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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

Now to be fair this machine is a focal point for the dislike and frustrations of me and my work colleagues, so having a problem with it is not something that hard to do.

There are though substantial problems with the payment system and how you get you snack or drink. So I decided to create a persona of a work colleague and the problems they are having with this machine.

This person is called Persephone  she is a long time working women who has been working at this company for 3 years. While she gets on well with her colleagues over the years various frustrations have built up. This compounded with a stressful job means she needs ways to reflex. So even though she’s on a diet she eats chocolate and has the occasional soda. But Persephone doesn’t wan’t her co-workers to now to things one that they make her that upset and two that she has broken her diet.

So from the vending machine she wants a quick efficient dispense so no one notices her.

This is where the problem of the design comes in. the machine is well known for being loud. noisy when you put the change in and very loud (grinding sounds and such) when it dispense said treats. On top of this it usually just chucks the cans of drink and sweets into the tray bellow.

while this is a simple solution to the problem of dispensing food it is with out doubt not a very good one definitely not user focused.

so the problems as laid out are.

1. taking the money

2 dispensing the item

3. giving change

So the first one. from the makers point of view the most important. without this there is no profit or point to the machine.  but you want people to use it so why make it hard? why is there no decent display and why is it so damn loud. they should seek to entrance the user and make the user feel confident. why not have it like other pay points. say a touch screen?

now the dispensing the item really is Persephone’s main problem. it is just to loud and because of the fall means her sweets are crushed and the sode will probably explode when opened. Not user friendly at all. now in the university i have seen a wonderful solution to this. a arm that carefully takes and dispense the item through a draw. it is obvious some one has thought about the user and the fact they don’t want shaken up cans. this is clearly user lead design so why not incorporate it here?

finally giving the change simply throwing it out at the bottom not only means most of the time you have to pick it up (very hard in heels) but makes Persephone feel like no they have her money she is no longer wanted. thats not the way to get repeat business. why not have it like a cash machine that slowly slides it out. that makes you feel like some one is handing you back your change a much nicer feeling.

so in conclusion the persona i have created has shown how emotionally you can feel about something so simple as getting a can of coke or a bar of chocolate. this to me shows the important of using the user model and understanding who you are selling to.

I went to West Fields. The way my thinking went was i need to go to a shopping centre and shopping centre’s are all about big is better so why not go to the biggest in Europe. So off i trotted. first of all it was really quite hard to find a shop selling art. This was because of two simple reasons, i hate using those navigation maps at shopping centre’s and because no one knew where it was, supposedly as one guard put it who the hell buy’s art at a shopping centre.

I eventually found an art store (Transform Your Images) and by the name you can guess it was not what i was hoping for. simply put the customer would come in and give a picture to the sales staff, they would then transform it into a work of art. i have to say though this was not cheap and the finished work looked ok in a pop art like way. But to call it art i think not. So with this all buzzing round my head i tried to emphasize with the customers (while trying to not look like a strange guy staring at them).

The first thing that hit me was how nerves people where and their proclamations that they didn’t know much about art. most of the time this was followed by them then saying that they wanted something quite specific. quite a contradiction. the sale staff would then explain how they knew about art and show them examples of what they would be doing, some of this was even incomprehensible to me and by the look on the customers face they thought so too.

next they were asked for a photo or picutre they wished to have processed, this was quite hard to observe but i did manage to get a look at some. they where ranged from family photo’s to children’s hand drawn pictures. Once the customer had handed over the picture they where told to come back after a certain varied time frame.

so the final part was watching people get there finished product. some where happy and some where definitely not. i have to say i empasized more with the people who were angry than the ones who were pleased. Some of the work was very shoddy and having waited for so long and the fact they had to pay before they saw the picture lead to a lot of  excitement then to see that the finished product was not very good was massively disappointing to say the least.  There was one person who kicked up a massive fuss which i can totally agree with the final product from my quick glance was not very well done to say the least. any way i have some pictures so make up you mind and let me no would you be happy with them.

Please follow the link as for some reason TED doesn’t want to give me a working URL (even the IT guy at work couldn’t make it)

http://www.ted.com/talks/burt_rutan_sees_the_future_of_space.html

the reason i picked this TED video by Burt Rutan is that its about Space exploration and i love the idea that we will finally make the move into proper commercialised space exploration. As Burt points out using standard flight development, nothing really moves forward till the private sector gets involved which in the case of space has never happened. i found this fascinating as well as slightly scary. Can you imagine Starbucks having a space station (yes i know the name seems to fit). But to be honest if it lets us travel the universe i am willing to pay the price of consumerism in space.

Burt also talks about needing to inspire the young. the idea that the people who drive the exploration are not the guys (and girls) who first had ago but the children who were around and were inspired by them that truly make a difference is fascinating. The problem with space exploration is it’s just not accessible for any one but governments at the moment and i agree with Burt that this needs to change.

how this relates to the creative economy is simple it is talking about a sector that has not had entrepreneurial people to drive its development and how this has meant its stagnated. A good point why we on MACE are needed.