Culture 3.0. : Impact of Emerging Digital Technologies on the Cultural Sector (October 2011),

The goal of the widely expected CHRC study Cul­ture 3.0: Impact of Emerg­ing Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies On the Cul­tural Sec­tor was to assess the impact of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies on the eight cul­tural sub-sectors and rec­om­mend pri­or­ity solu­tions to address the chal­lenges and lever­age the oppor­tu­ni­ties aris­ing from dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. The study is the evo­lu­tion of the 2010 Cul­tural HR Study: Trends and Issues Report, which found dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies was the third most impor­tant issue to the cul­tural sector.

The new report Cul­ture 3.0 val­i­dates and expands the pre­vi­ous find­ings through an eval­u­a­tion of 8 sub­sec­tors – Con­cep­tion and Cre­ation, Devel­op­ment, Pro­duc­tion, Dis­tri­b­u­tion, Mar­ket­ing, Exhi­bi­tion, Con­sump­tion, and Preser­va­tion. Based on the lit­er­a­ture research and inter­views with more than 120 cul­tural sec­tors stake­hold­ers, the project team inden­ti­fied the main dig­i­tal impacts for each sub-sector and the  “cre­ative chain” as a whole.

A big­ger empha­sis is added on the scope of men­tor­ship and learn­ing dig­i­tal busi­ness skills which is cru­cial to the future suc­cess of cul­tural sec­tor pro­fes­sion­als. Accord­ing to the report, the crit­i­cal busi­ness skills such as  mar­ket­ing, finance, project man­age­ment or intel­lec­tual prop­erty are  even more crit­i­cal than the tech­ni­cal train­ing required to make use of the emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies. Ensur­ing that cru­cial skills are acquired through­out the sec­tor will require a multi-faceted approach of train­ing mech­a­nisms, including:

• Closer col­lab­o­ra­tion between indus­try and aca­d­e­mic insti­tu­tions to ensure new entrants to the work­force have the most rel­e­vant skills;
• Acces­si­ble in-career skills train­ing options such as work­shops and mod­ules that allow cul­tural work­ers to upgrade dig­i­tal busi­ness and lead­er­ship skills; and
• Men­tor­ships that increase peer-to-peer knowl­edge shar­ing, includ­ing cross-sub-sector

As an exam­ple of cross-sectional analy­sis, the report finds that the cur­rent reg­u­la­tory frame­work fails to reflect the pop­u­lar­ity of ser­vices like Net­flix and iTunes which deliver  film and tele­vi­sion over Inter­net and there­fore the frame­work is less able to pro­mote Cana­dian pro­duc­tion or pro­tect the Cana­dian mar­ket from the influx of U.S. pro­duc­tion. The sec­ond chal­lenge the cul­tural sec­tor faces is design of the reg­u­la­tion which is usu­ally focused only on one sub-sector at a time and there is not a ”siloed” approach to the sup­port. Third chal­lenge are the bud­get cuts. The report claims, that the “While dras­tic reduc­tions in fund­ing are unlikely, it is highly prob­a­ble that ceil­ings will be placed on new invest­ments in the cul­tural sector.”

In our view, the Broad­cast­ing, Film and Tele­vi­sion Pro­duc­tion and explic­itly in the Dig­i­tal Media sub-sector rec­om­men­da­tions are the strongest points of the report.

The Cul­ture 3.0.: Impact of Emerg­ing Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies On Human Resources In The Cul­tural Sec­tor pro­vides a good overview of the needs of the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor in the long-term. The report under­lines the long known fact that the Cana­dian econ­omy needs multi-disciplinary pro­fes­sion­als. Pro­fes­sion­als who will be able to swiftly adjust them­selves to new tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ments and trends.