Google Asia Pacific Blog: Korea's cultural creators as lean startups

Asia Pacific Blog

Google and the Internet from .in to .au

Korea's cultural creators as lean startups

Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Korea Herald recently published my thoughts on how Korea's corporate culture spills over to Korea's culture. Cultural conglomerates have their role to play, but Korea needs to help artists flourish as lean startups (30 years ago, we'd have called this the punk ethos). The same is true across Asia Pacific, where the Internet is a catalyst for entrepreneurship and new job opportunities. The vast majority of the economic value created by the Internet is captured by companies in more traditional industries, and by SMEs in particular.

Here's an excerpt:

Korea’s talent for creating content isn’t matched by the opportunities it has to release that content. A recent survey revealed that there are some 3,000 departments in specialized high schools, universities and graduate schools that teach content production and together they produce about 55,000 graduates every year. However, less than 15 percent of those students find jobs that make use of their education. What a waste!

If we could get those students to treat culture the same way startups treat revenue, that would expand Korea’s cultural base, reduce youth unemployment and, by definition, further the “creative economy” ― a key initiative of the Korean government. [...]

There have been many programs encouraging and supporting IT-based venture firms but very few to support individuals with creative talents. While many people think of the venture industry as exclusively for technology developers, cultural creators are indeed a group of people who can realize “lean startups” that can be launched without many initial costs. That’s why we see a lot of potential for Content Korea Lab, which the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Korea Creative Content Agency are creating.