in Brisbane and Far North
Queensland (Cairns and the Tableland). The audiences were drawn
from higher education, business, government, community (and arts), a
sampling of young entrepreneurs, and regional arts and development
groups in the north. Responses from the various Queensland groups
were strongly positive, with several groups and individuals expressing
interest in cooperating in the development of local activity using the
KP model.
45
The KaosPilot mission is to provide self-driven, empowered and
industry-based entrepreneurial experience for their students, where
such activity is informed by a strong value base incorporating the
concepts of balance, “real world’, risk-taking, street smarts,
compassion and playfulness” (Elbeck, 2003: p. 243).
In September 2003, with the support of DSD, I returned to Aarhus and
Copenhagen via South Africa to discuss and to interrogate the KP
program in some detail. The outcome of this process was that I
became less interested in an entrepreneurship ‘course’ and more
compelled to create an “enterprise development platform”, a
developmental environment with some characteristics of a “brokerage”
or an “agency” (Attachment 3, Evolution: NWB (New World Business)
– Business Plan: p. 114). The point of Innovative Entrepreneur
Training was identified as addressing “gaps and shortfalls in current
business development programs by augmenting baseline business
competencies with values of creativity, leadership and self
actualisation, largely missing from conventional business development
pathways (e.g. MBA programs, incubators), and in this way
(optimising) the capability of the entrepreneur at the heart of the new
business.” To achieve such an approach, a course was not deemed to
be sufficient: the process required broad support, including affective
and professional development support, for a business “from its earliest
ideas and conception through to investment readiness and operation”
(Attachment 3, Evolution: NWB (New World Business) – Business Plan:
p. 116).
On my return, I developed a working group – The Plumbing Project -
consisting mainly of young ‘proto-entrepreneurs’, and including
industry professionals who agreed to act as project ‘aunts and uncles’
(an Indigenous concept applied to the values of coaching & mentoring,
congruent with the project’s emerging values, or ‘organisational DNA’).
The Plumbing Project group characterised the project’s ‘organisational
DNA’ as containing these elements:
• Grounded in industry and market place, focus on creativity
• Ethical, compassionate
• Playful, streetwise, convivial
46
• Pragmatic, outcome oriented, sustainable
• Reflexive, critical
• Globally oriented, locally grounded (Attachment 3, Evolution
NWB (New World Business) – Business Plan: p. 118).
The key function of this group was to workshop emerging ideas and
participate through the 2003/2004 summer in a KP internship project.
Under the guidance of a KP final-year student, Mari Siljeholm, this
resulted in a model for a concept called the Inspiration Lounge, a
‘party with a purpose’ where business people and creatives could meet
in a stimulating environment to exchange and develop new creative
industries ideas. A documentary DVD, The Inspiration Lounge, is
attached, and includes interviews with CIF Dean, John Hartley, DSD
officer in charge, Brian Anker, Mari and myself. This makes clear the
university’s readiness to think beyond the provision of courseware in
the matter of entrepreneurial development in the creative industries.
“What I like about what they’re doing is they’re working with
people who are interested in growing the creative sector and
not necessarily interested in doing a course or being at
university, the traditional ‘qualifications’ path. And very often
these people are the ones who really do make an impression.
What’s interesting for us is that we have a very strong ambition
to be part of a growing economic sector but we can’t reach
everyone in it.” (John Hartley, Attachment 13: Inspiration
Lounge DVD)
It also clarifies the State government’s interest in the development of
an alternative entrepreneurship development pathway.
“What we’re anxious to achieve here is to build on experience
from elsewhere and … come up with a best-practice model, not
re-create the wheel but build a model suitable for Queensland.”
(Brian Anker, Attachment 13: Inspiration Lounge DVD)
At the same time, I worked with Nicola Nelson from DSD during the
final months of 2003 on the development of a business case and
business plan for an Australian program inspired by (but not aligned
47
to) the KaosPilot program. This Business Plan, envisioning “A unique
enterprise development platform and regime, internationally renowned
for its vibrant, convivial entrepreneurial culture and its capacity to
produce highly innovative, values-based and sustainable companies”
(Attachment 3, Evolution NWB (New World Business) – Business Plan:
p. 111). Here the term ‘values-based’ relates to the underlying
characteristics of formulation and delivery of an entrepreneurship
development platform, as exemplified in elements of its ‘organisational
DNA’ and including values such as groundedness, ethical and
compassionate practice, playfulness, conviviality, pragmatism and
reflexivity (Attachment 3, Evolution NWB (New World Business) –
Business Plan: p. 118).
In February 2004 I visited Aarhus as the KaosPilots’ guest to
participate in their ‘POP3’ planning conference. (Ironically, the KP’s
were under considerable financial pressure at the time, due to an over-
reliance on the support of the Danish government, whose long-lived
social-democratic infrastructure was being unexpectedly contested by
a right-wing coalition partner). I was also able to establish links with
the Westerdals and MI schools in Norway, and these are likely to
provide fruitful international partnerships and exchanges in the future,
along the lines of developing exchanges on the development of
creative entrepreneurship.
A direct outcome of this project was support for 12 months from DSD
and QUT (CIF) for research development and the trialling of a pilot
Creative Entrepreneurship program (Edgeware Creative
Entrepreneurship) in 2005. Essentially, what I argued to co-sponsors
DSD and the CIF was that all of the projects undertaken through my
action research approach have shown the potential for the
identification and commercialisation of new I.P. through the creative
application of social-cultural animation techniques, most clearly
demonstrated in regional contexts. If the action researcher was
engaged in these projects as a kind of KaosPilot/animateur, it follows
that if there were more KaosPilot/animateurs we could develop a wider
range and larger number of such projects, and ultimately nurture a
culture of creative entrepreneurship and new CI enterprises in
Queensland.
48
If new courseware was not necessarily the means to this end, how
might we develop and sustain highly individuated ‘brokerage’ and
‘agency’ activities as an alternative pathway for development of
creative entrepreneurship? This became the stimulus question for the
current Creative Entrepreneurship Project (Edgeware), which puts into
practice the assumption that an ‘enabling environment’ is an
appropriate vehicle for the development of new creative enterprises.
This will be discussed at greater length in the following section.
Similarly, from an Indigenist research perspective, with its imperative
for tangible benefit for the research community, it makes sense that a
‘one size fits all’ approach is modified according to emergent needs
and the standpoints of participants. A ‘culture of creative
entrepreneurship’ is a cultural issue, conditioned not only by ethnicity
but a range of social-cultural and political-economic factors. An
‘enabling environment’ can be seen as a context in which cultural
churn can be initiated and evaluated according to identified need and a
pragmatic emphasis on beneficial outcomes.
Specific outcomes of the project included a successful tour by the
KaosPilot founder and associates, reaching audiences from business,
higher education, community and arts, young entrepreneurs and
regional (Far North Queensland) bodies, a viable Business Plan for
Australian creative entrepreneurship program and follow-through
funding for Edgeware.
Thus the Innovative Entrepreneur Training project was an ‘enabler’,
understood as a catalyst and driver of associated or follow-on
developmental work, in common with the MITEZ and DigIT projects
which also developed potentials rather than delivered new businesses
as such.
Because of its developmental orientation (that which I eventually came
to understand as an enablement environment), this project clearly
49
meets the requirements of ‘a methodology for assisting creative
enterprise development’. Specifically, it envisages that:
“Each participant engages with the (program) in their own way,
according to their own challenges and potentials and the needs
and the scope of their business idea, their project. Projects are
located and developed in real time in the real world, and in
relation to a pervasive set of values. Consequently, each
participant’s pathway through the process is unique and
mutates as each project evolves, ‘back-resourcing’ on the fly to
the resources and experiences which will optimise its chances
for initial success and ongoing sustainability.” (Attachment 3,
Evolution NWB (New World Business) – Business Plan: p. 121)
2. MITEZ (Mount Isa-Townsville Economic Zone) (February –
June 2002)
The MITEZ project (finally called M2N, for MITEZ Meta-Network), can
also be understood as successful in its generation of an ‘enablement
environment’. It was framed as an ‘enterprising region’ development,
setting out to generate value through the central role of local
government in regional Queensland in building community capacity. It
aimed to do this through the use of IT architecture in building
community capacity and the valuing of the development of creative
industries through innovative commercialisation of intellectual
property. Specifically, it set out to “demonstrate important ways in
which creative industries activity may be integrated in a holistic
approach to regional development” (Attachment 4, MITEZ Meta-
Network, North Queensland: p. 146).
I mean by the term ‘enterprising region’ project what regional
development expert Steve Garlick evokes when he writes that the
“ability of regional communities to be ‘enterprising’, where they can
create a local environment for investment activity to occur and
generate a return (jobs, income, exports, new business growth, etc)
where it might not otherwise have done so, now needs to be focussed
50
on with more alacrity” (Garlick, 2001: p. 5). This honours the
recognition of individual standpoints and contexts required by an
Indigenist research orientation.
As a function of action researching planning, I facilitated the
development of a project consortium consisting of the MITEZ
Committee, representing nine Local Government Authorities from Mt
Isa to Townsville (the Chair and Secretariat of which was located at
the Mt Isa Chamber of Commerce), UNISYS, and LGAQ, the Local
Government Association of Queensland (through its ‘Connecting
Communities’ project, funded through the Commonwealth
government’s Networking the Nation program).
On-the-ground research by the ‘Connecting Communities’ manager
and myself from June 30 – July 5, 2002, revealed four potent locations
of interest and commitment to developing value-adding or value-
generating creative industries.
The first of these was the Arilla-Mob-A Paper Mill Project (as it was
then called) in Mt Isa.
The second was what we decided to call ‘The Civic Entrepreneurship’
Project in Julia Creek, which explored and developed McKinlay Shire
Council’s role in seeding new IT/Multimedia business activity in the
region through innovative commercial activity, namely, design and
manufacture of digital business cards.
The third potential project was what we came to call the ‘Dinosaur
Triangle’ Project in Richmond, Hughenden and Winton, which involved
a collaboration among the three LGA’s in value-adding to
cultural/heritage tourism development in the region centred on the
Richmond Fossil Fields (e.g. through development of virtual reality
tourism displays physically located in each regional centre and
connected through the Internet).
The fourth possible project identified was the ‘River Precinct’ Project in
Thuringowa City. This centred on the development of innovative
business and community activity around the ‘cultural precinct’
51
envisaged as a component of the major ‘River Precinct’ infrastructure
development, incorporating issues of built environment, strategic IT
development, cultural facilities, commercial development and
community services delivery (especially in relation to the needs of
young people).
These could be seen as M2N ‘plug-in’ projects. The so-called meta-
network proposed “a powerful ICT architecture, developed in
partnership with the LGAQ, to provide in effect a ‘network of networks’
… During the M2N establishment period a series of nine ‘plug-in’
projects – one in each LGA – (was to be) developed and implemented
to complement core economic activity with a set of social-cultural
development strategies. Such projects (aimed at) the generation of
new creative industries or new employment in existing ones,
innovative development partnerships between cultural workers and
government and private sector, community web portals, commercial
value-adding to regional arts hubs, and networking and
training/professional development activities” (Attachment 4, MITEZ
Meta-Network, North Queensland: p. 147).
This proposal for plug-in projects became part of an approach for grant
funding from the Networking the Nation program. The MITEZ Corridor
was envisaged as a central ‘spine’, value-adding to the networking of
LGA’s already undertaken by the LGAQ through the creation of
channels for online commercial activity and social capital building. An
important component of this was the provision of e-learning
architecture by project partner UNISYS, which saw the MITEZ project
as an opportunity to further develop and test proprietary community
development software.
To this spine the project sought to add ‘plug-in’ creative industries
projects which would exemplify and promote the value of thinking
strategically ‘along the Corridor’, for example in the development of
tourism industries and local enterprises like those listed above.
As it moved from its planning to action phase, the project aimed to
establish a powerful ICT architecture to provide in effect a network of
52
networks. This meta-network would enable sophisticated business
information and transaction functionality, developing an income
stream over an establishment period of three years to eventually
provide for its own sustainability. An important model for its
commercial functionality – MIRIS, the Mt Isa Regional Information
Service – had already been developed under the auspices of Mount Isa
Chamber of Commerce through support from the Department of State
Development, Mount Isa City Council, the Work North initiative, mining
companies in the region and goods and services providers in the
mining sector.
It was planned that during the M2N establishment period a series of
nine plug-in projects – one in each LGA – would be developed and
implemented to complement core economic activity with a set of
social-cultural development strategies. Such projects, of the kind
already identified as potentials, were framed to generate new creative
industries or new employment in existing ones, innovative
development partnerships between cultural workers and government
and private sector, community web portals, commercial value-adding
to regional arts hubs, and networking and training/professional
development activities.
The structure of the project was strongly influenced by the action
research principle of emergence, where a spinal infrastructure
provided for and supported emergent local activity. Similarly,
Indigenist orientations to concrete benefit among the research
community, and the importance of varying and dynamic standpoints,
conditioned the choice of a fluid, distributed model of interaction. In
this way it set out to create an ‘enabling environment’ of the kind
discussed in the next section, and indeed the tangible spin-off projects
reinforces a proposition that MITEZ can be characterised as an
‘enabling project..
53
MITEZ Meta-Network Concept Map, With ‘Plug-In’ Projects
The issue here was not so much one of conception and relevance as
scale and logistics. By itself, the local and regional politics of the Local
Government Authorities along the MITEZ Corridor is complicated and
volatile, with government personnel at all levels transferring in and
out, and substantial divisions between the smaller outback Shires and
the large Cities at either end of the corridor. This lack of coherence
was the weakest point not only in our pitch to Networking the Nation,
but in subsequent and ongoing issues in the region. Is the conception
of ‘the Corridor’, for example, just that of a railway linking a mine and
a port?
The project was short-lived, coming to a precipitate conclusion with
the retirement of its strongest local champion (the network’s
President) and the failure of the project consortium’s Networking the
Nation application. Despite this, it fulfilled a strategic function in
seeding and enabling two further lines of business – the Arilla Paper
project in Mount Isa, and the ‘Community Toolbox’ concept which
54
inspired the e-Vents project partnership between the LGAQ and
Queensland Folk Federation.
There remains a cultural divide between the technologists networking
LGA’s (and the IT industry serving them) and isolated proto-
entrepreneurs looking for a market (and noteworthy here is the Julia
Creek project vision of a digital business-card enterprise.) Technical
and even jurisdictional issues can be substantial, as in the LGAQ’s
struggle to achieve mutual sharing of local government and State
government GIS data.
Nevertheless, the concept of piggy-backing (or ‘plugging in’) creative
industries development on regional infrastructure was a useful one and
remains so, as seen in current developments in Cherbourg involving
cooperation between the LGAQ and the State Library, with congruent
CI and education work by QUT and Education Queensland in the
establishment of an Indigenous Leadership Centre. The effort here is
to overlap and extend resources made available for one purpose to
simultaneously suit the needs of others. For example, IT training
delivered in the educational context may be deployed in economic and
community development activities.
Tangible project outcomes included value-adding to the ongoing LGAQ
‘Connecting Communities’ project, the seeding of two further pilot
projects, and the seeding of the ‘Dinosaur Triangle’ concept currently
under development by LGA’s and tourism operators in Richmond,
Hughenden and Winton. In this way it can be said that the project
conformed to the action research principle of a reflection phase
informing consequent cycles of planning and further action. Very
importantly, this project also inspired the concept of ‘enablement’
projects and ‘enablement environments’ as part of a brief to develop
methodologies to assist creative enterprise development in a regional
context – that is, developmental projects which do not deliver new
enterprise themselves, but which enable congruent or follow-through
enterprise development.
55
3. Deep North (June – December 2002)
The value proposition for this project arose from the predicament of
Anderson’s Technology, a Cairns-based IT company which had
developed an innovative multimedia (virtual reality) interface with
funding assistance from the Commonwealth government, but which
had struck difficulties finding a market for it. This interactive
technology has potential applications in a variety of sectors (e.g.
education and training, games, military) but Andersons was unable to
extend its resources to demonstrating such applications.
The action research planning stage involved scoping a collaborative
project which demonstrated the facility of the technology and
generated options for its commercialisation. To this end, I identified
local project partners in the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park and Arts
Nexus, the Far North’s regional arts network, and secured support
from the Communications Design discipline at QUT’s Creative
Industries Faculty, Industrial Design in the Built Environment and
Engineering Faculty, and DSD’s regional State Development Centre.
An Indigenist research paradigm encourages an understanding by the
researcher of the standpoints and values of project participants, not
only tolerating but honouring a plurality of motivations, aspirations
and viewpoints.
Value for the company was to be created by demonstrating the
technology as a ‘killer app’ at the high-profile Tjapukai Park, owned
and operated by the traditional owners of the region. The application
would demonstrate to potential investors ways in which the technology
might be further exploited. From the point of view of the Tjapukai
(and, consistent with Indigenist research principles, we sought clear
and tangible benefits for Indigenous project participants), there was
an opportunity for an innovative new attraction in the Dreaming Room
section of their enterprise. QUT’s Communication Design and Industrial
Design disciplines saw value in involving students and staff in the
project. Local cultural network Arts Nexus saw opportunities for
56
creative content production by local artists. The central aim of the
project was formulated “to demonstrate the 6DOF (six degrees of
freedom) head tracking technology developed by Andersons
Technology (and) to create an immersive experience, adding value to
the Tjapukai Cultural Park” (Attachment 5, Tjapukai Project Notes: p.
