Open Culture meets Business – "How to Open Business" Seminar was held in Seoul, Korea.
Open culture can not only create public value but also generate business opportunities. To provide a strategic approach to developing new open-based business models, CC Korea held "How to Open Business Seminar” in Seoul on November 13, 2009.
More than 100 participants gathered at White Hall, in Seoul, to attend this unique event. The seminar was started with the welcome address by Professor Jin-sup Jeong, chief of CC Korea. Following his remarks, Professor Sangki Steve Han from the Graduate School of Culture Technology of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology gave his keynote address where he emphasized the increasing importance of peer production and its business potential. He also pointed out that open business is not about just creating profits but generating a greater value through collaboration and collective intelligence.
After the keynote speech, Su-jeong Han, volunteer staff of CC Korea gave a general introduction to open business strategies. Her presentation was the outcome of a year-long research project conducted by CC Korea volunteers. She presented a range of open-based business strategies and their examples: Free sharing (Jamendo, CCmixter, Open Clip Art Library); collaboration & communication (Kompoz, Loftwork, Wikipedia, Connexions, Soundcloud); branding & marketing (Nine Inch Nails, Benkler, Zittrain, Lessig, Ronen Kadushin, Braithwaite Wallets, Barack Obama); open for public value (Australian government, MIT OpenCourseWare); tools for creative works of children (OLPC’s XO Laptop/ Scratch).
The highlight of the seminar were the insightful presentations by two well recognized figures in the open business scene - Sylvain Zimmer, founder and CTO of Jamendo (www.jamendo.com), and Chiaki Hayashi, founder and PMO of Loftwork (www.loftwork.com). They shared their valuable knowledge and experience about developing a viable and profitable business model based on open culture.
Sylvain Zimmer explained Jamendo's business model and how it worked with open culture and CC. He emphasized that Jamendo provided its artists with another way to generate profits by helping them reaching out to more audience.
Loftwork of Japan is another good example of successful open business model. Chiaki Hayashi said that much of Loftwork’s success was attributed to its strategic approach to commercialization. Loftwork allows and encourages open and free sharing of ideas among artists and users, but at the same time it derives business value from their collaboration.
During the break, Double Deck, a Korean digital music performance group, rocked the audience with their powerful live performance. Double Deck is one of the first Korean musicians who shared their works under creative commons licenses.
The final session of the event was "Open Business Speech." CC Korea had invited applications for the opportunity to present one’s open business idea and selected three of them - DJbox, Dooing, and Bicple – based on how they incorporate open culture into their business model, their business and public value, business feasibility, etc. They shared their business strategies and concerns with the attendees and received feedback and advice from established experts from various fields.
On the following day, CC Korea also hosted “CC Salon" and invited people who shared the value of open culture as well as the seminar participants. Sylvain Zimmer of Jamendo was joined by representatives from Korea's music industry to have in-depth discussions on the free sharing of music and open business while Chiaki Hayashi of Loftwork gave an intensive presentation on Loftwork’s CC related collaborative projects in art museums and rural areas. Guests from a wide range of areas including music, design, technology, business, and academia further shared their views and experiences on open culture and related issues and had a great opportunity to build network and friendship.
