Out lecture this week was concerned with managing creative teams.  Chris Bilton’s reading was particularly illuminating with regards to ‘creative brokering’ – stimulating communication between members, understanding their creative processes and using their personal traits to encourage a creative synergy between them.

Annette asked us to think about our own creative process, so here is mine:

Far from Emmanuel’s romantic envisioning of the writer in a cottage, I work best in my square room in a semi-detached student house in Perry Barr.  The absence of cavity wall insulation means I write and design under the comforting heat of a £15 halogen heater from One Stop Shopping Centre.

Many magazine designers use Apple Macs, but I am happy with my laptop.  When I am designing pages I have to listen to music, which I usually listen to through Spotify.  Favoured artists are of the easy-listening ilk, such as Erykah Badu, India.Arie, Dwele or if i’m in a more commercial mood, Mariah Carey (don’t laugh).  I rarely plan or sketch out pages; I first think of the colours I want to use, then the heading font (which takes a while), then the pictures, and finally the text.

When writing or reading, I can’t listen to music.  A few of my friends used to handwrite their assignments on paper, but I can’t do this either.  I tend to just type whatever comes into my head and then read over it afterwards, but I don’t proof-read too much because I’ll stop concentrating.

I take breaks regularly, and like to get away from my room when doing so.  Rather than step outside the cottage and sniff roses, I go into the out house downstairs.  The outhouse  is beautifully adorned with graffiti, permanent marker scrawlings and moss, with the odd slug for company if it is raining.  There is also a beautiful pool outside, which has been created by a blockage in the outdoor drain.  Such surroundings may not be thought of as a stimulus for creativity, but you would be surprised.

This is my first blog post for mediaenterprise.co.uk and I thought I would start with my recollections from the MA Media and Creative Enterprise so far.

At the beginning of the course I was also taking part in Insight Out: Managing  a Portfolio Career, which was fantastic and I feel it has prepared me well for the rest of the MA.

I found a lot of crossover between the Enterprise module and Insight Out, which was helpful because it enabled me to really take in what I have learnt.  However, the module I have found most intriguing (and most perplexing at times!) has been Creative Industries and Cultural Policy.

The ‘hot topic’ at the moment seems to be the role of the creative industries in the UK’s economy, and whether the sector can pull us out of recession (and for some people the creative industries also encompasses digital and IT).  Several events have taken place during my short time on the MA including Digital District, Hello Digital, the Big Debate and the national Cabinet Forum.

All of them were concerned with the future; how improving Birmingham’s broadband infrastructure could have long-term benefits for SMEs and the economy (Digital District), how the digital industries can pull the UK out of recession (Hello Digital), how Birmingham’s creative industries should band together to try and achieve the same (Big Debate) and so on.

Has there been enough discussion?

Despite those three events dealing with slightly different themes, all pointed towards the creative industries and how they can move forward in Birmingham.  Though I found them all interesting and relevant, maybe now it is time for the discussions to stop and action to begin, especially from policy makers.

The biggest event of them all was the Cabinet Forum, simply due to the amount of hugely influential creative workers and policy makers in attendance.  One major subject of debate was copyright, which is of particular interest to me due to my involvement in magazine publishing and I will be studying it for my first assignment.  Some delegates felt that the copyright debate is getting ‘old’ and the debate needs to move on, others felt that it was a hugely important part of the creative economy and problems with copyright protection in the digital age (such as illegal file sharing) need to be addressed.

As entrepreneurs, there is no doubt that copyright  (and intellectual property in general) plays a big part in what we do.  If our intellectual property is not protected, our product won’t be unique; it will be exploited and our ideas will not be our own.  One such incident happened to me recently when an article I used for my final year degree project was re-used several times by the FA and other companies without my permission (it was a digital magazine and my contact details were clearly visible on the website). I wouldn’t have minded but I wasn’t acknowledged for it. The (c) symbol doesn’t matter to people in the digital age.

On the other hand, people (creatives and consumers) are unwilling to pay for photographs and articles, but there is the compromise of Creative Commons, where authors can make their work available for free as long as they are acknowledged.

On that note, I am going to leave you with a very good talk by Dr Lawrence Lessig (who came up with the idea of  Creative Commons) about copyright and current policy.

Image (above) by eschpiul.

This is a test blog for the new cohort of bloggers/students on the MA Media Enterprise. This course even has a facebook group!

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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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In this post I will analyse the unique characteristics of cultural entrepreneurship in relation to the musical instrument inventor Bob Moog and the wider impact of one individual’s creative enterprise since the 1950s.What is an entrepreneur?There are many wide-ranging definitions of an entrepreneur, with connotations of city slickers focused on profit-driven financial deals, or geniuses or hapless inventors being grilled over IP registration and profit projections in the BBC series “Dragon’s Den”.The term entrepreneur was first used by French economist and journalist Jean-Baptiste Say during the French Revolution to describe one who unlocks capital tied up in land and redirects it to change the future. Say was the first economist to recognise change and uncertainty as normal and positive in business¹.The Beermat Entrepreneur’s describe entrepreneurs as confident, charismatic, have bags of energy, obsessed with work, ambitious, in a hurry, arrogant, manipulative, lack focus and are obsessed with the competition².The risk-taker, the go-getter, the manipulator, the charismatic leader, the opportunist and the serialist are all types and characteristics of the typical entrepreneur. Read more »

1. Howkins, J (2001) The Creative Economy, Penguin Press pg129 [↩]
2. Southon, M and West, C (2002) The Beermat Entrepreneur, Prentice Hall pgxvi [↩]

Moses Whyte runs a social enterprise in Walsall. When I asked him if he considered himself to be a cultural entrepreneur, he looked at me quizzically and said perhaps he was. Then laughing, he said anybody could be anything they wanted to be and as long as it didn’t mean paying more taxes then perhaps indeed he was a cultural entrepreneur.

When I embarked on writing this blog entry, I myself was somewhat uncertain as to whether Moses Whyte and his enterprise, the Trelawny Overseas Relief Association UK Ltd. (TORA), fitted into the category of cultural entrepreneur. The confusion came because TORA is essentially a social enterprise. There is no question about its entrepreneurial factor, but the question arose in my mind, can its specific activities of community outreach and involvement be classified as cultural as in the term cultural industries. After carefully unpacking the definition of culture, I decided that it did indeed fit the category.

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