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Lillehammer Kunnskapspark (LKP) was established in late 1998.

The company’s profile as facilitator for the creative industries was a natural choice of position for many reasons: 1) as the result of the strong position Lillehammer University College has within educational programmes for the Creative Industries, the media and the arts, 2) the many regional institutions within arts and culture 3) the number of major festivals and events within sports, arts and culture and 4) the importance of the travel- and tourism industry within the larger region.

LKP can look back on many achievements since the startup; the establishment of Film 3, as facilitator for the regions film industry, Fabrikken , a co-location for 35 + small businesses within the creative industries in Lillehammer. Konvekst, one of many national cluster-initiatives within the ARENA program. Where the objectives were; to establish the most successful cluster within the experience economy in Norway, to advocate the opportunities of collaboration and co-opetition among the members of the cluster, to create revenue and innovation among the actors within the cluster and strengthening the whole industry through projects, processes and tools created within the cluster. Snowball is the successor of Konvekst and is also an achievement of LKP.

Objective
LKP objectives are to muster innovation and create revenue for the creative industries and enable these to capitalize on their ideas and concepts. LKP has launched various projects and programs to reach these objectives. In 2000 LKP established the first Norwegian incubator for the development of new businesses within the creative industry. From 2000 to 2006 LKP has assisted about 50 new SME’s, of which 70-75% are still in business.

Areas in which we operate:
Intellectual Property
Lillehammer Kunnskapspark has continued their long and close collaboration with Centre for Intellectual Studies (CIP) in Gothenburg which also resulted in an extensive report and a learning DVD through the “Creativity meets Capital” project in 2006. We do in depth analyses of companies and business ventures focusing on identifying intellectual assets and to create an understanding how to organize and utilize these assets into properties and value creation.

Brands
As a company we have facilitated a number of branding processes for a wide variety of clients. Aside from the legal aspects of trademarks and design, we also look into all aspects of the brand such as brand values, brand personality, brand assets, brand benefits and how to communicate the brand to the consumer or audience.In other words; to invent, innovate and distribute cohesive messaging through multichannel consumer programs that reinforce awareness and loyalty to the brand.

Tutoring the experience industry
In order to avoid the aspects of pure intuitive reaction and design within the creative industries, there is a need to institute a process that involves analytics and validation. Too often, creators within the CI get intrigued with form and content. They regress into an intuitive process and won’t trust analytics as they produce work. We believe that there’s a market need for an analytics-based design process tool and insight. LKP has developed such a tool, divided in 4 phases, that will help our clients to identify and analyze their position in the marketplace, their competitive environment , their strengths and weaknesses, their assets and opportunities and how to optimize the concept as an experience and as a venture.

Incubator
LKP is one of many incubators in Norway, but one of few within the CI. The program is initiated and funded by a governmental body, SIVA. The main objectives for the Government are to increase numbers of entrepreneurs and new businesses, the support of entrepreneurship in education, financial aid to new businesses, commercialization of research based ideas and organic growth in existing businesses.A number of cultural incubators are already established around the country, and numerous plans are being made to establish new incubators. LKPs role is to support and increase the business potential for the entrepreneurs during their incubation process, regardless of physical environment.

New Medias and New Technology
LKP has focused strongly on new medias and technology, such as film, television and the mobile phone as means to communicate to a wider an younger audience. The emergence of various social medias have challenged many traditional actors as how to communicate their brand to their audiences. As we speak several projects are concluded and in the process of being launched. We believe the extraction of experiences and knowledge from these projects will be valuable for many actors within the industry both in the region and elsewhere.

Summary
We believe LKP is in the position to facilitate important processes and to create the basis for future policies for the creative industry and economy. Knowledge has been and will be extracted from the projects above. We believe initiatives from the public sector and the policymakers that encourage unified, cohesive and coherent programs for the sector, rather than fragmented and dispersed initiatives will benefit the whole industry. We believe tools and models for IP management and business development for existing and new businesses (Incubators) that focus on idea, protection of ideas, conceptualisation of ideas and creation of revenue from ideas should and must be a priority