149).
6DOF Optical Tracking Computer Interface
Moving into the action phase of the action research cycle, we
developed the envisaged killer app as an interactive 3D ‘World’
modelled from “Digital Terrain data of the Cairns region” and,
consistent with Indigenist principles, experiences derived from the
integrated ‘ways of knowing, ways of being and ways of doing’ of
Indigenous participants. (The user/actor would engage with a variety
of experiences which illustrated and exemplified Indigenous cultural
values and traditional activities as expressed in the Tjapukai Park
displays and activities). Settings for interactions included an Aboriginal
village, rain forest, plain lands/ savannah, cave(s), marine
environments and the Barren River and Falls. Interactive activities
under discussion included gathering food and medicine, hunting, and
57
Dreaming and (permitted) initiation scenes (Attachment 5, Tjapukai
Project Notes: p. 149).
The Deep North project, as it came to be known, aimed to develop
hardware - a working prototype for a head-mounted audiovisual
display device which accesses and allows interactivity with the Deep
North ‘World’ – and also original content and navigation/interactivity
technologies for the ‘World’ (architectural and graphic modelling,
character/avatar creation, sonic environment, hardware design and
development). The plan was to install and test the device as an
attraction at the Tjapukai Park, and as follow-on activity investigate
and develop a marketing strategy for the product in other markets
(e.g. education, export).
The action stage of the project concluded in December, 2002, through
a (congenial) lack of agreement between Andersons, as principal
proponent, and expert advisors from QUT, particularly on issues of
sharing technical IP for the purpose of development and testing in
industrial design areas. That is, the project faltered mainly through
Andersons disinclination to take advice, particularly in the areas of
production, materials and distribution, brought to the table by QUT’s
participants or to facilitate ready access to its hardware and software.
To date, the technology remains unexploited and uncommercialised.
From one point of view, this was a small company choosing to play its
cards very close to its chest, not without some justification in a digital
world. From another point of view, it was simply unrealistic for the
company not to be relatively generous with its IP, if the object was to
commercialise the technology as rapidly and cost-effectively as
possible. By contrast, the Tjapukai readily demonstrated their
readiness to share their IP in the form of content and local knowledge,
to ‘get the word out’ about their country and their values.
A lesson founded in the Indigenist research paradigm may be derived
from this. For ‘benefit’ to be generated in a research environment,
reciprocity is an asset, and in fact may be crucial – the “Manaaki kit e
tangata (share and host people, be generous)” principle of the
Kaupapa Maori framework cited in the previous section.
58
Beneficial outcomes were still achieved, namely ongoing contact
between the Tjapukai and Andersons, and industry experience for QUT
staff now participating in work with the Australian Centre for
Interaction Design (ACID).
Unlike the Innovative Entrepreneur Training and MITEZ projects, this
was not an ‘enabling’ activity. To distinguish such from those which
inspired or enabled congruent or follow-through activity, I came to
understand these as ‘delivery’ projects, projects where industry
outcomes were immediately deliverable, even though in this case this
remained unrealised. In these projects, the reflection stage of action
research halted the developmental cycle at this point, without
informing the planning of further cycles.
4. e-Vents (April – December 2003)
As proposed in part by the MITEZ project, value can be added to
regional networking infrastructure through the provision of accessible
and useful online tools. These may be understood generically as
community capacity building tools, or more specifically as means
towards innovative commercialisation of IP in creative industries,
through for example the ‘plugging in’ of new businesses to new or
existing IT networks. e-Vents was such a project, based on the value
proposition of commercialising events-related know-how through
publication on the internet as part of a larger capacity-building project.
The project was a direct outgrowth of a plug-in concept, the
‘Community Capacity Building Toolbox’ first envisaged during the
MITEZ project. As such, it can be seen as a second planning/action
stage in an action research cycle, deriving benefit from reflection on
the MITEZ experience. It also reflects the value in an AR framework of
emergence. During MITEZ a project such as e-Vents could not have
been imagined; its emergence and developed was conditioned by the
experience of precursor activity.
59
The project grew from a workshop I facilitated at QUT in Brisbane on
21 August 2002. Participants in the workshop included the Qld Folk
Federation (QFF), Novogenesis P/L, Positive Solutions P/L, Arterial
Group Inc., Creative Communities International, Web Animation for
Social Change and CultureSeven. The briefing paper for this workshop
set out the aims of the Toolbox as “a set of networked/online
‘associate’ businesses selected for their capacity to (contribute to)
community capacity in an ongoing, sustainable way using processes
which stress interpersonal interactions and the mutual (commercial)
value of cross-sector collaboration and referral” (Attachment 6, An
Online Community Capacity Building Toolbox: p. 155).
The concept of ‘associate’ businesses proposes that enterprises with no
formal relationship with each other agree to collaborate by virtue of
shared assumptions and common values, in this case based on shared
ideas of the value of regional capacity building, and the potential of
these shared ideas as a platform for the commercialisation of
individual businesses (for example, through the development of a
common database architecture for marketing and promotions). The
Toolbox concept proposed to ‘plug in’ a number of associate
businesses to IT networking infrastructure provided by the LGAQ, in a
similar way to the plug-in businesses envisaged in MITEZ.
Assuming an Indigenist research orientation, with its emphasis on
benefit to the research community and the recognition of diverse
standpoints, and consistent with the lessons learned in the Deep North
project, such ‘plug-ins’ can be seen to rely on the establishment of
mutuality and reciprocity, qualities which proved to be as problematic
in this case as in Deep North.
Partnership linkages rely for their efficacy on such mutuality to be
recognized and carefully nurtured, and it may be of value in future to
imagine and provide for this process through the iterative nature of an
AR process – for example, in the inclusion of high-impact affective
exercises such as personal relationship building as a function of AR’s
‘refection’ phases.
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As a consequence of the initial scoping workshop, I initiated
discussions between the QFF, producers of the Woodford Folk Festival,
and the manager of the LGAQ’s ‘Connecting Communities’ program,
with a view to developing, as we put it in correspondence at the time,
“a powerful suite of online capacity-building information, referral and
tools relating to events design and management … ensuring extensive
community and commercial ‘buy in’ to the infrastructure and
functionality put in place through the Connecting Communities project”
(Email, Michael Doneman to Catherine Anderson, 12 June, 2003).
The emerging ‘e-Vents’ project became focused on the provision of a
sophisticated online resource for events managers, available free of
charge through local government authorities participating in the
Connecting Communities infrastructure rollout. It involved content
from the QFF delivered under the auspices of Connecting Communities
through an XML-based web interface developed by the Maleny
Enterprise Network Association (MENA).
This was congruent with the original ‘Toolbox’ aims, in which the
“LGAQ assists in development of a ‘toolbox’ strategy (i.e. online
enablement of each associate business, enablement of overall
interface/configurability tools). In return, associate businesses commit
to a cooperative approach to service delivery in nominated regions and
agreed rules/protocols for overarching project aims (e.g. prompt and
free personal responses to user requests for advice). IP remains with
associate businesses. The purpose is to encourage informal and
trusting, “humanized’ and mutually supportive business development
through the ‘toolbox’ interface” (Attachment 6, An Online Community
Capacity Building Toolbox: p. 156).
Consistent with the assertion of values embedded in Indigenist
research, it may in fact have been useful to imagine from the outset a
mechanism for the Toolbox-building process to incorporate
relationship-building experiences, supplementary ‘tools’, for the
partners in the project, as well as their clients and customers.
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Enablement of e-Vents
The project commercialisation strategy involved a two-stage process,
the first providing free information on events knowledge through the
various participating LGA portals. This free information, provided by
the QFF through LGA funding, would include a ‘One Stop Shop’
Government Services Portal and events-related information on
strategic and operational planning, management, finances,
partnerships, funding, and sponsorship, volunteers, insurance, risk
management, and also a community events FAQ.
The second stage, developed simultaneously and managed by the QFF
on a fee for service basis, included an ‘Events Toolbox’ and a related
web environment called the ‘Events Village’. The Events Toolbox would
incorporate a training and professional development service ,coaching
and mentoring services, online training provision, consultancy services
and e-commerce services. The Events Village would provide various
modes of connectivity with the QFF, for example through regional
‘Virtual Folk Clubs’. My role as animateur was focused especially on
building a positive, cordial relationship between the CEO of the QFF
and the LGAQ’s Connecting Communities manager.
e-Vents: an onlineCommunity Events'Manual' - Finances,management, volunteers,marketing & promotion,programming, licensing,insurances etc etc (FREE)
Consultation, expert/specialistadvice, development services,partnerships, onsite training(at Woodford) (PAY FOR USE)
'Portal in a Box'
Commissions & licenses
Writes
Plans/writes
LicensesAdapts
LGA's
Contributes
QFF ServerPublishes/promotes
Web
Links
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As a result, Connecting Communities commissioned a draft proposal
from the QFF, with a notional investment of $50,000, around an
agreed framework. The project architecture would also allow the QFF
to simultaneously develop high value-added consulting and advisory
services, delivered separately on the web through subscriptions or
other instruments. Unfortunately, the QFF was slow to respond to this
commission, and the project did not proceed due to an eleventh-hour
revision of LGAQ priorities at a level beyond the control of the
Connecting Communities manager. This generated some rancour at
the QFF, which considered it had already committed a considerable
investment in the project, and significant damage to the working
relationships I had helped shape.
The vision of piggy-backing capacity-building functionality on generic
infrastructure, as envisaged in the ‘enablement environment’ of the
MITEZ project, remains a compelling one, and is consistent with the
reiterative, cyclical and developmental nature of action research.
Whether this can be conflated with what is perceived as the core
business of LGA’s remains a vexed question. In this instance, and in
others, the challenge of projects aiming to deploy creative content
seems to derive from differences in the understanding of the value of
community engagement with official networks, and consequent
slippage in official prioritising of such concerns. Nevertheless, IP
related to the concept and other project materials relating to the e-
Vents concept remains the property of the QFF, which is actively
seeking another project partner.
This case can be seen to have elements of the ‘enablement
environment’ already described, since its trajectory incorporated
enablement processes such as action research-related planning,
observation and reflection stages, but it evolved into a ‘delivery’
project with a specific commercial outcome as its focus. Finally,
evaluation and reflection revealed that there was no immediate
pathway to follow-on planning and action. As mentioned above, this
situation may have been modified or conditioned by the early inclusion
of developmental partnership activities as components of at least the
reflective stages of the AR process, in order too achieve an Indigenist
environment of mutuality and reciprocity.
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5. Bodja Chairs (July 2003 – May 2004)
Creative industries offering relatively low thresholds of entry, in terms
of equipment, baseline skills, or distribution opportunities, have
particular usefulness in communities of low social-economic capacity.
This was compellingly demonstrated in the Arilla Paper project. ‘Bodja’
chair making is another such industry, especially as a signature skill
redefined and practised by Brisbane-based artist Michael Epworth, who
incidentally enjoys strong credibility among many Indigenous groups
in Queensland. In the Dalby region, Epworth had developed a close
relationship with Aunty Lillian Colonel, an elder of the traditional
custodians, the Jarrowan.
The term Bodja is derived by Epworth from the British tradition of
‘bodging’, where working class artisans would follow timber getters in
the Home Counties of Britain, picking up off cuts and cast-offs and
using these in the production of simple furniture. Bodging was
famously practised in the early settlements of Tasmania, and
particularly by a timber worker called Jimmy Possum, who Epworth
claims was Aboriginal.
I scoped the project as part of an action research planning stage and
identified project partners and stakeholders in mid-2003. They
included, apart from Epworth as principal consultant and tutor, the so-
called Jarrowan Project Group (also identified as ‘Jarrowier’, an
Indigenous group based in one extended family in Dalby), the Dalby
Shire Council, the Queensland Folk Federation (as producers of the
Woodford Folk Festival), and a regional development consortium called
the Condamine Alliance. Later, with its relocation to Kennedy in North
Queensland, the principal project partner became the Oooboogee
Aboriginal Corporation, advised by the Townsville-based consultancy
Future Solutions (with whom I had consulted extensively on the
development of the Arilla Paper Mill).
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In the action phase of the cycle, Bodja Chairs set out to generate new
business and new employment for young Indigenous men in Jarrowan
country (Dalby and region), specifically to “to establish a business
concept, develop necessary competences and generate a business
plan” (Attachment 7, Report for the Dalby/Bodja Chair Project: p.
158). It proposed to achieve this by commercialising bodger chair
making, exemplified in Epworth’s practice. Apart from in-kind support
from the partners already noted, the project attracted cash support
from QUT through a Community Service Grant. The QFF’s role was to
host a Bodja Chairs venue and stall at the 2003/2004 Woodford Folk
Festival. Developmental staff support was provided by Dalby Shire
Council and the Condamine Alliance, which also expressed interest in
follow-through administration support for the Jarrowan group. My role
was that of observer, researcher and animateur, bringing resources
and other support to the project as required, and ultimately facilitating
its transplantation to Kennedy.
After a promising start in the final quarter of 2003, with artist-led
chair-making workshops using recycled timbers progressing to a
tentative exhibition date at the Woodford Folk Festival, enthusiasm
eroded at a local level. This was precipitated by the extended absence
of the project artist for personal reasons and a consequent loss of
organisational momentum among local participants.
It can also be said that the project suffered from the same lack of local
entrepreneurial leadership which compromised the progress of the
Arilla Paper project. Further, as discussed in the accounts of the Deep
North and e-Vents projects, Indigenist research values such as
Manaaki kit e tangata (share and host people, be generous) anticipate
a strong degree of mutuality and reciprocity, and the absence or
erosion of such can be seen as a function of absent or eroded
leadership.
In his project report, Epworth specified “a lack of leadership and a lack
of governance” (Attachment 7, Report for the Dalby/Bodja Chair
Project: p. 162). This may be a manifestation of the dependency of
many local Indigenous people on the welfare system, and a
consequent over-reliance on ‘outside’ resources, or more simply
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tensions in the extended family at the heart of the project, given an
uneven distribution of project resources, as also noted in Epworth’s
report. Nevertheless, an exhibition of Bodja Chairs was eventually
presented at Woodford and was well received.
The process and function of reflection in the action research cycle was
critical at this point (early 2004). Given the increasingly parlous
Indigenous family politics in Dalby, I consulted with Epworth and
others in my professional circle, including Dalby Shire workers and the
principal of Future Solutions, as noted above, and it was agreed to
relocate the project to an opportunity identified in the Ooboogee
Aboriginal Corporation’s developing businesses in Kennedy, north of
Townsville. It seemed clear that among the Ooboogee group it was
possible to build on an ‘ethic of caring’ and ‘ethic of personal
accountability’ noted in Section 2 as core elements of an Indigenist
orientation to research. As project manager and animateur, I took it as
my responsibility to facilitate this shift.
In Kennedy, Bodja chair making currently continues to develop as a
component of a larger business development strategy in the region,
where Oooboogee is developing a native tree nursery and related
enterprises such as native seed collecting, and where training in a
bush furniture business could easily be added to planned small
business workshops. Chair making has been incorporated in the
strategy as "Practical Skills Development (Woodworking Operations)",
to complement planned programs in Small Business and Tree Nursery
Operations (Attachment 8, Letter – Re Economic Development Pilot
Project, Oooboogee Agroforestry, Kennedy: p. 166).
Once more, a critical issue in this project was that of (local,
Indigenous) leadership and governance, at least of a
creative/entrepreneurial kind.
In this project significant negative friction developed between the
artist/principal consultant and the research community in Dalby, to the
point where the relationship eventually became unworkable. An
uncomfortable implication of this friction was a misuse of the rhetoric
of standpoint among some Indigenous participants to characterise
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Epworth (and to an extent, myself as the ‘funder’ or ‘producer’) as
exploitative. This counterfeiting of the principle was also deployed
among certain of the Indigenous participants themselves.
By contrast, the Ooboogee group displayed strong signs of grounded,
effective leadership, and welcomed the inclusion of a further value-
adding activity to their enterprise.
It may be significant that this leadership was entirely female (and
therein lies a brief for research beyond the purview of this work), but
my experience of the Kennedy community was certainly one of trust
and mutuality. This was clearly exemplified in the community’s ease of
relationship with enterprise consultant Dean Rowley, with whom I had
also worked in Mt Isa.
In this respect it is salutary to note the parallels between the success
of the ‘enabling environments’ of the Arilla and Ooboogee research
communities. While these projects have demonstrated the centrality of
understanding and working with the Indigenist principle of standpoint,
I would argue that such is only possible if the community provides an
‘enabling environment’ of reciprocity and mutuality.
Significantly, the successful engagement of these principles in a
practical enterprise development context was in both cases the
achievement of successful female leaders. Conversely, in Dalby the
collapse of project processes was contingent on the failure of a central
female leader.
The Jarrowan project group derived benefit from the project through
skills development and the provision of basic tools for future use. The
key outcome, though, resides in benefit as a value-add to the
Ooboogee Corporation’s agroforestry enterprise development program.
