Seth Godin, Author of the Purple Cow, The Dip, Meatball Sundae and he’s latest book Tribes. Some points and thoughts from the article in ‘the marketer’ (12.08/01.09)
Godin describes how marketing has changed; it’s no longer thrusting marketing to the masses but being leaders of tribes. “The new marketing is leadership”.

There are two routes you could go if as a marketer you find yourself in a company your values don’t align too, either quit or lead a change of culture from within. Seth Godin states that organisations need people who are the later.
What struck me is that Godin says that conservative people do not follow tribes. People who do not join tribes do not want to improve life and want to keep everything the same, so they aren’t looking for a new product or service therefore not looking at your ads. Your audience are the ones who want change, who gather like tribes and connect with each other. Adding to this most people want to follow and to be lead by someone. The new leader according to Godin is the marketer.
‘What people are waiting for is someone to say, “here’s an idea or here’s a service or a product or a candidate that will take us somehere new, let’s go.”

He goes on to say that tribe building is easy, as long as your customer/member is delighted in what you do and not feeling ripped off, they will help build your tribe by recommendation. Spreading your ideas freely also attracts interest, membership and sales.
“Once you have it, a tribe makes money all by itself. If you go into it saying, ‘I want to make money from this’ you fail.“
Personally, what I’ve got from this, is that I want to create that kind of feeling in my business, becoming very tribal!!!! This is how I see the business culture at IE Design and the customer relationship and philosophy with keepandshare.co.uk.
Godin ends this article on advice to marketers with the recession in mind.
• That this is the biggest opportunity any of us will ever have.
• He believes that great companies and brands are built in this environment.
• To create real value and real change.
• And to hire amazing people who can’t get ordinary jobs because there aren’t any.
“This is what you’ve been waiting for and I hope you don’t miss it.”

I’m going to take this on, that he is right and see what I can create in the world!

See Seth Godin really cool blog! http://sethgodin.typepad.com
Look you, if you are a Seth Godin tribe member you can get a doll to!

Ollie Leggett is the director and founder of IE Design, based in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, West Midlands. IE Designs main focus and strengths are web, interactive media, design and brand identity. Currently IE Design employ 14 people and have a client list of mainly high value based companies with a concentration on education and charity based organisations.

Ollie displays characteristics of a cultural entrepreneur by having an individual, collaborative and holistic approach to work, motivated by solving problems and being a servant leader. He has learnt new skills in producing and managing creativity throughout his career, mainly project based work for clients and has managed risk by concentrating on a 20% profit margin dropping clients who do not produce that kind of margin. Ollie’s company is involved in the majority of time, in producing and distribution of his client’s commissions especially around web based projects. IE Design developed a management system for themselves which they then marketed as periscope, an online creative management system for creative enterprises becoming producer and consumer or rather in this case consumer-producer, a trait of a cultural entrepreneur. Ollie foresaw 7 years ago, that interactive and online services would be the way to go and so brought on board Oliver Westmancote, as a company director. Seeing and predicting market needs is a distinct trait of an entrepreneur. (Southam et al, 2005)

Ollie Leggett is a cultural entrepreneur because he inspires artistic leadership in those that work for him in small teams and understands the creative process so managing it effectively to create an economically viable, high culture and value based company that produces visual media in print, interactive or web based output. ‘Forming such a business is not only an economic but also a creative act, for it involves shaping a complex cultural web of identity, relationships, communication, language and technology.’ (Rae, 2007: 194) It could be said from the previous quote, that Ollie Leggett demonstrates this with his management and business leadership service to his customer and employees.

Hope you enjoyed and please comment:

Rai Jenkins

Good grief that went quickly…….on the 24th February, a group of eager students listened attentively…Ollie Leggett founder of IE Design, Birmingham, Rachel Hargrave, Phoenix Partners Leicester and freelance producer- Alan James.

Ollie Leggett of IE Design, was totally inspiring from how he obtained his first client, to his approach in running his business. His personal values have shaped his business ethos. When Ollie started his company he created his core values which he still works by today however he did say that it’s a daily struggle to keep to them when he has to let someone go etc. His ‘Key Values’ are non negotiable and suggested that to ‘Be true to yourself and live it’

Ollie stated that he lead not managed his company and went on to say that only 3% of us are ‘Natural Leaders’ however the good news is that you can learn to be one!!!!! He referred to a book ‘Developing the Leader within You’ by John C Maxwell.

Most of what Ollie spoke about reflected current management thinking……I really think he should write it down!

Second up was Rachel Hargrave with a totally different approach to her business. Rachel, is a partner of Phoenix Partners based in Leicestershire which she set-up 7 years ago. Organic strategy comes to mind in how Rachel approaches her business, responding to clients needs with ‘Yes we can do that to’ then finding a way! Moving from live events and film and video into different areas such as PR and graphic design has been a business strategy that has benefitted the company in the downturn as the projects and budgets have been slashed in Live Events. Rachel recognised that she has to be more structured since the early days where she was very much hands on, she now finds herself managing and moving the company forward. Something she admits seems at times rather alien to her. How she wins work is being really good a what you do – helping people to communicate their story in a variety of multi platform and cross discipline work, that is memorable and full of impact.
Alan James, a freelance producer shared with us his experience of producing a unscripted improvised live band with an orchestra and live writing composers. The Band –“The Bays” based in London.
10 years ago, a group of session musicians from well know acts came together and decided not to make records but only play live totally improvised with no rehearsals and no vocals. The four piece, The Bays, are drums, bass, keyboards and ‘science department’ – effects with a special guest each night. Alan explained the difficulties in working with an improvised band with an orchestra and how it was overcome by the use of technology.
All these speakers had qualities of passion, commitment and creativity in what they produced and how they ran their business or project. I would like to thank all of them in taking the time to come and talk. Thank you for reading…

Well this is just a test and eventually I found the login area at the bottom. I must be quite dim at times! As you can see I’m blogging about nothing.

