See http://projectesin.com for English/Japanese bilingual details about the project proposal.
In essence project Esin is a scheme to build a creative facility that sits in a virtual space between education, commerce, local government and international creative producers, managers and consumers. It is financed by a mixture of student fees, commercial services, intellectual property exploitation and financial support either from local government, corporate investment, trust funds or, most likely, a mixture of all three.
Project Esin forms the focal point at the heart of the Blueprint for a Creative Economy proposal and is essential as a primary instigator of the creative activity and energy required. Because of this it is vital that Esin;
In order for Esin to come into existence, survive and prosper it will need considerable support both from local government and from sympathetic industry and trusts. It will also need to the endorsement of internationally recognised creative thinkers. In order to achieve this, the ethos of Esin must be protected and so this not-for-profit foundation has been established with the responsibility of maintaining the values and goals of Esin’s stated ‘manifesto’. The use of the Esin name and identity can then be exclusively licensed for each territory (initially, and for a long term period, free of charge) to specific organisations that are set up to build and run a local manifestation of the concept. These organisations must be independent, properly financed and professionally managed.
With regular reviews by the foundation members, the local ‘projects’ can be run as stand alone businesses with freedom to operate as is commercially dictated with the full use of the Esin name as long as the foundation’s standards are upheld. In this way it can operate as an ‘open source’ project that upholds specific standards and methods but leaving local organisations to create variations while adding to and expanding the concept globally. This is a new business model, and one that takes it’s basis from a mixture of new and old established ideas. It could be thought of as a blend of brand franchising and open source software development.
The ideal future for the foundation is that a number of separate organisations license the use of the name and create various Esin’s around the world, all linked together. By sharing ideas and teaching resources, the result would be a vast global network of creative practitioners. Each manifestation of Esin would become a recognised focal point for creative activity and the local regions that supported it would be achieve a recognised prominence in the creative world of the future.
An essential aspect of each Esin is that it finds and trains managers and producers to learn how to work with and exploit intellectual property and its creators. It is by this mechanism that local business is stimulated and creative companies are formed. While much of the creative talent will come from international origins, the managerial talent can be sourced locally as long as accompanying language skills can be instilled. The creative economy of the future is multi-cultural, the managerial resources will therefore have to be multi-lingual. However, many of these resources can be shared, taking advantage of greater economies of scale. It is not necessary for each individual manger to be multi-lingual but they will require access to multi-lingual services which could either be based within Esin itself or spun off as another service company.
The spin off companies can also integrate with other local start up businesses and form their own support systems to incubate new businesses. One of the major problems with small creative companies is the lack of available management skills and many good ideas are unable to find a market simply because of this. Profitable companies fail due to poor management skills and lack of understanding of some of the basic principals of business such as cash flow management.
location specific comments; Sapporo, Melbourne
Project Esin research phase; detail – Fabrica, Treviso, North East Italy.
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