Ever since we started CIDA, I have always had a deeply personal ambition to do work in the Caribbean - there have been a couple of false dawns but now finally it feels like a foot on this particular ladder. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is taking place in Trinidad this year and I have been invited to address the Commonwealth Business Forum (CBF) - this is one of the main activities that takes place during the week, and attracts Presidents, Ministers and leading businesses so it's a pretty spectacular forum - when I came through Immigration tonight at Port of Spain airport, the officer asked if I was with the conference and what was I going to be doing - when I told her, she clucked sympathetically and said 'Are you nervous?' - I said no automatically but suddenly thought to myself that that would probably change on the day! - then she asked what my topic was and I said Creative Industries - to my surprise (and pleasure!) she just nodded and said 'great!'
Very good flight - it was absolutely packed and full of diplomats and musicians in particular; Claudio Kron do Brazil, the really wonderful drummer from Brazil based in Dewsbury but who works all over the world, was sitting just behind me and he seeemed to know everyone so by the time we got to Port of Spain, there was a distinctly party atmosphere brewing! Claudio is apparently performing with a range of African and Caribbean musicians during the week but he seemed wonderfully uninformed about exactly what, where and when! At least we know we are all on the ship together (the CBF is taking place on board the Caribbean cruise liner Serenade of the Seas - they've taken over the whole ship for the four days and we're even staying on board.......this is the way to work!) -
The real joy of the flight, however, was when we landed briefly in St Lucia - I hadn't looked at my itinerary properly so it came as a bit of a surprise but, heavens above, what an amazing looking island - huge dark green mountains, like sugar loaf mountains in green, rising out of the sea guarding the harbours and beaches; very little development as far as I could see as we flew in ; spectacular white beaches in some areas but mostly high cliff coastline with the green growing right to the edge; why on earth would anyone live anywhere else?! I have been to, and for years have been in love with, Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua but I have to say I was knocked out by what I saw today - have to come back properly!
Found myself sitting next to a banker from Central Bank of Nigeria - only recently moved there from the City in London - fascinating discussion - we talked about the different personalities of the different countries in Africa - big generalisations of course but still with some truth - the sheer energy in Nigeria is almost palpable - he reckons they are the most naturally entrepreneurial country in the world, including the US - they don't have the appropriate infrastructure, physically as well as in terms of services and people, but it will come - they benchmark themselves against South Africa, apparently - but the feeling is that South Africa is heading into stormclouds whereas Nigeria is already under stormclouds so their future is to move into the sunshine!
So first night here - in a hotel tonight but can see the ship all lit up from my bedroom window - move in there tomorrow - just want to say thank you to the Arts Council and Kirklees Council for making it possible for me to be here - the CBF doesn't pay - but the biggest surprise all day has been the huge numbers of young people who are descending on this island for this event - not just performers but what I take to be social activists of one kind and another - the mix of accents is extraordinary - from every part of the world - apparently they are expecting 5000 visitors for the conference - how do you make impact on that?!
Showing posts with label Arts Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arts Council. Show all posts
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Saturday, 17 October 2009
CIDA International Update
It occurs to me that the refurb of our website (www.cida.org) is taking longer than I expected, so I thought it might be useful to let people know what we are working on at the moment - as ever, it is hectically busy but it's also fun and challenging, the kind of mix everyone likes -
As ever, the creativity and the innovation agendas march side by side and it's fascinating to be working on how we bring them together to complement each other - Keith and I are going to be working with up to 25 businesses (5 days consultancy each) in Barnsley between now and January - I have my first client, a brilliant photographer Gavin Joynt, (www.gavinjoynt.co.uk) in the next week or so, and just looking at his website makes me feel excited - but we'll be working with businesses across all sectors, taking them through our Innovation process and helping to embed it in the DNA of the companies, so I think the experience will contain riches for all of us! As some of you know, we have a team of Innovation Coaches, including Lee Corner (http://www.lac-ltd.com/), Steve Manthorp (http://www.manthorp.co.uk/) and Val Monti Holland (no website, Val?), who are all based in Yorkshire, and a team based elsewhere including London, US and Australia but who all work with us on different projects. We all went through the training led by Herman Gyr and Laszlo Gyorffy (http://www.enterprisedevelop.com/) from Silicon Valley and we each bring our creative practice experience together with innovation process to create an unusual but tried and tested approach to help companies capture the innovation within their own workforce, colleagues and even clients.
Of course, Innovation is proving to be the new mantra, just like creativity was before it. Creativity as a word seems to have almost lost its meaning and I guess Innovation is going the same way - but the debate is intense and the thing I love is how the discussion has moved from trying to make creativity and innovation the latest tool in standard management thinking to the dawning realisation that standard management thinking itself is of the past. How funny it is for those of us who've spent most of our working lives in the creative sector, and lived with what that means (i.e. no job security, portfolio working, non hierarchical micro businesses, emphasis on collaboration, 'operating in hope of success instead of fear of failure'!) now to see how most industry sectors are slowly having to adapt to working the way we do - and to see how management theory is having to adapt to that!