I’ve done the assignment and what I’ve learnt is that entrepreneurs are not just someone who starts their own business like the Americans definition. Entrpreneurs creates a new business model, market or product. Most creatives create but not all make a product that creates it’s own market demand or fullfils a unreleased niche market. However there seems to be a blurring of being entrepreneurial in the creative industries. Haven’t quite got the Cultural diffusion idea…..on the David Rae part especially as Loudmouth doesn’t appear to exist now and that was his ‘case study’. Lost interest at 3.15am this morning after a hour of exhaustive searching via Google. In case you are wondering why I’m working that late – I think better without distraction.

‘As Leadbeater and Oakley (1999) argue, cultural entrepreneurs ‘blur the demarcation lines’ between consumption and production, work and non-work, individualism and collaboration’ (Rae, 2007:194)

I might be following Maddonna on this next assignment or perhaps the guys who set up Lovehoney.co.uk. They were both pushed and pulled into it!!!!! Maddonna wasn’t, she pushed!!! Or Ollie Leggit?

Has anybody got any ideas???

Introduction
When you think of the word entrepreneur what springs to mind? Do you envision in your mind a Donald Trump look-alike who is middle aged with an aggressive personality and an expensive suit? I did initially until I found that the word entrepreneur encompasses many varying traits and is not as stereotypical as I once assumed. This assignment aims to enlighten the reader with an academic perspective of what cultural entrepreneurship entails and how various traits and characteristics are found in different types of entrepreneurs.

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What is an Entrepreneur? What is a Cultural Entrepreneur? Am I an Entrepreneur or could I be considered a Cultural Entrepreneur? Well let’s start with just the entrepreneur as oppose to the cultural entrepreneur. The dictionary definition of an entrepreneur is a person who organises and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. So then what is a cultural entrepreneur, what makes a cultural entrepreneur different from a ‘normal’ entrepreneur?

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 In order to look at what defines a cultural entrepreneur we need to first take a look at what we might consider are the attributes of entrepreneurs in the business world.  

It is difficult to be definitive of the particular characteristics that mark out an entrepreneur. Obvious examples of entrepreneurs will spring to mind; Richard Branson, James Dyson, Anita Roddick. They have a well-defined PR and self-promotion skills that make them very visible. But what makes them, and other less well-known individuals, achieve the high levels of success and wealth. We will see that they do have certain traits and all entrepreneurs will possess some of these to a greater or lesser degree. One of their traits is that they recognise their strengths and have considerable self-confidence but also are aware of the skills that they may be short of and ensure that they acquire those skills from elsewhere. They are driven people, having clear goals and the ability to plan to achieve. They may have a brilliant idea themselves, find one or have one presented to them. Their talent is then to act as the catalyst in turning the idea into a successful venture.  

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An introduction to “Entrepreneurship” 

In business there is a difference between someone that manages the business and someone that can lead it (Lee, 2006:81), and a leader with a visionary outlook is seen to encompass an “Entrepreneurial flair.”

So what exactly is the meaning of the word “entrepreneur” and what can be described as “entrepreneurship?”

Like many definitions there is not one fixed term; David Rae (2007) describes an entrepreneur as a person who acts in an enterprising way, identifying and creating opportunities through business ventures (3-5). Viewing entrepreneurship as the “subject” of entrepreneurs, “encompassing both the academic knowledge and practical skills used to be an entrepreneur. John Legge and Kevin Hindle (2004), discuss an entrepreneur as one who is an enterprise creator and agent of change, a builder of teams and organisations providing leadership (15). While David Kirby (2003) author of “Entrepreneurship,” describes the term as those who are visionaries seeing opportunities and taking action.

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Entrepreneurial Characteristics
There are many characteristics of an entrepreneur that bring together common factors helping to make them successful but there are no hard and fast rules to describe who an entrepreneur may be.

They come in many different shapes and sizes. No two entrepreneurs seem to be the same so that it is very difficult to pin down exactly who is an entrepreneur. Some are extroverts and some are introverts, some have a family history of entrepreneurs whilst others do not, some start with poverty when others begin with wealth, some are young and some are old, some are men and some are women. (Bolton & Thompson)

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Cultural Entrepreneurship Introduction

‘Cultural entrepreneurs’ have made significant contributions to not only the creative and cultural sector but in the main also to the current vitality and health of the
UK’s economic growth, thus gaining an increased amount of recognition in recent years (Wilson and Stokes 2002:37). Not only do ‘cultural entrepreneurs’  according to Leadbeater and Oakley assist in new job creation and the promotion of  social cohesion they provide a new model of creative production which has been made possible through advances in technology mainly concerning the internet and the use of I.T. (Wilson  and Stokes 2002:37). This sounds great but we need to grasp the concept of a cultural entrepreneur, therefore we must first understand the term entrepreneurship. 

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