I attended a Writers & Publishers 'cluster' meeting yesterday. This is a scheme being championed by the Blue Mountains City Council that brings together like minded and competitor businesses.
Wayne Moloney did a great job facilitating the meeting, in which goals were set and projects started by teams within the group.
Follow up:
If you're new to the cluster idea, take a look at the diagram. In our case the Core is the creative writers, with Support provided by publishers, marketers, graphic designers and printers. Soft and Hard Infrastructure are the things that support the people: things like education institutions, transport and telecommunications services.
In my experience working in theatre I've seen how a successful collaboration between creatives, business managers and marketers can work ($5M in annual turnover later). The needs of these three groups conflict all the time but when the right balance is struck everyone benefits.
We have the right ingredients - people who can create the content, and people who can take it to market. For this cluster to work we need to start with efficient ways to communicate and collaborate. Writing in this blog feels like shouting into a cave, but if you're reading take a look at this amazing tool:
http://www.wiserearth.org/
Groups can set up and customise their own social network and collaborative environment. There is also facility to link with other similar groups.
I'm happy to trial this system for the writers, performing arts, green technology or other clusters in the scheme. Send me a message if you think it's a good idea.
Looking forward to the next meeting!
- Duncan
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