Culture city gets creative with national conference

by Alistair Houghton, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL’S creative sector is to win even more national recognition this year as a major sector conference comes to Liverpool for the first time.

The National Creative Industries Conference 2008, which aims to debate just what makes a truly “Creative City”, will be held at FACT on December 11.

The city’s Capital of Culture status will be at the top of the agenda as delegates discuss how such events affect cities’ creative industries. They will discuss whether any lessons from Liverpool’s successful 2008 can be shared with other cities hosting major events, including London in 2012.

Speakers will include Urban Splash founder Tom Bloxham, Work Foundation chief executive Will Hutton, and National Film and Television School chief executive Nik Powell.

The event aims to bring key figures in the creative industries together with local and national government policymakers who can help the sector develop.

The event will be chaired by Jo Burns, director of London consultancy Burns Owens Partnership.

In the last decade, the creative sector has become increasingly important in the eyes of Government, which wants the UK to become the world’s creative hub and attract global investment.

Ms Burns said: “The success of the creative industries is a key issue for this country. It’s about global competitiveness and how we’ll sell ourselves, get jobs and earn money in the next century.”

The event is in Liverpool at the end of the city’s Capital of Culture year but Claire Walker, freelance sector development manager at support agency Merseyside ACME, said it would focus on the future as well as the successes of the past 12 months.

She said: “It’s an opportunity to get the message out about how Capital of Culture year has gone and what the sector sees happening post-08. It’s important Liverpool gets the message across that there’s a lot happening post-2008.”

Sefton MBC and Liverpool City Council have recently bid for funding from the Government’s Local Enterprise Growth Initiative (LEGI). The aim of the bid is to transform the deprived area straddling the North Liverpool and South Sefton border into a base for a new generation of entrepreneurs and successful, outward-looking businesses.Our organisation has recently agreed to join in partnership to deliver business support services across Merseyside with a number of other business advisers and has a strategy to deliver such services over at least the next 5 years to meet the requirements of the Northwest Development Agency.

As a result of creating this exciting new partnership our organisation now comprises 3 SFEDI accredited business advisers and 1 project manager with extensive experience in managing and delivering business support projects supporting people from disadvantaged backgrounds in some of the most deprived wards in the UK. Our advisers have experience of working with ALL client groups including Women, BME, Disabled, young, old and ex offenders as well as the long term unemployed and those groups not deemed to be from disadvantaged backgrounds

The team have worked for and in partnership with a number of other business support organisations across the region providing business support to the target groups including Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and the Cheshire and Warrington areas with organisations including The Princes Trust, .New Entrepreneurs Scholarship programme, several Sirolli projects in Liverpool, Blue Orchid, The Design Initiative (Manchester and Liverpool), Business Link Northwest, Community Based Economic Development Agencies (CBED’s) in Liverpool (SMART, ELECT,, EDT, TREND, Train 2000, ), Reed Business Services, Asian Business Federation (Blackburn), Merseyside Chinese Business Association and creative industries support organisations including Creative Bias, ACME and Arts Council England.

As well as supporting mainstream businesses, our organisation supports Social Enterprise and we are incorporated as a Community Interest Company (CIC). Our advisers have extensive experience in working with a wide range of community organisations and socially motivated groups and all advisers are educated to Masters level and include MA’s in Social Enterprise.

Additionally, our team has experience of managing business incubation projects both bricks and mortar and virtual incubation programmes with local and International Universities.

From this week we have moved to:
49-52 Seel St
Liverpool
L1 4AZ

and our new telephone number is:
+44 (0)151 329 2121

The Medics on the Move Project in a Nutshell
The Medics on the Move (MoM) project aims to provide medical professionals working abroad ("medics on the move") with language tools and support to help them function effectively in their new workplace. MoM uses the latest technology to deliver a purpose-designed language training programme that addresses the needs of medics in everyday situations. Project start date: November 2006 - End date: October 2008.

Background
Medical specialists (qualified or in training), nursing staff, paramedics, and even medical exchange students working abroad are often totally immersed in their professional practice. Many do not have time for in-depth language study, and may not progress beyond language level B1 of the European Framework of Reference for Languages. As a result, they can be difficult to understand, and/or may appear indecisive, insensitive or even rude. They risk communication breakdown, which can have negative implications for delicate doctor-patient and doctor-staff relationships.

MoM Research
Using questionnaires, surveys and language analyses, based on state-of-the-art research literature on health care communication, the programme designers have mapped the language deficiencies of medics working abroad, as well as their perceived deficiencies as expressed by the professionals and their colleagues. With this information, the MoM-developers have created a targeted language training programme that aims to maximize improvement in communication and interaction between the medic and all the groups of people s/he is likely to encounter.

Learning with MoM
The MoM syllabus is based on the communicative situations a medic has to deal with on a daily basis. A searchable list of everyday medical terms with pronunciation advice, a doctor-patient consultation timeline, a database of diverse medical interactions, and an extended reference tool are all fully integrated, giving medics an easy-to-use and readily accessible guide to communication in a medical context.

