Ten things Birmingham can do to welcome the pirates

In a speech made today to an audience of Birmingham’s top business folk at the Big Debate, future seer and Financial Times super guru, Charles Leadbeater, encouraged Birmingham to become a home for pirates.

Sadly, Leadbeater wasn’t suggesting repatriating the Somali sailors who’ve been wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Aden for the last couple of years to Moseley, although I imagine the world’s major shipping firms might have been right behind him if he had. No, the pirates he wants to see in Birmingham are creative people who are prepared to challenge the status quo – and I assume some aspects of established law – to forge new industries.

The gist of his argument is that, if Birmingham wants to become the creative heart of the UK, it needs to find ways of attracting or fostering these people, getting them to work together and giving them the tools and space they need to be creative.

As someone who is a new arrival, here specifically to train and work in a creative industry, I feel pretty well placed, therefore, to make some practical suggestions of my own as to how this could be done.

None of this rocket science. In fact it’s all very simple. And I make no apology for unoriginality, either.

1. Sort the libraries out. Birmingham has a fantastic central library. Many people congregate here every day to do work, but it’s not a welcoming place. There should be wireless here, free to use, and there should be places where people can talk. That kind of model could be rolled out across the city, providing friendlier spaces for creative people to work.

2. Get the universities to work more closely together. Birmingham has some of the finest educational establishments in the country. If you are studying at one university you should be able to use the resources of another easily. It shouldn’t be a bureaucratic nightmare and people should know about the facilities they can use on other campuses. In fact, it’d be better if everyone had access to these institutions, regardless of whether they are studying or not.

3. Identify dead office space and get it into use. Find ways to make sure if offices, shops and other spaces are not being used they can be offered, for little or no money, to fledgling businesses and social enterprises so they can get going.

4. Make Birmingham’s students more welcome. With a population estimated to be as high as 60,000, Birmingham has a massive resource at its disposal. Among this population will be many of Leadbeater’s pirates. Sadly many of them will leave Birmingham before they can make a difference to the city. They should be encouraged to set up shop here, to mix and to put down roots.

5. Spend money on making Birmingham different, not on making it the same. Planners often want their city to have the things that establish it as a ‘city’, whether that be a cathedral in medieval times or a vast shopping centre now. But why would the pirates flock to somewhere that looks like every other place, if these are the people that hate convention? Birmingham should look to spend cash on decentralised public projects that aren’t run of the mill. Not big ones that could be anywhere.

6. Make moving around cheap! Why is it so expensive to get on a bus? Why is it not easier and safer to cycle? I’m guessing not all pirates will have their own galleons that they can sail on the canals. Birmingham should be an accessible place that is easy to get around. If Leadbeater is right, then pirates need to find other pirates easily.

7. Make conferences like today’s more open to the people they might affect. Recently, the Hello Digital conference caused a storm when the British Sign Language interpreter was late. It meant that some attendants were unable to understand what was going on for a good portion of the event. We should always make it as easy as possible for everyone to contribute to these kinds of events, because they’re an integral part of an ongoing conversation about how we become more creative. Clearly, you want to involve as many people as possible in that debate.

8. Whoever you are, share data. As was mentioned at the conference, it is clear that there are people in Birmingham who can do clever things with information. The council, other public bodies and even companies should do what they can to open up information that can be used to make peoples’ lives better. I know Leadbeater talked about how the city might be able to steal a march on the rest of the country by doing this, but the real goal should be to improve lives. That way, we’ll all be motivated to be involved.

9. Celebrate and encourage the success stories that are already here. Again, it’s been said before by far more eloquent people, but Birmingham has a wealth of talented people working in different fields who are already changing the city. If other people know that’s happening they’ll be more likely to come here.

10. As Julia has pointed out, I managed to misnumber my points! Hence, there were only nine. But I think this – er – fits nicely with another point that I should have made. Birmingham, particularly the council, has to be prepared to get things wrong and, when it does, own up to them. If the website was too expensive and not very good, then move on. Work with the people who’ve criticised it to improve it and learn from the smart people at your disposal. This is the largest unitary authority in the country. So why not take advantage of all that talent?