Reflective essay

The beginning……. Again

I have to say that it felt strange to be starting again. All new people and a slightly different course. To say that I was nervous about starting a new business again, was to say the least. So it was time for the speed dating and a chance to meet every one. I have to say I did not use to believe speed dating and business really went well together, but I was sent on a course last year by work and met Lynn, who was running the event, and asked her about speed dating in a business setting and she was nice enough to send me this piece of an article she had written.

“It seems that everyone is doing or talking about networking these days. The concept of Networking has now entered many areas of our work and personal lives from business breakfasts to speed dating. Whether you are employed by an organization or amongst the rising number of people in self-employment networking is an important and essential means of building a lasting business.” (Lynn Macwhinnie, associationforcoaching.com)

My problem with speed dating was the fact that I had always looked at it as one of those new ways that desperate people use to try to find love. So I was not looking at the whole process objectively. Speed dating in this case, within the class is a chance to improve my ability to network with other creative types. Yet I have to say, there was an interesting mix of people from many different art and business backgrounds. The inclusion of the MABE group, also added a very business like feel to the whole process. They talked about profit and loss, while the MACERS were all about ideas and what could be achieved. I enjoyed the mix, and found it to be exactly what entrepreneurship is all about.

“I worked for two different small boutique design firms for five years before venturing out on my own. During the time I worked for those firms, I gained enough experience to be my own boss, my own art director. What I wasn’t ready for was the business part of having my own business.” (Jason Fieldman, interview: http://www.graphicdesignschools.com/interviews/jason-feldman.html)

Before starting this course, I had read various interviews with leading artists who owned their own businesses and the one thing  that they all said was that they lacked the experience of being a business man, as you can see from Jason Fieldman’s interview, so the fact that we had Business minded people on the course was a real plus.

Design Thinking:

So design thinking is an idea that I’m still not completely sure I have got my head around how to apply this to business and whether it will work. I think the closest I came to actually truly using design thinking was during the sex trafficking workshop.

“In the afternoon, students formed into teams and conducted research in the Kingston town centre. Some students visited a police station and discovered the gaps in communication between the public and authorities in identifying victims” (Cara Coslett, Kingston University Press officer)

At first I found it hard to get into the mindset of a victims of sex trafficking but by following and using the concept of design thinking, with the team, I actually started to see their view and how we could help. It also was nice to be mentioned in an article.

Having design thinking play such a major part of the course, it is interesting that Bruce Nussbaum and others are talking about how it is now absolute.

“Why am I, who at Business Week was one of Design Thinking’s major advocates, moving on to a new conceptual framework? Simple. Design Thinking has given the design profession and society at large all the benefits it has to offer and is beginning to ossify and actually do harm.”

(Bruce Nussbaum, http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663558/beyond-design-thinking)

So what does this mean for me, who is only starting to come to terms with what Corrine has taught me about how to apply design thinking and would the new creative intelligence been a better way of approaching the business? I think for me, Design thinking worked well and personally just didn’t apply it well enough at the start of the course. We, my team and myself, should have gone out and experienced more events. Instead only a few of us went out and tried to analyze what kind of events were happening in Kingston. We should have used the design thinking method as a team and experience what the user was feeling and needed in Kingston.

Prototyping;

The two events were very much our prototyping experience. The first event was quickly put together with the idea of finding out what worked and if people would actually turn up to an event held in the university bar. Without this experience and knowledge, I think the second event would have been a complete disaster. Simply put Ed DJed and we handed out questionnaires. The resounding answer. We received was that if students wanted to go out, they did it in London or Kingston central. This led to my long and hard search for a venue. Eventually, we ended up at the Kingston Mill. This is a perfect example of how a creative partnership can help you move forward.

“Partnership are organized to create a public benefit and are sustained if they also advance the partners’ self interest “ (Craig Dreeszen, Creative Economy Workbook)

The managers at the Mill allowed us to try and do anything including as you can see in the pictures, graffiti on there walls. This gave the event a truly unusual feel. Therefore if we hadn’t had the freedom to go of campus with the event I simply feel it would not have worked.