Liverpool is a wonderful city - looking across the docks to the Pier Head the other night and you realise what great things have been happening during the Capital of Culture year. The giant mechanical spider - "La Princesse" is just one great event of many but this must be one of the most terrific, emotional and awe inspiring of them all!

NICE08 is the first Nordic Art and Culture Festival to take place in the North West UK

NICE is a combined arts festival presenting the best in collaborative works between the UK and the Nordic countries. Our participants range from Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the UK. Here you will find details of our programme of events taking place from 20th to 30th of November with satellite events happening from September onwards. Our aim is to highlight the heritage links between Liverpool and the Nordic countries by exploring contemporary art and culture, music and dance. Liverpool's year as European City of Culture is an excellent opportunity for us to create a festival that will form links that will last beyond 2008 and we hope to provide future collaborations and events within Liverpool's best venues and galleries.

谈话对您的医疗专业人员 – “Talk to your Medical Professional” addresses the needs of Chinese patients consulting with English speaking medical professionals and is based on the communicative situations between a patient and medic on a daily basis. A searchable list of everyday medical terms with pronunciation advice, a medic-patient consultation timeline, a database of diverse medical interactions, and an extended reference tool are all fully integrated, providing Chinese speaking patients with an easy-to-use and readily accessible guide to communication in a medical context.

Accessibility
“Talk to your Medical Professional” – is a medical language wiki with community features that may be accessed from web-enabled mobile devices (including BlackBerrys, the iPhone, and other smartphones) as well as from traditional computer workstations.

Content and Languages
“Talk to your Medical Professional” includes searchable databases of more than 200 workplace-oriented communication scenarios and up to 1,000 everyday medical terms in Chinese language

Additional Support (future development)
Audio files, language and communication tips, and further references guide the user in a cross-cultural medical context. Scenarios in the “Talk to your Medical Professional” include interactions medics may have with patients during different phases of consultation, with colleagues in the course of their working day, and more. The system also enables and encourages interaction with other members of the “Talk to your Medical Professional” -community through forums and chat functionality.

Albert Dock, Liverpool by Sebastian Koslinski

Pacificstream welcomed colleagues from Poland, Germany, Spain, Greece and Lithuania for the third meeting of the Au Pairs Leonardo project.
The aim of the project is creation of a professional 90-hour training course providing practical knowledge about child-care both in English and German at an intermediate level designed especially for people planning to work as au pairs in any English or German speaking country.
The course is going to integrate the study of subject matters connected with pedagogical aspects of child development and the practical nature of an au pair's job with improving language competencies necessary for the au pair to perform her/his duties and deal with everyday situations.
In order to meet the project targets the course package will be based on an especially designed CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) method.
Pacificstream is working with staff from Hope University, Liverpool on this project to provide the specialist knowledge in early years training.
At this half way stage there has been much progress and the meeting reviewed the work to date and planned for the second year of the project.
This Leonardo da Vinci is coordinated by the Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Poland.
The next meeting will take place in Greece, Rob Eakins, the project manager at Pacificstream is already getting his sun tan cream ready!

Could this be the way forward for developing business plans for creative people?

A book about how to solve problems using pictures has become a surprise bestseller in the US. Author Dan Roam explains why drawing can be such a powerful work tool

