The Tasmanian Creative Industries Council today convened a Q&A forum with politicians on their policy platform for creative industries in Tasmania.

Three parties gave a pitch about their policy and direction and took questions from an eager audience.

David O'Byrne (Labour), Alice Archer (Liberal) and Nic McKimm (Greens) each took to the stage for a timed pitch on their creative industries policy statements. It is fair to say that all 3 parties are fairly new to public statements about the creative industries as we are coming to define them (ie, more than 'arts'), and the discussion had an air of 'what now' that in the startup arena we've probably ridden out and through for some time now. We've certainly made the transition from 'old' industries, creating new industries and finding new funding channels, challenging convention and boundaries all the way. The world does business differently these days because startups push the envelope.

Given the large cross-over between the startup community and significant elements of the creative industries, I can see there is fertile ground for expertise to be shared. For example, the question about funding for arts is slowly emerging from the traditional models and will hopefully make its way across to the startup models and crowdfunding schemes that we in the startup sector know and have embraced for some time now, with remarkable success.

For this to work, and to gain momentum, the creative industries 'movement' might learn a lot from a look around at what the lean, nimble, agile startups that have been so very successful in IT, gaming, software and apps - and more. After all, these industries seem to be the dominant players in startups and are at the leading edge of very big future growth in the creative industry sector.

If there's one thing that Tasmania has got, is creativity and startupishness in spades.

The only way is up, it's true. With national and state reports and research bearing out the importance of the creative industries as we reshape economies, I can't help but think that 'startup' and 'creative industries' need to have their dots connected to create an engine for growth that gives both the economic benefit and a healthy society.

What do you think?