Bodja chair making in Dalby was designed and provided as a ‘delivery’
project, though through the reflection and (re)planning dynamics of
action research, it can also be seen as an ‘enablement’ project from
Ooboogee’s point of view, given that body’s more grounded, stable
and commercially-minded orientation.
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6. DigIT (September – December 2003)
I scoped the DigIT project in collaboration with IMPACT, a crime-
reduction network comprising representatives of Queensland’s
mainstream youth organisations (the Scouts, Guides, Police & Citizens’
Youth Clubs, Surf Life Savers and others). The PCYC in particular was
keen to host a pilot project in Mareeba, on the Atherton Tableland in
the far north, where I had already established connections through the
KaosPilots tour. These allowed us to identify key project workers and a
project delivery site. Once more, the experience of the KP tour can be
seen as an ‘enabling’ technology for the generation of ‘delivery’ project
work, much as the MITEZ project enabled the development of further
activity.
Taking place between September and December, 2003, the planning
stage of action research framed the project as a pilot program to assist
‘at risk’ young Indigenous people to develop creative industries skills
suitable for commercialisation through the culturally-appropriate
provision of training. In this way it sought to conflate social and
economic benefit. We had no expectation of immediate new industry
outcomes. The project activities were provided through a combination
of learning activities and excursions augmented by a distinct focus on
pastoral care for participants (Attachment 9, DigIT – Report: p. 179).
The project involved basic training in the use of electronic tools like
digital cameras and graphic software, culminating in a small-scale
exhibition in Mareeba on 9 December 2003, but the seeds of its
success lay in the experience and cultural sensitivity of its facilitators,
demonstrating a clear commitment to an ‘ethic of caring’ and ‘ethic of
personal accountability’. They proposed that “IT is an appropriate
medium for “at risk” Indigenous young people in Mareeba in terms of
maintaining their interest and encouraging their continued involvement
in the area of spatial relations skills, an area in which they are
evidently already talented (Attachment 9, DigIT – Report: p. 170).
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Once more, this raises the issues of leadership in Indigenous research
communities. Notwithstanding their non-Indigenous ethnicity, the
DigIT project leaders distinguished themselves through an assiduous
respect for the standpoint of their clients, facilitating and valuing (in
what one young participant called ‘Murri way’) conditions of emergence
and regular reflection on experience. In doing so they de facto
generated an enabling environment characterised by trust and
reciprocity.
The project holistically incorporated a “Communication/Socialisation
Component”, an “IT Component", an "Achievement Component" and a
"Vocational Potential Component" (Attachment 10, DigIT Draft Training
Plan: pps 174-175). The relationships established with the young
participants have resulted in follow-through education and
developmental opportunities. Project workers also identified broader
community benefits.
“A further outcome of the project is increased local awareness
of the positive potential of these young people. DigIT
participants could be seen around the main street of Mareeba
taking photographs, and on occasions they accompanied the
Project Manager on visits to local retailers (for lunch shopping)
and Lasertronics (for printing). DigIT’s base at the PCYC also
encouraged interaction with the local community, and other
users of the facility were able to observe DigIT participants
going about their business in a positive and non-threatening
way” (Attachment 9, DigIT – Report: p. 171).
In the context of a distinction between ‘delivery’ and ‘enablement’
projects, it can be argued that DigIT provided an ‘enablement
environment’ not only for participants but for supporting bodies,
particularly IMPACT, which has been motivated by its success to
develop further projects in the Far North for the benefit of Indigenous
young people, including CAPE, a major program now under way in
partnership with the PCYC in Hope Vale and Wujal Wujal, funded by
the Telstra Foundation.
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As an outcome of the reflection stage of action research, it was agreed
that the resourcing of this project by a group such as IMPACT
represents a fundamental change in direction for the organisation
towards an enterprise development orientation. This is largely due to
the success of DigIT. The project provided the IMPACT network with a
concrete turning point, which signals the inclusion of a program
enterprise development framework, where such activity is highly likely
to occur in the creative industries. This is significant given the
enormous footprint of the IMPACT member organisations throughout
the State. (The Queensland Scouting Association, a member of
network, incorporates several hundred groups across the State.)
In this way, aside from social and vocational benefits for participants,
the project had significant impact on the development of youth policy
for a number of mainstream youth organisations. It achieved benefits
as a ‘delivery’ project, but its ‘enablement environment’ clearly
assisted in the development of creative enterprise, and will continue to
do so through a significant change in organisational policy for IMPACT.
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5. Discussion
While no two projects proceeded in the same way, certain patterns can
be discerned in their delivery and outputs. The application of a
methodology derived from the principles of action research and where
appropriate an Indigenist research orientation within the action
research environment, described in Section 1, inspires a claim that it is
possible to stimulate creative enterprise development in regional
Queensland in the process of research itself. That is, the intervention
of the researcher/animateur resulted in either the delivery of
beneficial, concrete outcomes for participants, the ‘researched’, or the
potential for new creative industries activity catalysed or precipitated
by the intervention. In both cases one can argue the value of an action
research approach to developing creative industries activities in the
Queensland regions, particularly through its incorporation of dynamic
processes of reflection which inform further planning, and for its
recognition of the importance of emergent ideas, ideas that could not
have been anticipated at the point of initial planning.
In general, such a process can be seen to engender an action research
environment within which the research community is enabled and
empowered. The generation of such environments has been shown to
be effective in the development of new creative enterprises. In the
case studies, some projects (e.g. MITEZ, Innovative Entrepreneur
Training) proved more generative of follow-through or spin-off work
than others, which more simply ‘delivered’ benefits. For this purpose,
they can be described as ‘enablement projects’.
Projects such as Arilla Paper, Deep North, Bodja Chairs and DigIT
highlight the value not only of an action research environment but an
Indigenist research orientation, particularly in its focus on tangible
benefit and its honouring of diverse points of view, pluralities of ‘ways
of knowing, doing and being’ in the world.
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Importantly, each project also points to the central role of effective
local leaders, who characteristically frame and deploy a culture of
trust, reciprocity and mutuality. In the absence of these qualities, or in
the absence of the leadership and governance which ensures and
underwrites them, project work (enterprise development) can be
compromised or curtailed.
All of the case studies demonstrate the efficacy of the social-cultural
animateur as a facilitator of beneficial change, and a congruent role for
the action researcher as animateur. This is especially the case where,
consistent with Indigenist research principles, focus is given to tangible
outcomes among the research community, namely, in this project,
viable new businesses. While the animateur is an interventionist, he or
she is also a catalyst, a conduit for latent energies among a research
community, which generates and controls its own intellectual property,
distinct from that of the researcher. In relation to conventional AR
methodology, what is lost on the roundabouts of empowered
participation is gained on the swings of pragmatic effectiveness and
tangible benefit.
It has been shown that my modification of the conventional action
research paradigm (seen in Section 2, where I propose a process of
analysis & evaluation which problematises the methodology itself, and
simultaneously conditions both action and reflection processes) is a
tactic conducive to an environment of enablement and empowerment
in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous contexts. This goes to the
concept of ‘plug-ins’, where emergent qualities of project work conflate
with the valuing of pluralistic standpoints to generate complementary
project activity, and sometimes new stand-alone projects.
The projects studied here can be understood either as ‘delivery’
projects, where outcomes are quantifiable at the time of project design
and delivery, or ‘enablement’ projects, where outcomes incorporate
follow-through or spin-off activities beyond the scope of the project
itself. Thus, the projects discussed here can be categorised this way:
a) Delivery projects: Arilla Paper, Deep North, e-Vents, Bodja
Chairs
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b) Enablement projects: Innovative Entrepreneur Training,
MITEZ, DigIT
The delivery projects aimed at generating new companies or new
commercial activity in existing companies. For example, Arilla Paper is
currently trading as a partnership, the ‘Deep North’ project informed
the continuing development of a commercial attraction at the Tjapukai
Aboriginal Cultural Park, e-Vents inspired a continuing effort by the
Queensland Folk Federation to commercialise its events-based IP, and
Bodja Chairs became a commercial component of an existing
agroforestry business. Enablement projects, by contrast, generated
fields of potential for new business activity – that is, they identified
possible partnerships, sources of funding and other support, suitable
venues and suitable markets.
These categories prove not to be mutually exclusive, however. Arilla
Paper ‘delivered’ a new Indigenous enterprise in Mt Isa, but it also
created a platform for other social and commercial activity, and some
of the opportunities opened up by the Arilla program are already being
explored. DigIT ‘enabled’ follow-through developmental activity in
Mareeba, but in the process delivered transferable commercial skills to
its participants. For this reason, a principal outcome of the overarching
research project is the desirability of designing projects with both
delivery and enablement potentials.
What follows is a discussion of project outcomes categorised according
to the goals of the project’s head contract and mapped to the
consequent research questions listed in Section 1.
1. Is it possible to develop an action research based methodology for
assisting creative enterprise development in a regional context?
It was proposed earlier that an action research environment resists
‘one size fits all’ commercialisation frameworks, and thus
methodologies for assisting creative enterprise development will vary
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according to the constraints and potentials of a given situation.
Nevertheless, an action research approach can catalyse and facilitate
enterprise development, especially in Indigenous or cross-cultural
contexts where an Indigenist orientation demands concrete, workable
and beneficial outcomes. The key values in action research in this
process have to do with the integration of periods of reflection, usually
involving active participation from research communities, in the
planning and development of projects, and the emphasis in action
research on emergent concepts, identified and incorporated in the
process of reflection through active observation.
Nevertheless, from the experience of the pilot projects it is possible to
derive four principles that fit this category of outcomes. All assume the
efficacy of an action research orientation informed by Indigenist
research principles.
First, commercialisation of intellectual property in creative industries
can be effectively facilitated through the activities of social-cultural
animateurs. In all of the pilot projects, I was proactively engaged as a
broker, agent, catalyst and manager. This role was in itself creative, in
that it required scenario building and the creative brokerage of
partnerships, and intensely communicative, since it usually required
the distillation of complex ideas into forms accessible to a wide
constituency, and the transfer not only of ideas but of the ‘texture’ and
‘spirit’ of project concepts.
This is to argue that there are emerging and strengthening indications
of the potential for the application, within a creative industries
practice, of principles of social-cultural animation, and the consequent
emergence of a relatively new professional niche, that of the
animateur. This also argues the potential and the desirability of
building and enhancing a generalist CI entrepreneur/innovator skill
base in Queensland.
Second, commercialisation of IP in creative industries can be
effectively facilitated through an emphasis on the development and
provision of what might be called ‘wet nets’. These are human
networks, information ecologies inhabited by a range of more or less
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effective actors. They provide incubation and support pathways for
innovation, commercial enablement, production, and distribution in
creative industries.
Companies or communities with effective wet nets are likely to be the
sites of high social capital and aggregated, untraded intangibles, the
unaccounted assets which provide a foundation for innovative
commercialisation activity. Here we can contrast the lack of effective
wet nets in Dalby, evidenced by the experience of the Bodja Chairs
project, with the grounded, practical leadership and networks enjoyed
in its final location in Kennedy. The Arilla Paper project similarly
continues to progress through the facility of effective, supportive
networks in the Mt Isa region.
Creative industries, in this context, are well placed to enhance wet
nets and simultaneously develop untraded intangibles (or ‘good will’)
and the tangible products and services from which they arise and on
which they rely.
Third, I propose that creative industries development in regional
Queensland can be inspired and facilitated by a new approach to the
value of entrepreneurship.
In general, the projects that worked best were the ones where as
action researcher I seeded entrepreneurial attitudes and activity, but a
local champion soon took the reins. (Such a role was taken in Mt Isa
initially by the key worker at the Salvation Army Women’s Shelter, and
eventually by key Aunties with strong support from local government.)
I came to think of these leaders as ‘creative entrepreneurs’, that is,
agents with an entrepreneurial orientation who were simultaneously
operating as social-cultural animateurs. As seen in the Arilla Paper
project, and almost all the other pilot projects, successes and setbacks
often stemmed from issues of business leadership and governance.
Where there was no strong local leadership combining entrepreneurial
and animation skills, projects tended to plateau or lose momentum.
This is what occurred during the Dalby phase of the Bodja Chairs
project.
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Finally, commercialisation of IP can be inspired and supported in a
cost-effective way by looking (preferably through the lens of creative
entrepreneurship) for ways to ‘piggy-back’ creative industries
development on existing or planned infrastructure, in much the same
way as the MITEZ project proposed plug-in projects along the length of
the MITEZ Corridor. This point of view assumes an acceptance of the
mutual interdependence of high social capital (and consequently
‘business confidence’ and strong ‘good will’) and commercial
outcomes. Arilla Paper is the strongest example of this: the quality of
its regional ‘wet net’, reinforced by the social-cultural vision of the
city’s Mayor and Council, has placed its proponents very well to exploit
their IP through creative industries production.
2. Can such a methodology generate ideas for the development of
innovative cross-disciplinary applications, and ideas for new
creative enterprises?
Innovative cross-disciplinary applications arise when an action
research approach inspires what could be called enabling
environments, for example in the concepts derived from the MITEZ
project which enabled the development of ‘plug-in’ project activity. The
strategic seeding of support networks (wet nets, as above) and/or
keystone enterprises, such as Arilla Paper, has the potential to
generate self-identified, locally-grounded innovation across disciplines
and across industry sectors.
This then raises questions about the role of government, business and
higher education in the creation of environments where this can occur,
or in the animation of latent commercialisable IP. These might be
termed ‘enablement technologies’ or ‘enabling environments’ and
related to the ‘enablement projects’ listed above. In each of the cases
discussed here, project work was generated through the collaboration
and partnering of government (at all three levels) and community
groups. Private business tended to be less involved at the beginning
point of projects, but often developed relationships with projects as
76
they progressed (for example, in the co-referral of customers between
the Arilla Paper Mill and the Outback@Isa tourist complex).
Each of the three ‘enablement’ projects – Innovative Entrepreneur
Training, MITEZ and DigIT – gave rise to further activity in this way.
The Innovative Entrepreneur Training project inspired the Edgeware
Creative Entrepreneurship project, since research revealed a niche for
the animateur as entrepreneur. MITEZ inspired the Community
Capacity Building Toolbox, at the heart of the e-Vents project, through
the application of CCD processes and the brokering of effective
partnerships. DigIT inspired a major revision of IMPACT Youth Projects
activity and linkage with the Department of Employment and Training
through TAFE in a significantly depressed local economy.
A key point to make here is that the activities inspired by the
enablement projects could not be predicted at the time of project
design, and so they reinforce a proposition that action research, with
its emphasis on the incorporation of emergent concepts, is a potent
methodology for the development of innovative cross-disciplinary
applications through an ‘enablement’ orientation. Further, the
importance in action research of observation and reflection creates a
dynamic where emergent factors are identified and, where
appropriate, incorporated in ongoing project development.
A limiting factor in the application of these ideas is silo-ism - received
organisational, management and financial structures within
government, communities, companies and universities and training
institutions which constrain cross-disciplinary approaches to teaching
and learning and to project development.
In relation to the ideas for new creative enterprises which have
emerged from the experience of the project, several claims can be
made.
These include the necessity for lateral thinking about exploiting IP. As
seen in the Deep North project, outcomes for the principle project
proponent were constrained by a disinclination to share its background
IP. It was unproductive for Andersons Technology not to be relatively
77
generous with its IP, protected in the short term anyway by patent, in
order to open up opportunities to profit in ways additional to patent
licences. For example, a successful demonstration of the technology at
the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, yielding little short-term
commercial gain for the company, may have generated opportunities
for manufacturing and web-based distribution of components
deploying its proprietary software.
It can also be put that there is considerable value in building new
creative enterprise incrementally from small-scale local resources with
a focus on small local markets. An environment suitable for generating
ideas for new creative industries activity can be created through an
application to small, immediate markets, taking advantage of the local
entrepreneur’s familiarity with these markets and existing support
networks. The ideas engendered in this way may in turn inspire
further, congruent commercialisation ideas (as in the case of
developing an ancillary export business out of the possibilities in Mt Isa
of light machinery manufacturing).
One can also argue for the value of leveraging cost efficiencies in some
creative industries. Because some creative industries afford relatively
low thresholds of entry, in terms of equipment, baseline skills, or
distribution opportunities, ideas for new creative enterprises can be
framed around those activities which require relatively low investments
of time, cash and effort, in order to pilot innovative commercial ideas,
both in terms of potential markets and commercial viability, and in
terms of supply-side dynamics (e.g. the presence or otherwise of
strong local entrepreneurial leadership). This approach also provides
for relatively quick returns on investment, and the affective value (and
consequent enhancement of confidence and good will) of small but
compelling successes.
3. Can such a methodology assist in the exploitation of the intellectual
property generated in such a process?
The exploitation of IP generated through the course of this project is
occurring in a variety of ways, and it has already been put that that no
78
single plan or policy can capture them all, though an action research
approach, informed by Indigenist research values, is an effective
methodology.
The same might be said for generating the initial ideas for new
creative enterprises. It follows that here, again, focus needs to be
placed on enablement technologies and enablement environments for
commercialisation (enhanced communications and networks,
government-business-community partnerships, community capacity
building, training and professional development, project development
and management services). Once these are established or enabled,
ideas for new creative enterprises, and ideas for the exploitation of
their resultant IP, present themselves.
