Colin Walker - Director of Policy, West Australian Department of Culture and the Arts

Prior to joining the Department Colin was Director, Arts & Business West Midlands in Birmingham in the UK and former consultant to the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA) for its Fellowship and Cultural Leadership programs.   He has acted as an arts sponsorship consultant to a range of international brands and many of the most recognisable arts institutions in the UK.  He is a board member of Healthway the West Australian Health Promotion Agency, the State Graffiti Taskforce and is an Advisory Board Member of Symbiotica, the Biological Arts Centre of Excellence at the University of Western Australia and Event Gallery, Melbourne.

Colin, presenting with Michael Chappell, worked together with John Knell of the Intelligence Agency in the UK to develop a Public Value Measurement Framework for the funded arts sector in Western Australia.  Subsequently, Michael went on to develop Culture Counts^TM - a digital system that combines crowd-sourced event feedback collected via smart mobile devices with self and peer assessment provided through a web portal for a 360 degree assessment of the intrinsic impact of cultural events.  The Culture Counts^TM system also combines these intrinsic value metrics with traditional ‘instrumental’ metrics like audience numbers and box office takings into a single dashboard for use by arts and cultural organisations and funding bodies alike. The evaluation metrics used in Culture Counts^TM have been co-developed with the sector and tested throughout Australia and the United Kingdom. Culture Counts^TM is due for full commercial release in late 2014.