Digital trade mission puts feds in positive spotlight for departmental “silo bashing”

Participants and organizers alike are singing the praises of a recent trade mission for women to Europe highlighting digital media content players. The trip, organized by Canadian Heritage, Industry Canada and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), is being billed as a first-of-its-kind, and DFAIT official Albert Galpin hopes that the inter-departmental cooperation will continue and that the mission might serve as a catalyst for an initiative to better organize the digital media sector. The Trade Team Canada Inc. Digital Trade Mission for women entrepreneurs started in the Lyon-Rhône corridor in France and concluded in Munich, Germany from February 3-7. Participants were Leila Boujnane of Idée Inc. and partner Paul Bloore, Joanne Duchastel of JED New Media, Etraffic Solutions Inc.’s Robin Gardiner-Poncia, Diane Williamson of Digital Wizards (Ontario Inc.), Julia Walden of Borden Street Productions Inc., Natalia Usselman of Idea Bureau, Mala Fuller of CBT Vision Inc., Kirstin Simmons of BC New Media and Kren Clausen of the Interactive Multimedia Arts & Technologies Association. Galpin, deputy director of international business, arts and cultural industries promotion at DFAIT, says the mission was undertaken with both an eye to increasing export opportunities in Europe for digital media players and, informally, to help women entrepreneurs better network among themselves. Borden Street president Walden says the mission seems to have fulfilled those dual goals and more. "The networking opportunity was fantastic," she says, "but I think that networking is too weak a verb. There was very solid credentialling going on and, in fact, a group of us is getting together for lunch here in Toronto." Walden notes that she’s already had opportunity to recommend one of the participants’ products to one of her clients. She also received follow-up correspondence from a German party. As valuable, she says, was exposure to new ways of viewing the industry. "One of the challenges in the interactive industry is the challenge of a business model," she tells Canadian NEW MEDIA. "What was fascinating to me and also a learning curve, is each of the women has a different business model. Each of them has arrived at the business model for different reasons and each of them has a business model which works for her." Walden says the crash European education was also valuable, particularly with respect to advanced research into mobile applications. She’s grateful to the federal government for providing a foot in the door to many of the companies the mission visited. Each of the participants paid their own way, but credentials provided by the departments were important. Galpin acknowledges the group’s commitment to paying out-of-pocket for the trip and says he’s pleased the government could arrange the logistics of the tour that might otherwise be difficult to set up. But, he says, beyond the formalities of the trip, the mission could have long-term benefits for both Ottawa and the industry. "Another objective from our viewpoint with this mission was to get the industry to think a little bit about itself. What are they? Who are they? It goes everywhere from e-learning to games to edu-tainment. It’s all over the map and what we’ve found with putting this mission together is it made the industry think a little bit about who they are," Galpin tells CNM. "It made us, as government, think about who exactly we’re dealing with. That, from a personal point of view, I found really useful in that it helped us to define the industry a bit more. Ultimately, what we would like to see is some kind of national organization forming up…Ultimately our goal would be to try to get the industry to organize itself." New media executives across the country have heard the familiar refrain countless times now, but the apparent new level of inter-departmental cooperation is encouraging. Galpin says it’s the first time anything like this has been tried in the cultural industries, and certainly in digital media. And, he says, the cooperation should be just a first step. "Why should it end? It worked. It was great. From our perspective and my colleagues’ at Industry and Canadian Heritage, we’re surprised at how well this all went… "We’re going to have follow up. We want to do the usual thing and maybe check in with them three months from now, see what kind of leads they’ve developed and find out what the results are. I’m not expecting any big, multi-million dollar deal to take place. If it does that’s fantastic, but our objective with this first mission was to get the ball rolling in getting the digital media sector looking at itself, focusing on what they do, trying to define themselves a bit more so that they can be a bit more organized as a sector. "And, you know, I’m sure if you look back at what was going on with the sound recording industry or book publishing industry 25-30 years ago, it was probably in the same state. This sector’s going to be around for the foreseeable future and, really, it was sort of a realization on our part in government that we need to give them some tools that they can work with." Industry insiders may be skeptical. Programs in support of new media are varied and scattered across several government departments, many of which are openly hostile to one another. But Walden says cooperation on the trade mission is a step in the right direction."They were able to sort of bash down the walls of those silos," she says.

Digital trade mission puts feds in positive spotlight for departmental “silo bashing”

News | 02/20/2003 5:00 am EST

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