The palette of intellectual property available for commercialisation in
the creative industries in regional Queensland is very broad. Across
the various pilot projects, IP with the potential for commercialisation
was found in copyright, patents, trade marks, licences, knowhow,
networks and communications. Industry sectors in which this IP can be
commercialised have been identified as leisure software and
multimedia hardware (Deep North), tourism (Arilla, Bodja Chairs,
MITEZ), Indigenous creative industries (Arilla, Bodja Chairs, Deep
North), art/crafts (Arilla, Bodja Chairs, DigIT), retail and tourism
(Arilla, Bodja Chairs, Deep North, MITEZ), training/employment
(Innovative Entrepreneur Training, e-Vents), media – especially
broadcast/webcast (e-Vents, MITEZ), and regional development in
general.
As repeated above, in the overall project the exploitation of IP
identified in pilot projects relied on the presence and activism of strong
entrepreneurial leaders, or project champions, a role in which I was
often asked to participate. In this sense, the key outcome of the
project, in relation to a plan to exploit emergent IP, is the formation of
the Edgeware Creative Entrepreneurship pilot program, currently
under way at Creative Industries Precinct Pty Ltd, with funding support
from DSD, Arts Queensland, the Department of Employment and
Training, and QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty. This program aims
eventually to impact on entrepreneurial culture in Queensland through
79
the development of a cohort of creative entrepreneurs capable of
developing and delivering strategies identified in this research. In
particular, the development and implementation of Edgeware owes a
great deal to these precursor projects in its formulation of the role of
‘creative entrepreneur’, a change agent whose orientation is that of a
social-cultural animateur and simultaneously that of a commercially-
focused business maker.
These strategies include the capacity to ‘mine for IP’, particularly along
roads less travelled such as outsider discourses in Indigenous
communities, and the capacity to identify opportunities for the
commercialisation of the resulting IP. The foundational IP of the Arilla
Paper project (the knowledge of local conditions, grasses, eucalypts
and reeds, and the stories related to them) existed already among
Indigenous women in the Mt Isa region. The ‘mining’ of this IP took
place through the process of action research and led to the
establishment of the Arilla Paper business. Such capacity also requires
the ability to identify and motivate potential project partners – the key
strategy of an animateur and thus to generate an ‘enabling
environment’.
The role of the creative entrepreneur in such contexts, conflated as it
is from the roles of conventional entrepreneur/business founder and
social-cultural animateur, requires the identification of the resources
and inputs necessary for the realisation of the aspirations of partners,
the brokering or supplying of resources and inputs, especially small
business competencies but including project management services if
required, monitoring and encouraging participation, and facilitating
periodic reflection during the development of projects, towards the
identification and clarification of emergent themes and concepts.
Any plan to exploit the IP generated through this project is based on
the assumption that optimal outcomes cannot be achieved through
mere competence, which is understood here as the capacity to fulfill
the requirements of tasks which have been set according to pre-
existing structures and arrangements. Competence is required at a
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basic level, in order to manage the day to day requirements of a
business, however the creative expansion of that business, and
especially the generation of a new one, requires the capacity to build
scenarios, to see beyond the horizon and match the vision attained
this way with the resources necessary to make it real. This can be
described as the realm of capability.
If, according to the head contract that initiated this research, the aim
was to “increase activity in the Queensland creative industries through
the generation of a set of experience-based enterprise development
methodologies and ideas for the development of cross-disciplinary
applications and new enterprises” it is possible to put a set of
propositions ancillary to project outcomes, derived from the
experience of the pilot projects and my reflection on this.
To successfully commercialise IP in the creative industries, in regional
settings and arguably elsewhere, we need to value collectivities and
connections, to focus on teams and networks.
“The basic unit of competitiveness and growth within the
modern economy will not be ‘the market’ or ‘the company’ but
‘the network’. Networks are not held together by hierarchy or
structure but by relationships and social capital.” (Leadbeater,
1999: p. 126)
We must develop and value leadership, particularly creative
entrepreneurial leadership of a generalist kind. It is possible and
desirable to mine for commercialisable IP in the creative industries, in
regional areas and elsewhere, and to be successful in this one must
use a wide range of tools, appropriated (and where necessary
hybridised) from a wide range of disciplines.
There is untapped potential for the commercialisation of creative IP in
Queensland’s regions, and action research in these contexts can, in
and of itself, engender new commercial creative industries activity.
This can be achieved through ‘delivery’ or ‘enablement’ applications
stemming from action research processes. Similarly, the creative
industries can provide practical and coherent pathways for the delivery
81
of training and entrepreneurial development, as envisaged in the
current Edgeware Creative Entrepreneurship pilot program as an
outcome of the Innovative Entrepreneur Training project.
In regional environments, political-economic development is
embedded in social-cultural development, potentially locating regional
Queensland (particularly Indigenous Queensland) as a generative test-
bed for innovative, outside-the-square approaches to the
commercialisation of IP and generation of innovative creative
enterprises. The role of the social-cultural animateur, and the ‘creative
entrepreneurship’ generated from the conflation of the roles of
animateur and entrepreneur, is a particularly potent and productive
one in this context.
82
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ATTACHMENTS
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Attachment 1
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Attachment 2
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Attachment 3
BUSINESS PLAN
March 2004
Prepared by Michael Doneman, Queensland University of Technology and
Nicola Nelson, Department of State Development and Innovation
EVOLUTION NWB
NEW WORLD BUSINESS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Executive Summary 2. Evolution New World Business (NWB) 2.1 Background 2.2 The Start-up process 2.3 Vision 2.4 Purpose 2.5 Values 2.6 Corporate Objectives 2.7 Competitive Advantage 2.8 Selection Criteria for new enterprise development 2.9 Key Success Factors 2.10 Tracking new enterprises 3. The Product 3.1 Background 3.2 Product Offerings 3.2.1 Core Products CONCEPT MAP 1: CORE PRODUCT DELIVERY CONCEPT MAP 2: CORE PRODUCT DELIVERY 3.2.2 Ancillary Products 3.3 Product Development 3.4 Competing Products 3.5 Future Developments 3.5.1 The Role Of International Networks And Partners (Frequent Flyer Model) 4. The Market 4.1 Market Size and Growth 4.2 Customers 4.3 Competitors 4.4 Marketing & Promotion 5. Operations 5.1 Location of business 5.2 Staff/skill requirements 5.3 Set-up costs 5.4 Fees 6. Management
6.1 Organisational Structure 6.2 SWOT Analysis 6.3 Key Staff 6.4 External Consultants
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7. Implementation 7.1 Timetable 8. Finance 8.1 Finance requirements 8.2 Sources of finance 8.3 Assumptions 8.4 Financial projections BUDGET Appendices A. It’s Personal: Individual Pathways B. List of Entrepreneur Programs in Australia
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1. Executive Summary
Vision: Evolution NWB is an enterprise development platform:
• a complete, tailored package for new business development with a focus on creativity and entrepreneurial leadership
• built on a unique entrepreneurial culture and the capacity to produce highly innovative, values-based and sustainable companies
Evolution NWB will generate and support new innovative businesses in Queensland and beyond. It addresses:
• current gaps in entrepreneurship development and
• the continued failure of many small businesses in Queensland.
Australia’s entrepreneurial activity has declined in recent years, with 85,000 potential startups not proceeding in 20021 due to a lack of entrepreneurial confidence. Australia tends to be entrepreneurial in good times but not in bad, and needs to build a more imaginative, robust and sustainable entrepreneurial culture.
Similarly, the overall small business failure rate continues at around 60% within the first 3 years2, and anecdotal evidence suggests this rate is higher in innovative/startup/new economy/creative businesses.
Evolution NWB will address these gaps, and also the limitations of many current business development programs, by augmenting generic business competencies with values of creativity, leadership and self-actualisation. In this way it aims to optimise the capability of the entrepreneur at the heart of the new business. Further, it will support its client projects and businesses from their earliest ideas and conception through to investment readiness and operation.
Evolution NWB has been built around the concept of intensive and participant-centred generation of innovative new companies. It aims to identify and harness the creativity and commitment of participants (including those avoiding or ‘falling through the net’ of conventional education/training programs) towards very pragmatic outcomes: investment-ready new enterprises. It aims to develop and enhance business regimes for operation in the so-called ‘fourth sector’, or ‘for benefit’ sector (i.e. the notion of profitable businesses which operate in a socially, culturally and environmentally responsible way).
1 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report, 2002 2 Williams, A.J., A Longitudinal Analysis of the Characteristics and Performance of Small Business in Australia, Australian Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Launceston, Tasmania, 1986. Note. Also see relevant statistics, Appendix D: The Statistics of Failure …
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The vision for Evolution NWB is: A unique enterprise development platform and regime, internationally renowned for its vibrant, convivial entrepreneurial culture and its capacity to produce highly innovative, values-based and sustainable companies. The business will incorporate an embedded and pervasive set of values, its Organisational DNA. Currently, these are proposed as:
• Grounded in industry and market place, focus on creativity • Ethical, compassionate • Playful, streetwise, convivial • Pragmatic, outcome oriented, sustainable • Reflexive, critical • Globally oriented, locally grounded Evolution NWB originated from local interest in a Danish entrepreneurial program called The KaosPilots. The KaosPilots has been operating for over ten years and is an internationally celebrated ‘fast track’ or ‘finishing school’ for some of Europe’s most dynamic young entrepreneurs. The KaosPilots’ intensive 3 year course is grounded in real-world businesses and real-world issues. The outcomes of the Evolution NWB initiative will include: • New innovative enterprises • A highly skilled talent pool of entrepreneurs • A vibrant entrepreneurial culture in Queensland which supports
Smart State objectives • International links with similar ground-breaking organisations (e.g.
companies, colleges and universities) The enablement of Evolution NWB requires seed funding from the Department of State Development and Innovation (DSDI) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT). From the outset, private sector funding will also be sought in respect of project sponsorship (e.g. for ‘pilot projects’ in Year 1) and/or in kind support with teaching or mentoring.
This document proposes a three year plan which sees a break-even scenario in Years 1 and 2, moving to a small profit in Year 3 and increasing profitability thereafter. The initial year is designed as an intensive research and development year to establish core products and company operations. In Year 2 the business will begin commercial operations and in Year 3 will see consolidation and capitalisation of the business.
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2. Evolution New World Business (NWB)
2.1 Background
The development of Evolution NWB is a joint initiative between the Department of State Development and Innovation (DSDI) and the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Initial interest in a new entrepreneurial approach to enterprise development began ten years ago when Michael Doneman visited the Danish KaosPilots program (see background following).
The KaosPilots program was and still is a highly sought after creative process and business design program with an enviable reputation in Europe. The entrepreneurial spirit and culture of this organisation provided the inspiration for investigating the development of a similar program in Queensland.
A visit by the Danish KaosPilots to Brisbane and Cairns in July 2003 cemented the desire to pursue a new type of organisation in Queensland which could build a new entrepreneurial culture here and at the same time create new, innovative and sustainable enterprises.
Evolution NWB is addressing a current gap in entrepreneurship development and a holistic approach to business development in Queensland. Australia ‘s entrepreneurial activity has declined and according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Report for 20023, around 85,000 start-up businesses did not proceed due to a lack of entrepreneurial confidence. Australia tends to be entrepreneurial in good times but not bad and needs to build a more robust and reliable entrepreneurial culture.
In addition to the drive to change entrepreneurial culture in Australia and in particular in Queensland, there is also the issue of small business failure rates and how they can be reduced. The overall small business failure rate in Australia continues at around 60% within the first 3 years4, and anecdotal evidence during project research and development suggests this rate is probably higher in innovative/startup/new economy/creative businesses. Tens of thousands of businesses fail and/or exit their industries each year5.
3 Hindle, Kevin, and Rushworth, Susan (2002), Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, GEM Australia 2002, Kauffman Foundation, http://www.kauffman.org/pdf/gem_australia_2002.pdf 4 Williams, A.J., A Longitudinal Analysis of the Characteristics and Performance of Small Business in Australia, Australian Small Business and Entrepreneurship Conference, Launceston, Tasmania, 1986 5 Business Failure and Change: An Australian Perspective – Productivity Commission Report, December 2000
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The development of a business case for the creation of Evolution NWB has occurred over a six month period and has involved consultation with key stakeholder groups including:
• Universities • Government • Industry • Community based organisations • Entrepreneur groups
The consultation process thus far has revealed positive feedback (e.g. during KaosPilot CEO Uffe Elbeck’s tour in Queensland in July 2003) in relation to the need for Evolution NWB and a strong in principle commitment to support the ongoing development of such an initiative.
Evolution NWB has been built around the concept of intensive and participant-centred generation of innovative businesses. It aims to identify and harness the creativity and commitment of participants (including those ‘falling through the net’ of conventional education/training processes) towards very pragmatic outcomes: investment-ready new enterprises.
Evolution NWB can best be described as an Enterprise Development Platform, though it might also be seen as a ‘brokerage’ or an ‘agency’. It develops real world business ideas by connecting participants with relevant educational and training materials, coaches and mentors, government and corporate contacts in a unique entrepreneurial environment.
Unlike the KaosPilots, Evolution NWB is not a school although it has a strong educational component. Similarly, it is not an incubator, although it is about nurturing and developing new innovative businesses. Its emphasis on the personal and affective dimensions of entrepreneurship place it outside direct competition with existing entrepreneurship development providers.
Evolution NWB will also establish international links with similarly-oriented organisations such as the KaosPilots (Denmark), Touchstone (South Africa) and Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong) and create opportunities for global projects and exchanges to occur.
2.1.1 Influence of the Danish KaosPilots Program
Evolution NWB originated from interest in a Danish entrepreneurial program called The KaosPilots (http://www.kaospilot.dk) which is situated in the university town of Aarhus. The KaosPilots has been running for over ten years and is an internationally celebrated ‘fast track’ or ‘finishing school’ for some of Europe’s most dynamic young
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entrepreneurs. The KaosPilots’ intensive 3 year course offers engagement with real-world businesses and real-world issues.
The precursor to KaosPilots was the FrontRunners Network (itself now 15 years old). Both organisations are ‘nested’ in an informal association of businesses which have been established through the actual delivery of the FrontRunners/KaosPilots development programs, generating an ‘organic’ community of like-minded entrepreneurs, living, working and socialising in intersecting circles around the old centre of Aarhus City. Life style, culture and business go together. The KaosPilots train entrepreneurial and internationally oriented students in creative process, project and business design. Students acquire practical and theoretical skills and knowledge to carry out process, project and business design in the arena between arts and business. They gain practical experience from working in an international context and they develop their own social responsibility in relation to society as a whole.
KaosPilots is associated with many global companies such as Ericsson, Ernst & Young, United Shipping Services and Coca Cola. It also has strong affiliations with a number of universities in Europe, the USA and South Africa such as Berkeley and Stanford. KaosPilots also collaborates widely with non-profit organisations through the NGO network.
2.2 The Start-up process Evolution NWB will develop over a three year period, from an initial intensive research and development year to establish the nuts and bolts of the organisation through to a first year of commercial operations in Year 2 and consolidation of the business in Year 3.
The following is a more detailed look at key developments in Years 1 to 3.
Year 1 Intensive R&D • Initial seed funding for product • Pilot project funding by 2-3
companies • Development of core staff team • Development of core products • In-house and third party
products and relationships • Consolidation of international
links • Secure a shopfront location in
Fortitude Valley (office space and access to meeting space)
• Break-even scenario
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Year 2 Doors open for business
• Doors open for business • 5 real business ideas to commence development
• Exhibitions and events commence
• Initiate membership package to companies
• Mentorship program initiated • Greater investment from private sector
• Break-even scenario Year 3 Consolidation
of the business • 10 real business ideas to commence development
• Partnership with existing and/or new business (e.g. café) to fund ongoing development of Evolution NWB and reduce dependence on government sector
• Modest profit attained
2.3 Vision The vision for Evolution NWB is: A unique enterprise development platform and regime, internationally renowned for its vibrant, convivial entrepreneurial culture and its capacity to produce highly innovative, values-based and sustainable companies. The business will incorporate an embedded and pervasive set of values (see 2.5 Values, below)
2.4 Purpose The purpose of Evolution NWB is to address a current gap in fostering creative entrepreneurship and new business development in Queensland. The continued high rate of small business failure and Australia’s lack of entrepreneurial capacity (as previously described) indicates that a change in the entrepreneurial culture and the creation of new businesses in Australia is needed.
It will address the above gaps and shortfalls in current business development programs by augmenting baseline business competencies with values of creativity, leadership and self actualisation, largely missing from conventional business development pathways (e.g. MBA programs, incubators) and in this way optimise the capability of the entrepreneur at the heart of the new business. Similarly, it supports the business from its earliest ideas and conception through to investment readiness and operation.