In late 1987, the Irish airline leasing magnate Tony Ryan asked Michael O'Leary, his accountant, to help launch a new airline. One of the first jobs Ryan had for O'Leary was to go the US and study Southwest Airlines. The Texas-based carrier had for years been the world's most profitable airline, in spite of defying traditional airline logic in every aspect of operations. O'Leary came back from his field trip a man possessed. He immediately went to work on turning Ryanair into Europe's first "low-cost" carrier, and in the process turned the entire European airline model on its head. We'll never know exactly what O'Leary saw at Southwest, but whatever it was, it inspired a vision in O'Leary that still burns. I'm going to take a guess that he saw "the napkin". American business lore tells us that one late night in 1967, Rollin King (another wannabe airline tycoon) asked his lawyer, Herb Kelleher, out for a drink. That evening, King told Kelleher about an idea he had for an airline. Picking up a pen, King wrote the names of Texas's three biggest cities on his cocktail napkin: Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. Then he connected the three with a triangle. It was a bone-headedly simple drawing, illustrating a bone-headedly simple concept: forget the "hub-and-spoke" system; instead, just connect the secondary airports at the three places most businesspeople in Texas wanted to go. It worked. Kelleher bought the idea, and Southwest took off using the napkin as its route map - it has never looked back. I love that story. As an impassioned advocate of the use of simple pictures in business, I can't think of a better example of how a quick sketch on the back of a napkin can convey an idea. I've always drawn; sketching things out is one of the clearest memories I have of childhood. When I started my working life, my first job was as a graphic designer, and it made sense that I drew all the time, because everyone in design draws. But when I moved into managing my own businesses and then into management consulting, the fact that I drew made me odd, because nobody in business draws. Which I always thought was a shame, since I knew that every time I picked up a pen in a meeting and started sketching out my idea, magic would happen in the room. People would pay an extraordinary amount of attention to what I was saying, would actively look and listen, and most important of all, would quickly join in the development of the idea. Twenty years of consulting for organisations such as Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo and the US Navy has left me convinced in the power of pictures as a business tool. I know that any business challenge - business strategy, resource allocation, project management, product development, you name it - can be clarified, if not outright solved, through the use of a picture. And I also know that the pictures that work are so simple that anybody can draw them. I doubt if it will surprise anyone when I say that pictures can convey more specific and memorable information than words, that pictures - especially of complex concepts - "stick" better than bullet lists, that pictures can communicate many ideas simultaneously and immediately, and above all, that pictures can transcend language barriers. What may be surprising is that the pictures I'm talking about are something we can all create. Thinking with pictures is not the exclusive domain of the artistically talented or trained. It's a talent we are all born with, yet few of us ever have the opportunity to improve - 75% of the neurons in our brains that are processing sensory information are processing vision, and sight is far-and-away the most important means for us to learn about the world around us. Think about this: walk into a class of primary school children and - with the teacher's permission, of course - ask the six-year-olds how many can draw. Every hand will go up. Now ask how many can read: perhaps two little hands will go up. Now walk into a secondary school and ask the 16-year-olds the same two questions. How many can draw? Maybe three hands. How many can read? Every hand. Don't get me wrong: reading and writing are fundamental and essential. So is vision. The reason most businesspeople are uncertain about their ability to solve problems with pictures is that they are uncertain about their ability to draw. "I'm not visual; I can't draw," is the comment I hear from someone in every meeting I attend. My response is that if we're visual enough to walk into the room and find a place to sit down without falling down, we're visual enough to understand everything we are going to talk about, and to find value in it. I've never been let down. To help people overcome this lack of confidence, I break the entire "visual thinking" process down into four discrete steps: looking, seeing, imagining, and showing. Each step makes demands on a different part of our innate visual abilities, and each step plays an important role in learning to take in the big picture. Most important of all, once we realise how good we already are at visually processing the world around us, we realise that drawing itself is only a small part of visual thinking, and it comes at the very end of the process, not at the beginning. Nothing is more engaging to a live audience than seeing a picture created in real time. It really is pure magic. Partly that's because when we see the problem and solution drawn out for us, we mentally participate in the process and "get" what we're seeing. Even more importantly, a picture drawn by hand is not perfect, and its imperfections invite commentary and discussion, rather than the arguments about minute details that usually accompany a "finished" diagram. In fact, because a more polished picture looks "done", it is more likely to shut down discussion than stimulate it. Like anything, becoming confident enough to start drawing in a business meeting or presentation takes practice. Next time you face a business problem, try this on your own:

1. Draw a small circle in the middle of a page and label it "my business" (or "me").

2. Now, off to one side, draw a larger second circle, and call it "my customers".

3. Draw an arrow between the circles, and label it "my sales channel".

4. Add a few words describing that channel: is it "good", "needs improvement", "solid", "stretched", etc.

5. On the other side of the "my customer" circle, draw a third circle and call it "my competitor".
6. Is this circle bigger than yours? Is it closer to your customers, or further away? Think about what you're starting to see here in the relationships of these circles, and note down any thoughts that occur.

7. Draw an arrow between "competitor" and "customer" and describe that channel.

We've just started, and already our minds are starting to seeing sizes, relationships, and interactions that would have been invisible if we hadn't started drawing. Keep going and see what emerges. Within seconds we'll begin to come up with ideas that we wouldn't have had if we'd just been talking. We can't help it: all we're doing is feeding our brains the chance to do what they love - solve problems with pictures.

· Dan Roam is author of "The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures"

Book review from Saturday May 17, 2008
The Guardian

Steven Poole is intrigued by rich provocations and swaggering prose on the morality of cultural 'piracy' in Matt Mason's The Pirate's Dilemma


The Pirate's Dilemma: How Hackers, Punk Capitalists and Graffiti Millionaires Are Re-Mixing Our Culture and Changing the World

by Matt Mason


One couldn't wish for a more colourful circus of corporate stupidity and vindictiveness than the public actions of the major record labels over the past decade. They have secretly installed spyware on people's computers and sued American college students; last month, one label filed a US court claim that throwing their promotional CDs in the bin constituted a violation of copyright. At the same time, they have been demanding a tax on iPods, the proceeds from which would flow directly into their pockets, and firing the A&R staff upon whom their future depends. None of this, of course, is meant to protect the interests of musicians, only of their executive leeches.
It is a farcical ongoing case study in how not to respond to what former pirate-radio DJ Matt Mason calls "the pirate's dilemma". Despite some special pleading in the introduction, he really means "the pirate dilemma": the pirates themselves are not mulling much over ethical quandaries, but they are forcing everyone else to figure out how to live with them. Much of the book is focused on how large companies ought to respond to the fleet-footed challenge of copyists, mash-uppers and other rebels against "intellectual property". What, for example, did Nike do when a Japanese DJ called Nigo started ripping off its famous Air Force One trainer design and selling versions in crazy new materials and colours at a high-fashion premium? It didn't sue; instead, it started making similar far-out designs itself, and then invested in Nigo's company.

