How to make journalists love you.

NESTA is committed to supporting small and medium enterprises and recognises innovation as the key to success in the current economic climate:
“Innovation is the single most important condition for transforming the current economic crisis into an opportunity. Never before has innovation been so critical to the UK’s economy and society.”

Media Skills Masterclass was the event held by Creative Republic in Fazeley Studios, Digbeth on Tuesday 21st April.
This short piece constitutes the 2nd part of “Attacking the recession” series which presents useful skills needed in your media organisation.

The appointed guests from the West Midlands region shared their ideas with their colleague journalists, pr and digital media personalities and other entrepreneurs.

Anna Blackaby, small business journalist for Birmingham Post answered the following questions: How to get yourself in a newspaper? and How can you better your own PR? Having taken a look at creative industries sector she emphasised the importance of the role of press releases and how the businesses can communicate better through them with the target audience. These short pieces of writing should be as concise as possible, catching eye and containing new current ‘stuff’ (the recession subject would always be on top and definitely catching reader’s eye!). Journalists will love you for that especially if you save them long-hour-coffee-after-coffee researching of what you want to say! Secondly, try to avoid adjectives (facts only!) and get the habit of including quotations. Thirdly, use your own creativity (“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself”, Alan Alda); send the picture over etc. Fourthly, establish yourself as a commentator – if you have an opinion share it with others. Finally, if you have any stories, opinions etc, send them over through e-mail to the press office and therefore you will maintain a great relationship with them.

Now you will not only be loved but absolutely adored by a journalists’ team for your perfection at press release writing!

Another key point is Birmingham itself, the city of numerous opportunities, the creativity hub and economy city. If we pick up key segments and try to develop the mentality of the key sectors that drive the Birmingham economy we will be able to beat the recession. Targeting and attracting journalists should become catchphrases for each entrepreneur in the WM region. Why not target travel journalists (nota bene, probably most influential journalists among all); get them to the city and let them experience it? Why not using the hooks (case studies, extraordinary people in the heart of the real story etc.) they are absolutely mad about?

Finally, don’t be afraid to put your ‘stuff’ on the website, be noticed by your target audience and keep this relationship closely. Inform them through RSS feeds, tweets, direct mail etc. Social media is the answer.

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 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

It was largely aimed at educators but it did have a few students and some business support people amongst its delegates.  First thing to say is that a way more reflective and thoughtful digest of the conference is being put together by Charlotte Carey. Go read it. I thought it might be worth pulling together links to some of the participants as that doesn’t seem to have been done anywhere else.

Here goes:

Linda Ball gave the keynote and works at the University of the Arts London. Take a look at the Artist’s Development Toolkit she has developed and of course she’s got quite a pedigree in Art and Design employability research.

There followed four presentations from graduates of the MA Media Enterprise and the Insight Out programme at Birmingham City University. Those presenting gave an interesting glimpse of what it’s like to try to combine running a business with undertaking study whilst still having a life of sorts. The presenters were:

• Andy Hartwell from Substrackt
• Jo Hallington (some of her work here as well)
• Charlotte Bedford
• Gaelle Roche (and a case study here)

Sian Prime, formerly of NESTA gave a workshop. She helped develop the enterprise tools used in the Insight Out programme. 

Charlotte Carey presented some of her research about the MA Media Enterprise in a workshop that also had presentations by Andy and Kath Penaluna and from Antonia Walker from Bath Spa University.

 Jemima Gibbons facilitated a workshop and has blogged about it. Her speakers were: David Gibson from Queen’s University Belfast; Jacquie Green & Richard Holt from Somerset Centre for Enterprise and Terry Hunt from Birmingham City University’s School of Jewellery (which also hosted the event). Paul Long chaired a debate at the end of the day on taking the debate forward.

In all it seemed to be a useful day for delegates. I certainly feel that this is a developing area of reserch that perhaps at the moment sits a little awkwardly between not knowing if it wants to produce self-help guides for students or to engage in critical debate about the politics of enterprise. Here’s looking forward to the next conference in 2010….

