1. Culture & Innovation: Ireland’s Distinct Opportunity
Finbarr Bradley
University College Dublin
“If we learn anything from the history of economic
development, it is that culture makes all the difference.”
- David Landes (1998)
Dublin, 9 May 2012

2. Where’s the Value?
Making sense
- not making ‘stuff’!
“Price is what you pay.
Value is what you get.”
- Warren Buffett (2008)
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3. Resourcefulness
Industrial Economy Digital Economy
‘Techno – Economic’ ‘Imagine – Sustain’
Paradigm Paradigm
e.g., Mass Production, e.g., Digital Media, Social Networks,
Manufactured Goods,… Global Services,,...
Logic! Spirit!
Purpose • Make Stuff (Do!) • Make Sense (Be!)
• Growth • Vitality
of
• Consume • Develop Capabilities
Economy
Concept • Machine • Living Organism
• Rules, Regulations, Control • Empowerment, Trust, Self-Expression
of
• Quantity • Quality
Economy
• Mass Produced • Customised, Personalised
• Centralised • Decentralised
• Efficiency, Costs • Meaning, Experience, Identity
• Rationality • Emotions, Empathy
• Independence • Interdependence, Relationships
Learning • About! • To Be!
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4. Poetic Technology
Steve Jobs quotes: “….he (Steve Jobs) was not
a technologist. He was a
cultural leader, and he drove
“Technology is not Apple from that perspective.
enough. It’s He started with culture; then
technology married followed with technology
with liberal arts, and design. No one seems
married with to get that.”
humanities, that - New York Times [Oct 2011]
yields the results
Passionate Products that make our hearts
sing.” “Apple’s mission statement
doesn’t really talk about
“Creativity is what it does; it talks about
connecting things….a what it believes in.”
lot of people in our - Forbes [November 2011]
industry haven’t had
very diverse
experiences, so they
don’t have enough
dots to connect, and
Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011) they end up with very
linear solutions.”
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5. Learning Economy
Value
• Creative
Work Predictability
Re
s ou
‘Knowledge’ Worker
s)
rc
ge( i c
es
f
w led enti ic
i t
no • sc the ic
•K n l
• sy bo
ym [e.g., Artist, Craftsperson,…]
•s
• Repetitive
‘Production’ Worker
Work Autonomy
• Control • Self-Direction
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6. Co-Creating Shared Value
• Sense of Place • Imaginative Traditions
• Collapsing Space/Time • Culture-Based Creativity
Meaning is the New Money!
6

7. Some Stories
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8. Go Raibh Maith Agaibh!
“I find myself wondering whether this “fifth”
province might not be a variant of the deepest and
most persistent of all Celtic symbols, the human
head, the mysterious box which contains the spirit,
consciousness..…Is this indeed the underlying
ambivalence which we in Ireland tend to stress;
the continual presence of the historic past, the
indivisibility of birth and funeral, spanning the
apparent chasm between past and present,
between consciousness and fact?”
Finbarr Bradley - Louis le Brocquy (1916 - 2012)
tel: 087- 2835511
e-mail: bradley@intinn.ie 8