Mason offers this reassuring take-home message for corporations: that piracy often identifies gaps in the market, or new spaces that the market could expand to fill. Inspirational stories abound. Hollywood was founded by film-makers fleeing Edison's burdensome patents on cinema equipment in New York; American cable TV companies initially "refused to pay the networks for broadcasting their content"; the BBC's Radio 1 was inaugurated as a "pirate copy" of the pirate station Radio London, to try to stamp out once and for all the Jolly Rogers of the airwaves.

So far, so comfy. But Mason has a sly habit of suddenly wrenching the argument into a new context, arguing at one point, for instance, that the production of cheap generic anti-HIV drugs in India, fought bitterly by big pharma, is another form of contemporary (and heroic) "piracy", pointing up a way in which current laws and regulations are "broken". Later on, there is even an abrupt segue from hip-hop to the Post-Autistic Economics movement (which argues that neoclassical or "mainstream" economics is delusionary): cheeky, but it works.

The best parts of the book, meanwhile, take the leisure to build vivid, detailed histories of countercultures that the author loves, tracing hip-hop, for example, back to the birth of MCing thanks to a studio oversight in Jamaica in 1967. There is a wonderful proof that disco was invented by a nun, Sister Alicia Donohoe, at an orphanage in the 1940s - she created a "party room" for the children equipped with a fridge, record player and multicoloured balloons. Subliminal memories of that space inspired a former resident, David Mancuso, to give his series of famous disco parties at the Loft in 1970s New York. There is also a history of graffiti as the civic reclaiming of public space, which includes the remarkable fact that, during the great subway "cleanup" of the 1980s, many painted carriages were just dumped in the ocean. Mason's prose style is a lovely, swaggering mash-up of the analytical and the street. I was happy to be told, of one hip-hop dandy, that his "fashion game was mighty healthy".

There is, though, a tension running through Mason's arguments, as to whether we should applaud those he calls "pirates" for their creative anti-corporate rebellion, or admire them insofar as they subsequently become corporate successes themselves. Here is a graffiti tagger who builds a T-shirt empire; and here is a soft-drinks company that makes a near-subliminal but highly successful marketing deal with 50 Cent. Is this really comparable to the spirit of anarchic creativity he celebrates? When big sportswear companies try "street advertising" through graffiti, he evidently disapproves. This tension is not resolved, but is in the end overtly framed in the following superbly wry sentence: "Hip-hop mastered the art of the sustainable sellout through the notion of keeping it real."

Mason's cultural view, meanwhile, remains impressively wide-angle. He also discusses authoritatively other aspects of "remix culture", such as the "modding" scene in videogames (where gamers build their own new environments and rule-sets from the open code provided); or the "phantom edit" of George Lucas's first new Star Wars film, in which fans removed all possible trace of the appalling Jar Jar Binks. He is consistently thoughtful, offering rich provocations about the British wave of "happy slapping", or a future in which self-replicating 3D printers become possible. In comparison with most other contemporary books that seek to educate corporate culture about what the kids are doing, Mason exudes the authority, and sheer joyful fascination, of someone who is saturated in what he talks about.

It is possible, though, that two concepts of "piracy" are being conflated. Rule-breaking creativity that opens up new cultural and economic possibilities is one thing; but that's not the same "piracy" as just downloading for free the music you used to pay for. The vast majority of MP3 "sharers" are not doing anything to creatively extend the material, as most of Mason's heroic "pirates" do. You can't actually remix a commercially produced track unless the artist deliberately gives out the original "stems" - separate tracks of drums, bass, vocals and so on. This is what Radiohead did last month with their song "Nude" for a remix competition - but in a deliciously cynical twist, anyone who wanted the stems had to pay for them as five separate "songs" on iTunes. In return for the four quid investment, remixers got to upload their versions to Radiohead's website - and, er, that's it. (By contrast, Nine Inch Nails were already giving away remixable stems for free a couple of years ago.)

Near the bottom of all this lies one very simple question. If the only answer to widespread piracy, as Mason argues, is to "compete like a pirate" yourself, how will the actual producers of "content" get paid in the future? This question recently generated a large public discussion on my website, where, as an experiment in the economics of free distribution with voluntary donations, I had given away an electronic version of one of my own books. It was downloaded by 30,000 people, of whom 17 contributed to the "tip jar". Needless to say, I'm not giving up the day job.

