Ontario business leaders explore the place of creative industries in fostering economic growth

This week, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce is hosting the Ontario Economic Summit, a gathering of high-powered business leaders, ministers and deputy ministers discussing the ways that Ontario can be ‘readied for stronger economic recovery’. The Arts Advocate Report was intrigued by the Summit’s focus on the ‘creative disciplines’ and a morning devoted to exploring how the creative industries are a source of innovation and wealth generation for Ontario. Thanks to Sara Diamond, President of OCAD, and Moderator at the Summit, for drawing our attention to it.

Lyn Heward, Creative Consultant and Executive Producer of Cirque du Soleil was charged with getting the participants’ brain juices flowing in a presentation on the creative process behind the Cirque’s incredible success. Lyn’s keynote address (the same one as delivered at last week’s Creative Places and Spaces Conference in Toronto) focused on nurturing and developing the creative process in a way that can lead to transformative ideas, and potentially, change. The place of collaboration and teamwork is central at the Cirque according to Lyn.

(The contrast in audience response between the Creative Places and Spaces gathering and the Ontario Economic Summit was in itself a fascinating observation, with the business reaction decidedly more tepid than that at the conference last week.)

Sarah Diamond had the daunting task of bridging the take-aways from Lyn Heward’s presentation to addressing economic growth for Ontario. The panelists helping her do this were Diana Pliura, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Health Exchange, Paul Rowan, Co-founder and VP of Design at Umbra and Ian Wilson, Strategic Advisor to the The Stratford Institute for Digital Media and Culture (former Ontario and national Archivist). In the view of The Arts Advocate Report, it was Ian Wilson who grasped the enormity of the task, arguing that business, government, universities and the NGO sector needed to embark on some ‘rapid, unprecedented collaboration’ that would turn existing business and government processes and models on their heads. Our diversity and background provide fertile ground for doing this, in his view.

Ian also drew parallels that could foresee the creative industries work much more directly with technology companies and the like. For others, it seemed more of a stretch, preferring to draw on the lessons of collaboration for their own industries, but failing to make the leap to new business models: the prospect of cross-sectoral partnerships and working together was welcomed, but seen as somehow more distant, almost a happy adjunct.

The notion that fostering creativity begins in the early years of education and then must be fostered throughout, was left to Sara to conclude. Calling for a redesign of arts education and a focus on creative thinking throughout education and the economy (with reference to Sir Ken Robinson’s work on being in ‘the element’) Sara left the Ontario Economic Summit with food for thought on the place of creativity in our economy.

Whether the business community is ready to drink the juice is another question, but bravo to the Ontario Economic Summit for at least sampling.