Archive för Digitalisation

This sunny day in Stockholm, people from the music industry gathered at Hotel Rival for the Creators Conference arranged by Swedish Music Information Center, The Swedish Society of Popular Music Composers and Society for Swedish Composers.

The focus was added value in the digital world, the attempt was to lift the question from Intellectual Property Rights to look broader; which way might we go in technical choices, what new business models might we see in the future, and what is the role of the middleman within the music industry? Mark Fischlock, the moderator for the day, early on stated that we seem to have underestimated the digitalization and we have for a long time tried to impose old models in a new system. He got a lot of agreeing nodding from the eight-headed panel, and American Intellectual Property Law Attorney, Bennett Lincoff, was quick in hooking on to this, saying that we need a completely new business model for the music industry that can deal with the challenges imposed by the Internet.

Other things said was things like “We have to find solutions where money goes directly to the Artist”, “People are willing to pay if the money goes to the right thing”, “How do you get a fair deal between the producer and distributor?”, “There is no interest in pipes, you are interested in the content they are providing”, “The real problem is the lawyers who seem to be stuck in old structures”, “Let’s face it: We are all cutting and pasting, we have to be less focused on IP”, “It’s a difference between free or feels free on the Internet”. Many points were made by legendary manager Peter Jenner (Pink Floyd, The Clash and others), who stressed that the industry needs to change and money go directly to the pockets of the Artists. The distributors, like the record-companies, publishers, just grab too much of the pie and this will, and has to, change. Another important point made was the lack of political interest in digitalization as a whole in Sweden.

A bit of a sad remark is the reminder that the music industry in Sweden has to take a serious look at the equality question. Are we to believe that the talented, brilliant, famous musicians, singers, composers, and directors of organizations in this field are only men? In today’s Stockholm paper Dagens Nyheter an article put the light on the music industry being very male-dominant, while among the theatre institutions things have changed. A few years ago a survey showed theatre institutions to have almost only men as directors, something that now had changed to a 50-50 percent men and women in top positions. For everyone who read today’s paper and then went to the conference, sadly got the situation in the music field confirmed. In each panel of eight people, only one in each was a woman. Maybe the Internet and new models in distribution may have an impact on changing this male domination, letting young talented women find alternative ways?

New IT-solutions as how to download music and film legally, how to create animated movies with your personal photos, upload videos and cut and add music to it, or streaming a video direct from your mobile to the web, are growing immensely fast. Innovative ideas on what you can do on internet are created and uploaded in a pace that is hard to follow. Is the cultural scene following? Who is taking the lead to explore new ways of communicating, showing, exhibiting, buying, networking with the Artistic scene and cultural entrepreneurs on Internet? What IT-services are needed for the Arts?

Read two articles in the Daily Svenska Dagbladet on Sunday Oct 4, “Den nya IT-vågen” (”The new IT-wave”) and one about the newly produced book “The Youtube Reader” (English) called “Youtube liknar inget vi har varit med om” (free translation: Youtube doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before).

Just look at these web-services, the twenty-five Swedish IT-companies mentioned in the article: Spotify, Voddler, Booli, Jaycut,  Videoplaza, Bambuser, Animasher, Agency9, Peeralism, Saplo, Textflow, Pixlr, Soundcloud, Xcerion, Burt, Twingly, Polar Rose, Bloggy, Fileride, Jalbum, Stixy, Momail, Laterthis, Squace, Dashnotes.

The discussion on the consequences of digitalization for example music, film, literature, cultural journals is like an undulating ocean. It goes up and down but never stops its movement. Each of the Art forms has their own discussion.

Publishing houses were horrified of Google, the scanning of literature to make the first gigantic digital library. The Google deals made publishing houses furious and should these be signed or not? Did they have a choice? Are they mainly worried of the payment to the author or of their own position?