The question comes up in Mason's book, but you'll miss it if you blink. "Artists not getting paid for their work is a problem," he says. Moving swiftly on: "But the fact remains that file-sharing sites such as Napster make an abundance of music available that we otherwise would not have access to." That's true, but on its own it's not a persuasive argument. Robbing a bank would make an abundance of money available to me that I otherwise would not have access to. I may firmly believe that this would be an excellent thing for everyone, but I'd have to make a second argument to show why: maybe I would promise to give the money to the poor, or become a discerning patron of struggling nerdcore musicians, or just buy myself lots of gadgets and nice meals, since at least I would be reinvesting the cash in the economy in a more efficient manner than banks have recently shown themselves able to do.

So it's worth noticing, finally, that Mason is not distributing his own ideas "pirate"-fashion, which presumably would mean slapping this text up for free on an internet wiki to which anyone could contribute edits and additions. Instead, he has published it as an old-fashioned book with a copyright notice and assertion of "moral right", which makes a nice calling card for the speaking engagements detailed on his blog. The publishing industry might soon face the same problems as the music industry currently does; but until then, cash in while you can. Steven Poole's website is at stevenpoole.net

Pacificstream with the VIC Leonardo project are sponsoring a stand at the Design Show in Liverpool from 19th to 22nd June at the new Contemporary Urban Centre. Designers represented will be furniture by Jon Holmes (Milky Tea), silver ware by Miranda Meilleur, paper work by Kenn Munk (DK), jewellery by Nacho Zapata (ES), fashion assessories by Nook & Willow and design work by Splinter.

Pacificstream was invited to participate in the Leonardo Life Long Learning workshop at the Congress Centre, 23−28 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3LS

Thematic Networking Groups Launch Event
08 April 2008

TNG 2: Continuous Development of Teachers, Trainers and Learning Professionals

Notes of discussion
1. This paper sets out the rationale, context and aims of the workshop, and summarises the contributions from speakers and the key themes of discussion.

2. The notes aim to capture the substance of the discussion. The notes do not attribute any views to individuals and do not seek to imply consensus where none was reached. A list of participants is attached as Annex 1.

Rationale and context
3. Faye Lewis, Chair of the group, began by setting out the aims of the group and the purpose of the workshop. It was noted that both national and European policies recognise the importance of a high quality, well trained workforce across the different sectors of lifelong learning. The purpose of TNG2 is to look at the key challenges facing learning professionals, and examine how the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), and the Leonardo, Grundtvig and Transversal programmes in particular, can help meet these challenges.

4. During the workshop members of the group were asked to consider:
• Who are the learning professionals we are discussing?
• Key challenges facing learning professionals in all sectors of lifelong learning
• How to raise awareness of the Leonardo, Grundtvig and Transversal programmes and to mainstream results
• Focus of the group’s work over the next 6 months and ideas for the next meeting

Pacificstream has been given an award to attend the Health, Contact Seminar in Aarhus, Denmark 15^th – 17^th May 2008.

THE SOCIAL AND HEALTH CARE COLLEGE AARHUS WOULD LIKE TO INVITE ALL OUR COLLEAGUES, PARTNERS, CONTACTS AND FRIENDS TO A LEONARDO/GRUNDTVIG CONTACT SEMINAR MAY 2008. The aim of the contact seminar is to present key themes on tomorrow’s healtcare challenges in Europe and encourage the participants to form thematic network groups intending to produce applications for the 2009 Lifelong Learning Call.
The key themes of the seminar will be: • Identifying tomorrow’s major challenges and needs in European healthcare • The contribution of the Nordic healthcare tradition • Competence development for healthcare professionals in lifelong learning Europe • The healthcare empowerment of patients and citizens in the lifelong learning Europe • Lifelong learning for healthcare staff – new competences, new qualifications, mobility • European mobility for healthcare staff and for learners? • De-hospitalization – pervasive healthcare? • Healthcare for elderly – the ageing society • The challenges of multicultural healthcare • How to deal with the increasing number of citizens suffering from lifestyle diaseases?
The networking seminar will offer a diversity of key note presentations, workshops and networking forums. The participants are encouraged to participate freely in the dialogues, and there will be scheduled time for networking and establishing partnerships during the seminar. The contact seminar will offer a diversity of key note presentations, workshops and networking forums. The participants are encouraged to participate freely in the dialogues, and there will be scheduled time for networking and establishing partnerships during the seminar. Each workshop will take the form of a general presentation of a given subject including a presentation of already held projects and suggestions for new projects – suggestions from seminar participants will be welcomed. Furthermore there will be time for networking among participants during the workshops, both for establishing formal partnerships concerning a concrete project and for creating more informal networks for the sharing and developing of ideas. On THURSDAY the 15th and FRIDAY the 16th, we will be working with the key health themes of the seminar. FRIDAY EVENING there will be social activities, including a reception, dinner and musical entertainment. From 9 to 12 on SATURDAY the 17th, key consultants from the college will facilitate further networking and partnership constructions directly aiming to produce apllications on key healthcare issues for the 2009 Lifelong Learning Call. Many of our national partners will also be joining the seminar. .

