For Arts Hub readers who have been loyal members of the website for the past six years, the story of how ex-ABC Radio producer Fiona Boyd and ex-Bendigo Arts Centre Director David Eedle, saw an opportunity to provide Australia’s creative sectors a common space online, is a popular one. One of the company’s earliest memories was of Boyd and Eedle working from home with two young children under four – one bouncing on top of the photocopier as they worked into the night sending out Arts Hub bulletins.
What was different however about the Boyd-Eedle model, particularly for the Australian arts scene, was that theirs was and has always been a business brief. Arts Hub was created in the belief that it would be a financial success despite existing in what is notoriously, and perhaps inaccurately perceived as, a non-fiscally rich sector.
This perception of the arts is not new. For all of us who have worked in the business for any period of time, the passion for what we do is what it expected to enrich us, and not the remuneration.
Fiona Boyd and David Eedle have always rallied against this view and now, six years on, after cementing their place in both the arts and business communities, the Boyd-Eedles have sold the company to someone whose interests it could be argued, lie even further a field.
Simon Baker, who is currently CEO and Managing Director of realestate.com.au, has been listed in the Top 20 Young Rich List, with a recent Bulletin magazine profile calling him the 7000% man (referring to the fact that he increased realestate.com.au company share price by 7000%).
Baker (with other investors) has bought Arts Hub not because of his passion for the arts he says, but because he believes in the product and sees a future for it that would expand into a global market place.
Neither an artist nor an arts worker, Simon Baker has worked for McKinsey and Company, News Interactive – News Limited’s online businesses, and was Chief Technology Officer in a US start-up. And indeed, he readily admits he is not the sort of guy regularly drawn to Puccini or Whitely or even the Actors Gang for that matter, however Baker is adamant that this makes him the best sort of person to run a company like Arts Hub.
‘Personally it is a business that is similar to the one I currently run. It is a classified business with strong editorial content – so I understand the industry. I also see Arts Hub as an opportunity – I’d like to see if we can grow it similarly to realestate.com.au, over the next few years. And it’s fun – the arts and creative sector is a fun industry and a great bunch of people to work with.’
And anyone who questions his emerging profile in the arts sector is shrugged off impatiently. ‘This is more about growing the business and providing a fantastic service’ he begins. ‘It’s about taking the business to the next level, allowing it to become bigger and stronger driven by better editorial content and a broader range of job listings. We’ve gone from three weekly bulletins in Australia to five, three in the UK and soon three in the US. This improved service has been achieved and been allowed to achieve because people have been prepared to invest in the business.’
‘What we are is a meeting place. This is a great opportunity with powerful, passionate people internally, around whom I want to put all the supporting infrastructure and vision on the outside, so they can get on and build a great business and ensure there is enough funding for the business so that we are serious about how we execute. This is far more important than whether I like Beethoven’s 5th.’
‘In the end what will the readers want?’ he asks. ‘They will want access to great relevant articles, they want to know that there is a voice and that it stands for something. They want to engage in the product, they want to get to see jobs. It matters what the editorial team think, not what I think.’
Taping into the wave of creative class theory that is being spruiked by the likes of US social commentator Richard Florida, and our own Peter Garrett, Baker’s affiliation to the arts, although not personal, is significant. He has invested personal assets into the venture and feels strongly committed to the company, it’s staff and it’s development. In an idealistic world, it could be argued that he is a modern day Medici.
Although perhaps this analogy is a little too neat. Time will tell of course, but Baker does have the vision, belief, and drive to see a business like Arts Hub reach a global creative network never previously anticipated. As he explains, ‘the first step is to make sure the current model is the right one. This is a subscription based service for jobs and content. We would also look to add to the model with video, audio and more editorial content, and then we would take it to other countries.’
In regard to content, Baker agrees Arts Hub is all about community interaction and feedback, and he specifically values member created content. ‘There will always be a strong relationship between professionally developed editorial content and collaborated content with members.’ Of this he is adamant. ‘I think user driven content is critical. And one thing we can do is identify ways we can better engage our audience in them having an equal voice through editorial content.’
Baker also sees involvement in the arts coming from a passion for it and the capacity to spend, however as he says, the arts will never be a key concern amongst the community. Even in an election year, the arts is not a hot topic. ‘Because the political issues will always be about jobs, health, and social concerns like the war in Iraq’ says Baker. ‘Interest rates would be a far more engaging discussion for an election year than the arts, and that’s just the reality of life. So we’ve got to get used to it and we have to do what our job is – which is to engage with those who have the passion for the arts or those who have discretionary spending to put into it.’
Baker doesn’t hesitate to answer when asked what Arts Hub’s immediate challenges are. And the answer is obvious – ‘grow the number of subscribers in the business so that we have more revenue coming – find more people in more countries and just get better at what we do…’
‘We plan to have a good base to grow Australia, UK and US and then will look to expand into other countries’ he sums up.
It all sounds very simple – and perhaps it is…so watch this space.
