As someone who worked at the Creative Industries Observatory, which looked to ‘evolve’ not ‘revolve’ the creative industries defintion, it became very clear very quickly that the government mechanisms for definition are wholey inadequate (such as the SIC coding system which is just woeful). The points raised in your post are entire valid, and it boils down to the fact that the creative industries are simply a government invention to stimulate further investment and government agendas. This doesn’t mean however that they are not pertinent to the economy, in fact quite the opposite. I’ve always maintained that the creative industries should be measures ‘horizontally’ – see my first ever blog post: http://olimould.com/2008/06/23/creative-industries-an-oxymoron/ – expect a new one soon!

I think the twitter bit has provoked some interesting and useful starting points to the discussion.

The majority of definitions are established on the basis of distributing funds/developing public policy as @podnosh suggests. Within academic literature work related to creative industries has been struggling with the ‘definitions issue’ for as long as those two words have been put together, and used to describe a collection of, arguably, diverse industries.

Some of this work focuses on the importance of creativity across all sectors.

i,e If the point of developing public policy around the creative industries or ultimately creativity is to make a city, region or country more economically competitive then isn’t it imperative that all sectors create/innovate? Perhaps the rationale of a definition is recognising that a wider creative economy has, at its heart, some core industries which are only concerned with creating/imagining/designing new stuff or ideas. Or perhaps that is just wishful thinking?

In the context of this work (I’m also in Oslo) it is to make sure we’re all ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’. But I think @michael grimes is right looking for a consensus might be a mistake and I think that’s what we’ve agreed – arguably a consensus on something which is made-up to help people outside of those sectors make sense of them is probably tricky. As someone who has moved from the insider (sector) to the outsider (policy/academia) perspective it was quite odd when over night folks started talking about the creative industries as something new. For example I went from being part of a small interdiciplinary web design/consultancy team in 1996 to being part of the creative industries by 1997/8 (current admin comes to power and Chris Smith coined the term) but was still doing same business, in same office in the CF.

Here I think our agreed approach and loose definition means at least we’re all in the same ball park.

Anyway these are early hours ramblings from me. I have reviewed, as part of my never ending PhD, the literature related to this very topic and have a short version in the form of a conference paper that I’ll forward if you like when we get back to home?

Charlotte

Anything affecting people will always mean different things to different folk; indeed, that is one of the great things about life: we’re all different. In fact, trying to shoe-horn things into an agreed definition can lead to sterility, or worse.

Arguably everything to do with human life can be described as ‘cultural’; and equally arguably it’s possible to find a ‘creative’ angle to any profession or human endeavour

But that doesn’t mean I think the discussion is futile; far from it. I think there is enormous value in the debate, where people are challenged to consider the issue and their approach to it.

Paradoxically, of course, a debate requires a goal: in this case, finding a consensus. Just don’t worry too much if you never reach it.