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Overall outcomes of Evolution NWB will be:
• The creation of new innovative enterprises • A highly skilled talent pool of entrepreneurs • A new entrepreneurial culture in Queensland which supports the
Smart State image • International links with like-minded organisations (private sector
and universities)
Specific outcomes for each year include:
OUTCOMES (KPI’s) YEAR 1 • Development of core products • 2 or 3 pilot projects • A refined, operational business model • Market profile • Strategy for identification of target clients • Identification of potential investors • International links consolidated OUTCOMES (KPI’s) YEAR 2 • 5 strategically significant new businesses covering the following
areas: � International � Indigenous � Regional � Creative industries sectors � Old economy � New economy
• 300 people attending Evolution NWB events • 5,000 unique hits/week on website • Membership of 50 • International/higher education business scoped (e.g. MOU, fee
paying foreign students, staff exchange, staff upskilling) OUTCOMES (KPI’s) YEAR 3 • 10 strategically significant new businesses • Ancillary products launched • 300 attending Evolution NWB events • 10,000 unique hits/week on website • Membership of 100 • Partnership with existing business (café, club etc) to create move
to self-sustainability of Evolution NWB in Year 4.
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2.5 Values
Evolution NWB will be built on a set of values (which constitute the organisational DNA). These values will govern the way the organisation will operate and dictate who the organisation will do business with. The following values have been selected for Evolution NWB:
• Grounded in industry and market place, focus on creativity • Ethical, compassionate • Playful, streetwise, convivial • Pragmatic, outcome oriented, sustainable • Reflexive, critical • Globally oriented, locally grounded
2.6 Corporate Objectives
• To produce new, innovative, sustainable values-based businesses • To create a new entrepreneurial culture in Queensland • To be a self-sustaining business after 3 years • To create a ‘community’ of entrepreneurs who are committed to
this new way of doing business • To work with companies who hold or believe in similar values to
Evolution NWB • To build an international network of like-minded organisations such
as with the KaosPilots in Denmark, Touchstone (South Africa), A University Consortium (QUT, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban Technikon, Aarhus Business School, University of Oslo, Ahmedabad-based institutions, India), Bodyshop franchises (International), Zuni Icosahedron (Hong Kong) and the Chaordic Commons (USA)
2.7 Competitive Advantage • Evolution NWB offers business development opportunities that do
not exist anywhere in Australia or overseas (it is unique) • It is a ‘total package’ for new business development which will
commercialise an idea through to market • The organisation offers opportunities for those entrepreneurs who
might otherwise fall through the cracks • Evolution NWB offers an alternative approach to traditional
university-based, structured training which many entrepreneurs dislike
• It is a value based approach, which has a strong commitment to social as well as economic outcomes
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There appears to be no business development model like that proposed for Evolution NWB. There are many programs which assist the creation of new businesses from providing business planning advice to marketing plans, capital raising and so on, but there are none which actually tailor a complete package for the creation of a new business from an idea to the marketplace, with emphasis on the affective needs and potentials of the entrepreneur.
2.8 Selection Criteria for new enterprise development Innovative entrepreneurs and innovative businesses create wealth and break ground commercially, socially and culturally. The affective aims of the program are constantly reinforced in an environment of conviviality, mutual support, collegiality and inspiration.
Selection of participants is a critical matter for Evolution NWB, and will be a key concern of the Year 1 R&D process. The selection of participants and their business ideas will be guided by existing criteria used by venture capitalists (see below) and also alignment with the Organisational DNA of Evolution NWB. Criteria might include:
• Compelling idea for a product or service • Value proposition • Market size and competitiveness • Entrepreneurial personality and mindset • Business development capacity (commitment to project, track
record etc)
2.9 Key Success Factors In order for Evolution NWB to succeed the following factors will be critical: • Initial seed funding (from government/university) • Financial and/or in-kind support from the corporate sector • A space/shopfront that reflects the look and feel of Evolution NWB • High conversion rate of ideas into new businesses trading or ready
for investment (80%) • Strong brand • Establishment of international linkages to enhance export potential
2.10 Tracking new enterprises A performance monitoring system will be developed in year 1 to track the success of businesses that develop through Evolution NWB. Criteria that will be tracked include:
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• Commercial viability after 3 yrs and 5 yrs • Commercial projections: employees, turnover, productivity • ‘Win-win-win’: Social and cultural contribution • Multipliers, diversification and/or spin-off business, incl. value-add
to EWB activities • Connectivity: clustering and networks, global reach
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3. The Product
3.1 Background
The Evolution NWB process is organic, experiential and informal, though formal education and training experiences are available to participants. The process itself is reflexive and mutable, adapting constantly to changes in its internal environment (the company, its staff, partners, associates and networks) and its external environment (markets, society, culture, location).
Each participant engages with the Department of Evolution in their own way, according to their own challenges and potentials and the needs and the scope of their business idea, their project. Projects are located and developed in real time in the real world, and in relation to a pervasive set of values. Consequently, each participant’s pathway through the process is unique and mutates as each project evolves, ‘back-resourcing’ on the fly to the resources and experiences which will optimise its chances for initial success and ongoing sustainability. For example, one participant may grow to see the need of supplementing a negotiated course in financial planning with courseware in accountancy; another participant may recognise the need to supplement a personal development program with a martial arts regime.
To operate in this fluid yet pragmatic, outcome-oriented environment, participants and Evolution NWB require more than skills, or competence. While these are foundational, the Department of Evolution provides for the exchange of focused qualitative knowledge across a broad spectrum of interests and contexts. This yields an enhanced capability – the capacity for strategic and tactical thought and planning, the capacity for dealing with change in complex systems, and the capacity for investing their work (and their companies) with qualities of social responsibility and ethical practice.
For these reasons there can be no set ‘curriculum’ at Evolution NWB, but it is possible to map the process to a notional year of participation, where each project and each participant evolves high-order capability specific to their needs and potentials.
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3.2 Product Offerings
3.2.1 Core Products
The core product offerings of Evolution NWB have been developed based on an assumption that for innovative entrepreneurship to flourish, and for the generation of new creative enterprise, COMPETENCE is not enough. It needs to be augmented by certain kinds of KNOWLEDGE and understanding. When this happens it becomes CAPABILITY6. Capability is enhanced, challenged and optimised through INTERACTIONS across disciplines, populations and markets in real-world ‘laboratories’ of different kinds, and most particularly in the field, in outcome-oriented PROJECT work.
Competence
Knowledge
Capacity
Interaction
Project
Figure: Project- and Interaction-Based Capability Development
6 Capability can be understood here as the exercise of creative skills, the competence to undertake and complete tasks and the ability to cope with everyday life; and also doing all these things in cooperation with others. (The Capability Manifesto, see text box above). It can also be related to the concept of affordance first discussed by the ecological psychologist J.J. Gibson, referring to the actionable properties between the world and an actor [Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. E. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Also ref. Norman, D. A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books]
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Core product delivery is negotiated with each participant through a process described below and illustrated in Appendix A: It’s Personal – Individual Pathways. This process begins with a rigorous inaugural ‘boot camp’ leading to 11 months of intensive personal, professional and business development, and resulting in a new, investment-ready company.
While each negotiates his/her individual pathway, Evolution EWB operates within a collective set of values (its Organisational DNA) emphasizing conviviality, generosity of spirit and teamwork
3.2.2 Ancillary Products Beyond Evolution NWB’s core focus on innovative entrepreneurs, other customers and partners may interact with the business through one-off (e.g. seminar, event) or short-term (e.g. course or program) experiences, such interactions enriching its core process and providing the potential for further commercial and social-cultural work. This is envisaged as a profit centre for the business coming online in Year 3. The opportunities for ancillary product development could be represented this way:
PRODUCTS
Competence
Knowledge Capability
Business* Business Skills Business Knowledge Sustainability
Clinics Interaction Innovation Systems, Planning, Mgt Business Design
Higher Education
Business Skills Personal/Affective Skills
Personal/Affective Knowledge Culture
Clinics Interaction Innovation
MARKETS
(Providers and Consumers)
Government Business Skills Business Knowledge
Clinics Interaction Systems, Planning, Mgt
** Private companies, NFP and NGO, incl. ‘creative industries’, ‘arts’ and ‘community’ The focus for ancillary business products is: • Business, Higher Education, Government • Alternative Pathways – ‘Stand-Alone’ Products (e.g. Seminars), Grouped
Products (Courses, Series, Program
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3.3 Product Development Year 1 will be an intensive research and development period to establish the nuts and bolts of the organisation including the brokerage of courseware providers, mentors, coaches and staff, regional and international networks, relationships with key stakeholders, marketing and brand development, capitalisation and issues of location.
In Year 2 Evolution NWB will begin limited commercial operations, facilitate the start of up to 5 new businesses using core products and services, inaugurate a program of events open to stakeholders and the public, and create a membership-based ‘Inspiration Lounge’.
In Year 3 Evolution NWB will move to a home base (preferably shared with a companion business such as a club or coffee shop), consolidate its core business, facilitate the startup of 10 new businesses, launch a range of ancillary products, continue its events and ‘Inspiration Lounge’ program, and begin to trade for profit.
The Evolution NWB approach is characterised by rigorous self-reflection. As its name implies, the organisation itself aims for capability – the capacity to self-organise and evolve as a whole system – sometimes very quickly – to optimise its relevance and sustainability. For this reason, Budget allocations allow for ongoing critical conversation, including a regular ‘interactions’ stream discussion and feedback, and also high-level annual seminars suitable for both business and academic participants.
3.4 Competing Products It could be argued that elements of the Evolution NWB concept are provided variously by: • Private, executive style business management courses
e.g. Achaeus, FastTrac (Kauffman courseware) • Public business courses
e.g. QUT - Master and Graduate Diploma of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, GU - Bachelor of Enterprise Management, Graduate Certificate in Entrepreneurship and Venture Development. • Incubators & Commercialisers
e.g. Metro Arts, iLab, Artsync, Sunshine Coast Innovation Centre, regional enterprise centres, ACID, CIP
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However, it can also be argued that Evolution NWB’s orientation as a broker, catalyst and connector, and especially its emphasis on the personal and affective dimensions of entrepreneurship, place it outside direct competition with these. It is in the company’s interest, in fact, to create a range of relationships – including direct commercial arrangements for service provision – among these providers.
3.5 Future Developments The ‘evolution’ concept refers not only to the process of evolving new businesses but also to its own commitment to self-reflection and responsiveness. This will see the business changing (at varying rates) to meet the needs and potentials of its participants and customers, and internal and external environments. Beyond the three years planned here, Evolution NWB will to develop its core and ancillary products, with a view to: • In-house provision (eg short courses) • Further higher education linkages (eg at undergraduate level) • Secondary education (incl. school to work) • Export, esp. Asia Pacific • Online broadband exchange It is envisioned that ‘graduating’ businesses will in themselves add value to the Evolution NWB network, multiplying and enriching real world opportunities for subsequent cohorts. This will take place in a market for services focussed on entrepreneurship which is substantial and expanding.
Both the [US] demand for and the supply of entrepreneurship faculty have increased spectacularly during the last nine years. Between 1989/90 and 1997/98 the number of entrepreneurship positions increased 253% while the number of candidates increased by 94%.7
3.5.1 The Role Of International Networks And Partnerships (Frequent Flyer Model)
A critical competitive advantage of the Evolution NWB scenario is its access to and active collaboration with an international network, notionally including:
• The KaosPilots (Denmark) • Westerdals (Norway) • Touchstone (South Africa) • University Consortium (QUT, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban
Technikon, Aarhus Business School, Ahmedabad-based providers, India)
• Zuni Icosahedron and Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture (Hong Kong)
• Chaordic Commons and Berkana Institute (USA)
7 Finkle, Todd A. and Deeds, David, Trends In The Market For Entrepreneurship Faculty, 1989–1998, Journal Of Business Venturing 16, 613–630
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In this scenario, a ‘frequent flier points’ system may be inaugurated, where business initiatives of various kinds potentially and congruently yield internationally-recognised accreditation among participating providers, such that a Evolution NWB project may generate locally-based business activity and simultaneously yield (where this is desired) formal qualifications at postgraduate level. At the same time, this activity value-adds to local enterprises through export potentials.
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4. The Market
4.1 Market Size and Growth There are numerous courses and programs in Australia, both public and private that are concerned with entrepreneurship and better business management. An audit of these programs by DSDI and Arts Queensland in shown in Appendices B and C. Similar audits have been performed by other organisations such as The Australian Institute for Commercialisation (AIC) and they reveal similar findings. The majority of these programs focus on generic business management skills rather than on development of typical entrepreneurial traits and or the creation of new innovative businesses. There are also many international players who provide entrepreneurs with both general and industry specific business advice and support. Aside from the KaosPilots, already described, we note generic providers operating in the social-cultural domain, such as the Kauffman Foundation in the USA (http://www.emkf.org). Kauffman is one of the largest providers of entrepreneurship courses, with about $1.8 billion worth of assets. Another is The Scottish Enterprise Group (http://www.scottish-enterprise.com/), which provides business management advice and mentoring for start-up businesses. Industry specific organisations developing entrepreneurship and business design pathways include innovative European companies like Westerdals (http://www.westerdals.no/), a college specifically focused on the design sector, and in the Asia Pacific Region, Zuni Icosahedron (http://www.zuni.org.hk/), a cultural collective based in multimedia and theatre performance. There has always been a market for entrepreneurship development and there will always be a need to sustain and grow this market, especially in light of a global political and economic climate that increases the risk and uncertainty of new ventures. The 2002 GEM Report finds that Australia needs to develop its entrepreneurial capacity (skills, motivation and culture) to produce a reliable and robust entrepreneurial culture. The report states that ‘managerial capacity – administering what already exists – will not suffice’8. The substantial and growing value of creative industries, reflected in research and policy at both QUT and DSD, creates opportunities for innovative, cross-sectoral applications of ‘generic’ creativity, and for non-traditional learning and development environments for entrepreneurs. This relates directly to the debate in higher education on generic skills: The term 'generic skills' is widely used to refer to a range of qualities
and capacities that are increasingly viewed as important in higher
education. These include thinking skills such as logical and analytical
reasoning, problem solving and, intellectual curiosity; effective
communication skills, teamwork skills, and capacities to identify,
8 Hindle, Kevin, and Rushworth, Susan (2002): p.3
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access and manage knowledge and information; personal attributes such as imagination, creativity and intellectual rigour; and values such
as ethical practice, persistence, integrity and tolerance.9
4.2 Customers
There are a number of customers of Evolution NWB who include: • Entrepreneurial Innovators – These individuals receive an
Entrepreneurial profile, skills, experience, teams, networks, coaching, collegiality and a complete tailored package for development of their business.
The profile of the entrepreneurial innovators is likely to be people who have the following characteristics typical of entrepreneurs: • A Motivation to succeed • The habit of hard work. • Nonconformity • Strong leadership • Street smarts There are entrepreneurs looking for an alternative environment to develop their creativity. They dislike formal education and training systems and are looking for more flexibility in their business endeavours. These individuals are more likely to be in their 20’s or 30’s, but could also be older and at a stage where they are wanting to make a career change and/or retirees who now have time to develop their ideas into tangible business projects. • Private business – These businesses get cost efficient access to
international ideas and knowledge trading and exchange, R&D services, business design, change management, risk analysis, HR development, new projects and product/service concepts, international links, export pathways
• Higher Education – This sector benefits from cross-accreditation
of courseware, new courseware, scholarships, professional exchanges, project partnerships, collaborative research, innovative pathways to commercialisation of research IP, international links
• Government- may also play a role as a provider, partner, and/or
market in its own right.
4.3 Competitors The major competitors in Australia are private providers of entrepreneurial and business management programs and universities as outlined above and shown in Appendices B and C. In most universities, courses or modules on ’entrepreneurship’ and ’innovation’
9 Hager, Paul; Holland, Susan; and Beckett, David (2002), Enhancing the Learning and Employability of Graduates: The Role of Generic Skills, Position Paper prepared for the Business/Higher Education Round Table, Melbourne
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are offered as part of wider programs, primarily through business/economics faculties and schools. In Brisbane, specific competitors might include companies such as Achaeus and FastTrac that offer executive style business management courses. They do cover elements of entrepreneurship within these courses. The universities offer more structured, theoretically based programs. For example, QUT offers a Master and Graduate Diploma of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Similarly, Griffith University offers a Bachelor of Enterprise Management and a Graduate certificate in Entrepreneurship and Venture Development.
It is important to note that it is likely that some of these competitors will become providers of courseware to Evolution NWB. The company philosophy is about utilising what already exists in respect of courseware and personnel and packaging that into a new innovative offering to entrepreneurs.
Incubator programs could also be seen as competitive to Evolution NWB, but they differ in the fact that companies are more established when entering an incubator and are resident in it. In Evolution NWB, businesses will be physically created outside of the premises and are part of a cultural environment which is based on an Organisational DNA designed to inspire creativity, collegiality and a strong sense of social and economic responsibility. International organisations can also be viewed as potential competitors but in some instances may also become partners as international linkages and projects develop. (The Kauffman Foundation is one of the largest providers of courses, materials and tools for entrepreneurs. The Scottish Enterprise Group has an interactive business development process that provides assistance to emerging companies). These potential competitors are largely focused on core business management skills rather than entrepreneurship development, and incubators are usually located in a specific industry sector.
