How can our tertiary education sector move away from their institutionalized, governance-driven and regulated process of education that is obsolete before it begins?

www.newmediaminded.com.au is the type of creative business model innovation that Australian industry and government desperately needs.

It is the brain child of Scott-Bradley Pearce, Strategic Business Development, CBS Interactive, a digital media pioneer who has worked in and co-owned some of Australia’s leading digital agencies, including Big Hand Asia Pacific, Brainwaave Interactive and MediaZoo and as a result has developed a specific interest in that old-fashion notion - convergence.

The site's purpose is to offer students in digital media studies an opportunity to engage with each other whilst working in the real world using real challenges offered by prospective employees in the process gaining practical on the job experience.

This may seem relatively simple as a business model at first. Get students to do your work at piecemeal rates was my initial cynical perspective.

However, that thinking would be cliched and deceptive. Pearce's business model is really creating a very specific collaborative ecology through building a framework for the potentiality for convergence to occur. Bring all the stakeholders together, the producers, the designers, and the clients and let's see what develops.

Here is the framework for this ecology of potential convergence.

- www.newmediaminded.com.au is an on-line web portal for students in digital media studies nationally to connect and exchange information about courses, employers, new media developments and trends etc. Pearce has obtained the participation through his involvement in AIMIA of all the heads or deans of digital media studies in Australian universities and TAFEs , thus guaranteeing distribution of information and support for the portal.

- www.newmediaminded.com.au is an on-line employment web portal for employers who can post real work place challenges, observe how individuals or groups work at creatively solving those challenges and pay them accordingly. Pearce currently is seeking a form of certification that will allow student' work on challenges to be recognized as real world practice.

The site is not commercial and will carry no paid advertising. So what's in it for CBS Interactive who is financing this experiment?

As Pearce says" "We are seeking the hottest new talent for internships in our business anyway. So why not create a way in which we can surface that new talent for the industry as a whole. Why not go where the kids are and participate with them as they create their future."

The exciting aspect of this is the industry is collaboratively prototyping its emerging future. The winners are the industry, the employers and the students and most importantly, the clients who will be beneficiaries of practice led research, learning and application - the main ingredients for continual business transformation.

Implicit in this concept is a business model challenge to our tertiary education sector. Can they can move away from their institutionalized governance driven and regulated process of education that is obsolete before it begins to become actively involved in a partnership driven by the everyday real world paradigm of on the job training, practice and creative collaboration with all the inherent risks of failure that entails?

Watch this site!!

Ralph Kerle is CEO of the Creative Leadership Forum and Founder of the Creative Skills Training Council, Asia Pacific. He is a globally respected consultant, presenter, programme designer and writer on creative leadership. His positions include: Council Member of the Creativity Association of Asia, a Chinese Government initiative; a former Board Member and a member of the International Committee of the US Creative Education Foundation; a Leader in the US Creative Problem Solving Institute and a Fellow of the US-based think tank, the Center for Cultural Studies & Analysis. He is faculty adjunct at the Banff Centre, Banff, Canada as an Innovation Coach in their Leadership Development Programme and an International Thought Leader in their Leadership Learning Lab and a member of the Advisory Board of Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management and Technology, Utter Pradesh, India.

"Creativity Matters": the Creative Leadership Forum blog