Mentor:

At first the idea of having to go out and find a mentor did not really appeal to me, but I have to say that without Eileen I would not have made it through this course. She was inspirational and always gave good advice on everything from how to deal with various team situations, to where to find the best articles and news on art and design. This is not really surprising though, as she is highly regarded by all who have met or worked with her.

“so enjoyed working with Eileen (ably assisted by the wonderful Paulene, from the Nederlands) and the other practitioners from all corners of England. We are now to be known as the Drawing Action group, a group of sixteen Associates of The Campaign for Drawing forming a network across the english regions.” (Susan M Coles, http://www.artcrimes.org.uk/blog/59/campaign-for-drawing-and-the-big-draw)

We will continue to stay in contact after this course and I have to say this was definitely one of the most important aspects, for my future, arising from the course.

Motivation:

Staying motivated has been very hard to say the least and I would not recommend working and doing this course because there simply is too much to distract you as well as not enough time in the day. I understand that time management is all-important and have even tried reading various books on time management. Fundamentally, the only thing I learnt from this was that if I do not manage my time properly, it will have a very obvious negative effect.

The absence of Personal Time Management is characterized by last minute rushes to meet dead-lines, meetings which are either double booked or achieve nothing, days which seem somehow to slip unproductively by, crises which loom unexpected from nowhere. This sort of environment leads to inordinate stress and degradation of performance: it must be stopped.

(Gerard M Blair, http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art2.html)

I have to say this article while interesting, didn’t help with the idea have how to juggle a job and study. That was the main problem with most of the books out there on time management, they all focus on single companies and not on individuals trying to juggle full time work, study and various social commitments. This lack of time to do anything and the feeling of constant pressure led me to feel very un-motivated at various points in the year. I was also working against my natural ability to procrastinate. I think Can put it best when he talked about Procrastination as an art.

http://vimeo.com/17856101

I have to say I love this video and it shows what is great about MACE- the people. Every time I thought I was running out of time or I just wasn’t coping with juggling the workload, Can and others managed to pick me up and keep me going.

Communication:

I think communication is where my team and I struggled the most. While we had around 20 plus team meetings and various conversations on facebook and by email, we failed to really connect. By the end we had split into two teams those working on the website and Me and Ed doing the actual events. Probably the best way of describing it is from the lecture where Jane talked to us about working in teams.

“Storming : good behaviour disappears, cliques and factions appear. Team members begin to disagree with each other, tension and conflict rises, members vie with each other for their personal requirements” (Jane Truemans, Teamwork/Profile lecture)

While we did not exactly follow this, there was a lot of resentment building and this came to the head with Thierry and Janja giving us a formal letter. For me this was a very counter productive exercise, what should have been sorted out with a conversation, led to further breakdown of the group. I think as a group working together we never really hit our stride. Many creative groups talk about just clicking and the work flowing from them.

“there may be certain idiosynerasies in their musical personalities that conflict. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad players. When a group finds that chemistry, some musicians believe it is a relatively rare thing: “the greatest things don’t happen in bands often, because the chemistry between the combination of players doesn’t lend itself to the most positive or the highest level of music. It seems like it’s a stroke of luck or genius when everyone is matched perfectly and the music’s really happening” (group creativity: Music, theater, Collaboration, Robert Keith Sawyer)

For our group this never really happened. We formed a group on the idea that we got along on a social level but soon realized that our various different styles of working just did not mesh and we never managed to overcome this. So moving forward, I have worked with people before that on a personnel level I didn’t get along with but on a work level we could come together and work well. I now realize that this works the other way, as building a team of people you like socializing with is not necessarily a good basis for work.

The form of communicating via blogging has been very difficult for me. While I have ended up using twitter for various other projects, I have never really hit my stride in blogging. Yet I understand the importance of a blog in this modern world.

Simply put this is just not me. My dyslexia coupled with my preference for face to face communication has made blogging an uphill struggle. I understand the importance of blogging in the modern media but I do not think it is something I will be keeping up.

Future

So the year for me is up, I am in the weird position of having done Creative economy twice almost. So where next? I have defiantly learnt my lesson, next year when I start my specialism I will not be working full time. If I have any advice to give new students its, don’t think you can work full time and do the course. I choose to use my holiday allotment to attend the course and it nearly killed me. So next year I will still work but in a very limited capacity.