4.4 Marketing & Promotion An innovative marketing strategy is integral to the success of Evolution NWB and the development of the brand. It is proposed that a Marketing Manager be appointed in the first year to develop this strategy and begin to target potential customers. It is anticipated that a high degree of market recognition will be achieved, similar to that of the KaosPilots in Europe due to outside the dots thinking and the innovative quality of its products. A sophisticated database-structured web site will be developed in Year 1, designed to afford ‘bolt-on’ modules and functionality as the business evolves. Currently Evolution New World Business is a working title. This may be subject to change in Year 1 as further development and market testing occurs.
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5. Operations
5.1 Location of business
Evolution NWB will operate from a shopfront location, at street level, in Fortitude Valley. This is necessary to ensure that the organisation remains ‘in tune’ with creative communities and outsider discourses and changing political and cultural agendas (note one element of the organisational DNA is ‘streetwise’)
5.2 Staff/skill requirements Year 1 requirements: • A full-time Project Director • A part-time Project Manager • Part-time Marketing Manager (6 months) Year 2 requirements:
• A full-time Project Director • A part-time Project Manager • Part-time Marketing Manager (full year) • Administrative support (full-time) Year 3 requirements:
• A full-time Project Director • A full-time Project Manager • Part-time Marketing Manager (full year) • Administrative support (full-time) • Project Coaches (1.5 positions @ full-time)
5.3 Set-up costs In the first two years, Evolution NWB will be based in a secretariat with additional rented space as required for meetings and events. By Year 3, it will be necessary to move into a more permanent large-scale home. The set-up costs over these three years are outlined in detail in the Budget (Section 9).
5.4 Fees
Evolution NWB is a user-pay system. Up to 3 pilot projects will take place in Year 1, the costs of which will be subsidised by corporate or
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public sponsors. From year 2 onwards, a fee of $10,000 will be payable for a complete, tailored package for the development of a new business over a 12 month period. It is anticipated there will be a mix of full-fee-paying participants as well as private and public subsidy of places.
A lack of financial resources by individuals should not exclude their participation in Evolution NWB. In Year 1, Evolution NWB will explore the possibility of scholarships, secondments and other private sector sponsorship.
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6. Management
6.1 Organisational Structure Initially, Evolution NWB will be governed through negotiation between DSDI and QUT as key stakeholders. Beyond that the vision is for a not for profit company with QUT and private partners as foundation investors.
6.2 SWOT Analysis Strengths • New style of
entrepreneurship • New enterprise development • Creative and Innovative • Backed by government and
universities • Unique • Balance between economic
and social responsibility
Weaknesses • Organisation unknown (no
brand recognition) • Dependent on government,
university funding initially
Opportunities • Create new innovative
businesses and new jobs • Capture more entrepreneurs
who dislike traditional training systems
• Support Smart State image for Queensland
Threats • Won’t be viewed as different to
other entrepreneur courseware • Program will be too expensive • Program won’t attract
corporates • Spirit and attitude we are
seeking won’t be realised
6.3 Key Staff Key staff appointments to be made in Years 1 to 3 are: • Project Director • Project Manager • Marketing Manager • Administrative support • Project Coaches
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6.4 External Consultants The majority of personnel used (‘brokered’) in the Evolution NWB program will be external consultants. These will cover the following areas:
• Accountants and financial advisors
• Teaching, exchange, mentoring in various disciplines such as:
o Business and financial management o Startup Issues: commercialisation, capitalisation,
intellectual property, venture finance, risk analysis, HR o Indigenous Knowledge Systems o Culture, society, political economics o Process and project design o Personal development, creativity, leadership,
entrepreneurship These consultants will be sourced from a variety of public and private organisations including accounting and consultancy firms, universities, legal practices, design, marketing and distribution firms. All consultants will be inducted into Evolution NWB through a one day training program which will familiarise them with the Organisational DNA and operations of the business. It is anticipated that stakeholders and partners will also contribute in kind through the contribution of consultation, mentoring and coaching hours, and in Year 1 great effort will be put into identifying and networking these partners, particularly those in the private sector.
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7. Implementation
7.1 Timetable
The timeline for implementation of Evolution NWB is shown in the chart below. Key milestones are also indicated. Assuming initial seed funding can be secured from DSDI and QUT, work can commence on developing Evolution NWB in June-July 2004.
1
2
3
Activity J A S OND J F MA MJ J A S O ND J F MA MJ J A S O ND J F MA MJ
Secure seed funding (DSDI, QUT)
1A
1B
1C
Find office space
Core Product development
2A
Recruit Evolution staff
Recruit consultants/contractors
Secure private projects/investors
3A
3B
3C
Attract entrepreneurs to program (individuals, own projects)
4A 4
B 4
C
Secure sponsorship (International seminar)
Hold 6 exhibitions/events
5A
5B
Ancillary product development
6A
Build membership
7A
7B
New business partner (café, bar)
8A
Milestones: 1A – Yr 1 Seed Funding; 1B – Yr 2 Seed Funding; 1C – Yr 3 Seed Funding; 2A – Core Product set for delivery; 3A – 2-3 Pilot Projects delivered; 3B – Yr 2 Investment Target Achieved; 3C – Yr 3 Investment Target Achieved; 4A – 2-3 New Businesses; 4B – 5 New Businesses; 4C - 10 New Businesses; 5A – 300 Attendees; 5B – 300 Attendees; 6A – Products market-ready; 7A – 50 Members; 7B – 100 Members; 8A – Partnership secured
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8. Finance
8.1 Finance requirements Initial seed funding from the Department of State Development and Innovation and Queensland University of Technology is required to develop Evolution NWB and to enable it to operate as a business in year 2 and 3. Some private sector funding will also be sought in respect of project sponsorship and/or in kind support with teaching or mentoring.
8.2 Sources of finance While initial seed funding will be sought from government and the universities, a range of other public and private providers will also be approached during the first 12 months. These include: • Other government departments • Other universities • Industry groups and associations, foundations (e.g. Australian
Industry Group, Foundation for Young Australians) • Private companies like Bodyshop, Filtronics, accounting firms such as
Ernst & Young) • Banks re loan for cafe/night club business in year 3
8.3 Assumptions Year 1: “R&D” year to establish the business • DSDI and QUT seed funding of $220k ($110k each) • A total of $50,000 from the private sector for 2-3 projects • A suitable office space in Fortitude Valley • Sponsorship of $15k to be found for an international seminar to
consolidate internal linkages and explore future global projects Year 2: “Doors open for business” • 5 projects will be ready for development through Evolution NWB • Participants will pay $5k each for 12 months of business development • Seed funding from DSDI ($100k) and QUT ($116.5k) is available • In-kind support from the private sector for mentoring & lectures
($200k) • $50k will be provided through private sector projects • Evolution NWB will attract 50 ‘Inspiration Lounge’ Members
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• 6 promotional events will be held and attract 50 people per event • Sponsorship of $7.5k to be found for an international seminar to
consolidate internal linkages and explore future global projects Year 3: “Consolidate business” • 10 projects will be ready for development through Evolution NWB • Participants will pay $10k each for 12 months of business
development • Seed funding from DSDI ($50k) and QUT ($150k) is available • In-kind support from the private sector for mentoring & lectures
($240k) • A $250k will be provided through private sector sponsorships • Evolution NWB will attract 100 ‘Inspiration Lounge’ Members • Two ancillary products (short courses) will be available and attract 40
participants • 6 promotional events will be held and attract 50 people per event • A partnership with another business or a new business (e.g. a café,
bar, club) will be established to support Evolution NWB as it moves to self-sustainability in year 4
• Sponsorship of $15k to be found for an international seminar to consolidate internal linkages and explore future global projects
Salaries and Fees Estimates of salaries and fees include a loading of approximately 30% for superannuation, administration and related costs.
8.4 Financial projections
A three year budget for Evolution NWB follows. It proposes a break-even scenario in Years 1 and 2 moving to a small profit in Year 3. It is considered that a realistic cash flow estimate beyond Year 1 cannot be made at this point, however this will be an aim and product of the first 12 month ‘R&D’ period. Assumptions are described in more detail in the budget as well as summarised above.
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BUDGET 2004-5
Income Detail No. Of items $/item Total cost
Government contribution $110,000 QUT contribution $110,000 Product development Private contribution for
product development 1 or 2 corporate contributors
$50,000
Pilot projects Private & public funded 2 or 3 $50,000 Sponsorship - international seminar
$15,000
Total income $335,000
Expenses Detail No. of items $/item Total cost
Project Director $110,000 Project Manager Part-time initially $50,000 Marketing manager 2 days/wk (second half of
year only) $10,000
Rent Assume a space in the valley -
25sqm 400/sqm/pa $10,000
Computer/printer/fax $5,000 Software $5,000 Promotional material/marketing
$20,000
Photocopier $5,000 Stationery $4,000 Telephone/internet $3,000 Fit out costs Furniture and fit out $10,000 Audio visuals Data projector $8,000
Screen $500 Overhead $750 Video $3,000 Digital camera $2,000
Contract consultants Financial planning & product development
2 $10,000 $20,000
Staff training Training for coaches/mentors - 1 day course for 15 people @ $150/hd (lecturers, staff as well)
15 $150 $2,250
Travel (Regional, national, international)
$20,000
International seminar High level meeting to discuss : establish international network (higher ed + international partnerships) value add organisational DNA
$ 30,000
Business establishment & operations (legals, audit, accounts)
$ 12,000
Total expenses $330,500
Profit/(Loss) $4,500
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BUDGET 2005-6
Income Detail No. of items $/item Total cost
Projects 5 participants to create businesses 5 $5,000 $25,000
Government contribution (project manager + admin support + cash) $100,000
QUT contribution (project director) $116,500
Merchandise (T-shirts & caps) Sell 100 pieces of merchandise per
year at an average price of $25
100 $25 $2,500
Exhibitions/events (monthly) 6 events with 50 people at $25/hd
drinks nights, themed nights etc
300 $25 $7,500
Membership/inspirational lounge Members pack - receive
newsletter,networking functions etc
- assume 50 members @ $100
50 $100 $5,000
Mentorship, lecturing fees In-kind (e.g. Ernst & Young, Achaeus,
FastTrac, Bodyshop, Filtronics, E:NWB
staff & associates)1000hrs (per annum
between 5 companies) over 40 weeks @
$200/hr
1000 $200 $200,000
Sponsorship, Evaluation seminar Evaluate and develop international network
and organisational DNA
$7,500
Public and private investors (for projects/new businesses) e.g.DET, Bodyshop, Filtronics, Westpac,
Virgin, Ernst & Young
5 $10,000 $50,000
Total income $514,000
Expenses Detail No. of items $/item Total cost
Project Director $116,500
Project Manager Part-time initially $52,500
Marketing Manager 2 days/wk (full year) $26,000
Administrative support Full-time $42,000
Rent + additional space for training/interaction Assume a space in the valley 50 400/sqm/pa $20,000
Computer/printer/fax 1 new computer $2,500
Promotional material/marketing $50,000
Photocopier $5,000
Stationery/printing $4,000
Merchandise 500 pieces @$15 500 $15 $7,500
Telephone/internet $3,000
Exhibitions/events (monthly) 6 events with 50 people at $25/hd
drinks nights, themed nights etc
300 $15 $4,500
Membership/inspirational lounge Members pack - receive
newsletter,networking functions etc
- assume 50 members @ $100
50 $100 $5,000
Mentorship, lecturing fees Provided by E:NWB 625 $200 $125,000
Staff training Training for coaches/mentors -
1 day course for 20 people @ $150/hd
(lecturers, staff as well)
20 $150 $3,000
Boot camp 2 X 2 days intensive introduction and
negotiation of E:NWB program - 10 people
@ $750/hd
10 750 $7,500
Travel (Regional, national, international) $20,000
Evaluation seminar Evaluate and develop international network
and organisational DNA
$10,000
Contingency ( e.g. workshop materials, documentation,
bandwidth)
$5,000
Business operations (legals, audit, accounts) $5,000
Total expenses $514,000
Profit/(Loss) $0
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BUDGET 2006-7
Income Detail No. of items $/item Total cost
Projects 15 participants to create businesses 10 $10,000 $100,000
Government contribution (cash) $50,000
QUT contribution (project director salary + cash) $150,000
Short courses/programs
combination of new courseware + use of existing providers
Introduce 2 new shorter courses -
assume 40 participants @ $500
40 $500 $20,000
Merchandise (T-shirts & caps) Sell 100 pieces of merchandise
year at an average price of $25
100 $25 $2,500
Exhibitions/events (monthly) 6 events with 50 people at $30/hd
drinks nights, themed nights etc
300 $30 $9,000
Café/bar/club Operational in Yr 3 - loan secured
independently - assume net profit of
$15,000
$15,000
Membership Members pack - receive
newsletter,networking functions etc
- assume 100 members in Yr3 @ $100
100 $100 $10,000
Flagship International project 1 international contracted project
initiated - assume net profit $50,000
$50,000
Mentorship, lecturing fees In-kind (e.g. Ernst & Young, Achaeus,
FastTrac, Bodyshop, Filtronics, E:NWB
staff & associates)
1200hrs (per annum between 5
companies) over 40 weeks @ $200/hr
1200 $200 $240,000
Sponsorship, Development seminar Maintain and develop international
network and organisational DNA
$15,000
Public and private investors (for projects/new businesses) e.g.DET, Bodyshop, Filtronics,
Westpac, Virgin, Ernst & Young
5 $50,000 $250,000
Total income $911,500
Expenses Detail No. of items $/item Total cost
Project Director $118,325
Project Manager Full time $91,875
Marketing Manager 2 days/wk (full year) $28,000
Administrative support Full-time $44,125
Project coaches 1.5 x full time @ $91,875 1.5 $91,875 $137,813
Computer/printer/fax 2 new computers 2 $2,500 $5,000
Photocopier $5,000
Stationery/printing $4,000
Merchandise $0
Telephone/internet $3,000
Rent + additional space for training/interaction Assume a space in the valley (150 sqm
@ $450/sqm - new space)
150 $450 $67,500
Fit out costs New homebase fit out including
furniture, interior design, equipment etc
$120,000
Exhibitions/events (monthly) 6 events with 50 people at $15/hd
drinks nights, themed nights etc
300 $15 $4,500
Membership/inspirational lounge Members pack - receive
newsletter,networking functions etc
- assume 100 members @ $100
100 $100 $10,000
Mentorship, lecturing fees Provided by E:NWB (900 hrs @$200/hr) 900 $200 $180,000
Staff training Training for coaches/mentors -
1 day course for 20 people @ $150/hd
(lecturers, staff as well)
20 $150 $3,000
Boot camp 2 X 2 days intensive introduction and
negotiation of E:NWB program - 15
people @ $750/hd
15 750 $11,250
Travel (Regional, national, international) $30,000
International seminar Maintain and develop international
network and organisational DNA
$25,000
Contingency ( e.g. workshop materials, documentation,
bandwidth)
$15,000
Business operations (legals, audit, accounts) $7,000
Total expenses $910,388
Profit/(Loss) $1,113
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9. Appendices
A. It’s Personal: Individual Pathways
B. List of Entrepreneur Programs in Australia
(DSDI)
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A. It’s Personal: Individual Pathways
Each participant in Evolution NWB negotiates their own pathway to achieving their new business. These two examples map the way we imagine this might take place.
JANE’S PATHWAY Jane is a textile scientist who has invented a new micro-light wool blend fabric with good potential in the fashion industry. Her mentors, sourced from the Industrial Design and Fashion disciplines at QUT, are extremely important in the early stages, guiding her to advice on IP issues and introducing her to a business coach who advises on capitalisation of her business. In response to market indications, she finds she has to rework her invention to make it more attractive to the fashion textiles market in particular, so a concerted period of product development accompanies the final push for capitalisation. She establishes a strong rapport with her fashion mentor, and decides to enroll in a Bachelor’s course in Fashion part-time to stay in touch with industry trends. Meantime, through process drama contacts she made during an early introduction to Improvisation, she decides to develop a practice in Buddhist meditation as an aid to creative thinking and stress management.
M = Mentor
NEWBUSINESSBOOT CAMP
PROJECT: Real world business planning, modelling, testing, risk analysis etc
EVENT EVENT EVENT
IMPROVISATION
JANE'S PATHWAY
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
IP PROTECTION PATENTING
VC PRESENTATION
M M M M
CAPITALISATION
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT/MOTIVATIONAL PROGRAM (MEDITATION)
LEGAL CONSULT LEGAL CONSULT
COURSEWARE -FASHION
COACHING
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JOHN’S PATHWAY John is a computer geek who has invented a games engine considerably faster and cheaper than its potential competitors, but which has no commercial application which demonstrates this. He has never thought of himself as a business person, and realises, in conversation with his mentor, that he needs a lot of self development in the ‘hard end’ of business, particularly financial management, so he enrolls in formal courses at QUT (where these can incidentally be credited towards postgraduate awards further down the track). He continues his years-long participation in an online gaming community, relating his experience there to Evolution sessions on critical thinking and problem-solving, and also developing an online version of his games engine suitable for distribution to his gaming colleagues as beta-test freeware. At an early Evolution event he meets a martial arts teacher who eventually becomes a second mentor, and later on a business partner, as the freeware games engine, which has been eagerly accepted by the online gaming community, creates a tentative market for martial-arts-based games using tangible user interfaces. With his new partner, he further develops his product to include not only the software and its applications but also hardware suitable for the new interface (e.g. 3D goggles, force-feedback gloves and shoes). At this stage, his original mentor advises him on formal study options for the future, either based in Brisbane or with one of QUT’s international partners.