Music has fought fiercly against free downloading. In Sweden the new Ipred law aim to hunt those down that download for free. What does new business models look like on the Internet that make music available and the user pay for it? Examples like Spotify has grown up as new initiatives. Film is the same. Free downloading or sites like youtube, where films are uploaded to be viewed by anyone, is a big concern. The quality in screening is not good, but it’s for free. Chris Anderson says in his new book “Free” that with Internet everything goes towards zero in costs. The business model, or how to earn money, will look very different in the future.

And what happens to the Artists? In the end, as most of the time, they are without income. Perhaps this development could actually be positive for the single Artist as money and power of distribution will be in the hands of the producer?

There are many questions and processes overlapping and crossing each other. The different industries; film, music, publishing worry about their future. But stay within their own field. Very few in Sweden have tried to get an overview, looked across the different specific fields to see the larger trend. This is the ambition in the pre-study done by Mikael Löfgren, Swedish Cultural Journalist, in cooperation with colleagues at Nätverkstan this coming fall. The study is funded by The Foundation for the Culture of the Future. Hopefully it will be the beginning of a learning process ending with a large Hearing in Göteborg where these issues will be discussed.

The pile of books this summer is growing. There is so much to read! Here, some old and new books on cultural and creative industries, artistic practice and economy, cultural policy, situation for Art and Artists, black identity and post-colonial analysis, the new global and Free market and so forth.

Bill Ivey, “Arts, inc. How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights” (University of California Press 2008). Bill Ivey was Chairman of National Endowments for the Arts (NEA) in USA 1998-2001, and is now founding director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University. Interesting about Bill Ivey’s experience as Chairman of NEA and how Art and Artists enrich our lives, but where neglect from the governement as well as the market is endangering the future.

David Throsby, “Economics and Culture” (Cambridge University Press 2001).David Throsby is Professor of Econimcs at Macquarie University in Australia. The book behind the circle-model put forward by Department of Culture, Media and Sports in UK in 2007 (look at this post) is this one, and with very well analysed material on the two grand entities: Economics and Culture.

Daniel H. Pink, “A whole new mind. Why right-brainers will rule the future” (Penguin Group 2006). For a review read the one by Associate Professor Lane B Mills at East Carolina University. Daniel H Pink has written several books on the changes of work in the world, where this one focus on the rise of right-brain thinking in modern economics. The book has inspired many, and was recommended by Sian Prime as a source for inspiration for the models used at the Creative Pioneer Programme at Nesta in UK (read the following interview with Sian Prime from 2006).

Steven J. Tepper and Bill Ivey, “Engaging Art. The Next Great Transformation of America’s Cultural Life” (Taylor & Francis Group 2008). Seems in line with the above mentioned topics.

Chris Anderson, “Free. The future of a radical price” (Hyperion 2009). The editor in chief of Wired Magazine and author of “The Long Tail”, about the change of market in a globalized world, how an online market creates niche markets and – the topic of this new book – how prices online tend to reach zero which forces a new line of thinking on products and what is a sellable product.

Franz Fanon, “Black Skin, White Masks” (Grove Press Inc 1967). Franz Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925, studied medicine in France, specialized in psychatry and wrote several books on the African struggle for liberation. The book was first published in 1952.

Another interesting website for Art in Africa is the website started by the Arterial Network, artsinafrica.com. The aim is to provide information on Arts, culture, creative industries in all African countries to enhance and facilitate cooperation and new connections.

An article in Kenyan paper the Nation (June 27, 2009), written by journalist Gitau Gikonyo puts forward a new tendency he sees. As the middle class is growing in Kenya, the engagement for social issues is declining. The middle class seem to be happy with their lives, driving the car back-and-forth to their jobs, living in houses, children going to good schools, and as the number within this class grows, the interest for politics and to work for a better society for all diminishes. The only ones left to lift these issues are either the elite or the very poor, the article states. In India the middle class accounts for around 200 million and is the economically most dynamic group on this planet. But overall they don’t care about politics or social reforms, Gikonyo states. They are well as it is.

