The Digital Presence Gap in Bogor's Creative Economy: A Practitioner's Field Study on MSME Digitalization, Policy Gaps, and the 3% Problem

This study examines the digital presence of creative economy MSMEs in Bogor Regency, West Java, Indonesia, drawing on three years of field data (2021-2024) collected through the Komite Ekonomi Kreatif Kabupaten Bogor (Kabekraf) programme. Indonesia's creative economy contributed Rp 1,611.2 trillion to GDP in 2024, growing at 6.57%. Yet at the local level, only 3% of surveyed MSMEs in Bogor maintain a substantive digital presence — defined as a dedicated, active business profile at minimum. The paper introduces a four-level digital presence taxonomy, documents the COVID-19 digital adoption surge and its subsequent collapse, and identifies consistency — not technology — as the primary variable separating successful from failed digital adoption. Six policy recommendations are proposed, beginning with mindset readiness before tool training, and including an intergenerational delegation model acknowledging that older MSME owners may delegate digital operations to younger family members. The author serves as Head of Data Analysis & Information Systems at Kabekraf and Deputy for Creative Economy at KADIN Kota Bogor, providing a practitioner-researcher perspective grounded in direct field observation and government data production.