M = Mentor
NEWBUSINESSBOOT CAMP
PROJECT: Real world business planning, modelling, testing, risk analysis etc
FORMALACCRED.(Grad Dip,Postgrad
etc)
EVENT EVENT EVENT EVENT
COURSEWARE - FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
COURSEWARE - ACCOUNTING
IMPROVISATION
M M MM M
MARTIAL ART
CRITICAL THINKING/PROBLEM SOLVING (ONLINE STRATEGY GAME)
M2 M2
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
SERVICE DEVELOPMENT
PARTNERSHIP
JOHN'S PATHWAY
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B List of Entrepreneur Programs in Australia
Organisation Name of program Activities Achaeus Various Part-time courses cover
business/management topics e.g. marketing, finance, business plans etc – emphasis on strategic and business planning
Adelaide University
EIA Program (Electronics Industry Association)
Short courses in entrepreneurship & innovation
Enterprise Education Group (EEG)
Offers programs in business enterprise – management based - can do individual subjects, short courses seminars & workshops
Graduate Entrepreneurial Program (GEP)
Different options – but can involve either scholarship or bursary support and office accommodation in business incubator environment for 12 months to develop idea as part of university program.
GILES ***(Graduate Industry Linked Entrepreneurial Scheme)
12 month program - graduate obtains a Graduate Diploma in Business Enterprise – focus on areas such as: product development, strategic & business planning – it is industry sponsored – 80% of time on project – largely based in company
Australian Graduate School of Engineering Innovation (AGSEI) – joint initiative of Uni of Syd & UTS
Various postgrad & exec short courses in business processes, innovation etc
AGSEI works with organisations to help in their quest to achieve 'best practice' by developing the management and business capabilities of their people
FastTrac Various Executive style courses
Business management, leadership, CEO specific courses.
Griffith University
Bachelor of Enterprise Management degree
QUT QUT Entrepreneur Offers resources, networks, seminars etc for members
Master of Entrepreneurship & innovation (also have graduate certificates/diplomas)
Emphasis on how to commercialise a new technology or business idea –coursework focuses in the field of the new technology that a student wishes to commercialise. Students may enter the program with a new technology in mind, or alternatively they might select a technology to commercialise as they proceed through the program.
RMIT Various from graduate certificate to masters in innovation & service management
Can do single subjects on the entrepreneur process & innovation – coursework
Shell Supported by Rotary Clubs, State governments
Shell LiveWire 12 week program for 18-28 yr olds to determine feasibility of idea or new business proposition with a view to producing a business plan. Applicants cannot have been operating in own business for more than 12 months.
Swinburne University
Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship (AGSE)
Master of Entrepreneurship & Innovation – see attachment for content of course. Doctor of Philosophy (Entrepreneurship & Innovation)
University of NSW
Master of Commerce (International Business)
Include topics such as “International entrepreneurship & new venture management”
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University of Queensland
Graduate Management Program,
Module on ’Enterprise and Innovation’
University of South Australia
FastTrac *** (based on US FastTrac program) – sponsored by SA gov’t
Assists entrepreneurs to turn innovation into business reality – offers short courses to postgrad masters courses – emphasis on skills needed to create, manage & grow successful business
Graduate Certificate in Business (Innovation & Entrepreneurship)
Covers topics such as accounting & finance, marketing, entrepreneurship & new business ventures. Development of business plan.
University of Technology (UTS)
Innovation Degrees In Biotechnology, engineering science, IT, nanotechnology – focus on developing commercialisation skills
University of Queensland
Innovators at UQ As for QUT program
Young Achievement Australia
YAA Business skills YAA Business Alive
Provides programs for secondary & tertiary students for youth at risk, unemployed, for aboriginals & disadvantaged groups – programs are free – understanding of business processes
Overview of university programs
In most universities, courses or modules on ’entrepreneurship’ and ’innovation’ are offered as part of wider programs, primarily through business/economics faculties and schools. The one semester course in ’Entrepreneurship and New Venture Creation’ offered as part of the University of Queensland’s Graduate Management Program, and the course ’Enterprise and Innovation’ available within the University of Technology, Sydney Bachelor of Business (Small and Medium Enterprise management) degree are two amongst numerous examples.
Many universities recognise that there is a growing demand in a range of disciplines for programs providing an entrepreneurial perspective. Particularly fertile areas for this type of cross-disciplinary approach include the social sciences, science and engineering, agriculture and information technology. For example the University of Sydney offers Bachelor of Engineering degrees in various engineering disciplines with a management specialisation that includes units such as ’Innovation and International Competitiveness‘, while the Internet commerce specialty within the University of Wollongong’s Bachelor of Internet Science and Technology offers units such as ’Economics of Electronic Information’ and ’Innovation and Electronic Business’.
At Griffith University, there is a Bachelor of Enterprise Management degree which focuses on innovation in management, strategic and business planning, facilitating and managing change, and optimising the use of technologies. It emphasises the application and development of management skills in the context of small and medium enterprise in a range of industrial, business and service activities. (Information sourced from Management Courses for NSW IT & T Start-Up companies –
Nicholas Clark and Associates – September 2000.)
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Attachment 4
MITEZ META-NETWORK, NORTH QUEENSLAND May 2002 The MITEZ Meta-Network (M2N) project is a major initiative currently in development across the nine local government areas which define a corridor from Mt Isa to Townsville. It demonstrates important ways in which creative industries activity may be integrated in a holistic approach to regional development. MITEZ is a consortium formed in 1995 to ‘to provide a unified voice and strategic advocacy for communities and businesses from the Northern Territory border to Townsville on matters affecting economic, social and environmental sustainability.’ (MITEZ Investment
Guide, 1995) The MITEZ corridor is 1,200 kms long and its nine sub-regions support a population of 202,300 people, 5,500 businesses (80% of which are SME’s) and a Gross Regional Product of $6.5 billion. Day to day management of the network is vested in the Mt Isa Chamber of Commerce, with the Chair currently located in Townsville.
MITEZ MEMBERSHIP
Local
Government Authorities
Queensland Government Departments
Queensland Government
Agencies
Institutions
Organisations
Private Sector
Mount Isa City Cloncurry Shire McKinlay Shire Richmond Shire Flinders Shire Dalrymple Shire Charters Towers City Thuringowa City Townsville City
State Devt Natural Resources and Mines Main Roads
Townsville Port Authority Queensland Rail Ergon Energy
James Cook University
Mount Isa Chamber of Commerce Townsville Chamber of Commerce Townsville Enterprise Work North
BHP Cannington Placer Pacific Osborne Mine Selwyn Mines Limited Mount Isa Mines Western Metals Limited Mount Gordon WMC Fertilisers Phosphate Hill Macair
The M2N Project embraces a holistic understanding of regional communities to include both economic and social-cultural development as integral elements.
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Operationally, the project will establish a powerful ICT architecture, developed in partnership with the LGAQ, to provide in effect a ‘network of networks’. This ‘meta-network’ will enable sophisticated business information and transaction functionality, developing an income stream over an establishment period of three years to provide for its own sustainability. An important model for its commercial functionality – MIRIS, the Mt Isa Regional Information Service – has already been developed under the auspices of Mount Isa Chamber of Commerce and supported by the Department of State Development, Mount Isa City Council, the Work North initiative, mining companies in the region and goods and services providers. During the M2N establishment period a series of nine ‘plug-in’ projects – one in each LGA – will be developed and implemented to complement core economic activity with a set of social-cultural development strategies. Such projects may involve the generation of new creative industries or new employment in existing ones, innovative development partnerships between cultural workers and government and private sector, community web portals, commercial value-adding to regional arts hubs, and networking and training/professional development activities.
Project partners include Unisys, which will contribute ‘Smart Regions’, a purpose-built regional web portal product, as well as web hosting and technical support services, and QUT’s Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre, which will contribute consultation, research and management support for ‘plug-in’ projects. There is also an important strategic partnership with Desert Knowledge, a development project of the Northern Territory’s Office of Territory Development and Alice Springs Town Council.
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The M2N Project is significant as an activity characteristic of what Steve Garlick calls the ‘enterprising region’, a conception which emphasises the need for regions to generate their own economic development dynamic, consistent with local strengths and needs, rather than rely on external modelling or leadership. The ability of regional communities to be ‘enterprising’, where they can create a local environment for investment activity to occur and generate a return (jobs, income, exports, new business growth, etc) where it might not otherwise have done so, now needs to be focused on with more alacrity. (Garlick, 2001: p. 5) Along with the economic focus of this conception, Garlick notes the critical importance of ‘untraded processes’ in the development of enterprising communities. These include: Engaging knowledge and learning Regional leadership Valuing social capital Networks and partnerships External associations (Garlick, 2001: p. 7) It is in this field, the general area of intangible assets as components of the economic and social capital of regional communities, that the creative industries are well placed to engage. Indeed, the development of new models of sustainability has been recently highlighted by Arts Queensland. ‘… the arts and cultural sector in the regions … needs to develop a new level of infrastructure that will meet its specific needs and demands. New collaborative partnerships are needed to facilitate regionally distinctive cultural activity …’ (Arts Qld, 2002: p. 18) A further point of contact with recent policy has to do with the M2N focus on ICTs as enabling tools for the project’s ‘spine’. Arts Qld identifies ‘assistance in knowledge management and information technology uptake’ as a key element of the intent of the draft Regional Cultural Policy currently under consideration. (Arts Qld, 2002: p. 26)
References Arts Qld, Our Collective Capacity: A Regional Cultural Strategy for Queensland (Draft), 2002, unpublished Garlick, Steve, The ‘Enterprising Region’: Policy and Practice, Paper to ANZRSA Conference, Bendigo, 2001, unpublished. MITEZ Investment Guide, 1995
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Attachment 5
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Attachment 6
AN ONLINE COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING TOOLBOX Project Development Workshop: Wednesday 21 August, 1pm – 5pm Venue: QUT Gardens Point Campus, Room B508 (Take ‘B’ Block lift to 5th Floor, turn left, go through Reception – map attached)
Background
This workshop comes about through two conversations. One has been going on between CIRAC and the LGAQ regarding the encouragement of local-level commercial and non-government ‘buy in’ to the current Statewide NTN-funded Connecting Communities project managed by LGAQ (URL noted below). That is, we consider it desirable at LGA level to value-add to infrastructure provided by the project through the provision of a suite of online ‘community capacity building’ tools. The second ‘conversation’ is actually a set of conversations between CIRAC and a number of businesses and organisations which have the potential to contribute to a community capacity building agenda and also the desire to articulate and develop their business online.
Purpose
Development of a self-sustaining online ‘toolbox’ strategy configurable for use by local leaders or community capacity building champions identified through and in cooperation with LGA’s in Queensland.
Description
There’s no real ‘description’ yet. So far, we’ve just been fencing the paddock – setting up a concept, notionally locating its boundaries. So far, these ideas are in the paddock:
1. A set of networked/online ‘associate’ businesses selected for their capacity to build community capacity in an ongoing, sustainable way using processes which stress interpersonal interactions and the mutual (commercial) value of cross-sector collaboration and referral
2. An innovative user interface which allows the ‘mapping’ or
planning by community leaders or local champions of a capacity building strategy suited to local needs and potentials
Q: What does this look like and how does it work? A: We don’t know. The ‘associates’ we think may be interested in this concept (i.e. you) are strong-minded entrepreneurial types with a lot of workable IP who see some opportunity but don’t have a lot of time and
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resources to trial ideas like this. For it to work best, they (you) must have a stake in it themselves, they (you) should ‘own’ the project from its earliest days – that is, from now. And they’re ideas merchants – together they can come up with a killer idea much better than anything we can suggest here …! Q: Isn’t this Just Another Community Portal? A: We hope not. We’d like to think it more closely relates to ideas of ‘communities of use’ or even ‘information ecologies’ (see the reading attached). It may not even be (solely) about screens, keyboards, mice etc … We’re hoping that Sam Bucolo, an industrial design colleague from QUT, can attend, and bring with him some ‘tangible user interface’ savvy. (Sam runs the Synthetic Environments Lab – ref. http://www.sel.bee.qut.edu.au/. Also check out Philips Design, where he recently did some work - http://www.design.philips.com/ )
The Value Proposition
LGAQ assists in development of ‘toolbox’ strategy (i.e. online enablement of each associate business, enablement of overall interface/configurability tools). In return, associate businesses commit to a cooperative approach to service delivery in nominated regions and agreed rules/protocols for overarching project aims (e.g. prompt and free personal responses to user requests for advice). IP remains with associate businesses. The purpose is to encourage informal and trusting, ‘humanised’ and mutually supportive business development through the ‘toolbox’ interface. NB LGAQ will not necessarily invest cash in this process, though we expect that careful project design can yield mutually beneficial outcomes from budgets already committed by LGAQ to the ‘Connecting Communities’ rollout. However, we anticipate considerable opportunity for State and Federal government investment through leveraging the LGAQ commitment. The nature of this investment – and what the investment is actually required for – is one of the things we seek to define in this workshop.
Benefits
For Associates:
• Assistance with development of online business functionality (e.g.
through use of Connecting Communities functionality and footprint, or LGAQ-leveraged access to State government funding)
• Marketing value of ‘co-location’ with Connecting Communities IT
network rollout (potentially in 75% of the 125 LGA’s in Queensland)
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For LGAQ:
• Powerful suite of online capacity-building information, referral and
tools ensuring extensive community and commercial ‘buy in’ to infrastructure and functionality put in place through Connecting Communities project (and thus a strategy for sustainability of infrastructure beyond the funding period).
For CIRAC:
• Test bed for current action research into innovative pathways to
commercialisation of IP in Creative Industries, or through CI inputs across industry sectors
Potential Associates These have not been identified through any process more rigorous than the fact that CIRAC has identified a certain ‘spirit’ of commitment and practicality in each group which seems on the face of things to be congruent with the overall idea to be workshopped. Given the diversity and quality of skills and experience represented in this list, we propose that the workshop will be, apart from anything else, an opportunity for the businesses/organisations themselves to find a ‘stake’ in the project – or not. Similarly, we are excited by the potentials of the networks which participants will by nature bring with them, and the ‘multiplier’ value-adding that might be achieved through connecting with these … Company/
Org Contact/Reference Mission10 Participation
Qld Folk Federation Inc.
Bill Hauritz, Michael Peterson www.woodfordfolkfestival.com
Festivals, community events, performance events
Advice, services, networks, events organisation & management advice & services, ‘Virtual Folk Clubs’ and ‘Events Village’ concepts
Novogenesis P/L
David Wyatt, Cameron Neil www.novogenesis.com
Social entrepreneurship investment, mentoring, ‘business angel’ services
Funding, advice, networks
Positive Solutions P/L
Cathy Hunt www.powerup.com.au/~positive/
Arts/culture micro-finance, consulting services (arts & culture)
Funding, services, advice, networks
Arterial Group Inc.11
Therese Brown www.arterial.org.au
Public art service provision (incl. youth & multimedia)
Advice, services, networks
Creative Communities International
David Engwicht www.lesstraffic.com
Livable communities, revitalized neighbourhoods/streets
Advice, services, networks, ‘Creative Communities International’ concept
Web Animation for Social Change
Michael Bromley (Head of Discipline, QUT Journalism), Peter Kearney
3-person project team, expertise in: Journalism, Law, E-commerce
Advice, services, ‘community activism, referral & brokerage portal’ concept
Cultureseven Andrew Lohrey http://www.cultureseven.net
Social capital assessment & analysis
Advice, services
10 Please note these are only notional, gleaned from conversations to date! 11 Arterial connection already made with Robyn Robertson, Youth Policy Officer, LGAQ
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Attachment 7
167
Attachment 8
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Attachment 9
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Attachment 10
DigIT Draft Training Plan (7 October 2003) Target Group 6 “at risk” young people aged 14 to 16 years (See ongoing reporting notes for specific information about the composition of this group.) Aims
Communication/Socialisation Component: • Facilitate the development of team spirit and enhanced self-
confidence within DigIT participants. • Facilitate the development of life skills through collaborative
group organisation of food preparation and sharing. • Facilitate the establishment of a stronger sense of place, and,
therefore, identity. • According to Professor Peter Newman (Director, Sustainability
Policy Unit, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Western Australia):
• “… sense of place is the driving motivation behind environmental, social and economic change. If you really belong to an area, because you have an identity there that is based on history and an engagement with that place, then you are committed to it. You’ll have in your community a reason for stopping a development, changing a development, or attracting a development, and saying, ‘This is why we want it’.”
• (ABC Radio National, 20 September 2003) • Facilitate the young people telling their own stories, expressing
their own experiences. • According to Annie Bolitho and Mary Hutchison (Story and Writing
for Community Leadership and Social Action, Centre for Popular Education, University of Technology, Sydney, August 2003):
• “Sharing stories and finding ways of rendering experiences in writing are stimulating ways of making connections between people. They bring to light distinctive positions and voices. They enable reflection on individual and group experience, and offer a way of getting past limited preconceptions of possibilities and of people.”
IT Component:
• Teach participants to use the digital camera, and encourage creative image making.