People we meet in Nairobi are very committed. They want to see change, take the opportunity. But for the Arts in Kenya one major question is: Is the Art sector ready for change? In Kenya Art and culture is not described in economic terms, as it is in Europe. And to reach changes, basic needs like food, electricity, sanity and infrastructure have to be in place. Working with culture without a conscious mindset also on social and societal issues just does not work. “Freedom of Speach is not recognized in this country since Art is not recognized” one person tells us.

Culture have a mindset towards society. How does this fit with private investors’ interest? The complexity rises. Investors have another rationale and value system than the Arts. The market value chain also looks different. The traditional industry is a linear process from origination to consumption, in creative industries it’s a disruptive process. It doesn’t follow linear expectations, rather you need to in every step from origination to distribution and consumption think in several different options (for more, have a look at Donna Ghelfi’s report below). Time value of money, opportunity cost, as well as net present value counted in the figure: PV-FV=NPV is all investors talk, which has to be layered with cultural production and entrepreneurship if you want these to different fields to meet. Without loosing the value of the Art, the Artistic integrity and the social aspect so closely linked to Artistic work. How should this be done?

The project is a project funded by the Swedish Institute and Strömme Foundation and run by Pratik Vithlani at Mangowalla Ventures in cooperation with Godown and Nätverkstan. Below you can find some of the reports used in the environmental scan for the project.

Read the much debated report on the post-election violence in 2007 written by the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, the Waki Report: wakirep.

For information about culture in Africa, have a look at Obervatory of Cultural Policy in Africa. Another interesting initiative is the Arterial network, which started with a conference in Senegal in 2007. The report can be downloaded here: arterialconferencereport.

Read also the reports by Dominic Power, at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, on creative industries, intellectual property and so forth, download here one: dominic-power_-revisied-cluster-theory-for-cultural-industries. Download Donna Ghelfi’s, Programme Officer at Creative Industries Division, interview with John Howkins, a leading thinker on creativity and intellectual property, here: cr_interview_howkins. For an economic perspective on Eastern Africa, look at the report prepared for the investment company Swedfund in 2009 by Peter Stein: reporteastafrica-publ

Check out this fantastic presentation by Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm at ted.com (or below) where he gives perspective of global development.

As we in the project team pursue the question of interaction between business and cultural field during our sessions, several things emerge. And as we get in to the thought of investors investing in cultural businesses to make profitable returns, a few more things get clear.

Many of the people we meet talk about the potential of creative industries in Kenya, people from both business and cultural side. There is an opening, a collective thought is, a potential, which should be addressed. But how? How would you do to catalyze this potential and at the cost of what? What are the trade-offs?

Samuel Muvelah, at Zimele Asset Management Company Limited, has long experience of project work in different parts of Kenya, venture capital and is now a money manager for those who put in around 50 dollars and want their savings to grow. ”The reason the creative field is not seen, is that it’s lacking sufficient institutional organization to integrate with formal capital structures”, is his major point. “The field is disorganized, so how do you find talent? How do you begin to cooperate with creative industries?” ”To catalyze the potential you need an entry point!”

Muthoni Udonga, on the other hand is musician and a real entrepreneur. She runs festivals with a variety of the top East African Artists, run workshops, and she does this with the perspective of both doing excellent music events, and do activities that develop the field. All this at the same time as she runs her own music career. “Film, tv, music are really taking off here in Nairobi. On small budgets and very entrepreneurial”, she says. Together with producer Robert Wawawei, they describe a growing and bubbling music life with many upcoming new Artists. It’s a growing field, but one also struggling with skills gaps. ”Artists have to think like entrepreneurs, but that doesn’t happen here”, is Muthoni’s point. Together with few funding bodies, lack of investment money and an unpredictable audience, it’s hard to come forward. Hard – but not impossible.

So how could this funding gap between investors wanting to invest in creative industries but don’t know how, and a creative field wanting to be able to live on their content be resolved? How can bridges be built? In September the first meeting will be held in Nairobi putting these partners together to find concrete suggestions to come forward.

But in such a complex project there are many things to consider, and the team of Godown Art Center, Mangowalla Ventures and Nätverkstan, have been digging deep in to these discussions. A few things has emerged, perhaps not so new, but still very evident.