Problem: The increasing numbers of students at universities worldwide do not match an equivalent increase of university funding and lecturing staff. Supervision is a time intensive and individual endeavor, based on private dialogues between supervisor and student. Time and funding allocated for supervision is not proportional to the actual time supervisors need to invest for each individual student. The problem with decreasing funding and time allocated to thesis supervision has far reaching consequences for thesis completion rates and the quality of theses produced. Feedback opportunities for students are too few, which leads to problems for students in staying on track and completing their project within the allocated time frame. Another crucial problem for social inclusion regards students from non-academic backgrounds (or immigrants) needing more feedback than students from academic backgrounds. In a situation when a large number of students need qualified education part of this communication has to be provided in other qualitative ways than private unique dialogues.
Aim: The overall aim of the Nexus project is to provide a flexible and semi-self adaptive ICT-tool for mass-individualization of supervision in thesis work at various levels a) Bachelor, b) Master and c) Ph D level. The system will also support knowledge creating project work in the business sector. The Nexus system will facilitate, increase, improve, internationalize and efficiently support the knowledge creating process by developing a smart ICT based model for supervision allowing for flexible adaptations to local and international academic criteria’s and preferences. As well as non-academic project based processes.
The Nexus system will create economies of scale in thesis supervision, create a system for digital scientific research content, increase European collaboration on thesis supervision, and remedy social exclusion. This will be achieved through merging the best of distance and campus education, creating a flexible educational tool useful in face-to-face supervision, mixed mode, or pure online supervision.
In order to facilitate economies of scale in thesis supervision the Nexus project aims to produce an ICT system that reduces the communication burden on the supervisor, but at the same time increases the feedback for students, and makes more information available in a flexible, economic, and time efficient way, thus leaving the unique dialogue between students and supervisor to the innovative and critical aspects of the particular thesis project.
To achieve this, the Nexus project is conceptually organized around supervision pathways that enable participating institutions to define, share, and modify supervision workflows to suit either local needs or pan-European educational networks. In order to further assist European collaboration the Nexus project aims to deploy multilingual scientific sources that will give students a European perspective on scientific work, thus leveraging the Nexus ICT-system as a cross border collaborative tool. A more engaging and motivational digital learning environment will by created by hyper videos and an innovative user interface allowing creative visual overviews of the scientific process, user control, interactivity and transparency.
The Nexus project will support students in the process of finding high quality digital content relevant for their research work. Nexus will work closely with librarians and informatics specialists to improve the access and relevance of e-resources related to thesis work

A brief description of your organisation and its track record
Pacificstream Information C.I.C. is a social enterprise based in the Kensington area of Liverpool. The company was established in April 2005 to promote the creative and digital content industries on Merseyside, with a particular focus on technological development, and to facilitate access to a range of European and UK-based research and development projects by members of both the business and education sectors. The project team has extensive experience of creative industries business support and has coordinated a range of European funded Leonardo da Vinci projects (including a virtual incubator for the creative industries). Pacificstream is committed to regional development, supporting regeneration projects and assisting with the development of sustainable social enterprises on Merseyside.
What you would like us to fund
The creation of an online resource for creative industries entrepreneurs, featuring a range of interactive online case studies designed to educate creative industries practitioners about intellectual property (IP) rights (copyright, design right, trade marks etc). These case studies would illustrate the right and wrong ways to go about protecting and using IP (the life blood of any creative enterprise), and show the positive and negative effects that can occur depending on how entrepreneurs handle their IP, and the IP belonging to others. They will be presented in an interactive cartoon format that will not only engage the target group but will help to maintain interest in a topic that, although essential, is typically considered dry. There will be help sheets created to explain the concepts more fully and common legal templates also available, all provided through a dedicated website called Using your Creativity. The case studies are not intended to require the strategic decision-making of complex action mazes, but rather to show in graphic representations the consequences that can result from the way a company handles its IP. Information about the product will de disseminated through business support organisations, flyers and posters, and a series of seminars in community settings to both raise awareness of the importance of IP and to introduce the website.
Why you want to do this work and why your organisation is best equipped to carry it out
Creative industries self-employment is attractive to people from disadvantaged backgrounds because the barriers to entry are often low. People with a talent for design, painting, dance or music can begin to trade with very little financial investment. Many immigrants bring traditional handicraft skills that could be used as the basis for income generation, with the proper protection. However, most new entrepreneurs know little or nothing about IP laws and good practice. In order for individuals to protect their ideas and potentially move into the legal economy, a good understanding of intellectual property rights is essential. This
understanding may also help entrepreneurs to identify income streams and opportunities of which they had not previously been aware, and to ensure that entrepreneurs do not use other people’s IP illegally.
To illustrate: Due to the reduction of production costs many small companies are producing short films. When that film is finished, a television company may become interested. So what are the issues? Has the producer obtained agreements from the performers who appear in the production? Have they used background music that is subject to copyright, and will need clearance? Are they confident of the usual terms of such deals so that they benefit properly from their work and are not “ripped off”? If one or more of these issues have not been dealt with a good opportunity can suddenly become a big problem.
Even business advisers are often ignorant to the facts of IP. So, whilst IP could be considered just one of the issues involved in starting a creative enterprise, it is a greatly misunderstood and overlooked area, which needs specific and effective support. The project team has had a long-standing interest in the subject and has identified the need for change. With long-standing relationships with creative industries business support organisations (who themselves have targets for supporting groups traditionally under-represented in business) we have effective access to both the target group and stakeholder organisations who would benefit from our proposed project and would actively promote and use the product.
What difference the work you would like us to support will make to your organisation and life in the UK (either locally, regionally or nationally)
The initial impact would be the creation of IP aware practitioners, better equipped to benefit from their creativity. This will directly assist in the regeneration of poorer communities by giving people the confidence and knowledge to legally make money from their creativity. This approach could then potentially be rolled out regionally or nationally. The creation of the website and interactive cartoons are themselves examples of IP. Whilst the website in its initial format would be available free, the model could be developed by Pacificstream to teach other topics, and licensed out to other organisations, thus providing an income stream for a company currently dependent on projects for sustainability.

