The Great Cultural Digi-Divide
Are you a digi-have or a digi-have not? I would hazard a guess if you are reading this you may be a digi-have?
In the same way that there is a huge Digi-Abyss in society between people who use the internet and those that don’t there is a divide inside the Cultural/Arts sector, and this divide is threatening the every existence of the sector: digital literate organisations/practitioners are increasingly only using digital means to promote and advertise opportunities meaning those in the sector not using the net are missing out on funding opportunities, accessing audiences, commissions and other opportunities.
How do you know if you are a Digi-Have? Well……if you read up on technological advances, you probably tweet, have a facebook account and waste lost of time clicking links on the web. When you aren’t wasting time (and when you are) you are using your digi-literacy to network, promote yourself and your business to creative and cultural consumers.
You are developing an audience and developing the capacity and sustainability of your business. So far so good you are a Digi-Have……but there are others out there who aren’t reading this, they aren’t tweeting, they are not thinking about how they can use augmented reality to develop a market for their product: they are an emerging underclass in this high value sector: yes the dig have-nots…have you noted how there is much chat about how great the opportunities are for Creative Organisations using the web? Great examples are given about how ‘we’ as a sector are embracing digital possibility? Mostly however those doing the chatting aren’t representative of the sector and if we don’t stop and take a breath we will be damaging the creative sectors ability to innovate.
The creative sector relies on the connections between creative’s, small organisations and businesses, bedroom innovators and local networks and groups. It’s these time and access to innovation poor creative’s we are neglecting and leaving behind – they often haven’t the capacity to ‘engage’ with the conversation and the technology. Without bringing the whole sector with us and giving them access to the technology and ways to communicate we will damage the feeding chain of innovation. How? It has to be through online networks, (yes such as this one) but also wider networks - bespoke social networks which support the creative sector, places where small micro organisations can access these conversations, the innovations ( a network which allows anyone to share content and act as a gateway into new media) and the also access consumers for their product.
We like to think this is one such network – Creativetorbay.com was developed over 2 years ago , it was built to grow and as part of that growth our sister site creativewestsussex.com has just come online – we have more coming on board.
CreativeSomerset and Swindon launch in early 2012.
As with individuals a growing cross geographical borders network helps support poorer areas of the country where funding for innovation, culture and the arts is increasingly under threat – further widening the digi-divide. The beauty of a shared network is that as and when innovations come along to upgrade the network they can be financed by the wealthier partners but the whole network and ergo every member gets the benefits. One such area of development is the plan to take our network onto smart phones – in 2012 every profile on this site and its sisters will look great on phones which are the biggest growth area of access for the internet – this gives everyone with a profile a place where their content looks great on a handheld device, for most users of the site converting their existing site(s) would be expensive!
This blog first appeared on the innovateuk website