The Pittsburgh Entertainment Technology Project is here. The website has been up for a little while. The formal launch is later in January.
The positive: Blending Pittsburgh art and tech and leveraging that for commercial possibilities has to be a good thing. The Entertainment Technology Center at CMU is one of the region's underappreciated gems -- though it's not as underappreciated as it once was.
The skeptical: I'm always interested in the rhetoric, and the PETP doesn't disappoint with confusing strat-speak. The mission: "To create a unified entertainment technology ecosystem in the Pittsburgh region."
Ecosystems are good, but "unified" they are not. Ecosystems, even metaphoric ecosystems like this one, are multi-level, multi-layer collections of systems that build on and depend on each other. Overlaps and intersections are the keys both to defining ecosystems and to understanding the good things that they do and enable. Most important, ecosystems are open -- open to inputs, open to influence, open to change. That openness isn't random, and openness doesn't mean sudden, unexpected changes of direction. Openness means dynamic and evolutionary.
"Unified" calls to mind fixed and monolithic: a "unified" front. Hollywood is "unified" only if you focus on the bad stuff -- monopolistic and oligopolistic behavior by major studios, for example.
Let the PETP be an ecosystem platform for growth and change.
1 comment:
Thanks for this informative post.
Post a Comment