1. Investors expect an economic profit in their investments. Considering the creative field, which consists of a wide variety of activities from the Arts to design and media, only a few will be in consideration. Only a very small portion of cultural businesses and organizations has the chance to make these sorts of profits. They exist, of course, and there is a point to build bridges so they can meet, but for the cultural field as a whole, this will not be a solution.

2. Majority in the creative field are single Artists, small-scale cultural entrepreneurs and organizations that run not-for-profit entities. These might not be in the viewpoint of the investors, but are important as job creators. Here future jobs will be created.

3. Content production and symbolic value are becoming more and more important in the business world. The business field needs the creative field to be able to sustain the value of their products in a world in fast transition.

4. The Artists and investors have one common denominator: they both live on taking risks. The Artist takes risk to create meaning, the investor to create returns.

5. What are the trade-offs? For the investor one such is perhaps the relation between the higher expected returns, the less quality of the Artistic work, if you in the “quality”-word also put in the aspect of uniqueness. This relation might not be binding, a film production selling very well and generating a large profit might also be of high quality. But for most cultural entrepreneurs striving in the field, there will not be large amounts of money to be made, unless you put less amount of time into increasing quality or your Artistic talent or do something else.

So for the Artist on the other hand, the relation between Artistic value and survival are true. Will you be able to live on your Art? If you want to earn money, is there a trade-off on your Artistic value?

The project is a project funded by the Swedish Institute and Strömme Foundation and run by Pratik Vithlani at Mangowalla Ventures in cooperation with Godown and Nätverkstan.

In the last post where we talked about the transformation of the warehouse in Göteborg to a cultural center, we also described the democracy project South Bank Process (Södra Älvstrandsprocessen). The process was thought to involve inhabitants in the city together with experts of different areas to come with new ideas of how the south bank of Göteborg should change. To this a  website was formed, to make information available and to facilitate participation from people in Göteborg. And for openes and transparency. The process died after the presentation of the groups and was never taken seriously in the political process.

A few days ago a note in the daily, Göteborgs-Posten, suggested that also the website had been closed down. It was not longer available for inhabitants, researchers and other interested people. A contact with the company that took over the site after the process was finished (the company formed to continue the work with changes on the south bank side), suggested that they had closed it down. So much for democracy and transparency.

Now the site, alvstaden, is opened again through the means of the internet journal Alba and Nätverkstan. In Swedish, but still. Read the former post about this and the new cultural center here.

These days, when entrepreneurship is put forward as the solution of the cultural field’s economic difficulties, and when funding bodies on all levels are talking more frequently of Artists and cultural organizations having to be more entrepreneurial, searching for “sponsorship”, “alternative funding” and “market demand”, it might be time to kill some myths.

An issue of the Economist this spring (March 14–20, 2009) with a special focus on entrepreneurship, put forward five myths of entrepreneurs that needs to be put aside if we are to understand and catalyze entrepreneurship.

Myth 1. Entrepreneurs are lonely, socially incompetent geniuses that come up with great ideas. Instead, the article argues, entrepreneurship is a social activity. An entrepreneur might be very independent, but needs a business partner or social networks to succeed.

Myth 2. Most entrepreneurs are extremely young. Some have been very young, like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the article lift forward. But a significant amount is also older, like Gary Buller who started the GPS company Garmin at the age of 52.

Myth 3. Entrepreneurship is driven mainly by venture capital. In fact, venture capitalists fund only a very small fraction of start-ups. Majority of money put into start-ups, the article shows, come from personal debts and of the “three f:s”: Friends, fools and families.

Myth 4. To succeed, entrepreneurs must produce a world-changing product. Instead, experience shows that the most successful entrepreneurs focus on processes rather than products.

Myth 5. Entrepreneurship cannot flourish within large companies. Small start-ups are very important, the article points out, but also large companies are being successful in keeping an attitude of entrepreneurship. The company Johnson & Johnson is put forward as an example.