Additional information
This project provides an innovative yet practical approach to teaching entrepreneurs about the essential but complex issue of intellectual property, using interactive, visually appealing case studies. In this way it has the potential to develop best practice in the area of teaching IP and training new entrepreneurs. As the project as a whole initially targets new entrepreneurs, particularly from disadvantaged communities, it has the potential to assist with wealth creation where it is most needed and promote social inclusion.

Press release – VIC (Virtual Incubator for the Creative Industries)

VIC is an online “one stop shop” for anyone setting up a creative industries business, such as graphic designers and artists. This “virtual incubator” provides links to all the information new businesses need, presented in a way that is interesting and accessible to people from a creative background. As well as accessing the most relevant information from around Europe, users can also post their own videos and comments and pass on their business and creative knowledge for the benefit of others.

The VIC project is a collaboration between partners from across Europe, including the UK, Slovakia and Denmark. It has been made possible by support from the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which is part of the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The principal partner is Pacificstream Information C.I.C., a social enterprise based in the Kensington area of Liverpool. Other partners from the North West include the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), the design studio Splinter and the business support organisation Creativebias.

Becoming a partner on a Leonardo da Vinci funded project can be a great opportunity for an SME, whatever sector they are from. Travelling to meetings with European partners can provide new networking opportunities and open up new business prospects, as well as providing a pleasant break from the normal work routine. Research and development work undertaken as part of the project can benefit individual partners, whilst staff members can benefit from professional development as they learn more about evaluation, dissemination and project management in an informal yet supportive setting.

Pacificstream director Roy Jones has worked on a variety of European projects, and would encourage other SME’s to get involved. Roy says “We are currently working on a project designed to help creative industries practitioners like artists and musicians understand the value of their creativity and the protection offered to them under copyright law. It’s been a great opportunity for our staff to learn more about these issues, which will benefit our company in the long run.”

For more information about the VIC project or Leonardo da Vinci projects in general contact Roy Jones on 0151 907 2950 or visit www.pacificstream.info or www.vicreative.org

INCKA – Leonardo LLL Development of Innovation Proposal

This project aims to create a dynamic and innovative software application that creative industries entrepreneurs and creators can use to identify the IP in their business, and teach them how to protect and exploit it.

IPR Awareness - Esmee Fairburn

Esmee Fairburn supports work that focuses on the UK’s cultural life, education, the natural environment and enabling people who are disadvantaged to participate more fully in society.

Awareness raising programme for start-up creative entrepreneurs to convince them of the value of their ideas and knowledge by using a graphic book approach and a training programme.

DONE – Leonardo LLL Transversal Programme

With The Academy of Humanities and Economics in Lodz, Poland

HR MultiPack - an On-line Multilingual Human Resources Training Package
Developing an On-line Multilingual Human Resources Training Package is intended
to be a training package for VET trainers or tutors as well as trainees at academic
level. The package will comprise five thematic modules each accompanied by a set
of cases illustrating SMEs’ organisational and cultural context in partner countries.
Additionally, there will be developed a multilingual glossary concentrating on LWULT
languages. The objective of the project is to upgrade vocational qualifications of
prospective employees in the field of human resources and provide trainers and
tutors with a training tool that can improve their professional technique spectrum.

NEXUS – FP7 Large-scale integrating project (IP) proposal ICT Call 3
FP7-ICT-2007-3

With the University of Stockholm, Sweden

Nexus- Technology Enhanced Supervision
The increasing numbers of students at universities do not match an equivalent increase of university funding and lecturing staff. Supervision is a time intensive and individual endeavor, based on private dialogues between supervisor and student. Time and funding allocated for supervision is not proportional to the actual time supervisors need to invest for each individual student.

