 A Guide to Good Practice in Collaborative Working Methods and New Media Tools Creation Chapter 3 - Surveying the Scene and Analysing Data on Good Practice and Desired Software The Tool Developer's Perspective: a response to survey, and interviews As a key component of understanding, and responding to, the critical needs of media industry developers, the RADICAL partners created a pair of companion surveys to gather data specific to the product development process within creative, scientific, and commercial organisations and individuals. Technology producers, independent artists and media lab representatives were identified and solicited for participation in this survey; their responses are reflected herein either as survey records, or as qualitative data gleaned through both formal and informal interviews occurring over the span of a year. The survey was designed to gather information specific to the needs of both the European creative community and the industrial & scientific R&D community, in terms of developing new media applications designed to serve these sectors jointly. The results were used to inform the direction and content of RADICAL events, as well as to identify appropriate contributors who would share their insights for the production of a guide to "best practices" focusing on collaborative working methods and the creation of new media tools. The developer's survey was designed to provide the RADICAL partners with an overview, or profile, of commercial and institutional enterprises, and to learn the historical and contemporary role in which creative professionals have served in their organisations. The questions were structured in a way that would also expose a view of the fundamental attitudes towards arts, and arts practitioners in general, and the implicit values held by these organisations in their placement of artists and creative professionals over a wide range of roles and responsibilities. The analysis of data herein represents an amalgam of data sources. To promote verisimilitude, a mixed-methods approach towards the collection of data was performed, with survey documents and participant interviews yielding the most well-rounded picture of the ways in which industry is, and many times is not, using creative talent in key areas of product and project development. The vast majority of participants in our study defined their organisation as a Technology company, or as an Arts facility, with all facilities reporting a more than 6-year history of operation. The nature of the study itself, and the soliciting agents, had an effect of narrowing the pool of possible contributors, as solicitors made contacts with known colleagues within their fields. This effect was not at all to the detriment of the study, as the qualitative information gleaned from these extended discourses and the availability and willingness of industry professionals to speak candidly with our solicitors provided a depth of consideration that may have otherwise been impossible. The majority of our interviewees worked in companies and organisations that were relatively small in numbers, with only one contributor representing a large multi-national concern. While educational facilities are also included in the survey data, the "size of organisation" was used to reflect department or division size rather than the whole of the university. Most organisations surveyed had less than 25 employees. What we've learned from the data is that a considerable cross-shifting of purposes, and multi-tasking of workers, is currently taking place in most small technology companies. Small staffs must serve a number of roles simultaneously to stay afloat. This is supported by anecdotal feedback from one technology company's representative who, even with a more than 6-year operational history, sees juggling finances, expertise and project management as the most critical challenge in developing features for their application. "To be hired here, you have to be able to hit the ground running, and wear more than one hat... it's no different at other start-ups." While arts facilities logically identified a larger population of creative professional as the target audiences for the projects in which they are engaged, those outside the discipline reported rough estimates of less than 25% of their end users as being within the professional creative community. It remains unexamined as to how these organisations track their user base to determine this. In response to our inquiry regarding the use of a developer's programme to enable user feedback, we discovered that of those who took part in our poll, few used these kinds of targeted response mechanisms. One respondent took issue with the categories that we'd formed for this area of the survey, which separated user feedback into the categories of a. Artists, b. Consumers/end-users, c. Other, and d. No programmer's tool, pointing out that Artists were included in their vision of consumer/end-user. All the same, those who do use a developer's programme identified "end-user feedback" as their primary research tool. Market research followed as the secondary research tool on which most of our interviewees rely. "As a small company, we can't afford to take a lot of time on this. Though it's tremendously important, it's a better time and cost investment to hire a qualified agency to do this kind of research for us. Some of this is directed by our board of trustees, who know our field well." All of those interviewed and surveyed reported that they do hire artists and creative professionals as co-developers in tool creation. When responding to the question of how those creative individuals are used within their organisations, an interesting dynamic occurred. We found that only 10% of those surveyed identified artists as being used outside of "traditional" discipline-specific roles. The vast majority of artists used in these organisations are used for "interface design" or production of visual/audio assets. In this response, we see the emergence of a certain stereotype, or even "creative ghetto", in which arts professionals are