Phil Redmond: Plan for the future

Jun 20 2008 by Phil Redmond, Liverpool Daily Post

STRATEGY. Something generals love, while Napoleon favoured luck. As he discovered, the strategy was to conquer Russia; the tactics were to capture Moscow; the luck was in the weather. Or, as he found out, not.

Of course, there is also the famous line that you make your own luck so perhaps he could have chosen a better time of year, as could Hitler, which perhaps suggests that Lady Luck is actually a Muscovite.

Closer to home, though, strategy is in the air and strategists are popping up all over the cultural landscape looking over the 2008 event horizon. This, in itsel,f is a good sign, as it is now obviously deemed safe enough to start talking about the future as, so far, things seem to have exceeded expectations. The downside, of course, is in the usually exciting notion of letting a thousand flowers bloom. While a great principle, which I often endorse, it can sometimes lead to the collective voice becoming nothing more than an undecipherable babble.

Choirs, too, need conducting.

Naturally, we at the centre of the great cultural project are also doing our own bit of navel gazing, but then we have to, under our aims and objectives. I’ve already spoken publicly about the real strategy going forward is to make sure that the big overarching or umbrella functions that the Culture Company has provided should be maintained. This is, really, simply a continuation of the original strategy set down eight years ago which was, I believe, to set up a creative and marketing vehicle to focus all other agendas on 2008.

The statistics seem to indicate that strategy worked, perhaps even regardless of the tactics and luck? So, the challenge seems to find the right vehicle to continue playing the role of a form of cultural air traffic-control. Co-ordinating individual effort to the collective good. Perhaps, organising the chorus?

However, such a model should come with two important caveats. It must be informed by the lessons of the last eight years, together with a recognition that the task ahead is not promoting Liverpool as a cultural city, but a cultural centre within a cultural sub-region.

Put another way, if culture is creating footfall, as the statistics indicate, then footfall equates to tourism which, in turn, equates to cash spent which, in turn, helps prime the regeneration economy. A potential cultural tourist in London, Zurich or Brazil thinking of travelling to see the Klimt exhibition will want to know if the travelling costs will be worthwhile. What else can they do when they get there? What else will make the day trip, the weekend or the week worthwhile?

Every organisation, institution and business should have their own post-2008 vision, but let’s make sure they mesh into one overall strategy.