The personal computer, the mobile phone and internet has made entrepreneurship flourish. Many initiatives has grown since these technological changes were introduced, entrepreneurs come from all parts of the world. Due to falling prices in communication, a global market can be reached instantly.

One interesting initiative is the The Indus Entrepreneur (TIE), started in Silicon Valley in 1992 by a group of Indian entrepreneurs living in the valley. Today they have 12.000 members spread in 12 countries. The idea was to promote entrepreneurship through mentoring, networking and education. A network meeting is held in Stockholm, on 27th of May, organized at the Stockholm-based meeting place the Hub.

The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) is a trade organization dedicated to supporting, nurturing and promoting independent retail bookselling in California. With over 500 members, including nearly 300 booksellers, the NCIBA has been an experienced provider of services for over two decades.

Hut Landon, Executive Director, walks us through the domains of - among others - George Lucas (passing by the Yoda-fountain) to their office in San Francisco. The association is led by a 15-person Bord of Directors, and their main task is to increase the sales for independent bookshops in northern California.

The competition from Internet selling has led to the fact that independent bookshops must be much more proactive in their way of marketing themselves. Localism has become a watchword; people must become aware of the importance of supporting their community stores, if they want a  lively and prosperous neighbourhood. To explain this to the customers, Landon and his staff has made the poster “Eight great reasons to shop at locally-owned businesses” (http://www.nciba.com/dls/8-great-reasons.pdf), which is now available to all NCIBA-members.

Apart from this, the association also arranges the NCIBA Trade how, produces the Holiday Showcase (yearly catalogue which features new titles), sets together workshops with topics of concern to the members and prints a weekly regional bestseller list.

Landon makes it clear that NCIBA does not regard the big chains, like Borders and Barnes & Noble, as competition. Independent booksellers have something that the big stores may lack: great book-knowledge, devotion and close relations with their customers. Amazon though, constitutes a big threat. The future will tell if David will stand a chance against Goliath, in Californa as well as in Sweden.

Written by Karin Lundgren and Marie Johansson, Managers at Natverkstan.

Michael Tucker, president of Independent Booksellers, Books Inc., really believes that there is a future even for the smaller, independent bookstores. That is if they are willing and capable of adjusting to the fast changing conditions of today.

The reason for going to San Francisco, when Svensk Bokhandel decided to arrange a trip for Swedish booksellers, is that this area has met up the challenge from the Internet bookshopping. Books Inc., with 10 stores and more that 200 employees, serves as a shining example that independent bookselling can not only survive, but also prosper – even if they “must dance among the elephants”. However, the elephants set the rules and the best you can do is being as flexible and innovative as possible.

Kitty Clark, manager at Books Inc., Vann Ness Ave., lets us in on her recipe for creating a successful bookstore: Focus on customer service – by engaged and trusted employees – make sure that the interior and selection appeal to your clientele, arrange author events, book clubs, book launch parties, seminars led by writers etc etc.

During our tour to four of Tuckers’s stores we could see exactly what she ment; they were all Books Inc. shops, but completely different. Neither orientation, nor design, looked the same in any of the places. It’s all about fitting into the context. Tucker also stressed the importence of events. Even if you have the most amazing store, you can not be sure that the books alone will stand the competition from the Internet commerce. You need something that makes you special, something the digital world lack. Above all, that’s eye to eye contact and interaction.

Can these advice be applicated to the Swedish independent book stores? Surely, the conditions are in many ways quite different, but here’s defenitely every reason to be inspired by the Book Inc., and the San Francicso way of finding ways to reinvent the traditional book shop.

Written by KarinLundgren and Marie Johansson, Managers at Natverkstan.

How do we look at work and employment? What is our relationship to working? How does time linger after people left? How do our perception and dreams change as we grow up? Are we prepared to do anything to reach our goals? What is meaningful work?

Skifte is a collective digital exhibition with filmmakers, animators, photographers, artists and poets, who all reflect on the theme work. Nine pieces showing different aspects and expressions, putting forward questions rather than answers. The exhibition is part of Medieverkstäderna i Väst, a collective of digital workshops in Region Västra Götaland, where members are visual artists, editors, photographers, poets and film makers.