Cultural entrepreneurs are said to be the driving force behind the UK’s creative industries, they are also described as “The Independents” (Britain’s new cultural entrepreneurs) who Charles Leadbeater and Kate Oakley describe as the driving force behind jobs and growth in the future. They also are said to “provide one model of how work and production is likely to change in the future in other sectors”.

Leadbeater and Oakley also explains that “Cultural entrepreneurs believe in ‘small is beautiful. They generally run small, under-capitalised and quite fragile companies”. Ok that’s enough gobbledygook so what is a cultural entrepreneur? We still haven’t come to one single definition its’ got something to do with culture, entrepreneurship and the creative industries but still we have no definition. In a recent blog on cultural entrepreneurship one author stated that “entrepreneurs have to be either extremely risk-seeking, extremely lucky or extremely ignorant.”

(http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/kszenajch/entry/how_i_made/) 

OK let’s make it easier Paul Smith, Bob Geldof, James Dyson, Anita Roddick, these are all names that we are fairly familiar with I hope and guess what? These people are all examples of cultural entrepreneurs. Are they a certain type of people? Do they have similar character traits and motivations? Well let’s start with one question at a time.

Are they are certain type of person?

Paul Smith is a contemporary fashion designer, having left school with no qualifications and no plans for his future. He found himself working as a gofer’ in a clothing warehouse in
Nottingham were his interest was identified and by the age of twenty he was managing a boutique for a friend. He was seizing opportunities without any money behind him and by 1970 he was running his own business. With a turnover of £300 million plus annually he is still the chief designer and takes responsibility for all wholesaling and retailing activities. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist/person/0,,37777,00.html)

Anita Roddick is the founder and CEO of Body Shop a British cosmetic company that is against products tested on animals and promotes fair trading within third world countries. Roddick grew up in an environment were recycling and looking after the environment that she lived in was paramount. Her mission for the Body Shop was to dedicate the business to the pursuit of environmental change, using the stores and products to help communicate human rights and environmental issues. (http://www.anitaroddick.com/aboutanita.php)

Bob Geldof started his early career going through an educational route, he started his early career as a music journalist and went on to become a musician in a rock band that hit international fame during the 70s he used his fame to then become a major spokesperson for charity appeals and organisations. His success with business ventures saw him owning a television production company and an online travel business. (http://www.bobgeldof.info/)

James Dyson is known as the inventor of the Dyson vacuum, Dyson went through an educational route in order to advance his career studying furniture and interior design. After becoming frustrated with his own vacuum cleaner continually losing suction  he decided to create the bag less Dyson vacuum, Dyson went onto set up his own manufacturing company after failing to sell the invention to major manufacturers. The value of his business in 2005 was estimated at £1 billion with other wealth adding up to £50 million. (http://www.dyson.co.uk/about/story/)

Well we have a fashion designer, a cosmetic consultant, a musician and inventor, they all have different interests however they all have a passion for their interests and pursued this further. Paul Smith’s success seems to be due extremely lucky circumstances, Geldoff had a keen interest in the media sector however he has dabbled within his career and also has been extremely lucky to find himself in certain areas that have enhanced his entrepreneurial skills further. Roddick and Dyson had a passion for the products that they were creating and pursued this until their products were available to consumers. Most of them pursued the educational route that unintentionally resulted in cultural entrepreneurial success however Paul Smith had no clue about his future and were he would end up in life, this is trait that is usually seen as stereotypical for entrepreneurs although in many cases this is not always true….

…What is an Entrepreneur? What is a Cultural Entrepreneur?  Can anyone be an Entrepreneur? Am I an entrepreneur or could I be considered a cultural entrepreneur? Have I answered these questions? By looking at examples of cultural entrepreneurs I have been able to look at the motivations and characteristics of what a cultural entrepreneur is in the hope that one day we will get a dictionary definition. I did find a near definition in Ong’s (2006:221) works who says that “Cultural entrepreneurs selectively deploy business management in combination with cultural forms in an individualistic, instrumental manner” I suppose that’s good enough. Can I then be a cultural entrepreneur am I Confident, Innovative, Persistent, Opportunistic, Self Motivated, combining business with culture well I like to think I am. Will you here the name Sharlene King amongst Paul Smith, Anita Roddick, Bob Geldoff and James Dyson I would like to think so. We will see! I suppose Only Time Will Tell…