Making money out of culture

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor
 
A couple of weeks ago, I got a provoking email from a professor who teaches at a North American university:

Dear Professor Cooper,

I am writing to you form (sic) the University of X. I will be taking 12 students to Jamaica in March and will be staying at Hotel X March 3-8.

We would like to invite you as our dinner guest on one of the evenings convenient to your schedule at Hotel X. We would also like to sit in on one of your Lectures. We were there last time you presented popular Artist Kartel in a Lecture at UWI, (sic) the students enjoyed the Lecture.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Professor X.

My response:

Dear Professor X,

Thanks very much for getting in touch. I'm pleased to hear that you're bringing students to Jamaica. I'm wondering, though, if your visit is an independent enterprise or if it's being organised through UWI. This has implications for class visits. Also, I've found that an invitation to dinner can prove to be an 'economical' way of accessing the expertise of the guest - as distinct from a formal lecture, which would normally attract a fee. I very much look forward to your response.

Best,

Carolyn

TALK IS CHEAP

I haven't heard back from Professor X. I suppose my response might have caused indigestion, the very condition I was likely to suffer as a result of lecturing while dining. Perhaps, I shouldn't have been quite so frank. I should have simply declined graciously. But I'd got caught in one of those 'dinner-guest lecture' scenarios before. And it wasn't pretty.

Now this isn't an after-dinner speech. It's more like eating with your mouth open. Very bad manners, I was taught. I couldn't believe I just walked into the trap. I was so naïve. I actually thought I'd been invited to dinner. I could hardly get a mouthful in. I was hit with question after question about my academic work. In the end, I just stopped trying to eat and gave them what they wanted: a freebie. After all, talk is cheap. And there's really no such thing as a free lunch - or dinner.

I'm quite sure the visiting professor would not expect to get free airline travel, free ground transportation, free accommodation, free meals and free entertainment. But the main thing the students were supposedly coming for - academic enrichment - was the very 'commodity' that seemed to cost nothing. Because intellectual property is intangible, its value is not always calculated accurately.

RECRUITING INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

This is a much bigger issue than a 'free' lecture. It's about capitalising on tertiary institutions like the University of the West Indies; the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts; the G.C. Foster College of Physical Education and Sports; the College of Agriculture, Science and Education; and the University of Technology. We should be systematically recruiting international students who can pay premium rates for first-class tuition. Furthermore, we must acknowledge the real worth of the creative/cultural industries as a driving force for economic development in Jamaica.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office (JIPO) are hosting a three-day conference on 'Intellectual Property and the Creative Industries', starting tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the regional headquarters of the University of the West Indies on the Hermitage Road. The conference is free and open to the public, but you have to register, either online via the JIPO Facebook page, or in person on Monday from 9-10. It will be streamed live on the JIPO website. Of course, the conference isn't actually 'free'. It costs a lot to put on an event of this calibre.

I anticipate that one of the highlights will be the first panel, featuring John Howkins and Jessie Royal. Howkins will speak on 'Creativity - The New Currency of the Knowledge Economy' and Jessie Royal will address the issue of 'Creators in the Creative Industry'. Howkins has written widely on the creative economy, the title of his 2001 classic. His most recent book, Creative Ecologies (2012), has a very seductive subtitle: 'Where Thinking is a Proper Job'.

MONEY-MAKING IDEAS

Coming up with ideas is work for true. But the real challenge is turning vision into marketable goods and services. It's the follow-through that matters - not just the bright ideas. In fact, the terms 'creative industries', 'cultural industries' and 'creative economy' refer specifically to economic activities that start with individual creativity that is then turned into material wealth through the protection of intellectual property rights.

A major goal of this JIPO conference is to highlight the intersection of creativity, innovation, enterprise and industry. That's the point at which economic wealth is produced from ideas. Conference panels focus on themes such as 'Gaming and Animation', 'Intellectual Property and Digital Publishing', 'Protection of Caribbean Popular Music' and 'Putting Creative Economy on the Policy Agenda'. If we don't put policies in place to ensure that the creative industries are taken seriously, conferences like this will be nothing but idle talk. And that's certainly not cheap.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.