Curator has been Stina Karlsdóttir Vestrin, who is also a student at Kulturverkstan. In the folder coming with the exhibition she writes:

“The fact that our work is one of the things forming us, building our identity and creating a community in a social context, we can all agree on, work is a central part of our lives. I would like, with this exhibition, to do some pounces in everyday working life and lift reflections around its structure. What is a job? What is a good job? Why do we work and what makes an honourable day’s work? The same occupation can in some cases be a job and in others not. In today’s society it’s more and more important to be adaptable and flexible on a more and more demanding labour market at the same time as the boarders between working life and leisure is erased. Working conditions is  constantly shifting and each time as its problems to solve.

The war of ants has disappeared from our TVs. The digital era has its own noise, its own war, other ants. Internet is today an obvious part of labour market. Fifteen years ago you hardly knew what it was, yet it has since changed labour for many people all over the world. It also affects those workers who don’t have access to computers. A shift has taken place. Changes can sneak on you slowly without us understanding a shift is on its way. What happens to our jobs? The new is growing out of the old, breaking out from it, against it, want to be free. It is in this contradiction that we find other ways and tramp our own tracks.”

The exhibition will be touring in Region Västra Götaland and is on Internet 25 of April to 24 of May 2009. Look at www.skifte.se and click for English. Download (in Swedish) the catalogue here: skifte_katalog.

Jan Jörnmark looks at his photos projected on the wall and seems still amazed of what happened. Around thirty people are sitting in the room, waiting for him to continue. “I am an Associate Professor in Economic History at Göteborg University, I have written many books during my time, piled in heaps in the caches of the University – no-one reads them” he tells us with a warm Karlstad dialect. And he looks at the photos again and laughs. “And then I started this project….”.

He was interested in deserted places; houses, areas, businesses, places that told a story, that had once been full of activity and was now, due to circumstances and changes in society, deserted. He started photographing these places. The photos show destruction, there is a feeling of abandonment around them, faded glory of once prosperous businesses and activities.

Capitalism is in constant change. Something is destructed, something else created, he tells us. If you don’t add new value to things, they will loose what was once valuable and be destroyed. There is an enormous demand for cultural value and therefore also a potential in adding this to old things to get something new. Jörnmark’s project is a typical project created in the new globalized economy. He started a website where he put all his photos. The interest was enormous. Around 20.000 visitors each month, comments of around 300. It’s the logic described by Chris Anderson, the Editor of Wired that described the new economy in globalized society in the book The Long Tail a few years ago. Internet is free. Money will not be made in traditional ways, instead Internet create new businesses and new products. For Jörnmark the product was the book he produced of all the photos he put on the website (where you find them free of charge). One book has become two books, which have been read and sold in masses. Many lectures and exhibitions have been held. A new book is on its way. Money is made. Sub cultures have been created around the project. It’s a success story that surprises him so much, that he still, even after a few years, is amazed of what happened.

Jan Jörnmark was one of several interesting speakers on the seminar this weekend (20-21 of March) at Jonsered Herrgård outside Göteborg, held by the Foundation for the Future of Cultures (Stiftelsen framtidens kultur) and Lokal Kultur on the topic “Creative Industries and Involuntary Entrepreneurs”. For the programme, look at this post. Nätverkstan is working on a project based on the ideas of the Long Tail, have a look here.

Do you have a hard time following how in the world we ended up in the financial crisis? Here is the animated film that describes it: “The Crisis of Credit Visualized – Part 1.

Today Nätverkstan stock and distribute cultural journals. In recent years we have also received inquiries by a number of publishers to be able to offer this service also to books as well as journals. After some research we came in contact with Chris Anderson’s book “The long tail”. Book distribution today, in Sweden and elsewhere, is based on the assumption that dealers sell many copies of a book, the hits, while the smaller publishers’ titles are difficult to find. Stocks are expensive; it is costly to be included in the large networks of book distribution, affecting the availability of the more uncommon titles. The same applies to old issues of journals that have long timelines and worth reading years later. The long tail is based on the economy in even small and odd titles if you find new solutions for these to be distributed. Nätverkstan wrote an application to the Framtidens kultur foundation gratifying enough granted. Now the project is on the run with Olav Fumarola Unsgaard as projectmanager. Operations are planned to become an integral part of Nätek whith mainly Camilla Anemyr and Karin Lundgren working on the project. To our help, we also have David Karlsson.