The problem with decreasing funding and/time allocated to thesis supervision has far reaching consequences for thesis completion rates and in a long perspective even for quality deficient/problems. Feedback opportunities for students are too few for each student, which leads to problems for students in staying on track and completing their project within the allocated time frame. Another crucial problem for social exclusion regards students from non-academic backgrounds (or immigrants) needing more feedback than students from academic backgrounds. In a situation when a large number of students need qualified education part of this communication has to be provided in other qualitative ways than private unique dialogues.

The Nexus project aims to achieve mass-individualization for thesis supervision through technology enhanced learning in order to create economies of scale in thesis supervision, create a digital portal for digital scientific research content, increase European collaboration on thesis supervision, and remedy social exclusion.

The objective is to provide faculties and students with a self-adaptive and contextual sensitive ICT-based tool that enables mass-individualisation of thesis supervision on all levels of higher education. This will be achieved through merging the best of distance and campus education, creating a flexible educational tool useful in face-to-face supervision, mixed mode, or pure online supervision.

Leonardo – Partnership Project

With the Employment Agency of Galati, Romania

Best practices changes in the Adult Training Strategic Management and Structural Funds Project Management.

TEMPUS – Development of creative industries MA/MBA

With the Siberia Aerospace Academy, Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Pioneering a MA in Creative Economy with the collaboration of three universities in Europe and three in Russia. Contributing to the MA course design and implementation.

One of my last roles at St Helens College was as project manager for the development, and fund raising for an environmental project. The result was an analytical lab using state-of-the-art X-ray spectrometer processes.
This article from Liverpool Post.
Liverpool POST Friday, March 14th, 2008

Praise for college as success Beacon

ST HELENS College was yesterday mentioned in a Government White Paper aimed at making the UK a world leader in "innovative" businesses.
An innovation fund will be set up to back businesses and the number of skills academies will be expanded into every major sector of the economy.
An Innovation Research Centre will be set up and the Government said it will create new markets for its £150bn spending on goods and services every year.
St Helens College features in the White Paper as an example of how working closely with local and national businesses and universities can encourage innovation.
The college bought an X ray fluorescence spectrometer to provide an industry standard item of equipment with which to attract trainees from local and regional small and medium sized enterprises.
Innovation, universities and skills secretary John Denham said: "We must make the UK the best place in the world to run an innovative business or public service.
"It is the British people who will create a world beating innovation nation and that is why we must unlock talent at all levels by investing in skills, research and the exploitation of knowledge."

A temporary web site for the proposed INCKA site is now live.
Visit: www.incka.org

SUMMARY


Intellectual property (IP) is the essence of the creative industries. It refers to music, designs, software, and much more. Yet few new entrepreneurs and creators understand the concept of IP, or the associated rights which can be used to protect it (copyright, design right etc). IP, like any other type of property, has a value, which should be properly protected and exploited for the benefit of the creator. Creators without the necessary knowledge are vulnerable and unable to benefit fully from their creativity. They also risk accidentally using other people’s IP illegally.

This project aims to create a dynamic and innovative software application that creative industries entrepreneurs and creators can use to identify the IP in their business, and teach them how to protect and exploit it. It will be stimulating in order to engage the target group, and will feature general IP subjects (such as trade marks) as well those most closely related to the creative industries (such as copyright). Users will be shown how IP laws apply across the EU, providing them with the best possible chance to protect and exploit their creations. The application will initially be provided in three languages: English; Bulgarian; and Polish.



The impact of this project will be to ensure that creative industries entrepreneurs in the EU are more aware of the value of their creations, and the ways this intellectual property can be protected and exploited. In addition to helping to ensure business success, this knowledge will encourage entrepreneurs to trade and collaborate across the EU, as they are able to understand the protection available to them and the ways in which IP can be used to generate income. They will learn when it is wise to consult a legal specialist. The software can also play a significant role in countries with particularly low levels of IP knowledge and a history of infringement and piracy, by educating their entrepreneurs and encouraging adherence to IP laws.

Views from the British press...
cartoons from the FT and the Guardian

Pacificstream is looking to be a partner in a project that is to be presented to the Transfer of Innovation initiative.
To remind you of our expertise in Leonardo projects; we have experience of project management, setting up communications platforms and web site design, quality assurance and valorisation. Although our main focus is within the creative industries and digital content we are also involved with, health, tourism, cultural heritage and language projects. If you are putting forward a proposal or know of anyone that is seeking an SME partner (that is also a social enterprise) please contact us as soon as possible, we can respond very quickly with LOI etc.

We are also proposing to put forward a project to to support start-up entrepreneurs with their understanding of Intellectual Property Rights (copyrights, trade marks etc) with a possible focus on the music industry. We are seeking possible partners that have links with the creative industries and/or SMEs involved with music, entertainments industry. We would particularly welcome interest from Turkey. Please get in touch as soon as possible if you are interested or know of a reliable partner.