pigeon-holed in organisations. It appears clear that their creative savvy is valued for aesthetic means, but that their creativity is not often used as a value in more strategic and operational categories. Technology companies indicate that the primary drive in their development process is initiated by engineers, and the integration of artists into the creative process is viewed overall as only "somewhat helpful". An observation of the benefits from the involvement of artists in the development process underscores the previous passage and analysis of the discipline rut in which creative professionals are funnelled - "when artists are involved, everything looks a lot better". Drawbacks of the inclusions of artists in the development process included "lack of agreement over vision", "time/resources/skills mis-match", "made things more complicated than necessary", "not easy to coordinate artist availability and focus with development schedule" and more. These observations also lead to a conclusion that often artists and creatives are not only pigeon-holed according to their skill-sets, but may also be stereotyped behaviourally. The toolmakers interviewed represented individual user application developers, as well as those engaged in building multi-user and collaborative tools. Some makers focused on arts practices, others on digital archiving of media, and another, online communications. All those interviewed and surveyed indicated that they were not developing "plug-in" architecture, or "open-source" coding which would allow artists and others to build upon their platforms. Citing issues of intellectual property concerns, security concerns, and insufficient engineering resources as some of the reasons behind their choice to remain proprietary in the construction of their tools. Almost every category was represented as a challenge to one company or another when addressing the question of their biggest challenges in developing new functionalities and features for their tools. However, all interviewed agreed that financial concerns, as well as resources/expertise, were at the top of their lists of greatest challenges. Management and scheduling followed. Interestingly enough, "creative development" was the lowest rated challenge indicated by those interviewed. When asked about this dynamic, one developer mentioned having "my own clear vision of what I want this product to do, and how it should behave", indicating an unwavering commitment to a specific vision, not uncommon in young start-up organisations. It should be noted that many of these companies, while more than 6 years old, are still less than 10 years old. Consequently, many could be considered in their professional infancy when compared to a multi-national holding or industrial giant, where more avenues for creative development, and more expansive research and development branches may exist. Interviewees were queried on whether or not they found the lack of standards in the industry a hindrance to the development of their tools, specific to a broad range of platforms, including mobile, PDA, games, TV, broadband, and more (see appended Developers Survey, Question 21). No interviewees reported a lack of standards as an issue of concern in their development process. The participants of this study have not been involved with other IST projects. The Artist's Perspective: a response to survey, and interviews Simultaneously with data acquisition for the Developer's Survey, a sister survey and interview process was conducted that focused on needs and experiences within the art-makers and creative professionals community. The survey for this audience focused on the needs of the creative community. The survey and interview process were both aimed at discovering the ways in which artists already use creative tools, including pre-packaged tools and applications as well as those developed in order to satisfy needs otherwise unaddressed by commercially available products. The expected outcome of this information is to provide a cross-talk between creative communities of practice and media developers, towards a greater understanding and working model for co-building tools to suit a variety of audiences. The data collection and stance towards verisimilitude mirrored that conducted with the developers community, with a mixed-method approach combining quantitative (survey) data with qualitative (interview) data. The participants in this survey identified themselves as either independent artists or institutionally affiliated arts administrators, with the largest percentage of participants defining their organisation as an arts group. Some teaching organisations, typically universities, were also represented in the data collection, with these participants predominantly involved in Arts colleges and schools. The aforementioned population comprised more than 85% of the study group. The size of their organisations largely fit into two categories, either organisations of 2 -5 employees or those with 11 - 20 employees. These two categories split the participants nearly 50/50, though a few participants identified themselves as self-employed, with an organisational size of 1. All respondents identified themselves as broadband users, ranging from ADSL and Cable to T1 lines for connectivity. None mentioned bandwidth as an issue in the sufficiency of achieving their goals. The study group had considerable experience as creative professionals, all reporting more than 5 years in their respective fields and disciplines. This is a most significant piece of data. While in many fields 5 years might be considered a relatively short duration, it is not an overstatement to consider this time-span historically significant when speaking of the field of new media. With the introduction of web-browser based technologies being less than a decade in existence, this places the participant base at the forefront of experience and knowledge of the development in this arena. A breakdown of the most used application suites for our study groups is as follows: a. Office tools (word processing spreadsheets etc) x All study