Creative business owners who in a few years wonder why they have lost out to rivals will probably be able to trace their downfall to digital - or rather their neglect of it.
Issuing the warning, the UK's Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network said top creatives were already vying to tie-up with mobile app developers and tech firms.
Its director pointed to range of cross-discipline projects and partnerships, freshly submitted to an £18m government fund for 'collaborating across digital industries.'
John Cass was speaking ahead of a new CIKTN report, based on interviews with 250 creative firms, set to reveal how digital content might evolve over the next 5-7 years.
“[If] creative industries don’t start building relationships and platforms to build cross-platform cross-sector activity," he said, "they’re going to be left behind very quickly."
He conceded that such tie-ups require "effort" from the creative - whether they are in advertising, PR, entertainment or design, but said it would "pay off in the future."
FreelanceUK will soon reveal CITKN's practical tips for how creative companies and freelancers might go about forging partnerships with digital developers.
On the technical side, one criteria for state funding hinges on you being a partnership between a content business and a tech provider, where each party works in digital.
To this end, it is little surprise that the mobile phone and app sector is seen as best placed to benefit, even monetise, digital content which they secure through tie-ups.
But there is now a realisation that 'content experience is king,' meaning good content on one platform merely bolted onto another won't suffice, the CIKTN report will say.
“You have to be much more subtle about how you generate content that can be repurposed across multiple platforms", Cass said, addressing would-be collaborators.
"You really [also] have to understand and develop the content for the context within which any user is going to engage with that content."
CIKNT said it would be running events around the UK in the coming months to talk about future state-backed funding calls, including a £5m contest focused on metadata.
Aug 26, 2010
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