• Teach participants to use free digital image manipulation software Irfanview and Corel Photo Paint 8
• Teach participants to use website building software and create DigIT website.
• Provide ample opportunity, and stimulus, for participants to practise with software.
Achievement Component:
• Facilitate the presentation of participants’ stories, visual images, and sense of place on the DigIT website.
• Celebrate young people’s work (Public Launch)
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Vocational Potential Component:
• Provide snapshot experiences of future vocational possibilities, in order to facilitate expansion of perceptions of opportunities available.
• Locate (through networks) follow-up courses/work experience/mentorships for participants where appropriate and where possible.
Implementation
Communication/Socialisation Component: Facilitate the development of team spirit and enhanced self-confidence amongst DigIT participants:
• Tinaroo Days: team building through physical activities (ropes, orienteering, canoeing, abseiling, etc)
• Preparing and eating food together • Touring together – time on a bus • “Doing” together – experiencing places, sharing stories • Sharing the digital camera • Working together on a single project
Facilitate the establishment of a stronger sense of place, and, therefore, identity:
• Visit places on the Tablelands, eg: ◊ Granite Gorge ◊ Davies Creek ◊ “Gadgarra” rainforest ◊ Emerald Creek ◊ others identified by locals and participants
• Explore, play, swim, eat and enjoy • Encourage participants to look out for creative photographing
opportunities, and experiment with visual imaging by taking photographs.
• Story-telling – Facilitators tell stories associated with the place; participants encouraged to tell stories – their own or stories they’ve heard. Facilitators document stories as they’re
• told (both audio and written recording where possible)
• Facilitate the young people telling their own stories, expressing their own experiences:
• Story-telling as above • Workshops focused on enabling self-expression, for example:
◊ Facilitators providing material designed to stimulate a response
◊ Facilitators write down participants’ responses ◊ Responses shaped into a group story
• Demonstrate that stories can be recorded visually, orally and in writing; provide participants with options for medium of expression.
Note that “at risk” young people are often very reluctant writers. The focus of this component is drawing out and documenting young people’s stories, with the development of actual written communication skills as a secondary focus, depending on participants’ interests. Written communication skills will be modelled by the Facilitators in the documentation of stories.
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IT Component: Note that the Assistant Project Officer is working with the selected software to document basic operating steps, from “double clicking on the program” onwards. She will then show participants through these basic steps, providing further information as need is expressed. Teach participants to use the digital camera, and encourage creative image making:
• Facilitators show participants the basic functions of the camera. • Participants learn by using the camera and critically viewing their
own photographs (with appropriate mentoring from Facilitators) - resulting in the development of a Group Photojournal.
• Participants provided with outdoor (and therefore varied)
stimulus material (excursions).
• Teach participants to use free digital image manipulation software Irfanview and Corel Photo Paint 8:
• Participants shown how to: ◊ download and view their photographs ◊ save or delete photographs ◊ manipulate visual images
• Participants then learn by using the programs, with appropriate
mentoring.
Teach participants to use website building software and create DigIT website.
• Implementation of this aim is dependent on software decisions to be made.
Achievement Component: Facilitate the presentation of participants’ stories, visual images, and sense of place on the DigIT website.
• Put together stories, images and sounds recorded during previous components in a form appropriate to the web.
Celebrate young people’s work (Public Launch)
• Action plan to be developed in collaboration with participants. Vocational Potential Component: Provide snapshot experiences of future vocational possibilities, in order to facilitate expansion of perceptions of opportunities available:
• Visit successfully operating programs at local Registered Training Organisations (eg, M Mareeba, Atherton and Cairns TAFE campuses)
• Visit successfully operating programs run by local community organisations.
• Visit workplaces of appropriate organisations (determined as participants’ interests
• become apparent)
Locate (through networks) follow-up courses/work experience/mentorships for participants where appropriate and where possible: • Action will be undertaken as participants’ interests and needs
become apparent.
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Resources
Venues: Note that classrooms, community halls and so on (“four walls”) are not considered appropriate for this project for the following reasons: • At risk young people are generally more comfortable when they
have a lot of space, can move around, and don’t feel enclosed by “rules” of older generations (such as those which tend to operate in classrooms and community venues).
• The project requires the provision of varied and interesting stimulus material for the production of creative visual images – this is unlikely to be found in a classroom or community hall.
• It is considered important that the Facilitators work with participants within participants’ own cultural settings, rather than in those perceived as stereotypical “educational” settings.
Preferred Venues: • The PCYC Pulse (when not being used for other PCYC activities):
◊ this venue is geared towards and frequented by young people, and therefore is consistent with the third point made above;
◊ the presence of pool and table tennis tables will provide opportunities for drawing out young people’s stories without confrontation – in a comfortable, conversational, youth oriented setting;
◊ the venue has a kitchen which can be used for basic food preparation.
• Outdoors – at venues identified by Facilitators in collaboration with community members and participants. This is considered important for the following reasons:
o to ensure the provision, for “at risk” young people, of enough personal space and freedom of movement – these young people often find it difficult to sit still and listen and/or talk one at a time;
o to facilitate the establishment of relationship with place, in accordance with Project aims (see above);
o outdoors is an involving space – there is always something happening and interactive opportunities are increased;
o outdoors has the largest variety of visual stimuli, and is the appropriate basis for the visual imagery component of the project.
• PCYC Computer Room - for IT work. Transport The focus on outdoor venues and vocational excursions requires ready availability of transport. An eight or ten-seater vehicle would be ideal for this purpose as it does not require a licence endorsement (see ongoing Project notes for details about accessing such a vehicle).
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IT Resources • Implementation of the IT component of the project would be greatly
simplified if the Assistant Project Officer had continuous access to a Windows computer (preferably laptop) for the duration of the Project.
• The issue relating to web-building software needs to be further discussed – see ongoing Project notes for details.
• Printing resources – three pages of colour printing per day (for use in photojournals)
Facilitation Roles General sessions will be facilitated by the Project Manager (an experienced teacher) and the Assistant Project Officer (a young person with some experience in group and individual facilitation work). Contact Time Daily contact time will vary according to activities planned. • There will be some full days, for example, the Tinaroo team-building
days and days on which excursions to Cairns and locations at the southern end of the Tablelands region are planned.
• On days when activities are centred in Mareeba contact time will be less (to cater for time required for debriefing and planning and organisation of resources.)
Documentation • Documentation of young people’s stories, and the development of
the Project, is a central focus of DigIT. • The Facilitators will ensure that writing up of notes is regular and
thorough. • The Facilitators are also responsible for presenting documentation to
participants in a manner accessible to them. Debriefing and Planning • The two Facilitators will participate in daily debriefing and planning
sessions. • During these sessions the Facilitators will share and discuss
observations about participants and refine/rewrite specific planning for the next day in accordance with these.
• This process is particularly important as the participants are not previously known to the Facilitators and surprises are expected (particularly as the young people are considered “at risk”).
• It is expected that debriefing and planning sessions are likely to last for in excess of two hours each (based on previous experience).
Organising Resources Given the dynamic nature of the Project it is expected that location and organisation of resources will be ongoing tasks throughout the training program.
Draft Timetable for Week 1
Summary: • Facilitators’ observe participants – likes, dislikes, talents, skills,
abilities • Getting to know one another, establishing relationships, team
building • Setting up group protocols
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• Introducing and using IT equipment • Yarning and documentation – beginning the stories • Visiting places – beginning the establishment of relationship with
place • Creating visual images, experimenting • Enjoying, laughing, playing, yarning, eating, discovering. Monday: 10am – 2pm The Pulse (plus IT Room between 12 and 2) Introductory session, establishment of group: Play pool and table tennis, talk*: • Facilitators explain what we’ll be doing • Starting and finishing times • Working with equipment – sharing of camera, taking appropriate
care around equipment • “Rules” for working together (generated by participants, written
down and displayed, added to and/or modified as the project progresses)
• General interests – music, sport, art (graffiti)
* It is the experience of the Facilitators that “at risk” young people, particularly Indigenous young people, are generally uncomfortable in structured “discussion circles” where everyone sits quietly and talks one at a time. Constructive talk tends to take place in the form of “yarning” while doing something else, like playing pool Introduce camera – talk about care of camera: • Participants take pictures with encouragement from Facilitators • Assistant Project Officer introduces software (in PCYC Computer
Room), two participants • at a time, between 12 and 2pm.
Preparation and sharing of food: • On this first day, a variety ingredients for a lunch of bread rolls,
fresh salad, cheese, meat (e.g. corned beef) and pickles is provided. Participants prepare their own rolls from the selection available while Facilitators observe to note preferences and habits.
• Discussion during the day will include participants’ perceptions of food:
◊ Would participants like to prepare and share lunch as part of this program?
◊ What do participants like to eat? ◊ At what time/s? ◊ Who likes to cook?
• Depending on the outcomes of such discussions, the organisation, preparation and sharing of food may become a major focus in the socialisation/communication component of the project.
• The Facilitators are also prepared for the outcome that participants may prefer to buy their own lunch “uptown” – in which case the walks uptown to do this will become
• photographing opportunities.
Organisation for Day 2: Yarn about: • Lunch arrangements for Day 2 (see above) • What will happen on Day 2 (see below)
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Tuesday: 10am – 2pm Excursion to Emerald Creek: • Focus on images for photographing • Yarning about what happened yesterday, further yarning about
possibilities for the Project – enthusiasm generation (documentation by Facilitators)
• Playing, going for a swim, having a picnic lunch
Tuesday: 12 – 2pm IT Room • Download images from camera
◊ Each participant selects 3 images to include in Group Photojournal
◊ Print images ◊ Note that participants will be informed that as a group they
will be able print three pages per day (i.e., half a page per day per participant) for the Photojournal. They may choose to print in a format of 6 images to a page, or they may negotiate to print images in A4 size (in which case the group would need to choose three images), or in A5 format (requiring teamwork and cooperation).
• Scanner: ◊ Participants shown how to use the scanner, with
demonstration provided by the Assistant Project Officer. • Internet use:
◊ Assistant Project Officer demonstrates internet search tools, and bring up websites previously selected to stimulate interest and idea generation.
• Practise time: ◊ Participants use the rest of the available time to practise with
software demonstrated over the first two days of the Project, with appropriate mentoring from Facilitators.
◊ Participants may also choose to spend remaining time searching the internet.
◊ Facilitators observe and document behaviours exhibited by participants.
Wednesday: Full Day Lake Tinaroo Outdoor Sport & Recreation Centre • Team building – orienteering • Image making with the camera • Yarning (documentation by Facilitators) Thursday: 10am – 12 noon The Pulse • Playing pool and table tennis, yarning about the previous day • Group Photojournal:
◊ pasting images printed on Tuesday into scrapbook ◊ writing about each image – comments about what was
happening and about why the image is considered a good one (a scribe will be sought from the group, scribed by Facilitators if necessary)
• Food preparation and sharing ◊ yarning about what foods participants would like to experience in
the days to come,
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◊ planning for shopping, cooking, etc
Thursday: 12 noon – 2pm PCYC Computer Room • Participants download images from camera • Save and View images • Experiment with image manipulation software, (teaching and
mentoring provided as appropriate) • As a group, or as individuals, select images to include in
Photojournals within three page print limit • Print images. Friday: 10am – 12 noon The Pulse • Playing pool and table tennis, yarning about the previous day • Group Photojournal:
◊ pasting images printed the previous day into group scrapbook ◊ writing about each image – comments about what was happening
and about why the image is considered a good one (a scribe will be sought from the group, scribed by Facilitators if necessary)
• Food preparation and sharing ◊ continue yarning about what foods participants would like to
experience in the days to come, planning for shopping, cooking, etc
• Yarning about plans for the next week.
Friday: 12 noon – 2pm PCYC Computer Room • Participants download images from camera • Save and View images • Experiment with image manipulation software, (teaching and
mentoring provided as appropriate) • As a group, or as individuals, select images to include in
Photojournals within three page print limit • Print images
Summary: Weeks 2 to 6
Week 2: • Continue work with camera and scanner – production of visual
images • Continue practising with graphics software • Continue Group Photojournaling • Second team building day at Lake Tinaroo Outdoor Sport and
Recreation Centre • Excursions to outdoor sites • Excursion to Cairns TAFE Week 3: Introduction to and practise with website building software Week 4: Establish DigIT website Week 5: Complete DigIT website; plan website launch/achievement celebration Week 6: Stage launch
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Attachment 11
Pilot Projects – Time Lines 0
2 0
3 0
4
J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A M J J A
1. Innovative Entrepreneur Training
2. MITEZ
3. Arilla Paper
4. ‘Deep North’
5. e-Vents
6. Bodja Chairs
7. DigIT
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Attachment 12
Pilot Projects - Details
Project
Proponent
Dates
Industry
Strength/ Weakness
Major Needs
Business Cluster(s)
IP
Outcomes/ Timeline
Value-Add (QUT Mgt)
Linkages
1. Innovative Entrepreneur Training (KaosPilots [DK], DSD, QUT CI)
Jan 2002 - ongoing
Professional Education, Business Services, Creative industries
Strength Innovation, proven foreign success Weakness Application ‘outside silos’, lack of entrepreneurial culture
Strong business community linkage
Higher education, Creative industries, HR & management
Copyright, knowhow, licences, trademarks, networks
New entrepreneurship courseware (Research Sep-Dec 2002; development Jan-Mar 2003, Pilot June 2003)
Consultation, project development and management
Kaos Pilots (DK), European networks, Touchstone (SA), Sth African Universities
2. MITEZ (Mt Isa-Townsville Economic Zone) Online Community Capacity Building Toolbox (9 X LGA’s, UNISYS)
Feb-Jun 2002
Networked IT, Tourism, Regional Development, Indigenous, Creative Industries
Strength Size of footprint, LGAQ support Weakness LGA leadership politics, ‘east-west’ divide
Strong leadership/local champion
Education/ training, Creative Industries, Regional development
Copyright, knowhow, trade marks
Networking the Nation Application
Project development
9 X LGA’s, LGAQ, DCITA
3. Arilla Paper Mt Isa (Arilla Group, MI iCncl, Salvation Army, QUT)
Feb 2002 - ongoing
Art/crafts Retail Tourism Training/ employment Indigenous
Strength: Strong competitive advantage Weakness Remoteness, Indigenous leadership issues, lack of entrepreneurial culture
Generic business skills, management mentoring
Tourism, Indigenous, Retail Community services
Copyright, patents, trade marks, licences
Stage 1 complete & successful. Business launch 1 Aug 03. Investment: >$170,000
Project animation, (Interim) project management, research
SDC Mt Isa DSD DATSIP DET DEWR ATSIC/ATSIS
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Project Proponent/ Company
Dates
Industry
Strength/ Weakness
Major Needs
Business Cluster(s)
IP
Outcomes/ Timeline
Value-Add (QUT Project Mgr)
Linkages
4. ‘Deep North’ (Anderson Technologies P/L, Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park, Arts Nexus, SDC Cairns, QUT)
Jun-Dec 2002
Leisure Software, MM Hardware, Tourism, Indigenous
Strength
Innovation, cost effectiveness, extant successful business
Weakness
Remoteness, lack of entrepreneurial culture
Innovative content, commercialisation of new technology, networking
Tourism, Indigenous, IT/MM, Manufacturing
Copyright, patents
QUT participation ceased Mar 03, prototyping continues (ISUS grant $80,000, end 2002)
Research, project development
SDC/IIE Cairns
5. e-Vents (QFF, LGAQ)
Apr-Sep 2003
Government, Community services, Training
Strength
QFF brand (Woodford Folk Festival) Weakness Dependency on NTN guidelines (esp. LGA relevance)
Further commercial development (for sustainability)
Events, MM/Online, Government, Community services
Copyright, licences, trade marks
Publication through ‘Community Enabler’ service. LGAQ commission and licence: $50,000 cash
Project development, Brokerage, research
Premier’s Dept, IIE
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Project Proponent/ Company
Dates
Industry
Strength/ Weakness
Major Needs
Business Cluster(s)
IP
Outcomes/ Timeline
Value-Add (QUT Project Mgr)
Linkages
6. Bodja Chairs (Jarrowan People, Dalby Shire Cncl, QUT)
Jul 2003 – Feb 2004
Art/crafts Training/ employment Indigenous
Strength
Success of Arilla model, available expertise
Weakness
Weak business case, lack of entrepreneurial culture
Commercial development
Arts/crafts Community services
Copyright, knowhow, trademarks
Exhibition & business launch at 2003-04 Woodford Folk Festival, Potential for partnership with Mt Isa & elsewhere, ‘Spin-off’ project work in Kennedy, NQ
Project development, risk assessment
Condamine Alliance DET DATSIP
7. DigIT (Mareeba Shire, PCYC, IMPACT, KaosPilots)
Aug-Nov 2003
Training, Creative Industries, Indigenous
Strength
Strong local networks, LGA support
Weakness
Regional recession, structural unemployment, lack of entrepreneurial culture
Commercial/ entrepreneurial expertise (champions, mentors)
ACE/VET, Creative industries
Copyright, networks, communications
Integration with KaosPilot activity (innovative CI enterprises) towards employment outcomes
Project development, project animation, research
DET, Federal Depts