I have a number of projects going on at the moment, I am running an event company with Yvonne who I met last year on the course and I’m sure it will include many of the wonderful people I met during my time on the course. I will definitely take the lesson I learnt from the Cloudbow company and use them to hopefully make this company a success. I am also about to begin working on a jewelry company with a friend, marketing and selling designs we have produced and with this the practical nature of Corrine’s class will definitely come in handy. Hopefully I can remember the lesson on accounting for small business. I have always said that for me the most important part of the class was the people in it. I have met so many amazing people like Can and Ed who have inspired me to go on in the art world. So thank you guys and girls and Thanks Corrine.

Design thinking about Sex trafficking

Well I think I have finally used design thinking correctly and simply put it was in regard to sex trafficking.  Corrine had Jerry Leisure UK field Director of Compassion2One come and talk to us. He set us the brief to apply design thinking to the problem of sex trafficking. I know this sounds a bit strange but I really enjoyed the task. It was wonderful to  have a project that only lasted a day as well as getting to work with people who are not in Cloudbow, change after all is the spice of life. Can, Yash, Alex, Vlad and me went the whole nine yards. We visited a police station to talk to them about what they would do if a women who had been sex trafficked came in, they where depressingly unprepared to say the least. We also tried to put are selves in the girls place. This was no easy task but we managed it to a certain degree. We thought about the possible ways we could reach them and what kind of contact they had with the outside world.

So we came up with quite a few ideas.

1. The condom simply put its one of the few objects that the women come into contact with regularly, so a simple number they can call will hopefully let them know that there are people out there who want to help

2.  The fake trafficking website, this way we can inform those girls who don’t realize the danger.

3.  A organization to coordinate police and various help groups. After we talked to the police we also phoned various helplines for information and the main point that came across was that no one was very sure what any one else was doing.

We then presented the work to the class and as always I do love a presentation and Yash was really great I think we made a pretty good team.

On top of this we also had a lovely lady from Kingston University press office down and it turns out she will be doing an article about me and Yash. So in all I finally use design thinking correctly, get in mentioned in a press realise and hopefully helped out a venerable section of women .

Video Advert

Well making the video was hard work to say the least. Me and Ed did about 15 to 20 versions not desperately sure how many there where. I have to say the filming was a laugh and thanks Sarah for helping out. So what have a I learnt from the video advertisement. The importance of music is one. The music Ed cut and edited to the footage was great he hit the lights perfectly with the bass and it just fits.

From an editing point of view I know understand why so many film directors talk about shooting huge amounts but only using a fraction. I have about an hours worth of footage on the laptop and the video is only 1 minute long.  The whole idea of the video is to show why you should get out. That going to the pub is not all that a night can be. The second part is all about the building excitement of an event then how amazing going to see a music event can be. I hope this comes across clearly but its below so make up your own mind.

Event at the Mill

The event after the trade show was both a success and to some degree a failure. We proved that you can put on an event and people are willing to join in with various live art projects. On the other hand we made a loss on the door. So what does this mean? Well since you should always end on an upbeat I will start with the failures. Simply put I did not publicize the event enough. While there was a facebook group and various tweets I needed to go further still. I should have been out flyering on the day instead of setting up or at least delegated setting up or flyering. Trying to do both would have been hard to say the least. It does on the other hand prove that facebook and twitter alone are not enough to pack out an event. Secondly, I should not have relied so heavily on the trade fair. Simply put not enough people came to the trade fair that then impacted on the amount of people we managed to get to come down to the event. This twin effect that would not have mattered on their own, combined to mean that we did not get the minimum amount of people needed to make a profit. To add to this the manager at the venue charged us a one off fee to use the area, he was more than happy to waive this fee for any future events but would not be moved on this one off fee which pushed the costs up severely.