participants marked use of letters a through c, which covered the bulk of business-related and functional arts applications, with most also including digital video, digital audio, and visual effects as equally significant in their creative toolbox. The primary tool use for the creative professionals in our study vacillated consistently between two purposes: arts and education. Almost 40% of those surveyed use customised applications and tools. "Specific needs require specific tools," noted one respondent to this question, while others pointed to the needs for enhanced functionality not provided by off-the-shelf tools as the basis for their need for customisation. This points to a strong need in the development community for the voice of arts practitioners to be included at an early stage, and strategic plans for tool development. Nearly 60% of those queried spoke of the sufficiency of existing tools as providing a satisfactory range of choices to actualise their works, some citing the fact that many applications have a range that exceeds their knowledge base of the tool. While many creative professionals identified a need for customisation of tools for their creative purposes, more than 75% stated that they did not know how to develop a relationship with tool developers. This indicates not only a significant disconnect between producer and client, but a missed opportunity for the developer community. Those who said they had a relationship with developers pointed to these relationships as either having occurred "serendipitously" or having required a great amount of pro-activity to find the right door, and be given access to this community. Another means that artists are using to find developers is via large institutions and institutional affiliations. While this method of contact may well serve those artists affiliated with large universities, it is a path that might be closed off to smaller arts groups and organisations who may have equally qualified and visionary individuals interested in serving a broader need in the field. The survey included a question that was universally dismissed as vague by our study group. In response to our inquiry as to whether or not it would be helpful to have multi-user or collaborative functions built into favoured tools, while some responded "yes", a strong percentage of the respondents were quick to note that it depended upon context, and some responded negatively, pointing that such functionality might serve to compromise individual vision in the creation of work. In future surveys this question needs to be fine-tuned. Cross-talk of the Perspectives: Summarising to Develop Best Practices The discourse that these two divergent and convergent voices weave provides some insight into needs for the future. From an artist's perspective, one respondent was most eloquent in her observation: "Being an independent artist will give you the freedom, but usually not the tools to develop your works; working inside businesses or research centres can isolate you from the issues and methodologies that are crucial for ongoing artistic development; but becoming an institution to facilitate your interdisciplinary work can eventually lead to stagnation of the fresh ideas needed for a productive creative process." (M. Kuzmanovic) When looking at the ways in which artists are being primarily used by developers, it is easy to see that a "culture of tradition" and commitment to traditional roles may be at play, impeding potential successful intersections and accomplishments between developers and the creative community. One respondent noted that in a research institute or industry setting, "the artist often ends up as a marginalised member of the community". What we've learned from the Developers' Survey about the challenges of working with artists is supported by one creative professional. This respondent points out: "Artists are not widely known for their willingness to adapt to an imposed pre-existing order, and this can often become an important factor in the interaction difficulties." The salient point here, of course, is the establishment of a "pre-existing order" within which a creative professional must "fit", rather than a more open system that would allow for the artist to influence development on a strategic level. A need exists for the breakdown of stereotyping barriers that have emerged as a "culture within a culture" in industry. Another respondent points to the existence of successful operating models that merit further modelling. "The methods of RTD (research, technology, development) apply as much to art as to other sectors. This is recognised by the entertainment industry, which invests in new technology on a large scale. Indeed the pattern of mergers in the entertainment industry, which led to consumer electronics companies like Sony integrating vertically and acquiring entertainment companies, is evidence of the trend." Again, the important point is the inclusion of the voice of creative professionals at the inception of projects, taking an active position in strategic and operational roles. In the absence of these opportunities in a slowly changing corporate and development arena, there is a pressing need for broader funding of arts organisations, which can serve as incubators for new media tools, and open source code options. Katherine Milton is a specialist on online interactions, especially pertaining to educative settings; an award winning media developer, as well as an independent researcher and writer, living in Venice, California. Her Ph.D. research focuses on the emergence of leadership in text-based online learning communities. She has been associated with the College of Education, and the Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University, as well as the SMARTlab, of the University of the Arts, London, UK. - continue to CH 4 - Creative / Technology Synergy in Research Development Tools forthe Information Society Technologies Programme DT (facts and figures on good practice in creative and industrial collaborations in the IST Programme to date) return to the table of contents |
