Our submission to the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Creative Economy draws on some of our emerging findings. You can read it here: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmcumeds/writev/suppcrec/sce34.htm
Brighton recently submitted a bid to Government for funding to improve broadband capacity in the city for businesses. The bid document contains interesting information of the city’s economy and its Creative, Digital and IT sector. See the bid document here
Here’s an interview with some of the Brighton Fuse team at our Tales of a Creative City event discussing ‘What Brighton Fuse might be telling us about the future of the Creative, Digital and IT sector’. Brought to you by Latest TV.
For those of you who weren’t able to make it along to our Tales Of A Creative City event, or those that did come and want to listen back heres a recording of the full event:
Last night we held our ‘Tales Of The Creative City’ event as part of Brighton Digital Festival. Our research team shared their thoughts and stories as well as the project’s early interpretations.
We couldn’t help but having a sneaky look at the data we are collecting in the Brighton Firm Survey – here are some descriptives. These preliminary findings are based on a sub-set of our sample comprising 126 responses from CEOs, MDs, Founders and senior personnel at Brighton-based creative and digital companies employing, in total, just over 1,500 Full-Time Equivalent employees in Brighton.
Some of you busy creative and digital entrepreneurs have asked us what data are needed to complete the Brighton Fuse Survey. Very understandably, you want to be prepared for the questions before getting started with it. We thought that instead of sending the whole questionnaire, we’d write a quick tour of the survey, letting you know what sorts of things we are asking, and also warning you about the few times when you may need to access other data beyond what’s stored in your powerful brains.
Guest post by Stephanie Fuller, Senior Planning, Arts Council In my work I spend a good deal of time promoting the value of the arts and cultural sector to the creative industries as a whole and the economy in general. Current enthusiasm for growth as an economic driver doesn’t do these organisations any favours – typically they are micro or small businesses and for the majority growth is neither desired nor appropriate. Despite this they make a significant contribution to the economy through driving innovation, collaboration and exchange of ideas.
Last week we talked about some of the effort that goes into crafting a good business survey. The Fuse survey asks you to provide data on your business’ turnover, operating profit and employees. As an important note: we will of course treat these data as confidential – and you don’t have to respond to any questions that you don’t feel comfortable about answering.
After much blood, sweat, tears and biscuits, the Brighton Fuse survey went live just over a week ago. We’ve been delighted by the tide of results rushing in – if you have been invited to participate, please do fill your survey in as every response counts! Freelancers, we haven’t forgotten about you – we’re currently working on a second survey specifically tailed to your own work which will be going live in the autumn.
This is a guest post written by Ross Breadmore, consultant with NixonMcInnes. NixonMcInnes are a Brighton based social business consultancy. As I’ve stated a million times before, I love Brighton. I love working in Brighton. And I love working for a company that loves Brighton. Love love love. Brighton Brighton Brighton. So it was ace to be asked to help with Brighton Fuse, a two-year social research and development project “which will map, measure and assist Brighton’s creative, digital and IT cluster”. It involves a core team of researchers, academics and analysts, various bodies and delivery partners including our friends at Wired Sussex.
We’ve been working on Brighton Fuse for a few months, and we’ve often talked about the project to different kinds of audiences. Almost every time someone asks the same question: Why are you looking at Brighton? Why not [insert name of almost any other city in the UK]?
One crucial element of our research is the Brighton FUSE Company Survey, which is going live in June 2012. If you run a creative or digital business in Brighton & Hove, you will receive an e-mail inviting you to participate. Your participation really matters to us! We need a high response rate to develop reliable findings and sound recommendations which can help support your business in lots of ways.
Hello, and welcome to the Brighton Fuse! The Brighton Fuse is an extremely large government-funded research project being carried out by Brighton University, Sussex University, the Confederation for Industry and Higher Education, and Wired Sussex. We plan to create the most accurate picture of the Brighton cluster of digital and creative firms ever. Like you, we know that this is a super-interesting topic and our advisory board, which includes representatives from the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky, agree with us. The aim of the project is to explore one simple question: Does bringing together creativity with digital technologies lead to innovation and economic growth? Why would we expect this to be the case?