On a positive note, the management was amazing about the event as a whole. They allowed us to have the whole space for the entire day giving Ed and myself enough time to set up. They were ok with us literally nail gunning various art pieces into the walls and on top of that allowed us to encourage the participants to directly graffiti art work onto the walls. This relaxed vibe encouraged many people to do various activities that they wouldn’t normally do. See the picture of the lovely Girl in the polka dot dress spraying the wall. So innocent and yet some how rebellious at the same time. It also encouraged the normally adventurous to go even further. I have to admit that even I had a go at DJing and will openly admit I have no rhythm or sense of music at all. In this we achieved audience participation which was one of the main goals and selling points of the event. The pictures are below and I have to say I really enjoyed every moment of putting the event on so thanks to every one who came.

Dragons Den

I have to say that I enjoyed the final dragons den a lot. I am one of those people who like to be in a situation where I have to defend an idea. So what have I taken away from the final dragons Den? Well that are idea was not fully formed. We simply had not done enough work on how the company would actually work. The dragons main point of question was our revenue streams and to be honest I didn’t have a clear answer for them. The most likely source was the events but while they had been enjoyable and could turn into a decent revenue stream they were simply not up to the level they needed to be. The dragons seemed confused about how we would make money out of the website. This is a fair point as I’m not to sure either. It looks amazing and the design work on it is great but simply put its not making any money at all. This from a business point of view makes the website a non-entity. So during the dragons den, the focus was on what would happen if the business was to continue on. We would have to develop the various events building a loyal customer base and then we would be able to turn a profit. The main realization I got from the dragons den is the importance of focusing any future business on the sections that would make money. The website may look great but it’s the events that should have taken all the effort since they are what would have made our final accounts sheet add up to a profit.

Thinking about the whole idea of dragons den and I have to admit I have watched it on the BBC from time to time I decided to take a look at what had happened to various entrepreneurs who had been on the show. The major one was Sharon Wright. I have to say her idea was simple but incredibly innovative. She had identified a problem and come up with a simple way of fixing it. The dragons fell over themselves offering her investments and it did make a great show. So is she now a huge success? The simple answer is no. This article in the Daily Mail (yes I know awful paper) explains why

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1303097/Dragons-Den-winner-reveals-80k-promise-fact-loan–26-500-emerged.html

So basically the two dragons who invested weren’t quite what they seemed. This I have to say is something we haven’t really covered in Corrine’s class. You have a great idea, you develop it to the point where you are making money but need investment to make it really big so you go out there and compete with others for investment and you get it. All of this we have covered but what happens when the investor’s start taking hand in the business or not coming through with their end of the money, how do you solve these problems. This I imagine is a huge problem for entrepreneurs who aren’t wealthy themselves and can’t simply fund the growth out of there own money.  So if I ever get a business to this stage where I need serious investment, I will have to be careful.

Branding

Market branding

We made some major mistakes with our branding. First and most glaringly obvious of all was the homosexual overtones.  I don’t mean this in any negative way, simply put the use of a rainbow one the logo for an event company came up against a `cultural norm of England. Pubs and clubs within the UK use the rainbow symbol to let potential customers know if they are homosexual oriented. This should have been spotted by myself or Ed as we have both worked within the pub and club industries for many years. But simply put it never occurred to us. We had become to focused on getting the Logo to look a certain way and had not stepped back and viewed it as a whole. The fact that Corrine spotted it straight away, shows the importance of having a person not connected directly with the project take a fresh look at it. They invariably pick up on various things that we have missed since they can be objective and not clouded by passion and self interest about the various elements. They are also able to view the project as a whole not the various parts that have been done directly by themselves. Most people say that they can be objective but when it comes down to it they will always view their own work in a certain rosy light. I fall for this as much as any one else and have now learnt that once a project is finished I need to have some one look over it.

The second problem with the branding was the font that was picked. I personally don’t think it was strong enough also the d and b next to each other had a certain phallic symbolism about it, though this could merely be me jumping to conclusions due to the earlier mistake. The final design that we decided on, that of blue, became our brand color to a large extent. We used the color in both trade fairs and on various flyers. I have to say I really like the idea of color branding. As simple color given enough time and repeated use can come to symbolize your company more than the script. Apple and the color white (not a color I know) are very linked and through that Apple can be seen as being clean and open (allowing you to add your artistic touches) or Coco cola and the color red.  This then allows you to brand further products by merely using the color not the font.