In the spring we will offer journals a model and a specification for how they should do to be sold on internet bookstores. There have been a number of practical and procedural obstacles in the way of this but we hope that all will soon be allayed. In the spring we will also build a system and a warehouse where the publishers are to be included. The activities that we intend to build will be focused on internet bookstores requirements of speed and good logistics. This ensures that we unfortunately see a development where most narrow titles not even enter the large booksellers. We also intend to work up a partnership with one of the main print on demand providers to offer both physical and digital storage.

This activity is against the micro, small and medium-sized publishers and cultural journals. Please contact olav.unsgaard @ natverkstan.net to learn more about the project.

Written by Olav Fumarola Unsgaard

“It’s made out of love”

We meet in the new office areas of Dockhus Animation in Innovatum Technology Park in Trollhättan. Up the spiral stairs is an office where four people work with their computers. Downstairs is a large table tennis (”the best thing we put here”) and handmade models of characters and milieus used for making animated films. In the basement, among old furniture, stacks of boxes, paint, brushes and all sorts of useful findings from different containers in town, sits the newest model. A beautiful done room with wooden floor, painted walls, windows where light can come in from different angles to make the perfect scenes for film sequences. Another model is a rooftop room with a small bed, a desk with paper on it, some suitcases leaning on the wall, empty boxes and a window where the moon shines in. It’s a room in miniature, made with such character and personality it feels alive. It’s as if you could go in and sit by the desk. How is the animation model done we ask with admiration in our voices? “It’s made out of love”, is the simple but evident answer.

Passion is the driving force. Every animator we meet talk about the passion, describe the characters they made with affection and love. They have names. Even for a character in a commercial for a telecompany or climate issues. At Meindbender Animation Studio we are introduced to “Doctor Meindbender”, a figure that looks like a crazy professor.

“Animation takes so much time”. Tarek Saleh, one of the founders of Atmo, shows us short clips of his latest production”Metropia”, the first full-length animated film in Sweden. It will be launched around May 2009. The most difficult part is that the productions of animated films take so much time to make, another is it’s hard to find talent. Tarek Saleh decided to place the production in Trollhättan, the small town of around 44.000 inhabitants, 78 km north of Göteborg. They had a choice of Hungary and Paris. Why Trollhättan? “The big disadvantage is recruiting talent, but the hugh advantage is that people working fully understand the project”. You must be with the production team and animators; otherwise you loose the feeling in the film, he tells us. In Trollhättan he has mixed experienced animators with non-experienced, something that works very well for keeping the edge.

Should libraries be run as entreprises? And what does it mean for library services if they do? On a conference arranged by Axiell Library Group at Dieselverkstan in Stockholm, librarians from Sweden, Finland and UK have spent the past two days turning and tossing these questions. Examples of libraries that are run with a more entrepreneurial style, as Dieselverkstan in Stockholm, was put forward, as well as examples from London (UK) where changes of libraries has been on the agenda for some time. The goal is genereous opening hours, more visitors and to get people to loan more books.

Perhaps the most interesting and challenging work was done by the Library Manager, Rebekka Pilppula, from Joensuu City Library in Finland. Joensuu is a small region on the border to Russia in North Karelia, with only a about a hundred thousand inhabitants. They are facing a decline in inhabitants, young people move out, the staying inhabitans are just getting older, and unemployment rates are high and growing. The situation for the library was, thus, difficult and they have had a challenge in motivating politicians, renew, and find new ways of being relevant to the inhabitants. They did an amazing job in turning the situation for the library into a positive trend.

