I will be attending the NOISE Symposium tomorrow entitled “Promoting Young Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship through Non-Formal Learning Paths”.  The whole premise behind this event is to allow young people, the education sector and policy makers from the government to talk about what influences a young person’s entry into the Creative Industries.  This gathering comes at an interesting time for this country as the Conservative Party will be holding their annual conference in Manchester amidst the shadow of a general election next year. Furthermore, it seems that changes to future policies (whether economical, social or educational) is being demanded by the general populace regardless if there is a new government or not. Therefore, the time seems right to voice some new ideas and opinions that might help address any issues with policies regarding the Creative Industry in this country.

This symposium also comes at an interesting time for myself as well.  I recently graduated with an MBA from the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. During my second year, I took a course called “Competition and Strategy in Creative Industries” where I was surprised to learn that my home country of Canada does not have a national strategy for the arts (or creative industries) in terms of cultivating, disseminating or funding. Our term paper was to create a framework that could possibly be used by the government as the basis for a national arts strategy. Through my research, I realized just how hard it was to build a comprehensive and all-encompassing plan that would not just help the current generation of aspiring artists, but many generations to come. Having already tried to come up with policies that would help foster the growth of the arts in Canada, it will be interesting to hear the ideas that come out of this event that might possibly help shape the future of England.

This is just some food for thought before the main event starts. More to report tomorrow…