Nätverkstan held a contribution to the conference, on the topic “The interaction between culture and entrepreneurship”. The power point is found here: CultureEntrepreneur081107.pdf, the script can be downloaded here:Library Conference081107.pdf.

Change has been the leading word for the campaign of Barack Obama, who last night (Swedish time) was elected new president of the USA. It has been interesting to follow his campaign, and in the Rolling Stone Magazine earlier this year an article described the thoughts behind his campaign organisation. Obama had at a very early stage decided to run the campaign in an untraditional way, and set it up more as a business organisation. He also wanted a strong focus on being accessible to the public and with user-friendly contact points. New media had a central role in this. On the Swedish radio this morning, a Swedish man called in and described with pride in his voice, that he had just gotten a thank-you mail from Obama. He had at an early stage become a member on one of the web-possibilities, where he could send in emails, ask questions and show his support.

The email this morning was from Obama to personally thank him for his commitment. Although the man was well aware that millions of people probably got emails like that, and could not be personally written by Barack Obama, he was very touched. It made him feel appreciated and his very small involvement in the campaign recognised by the newly elected president. Digitalisation is sometimes described as a threat to personal meetings and empathy, talking about the risk of people and organisations becoming more and more anonymous. In this case it apparently had the opposite effect.

A short text on Obamas campaign was published here in July this year.

Overlapping of disciplines in education, artistic work and organisations, is put forward by many we meet. At Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, they combine disciplines to learn new things. The focus is long-term, to build relations and prepare students for long-term sustainable work in India. They believe in combining two strands in their training programmes: reality, and a theoretical framework that give students tools to analyse and reflect on what they meet. Srishti has a strong connection between sectors like art, design, philosophy, business. Behind their success lies an attitude of being “uncompromisingly idealistic”.

We get the chance to meet Mr B.R Jayaramaraje Urs, Special Commissioner for Information and Cultural Affairs at the Karnataka level, and discuss the role of culture. At cultural policy level, we understand that issues like cultural heritage, identity and cultural mapping are put forward. But Karnataka also fight with challenges such as rural development and the regional inbalance in the State. In Karnataka around 70% live on agriculture, but in strict economic terms of labour requirement, only 20% of human resources is required for output.

Changes are fast and uncompromising, something very true here in India. The IT-sector is one of the fastest growing, Bangalore is often compared to Silicon Valley in San Francisco. And hopes are that it will also signify to Karnataka area, what Silicon Valley has ment to California. Urbanisation is fast, one figure presented is one person a second moving into Bangalore. Farmers have had difficulties in adjusting to these changes. Since a few years back, the suicidal rate among farmers have been growing rapidly. On a comparison between 2000 and 2008 you see a decline, but it’s still significant and far too many. Around 70%, we are told, live on agriculture, a sector that has dealt with a great deal of problems like changing weather, fertilizers that disrupt the traditional circle and methods of sowing, and now also a global economic slow-down which is likely to press prices of cotton and other farm and plantation products. The state has been slow in facing these problems, and for many farmers families are disrupted, survival get more difficult and initiatives to train farmers for other types of jobs has not been fallen out well. In The Hindu (Oct, 30) you can read that farmers are also put under “undue pressure” by moneylenders and banks that forces them to commit suicide. Private moneylenders have grown four-fold during the past decade.

The Silicon Valley attitude was described to us on our visit to San Fransisco in June 2008. IDEO, a design firm placed in Silicon Valley describes the impact. Read about it here and here.

To read about the art scene in Bangalore, you can look at Time Out Bengaluru. Language is an issue in India, a number told to us is around 300 languages spoken, something that poses challenges on for instant the educational system. An article on the subject written by freelance journalist Margot Cohen can be found here.

For those who read Swedish, get your hands on the book “Mahatma!” written by Swedish author Zac O’Yeah , since 15 years living in Bangalore. It’s a great description of Gandhis life and accomplishment and an introduction to India.

The delegation to Bangalore is part of the newly formed exchange of knowledge and experience between the Swedish Region Västra Götaland and Karnataka.