Anyway, it makes life fun and we are enjoying it - we started a Raise the Bar course last week - this time especially for 20 established dancer/choreographers who want to develop their practice/business. Funded by the Arts Council, Yorkshire Dance Centre (led by the ineffable Wieke Ericke), has established a new CPD programme of which our course is part. It's 8 sessions between now and December. The first day was on Vision and Values and, at the end, one of them commented to Lee and Chantelle (our Course Directors) that she just wanted the day to go on and on - they all loved it and it made them think about themselves and their practice in a way they hadn't done before. That kind of reaction makes everyone feel good!
I kicked the day off with my presentation on Attributes of a Creative Entrepreneur. I've done it all over the world over the last few years and every time I do it, it gets a massively strong response. Once I was doing it in Saudi Arabia whilst Keith was doing it in Leeds and Lee was doing it in Utrecht - we were phoning each other as we finished just to hear each other's audiences' reactions! But the presentation has been given extra weight recently as we have just finished doing some interviews with UK creative entrepreneurs for the West Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network (WYLLN). It reinforced a lot of our thinking but we also added in some of the more practical skills, like Marketing, Finance, IP etc, and it's made for an interesting pamphlet, I think - I am presenting next week to a WYLLN seminar and then will explore developing it into a book with Lee (Corner) collaborating to write the case studies. Since we have worked with creative entrepreneurs all over the world, there are some fabulous stories to tell so I think the problem might be choosing which ones we actually use! But we are also thinking of putting case studies on the CIDA website and portal (www.creativeportal.org) as a regular item, so I'm sure they'll all get used, one way or another!
As ever, the creativity and the innovation agendas march side by side and it's fascinating to be working on how we bring them together to complement each other - Keith and I are going to be working with up to 25 businesses (5 days consultancy each) in Barnsley between now and January - I have my first client, a brilliant photographer Gavin Joynt, (www.gavinjoynt.co.uk) in the next week or so, and just looking at his website makes me feel excited - but we'll be working with businesses across all sectors, taking them through our Innovation process and helping to embed it in the DNA of the companies, so I think the experience will contain riches for all of us! As some of you know, we have a team of Innovation Coaches, including Lee Corner (http://www.lac-ltd.com/), Steve Manthorp (http://www.manthorp.co.uk/) and Val Monti Holland (no website, Val?), who are all based in Yorkshire, and a team based elsewhere including London, US and Australia but who all work with us on different projects. We all went through the training led by Herman Gyr and Laszlo Gyorffy (http://www.enterprisedevelop.com/) from Silicon Valley and we each bring our creative practice experience together with innovation process to create an unusual but tried and tested approach to help companies capture the innovation within their own workforce, colleagues and even clients.
Of course, Innovation is proving to be the new mantra, just like creativity was before it. Creativity as a word seems to have almost lost its meaning and I guess Innovation is going the same way - but the debate is intense and the thing I love is how the discussion has moved from trying to make creativity and innovation the latest tool in standard management thinking to the dawning realisation that standard management thinking itself is of the past. How funny it is for those of us who've spent most of our working lives in the creative sector, and lived with what that means (i.e. no job security, portfolio working, non hierarchical micro businesses, emphasis on collaboration, 'operating in hope of success instead of fear of failure'!) now to see how most industry sectors are slowly having to adapt to working the way we do - and to see how management theory is having to adapt to that!
Anyway, it makes life fun and we are enjoying it - we started a Raise the Bar course last week - this time especially for 20 established dancer/choreographers who want to develop their practice/business. Funded by the Arts Council, Yorkshire Dance Centre (led by the ineffable Wieke Ericke), has established a new CPD programme of which our course is part. It's 8 sessions between now and December. The first day was on Vision and Values and, at the end, one of them commented to Lee and Chantelle (our Course Directors) that she just wanted the day to go on and on - they all loved it and it made them think about themselves and their practice in a way they hadn't done before. That kind of reaction makes everyone feel good!
I kicked the day off with my presentation on Attributes of a Creative Entrepreneur. I've done it all over the world over the last few years and every time I do it, it gets a massively strong response. Once I was doing it in Saudi Arabia whilst Keith was doing it in Leeds and Lee was doing it in Utrecht - we were phoning each other as we finished just to hear each other's audiences' reactions! But the presentation has been given extra weight recently as we have just finished doing some interviews with UK creative entrepreneurs for the West Yorkshire Lifelong Learning Network (WYLLN). It reinforced a lot of our thinking but we also added in some of the more practical skills, like Marketing, Finance, IP etc, and it's made for an interesting pamphlet, I think - I am presenting next week to a WYLLN seminar and then will explore developing it into a book with Lee (Corner) collaborating to write the case studies. Since we have worked with creative entrepreneurs all over the world, there are some fabulous stories to tell so I think the problem might be choosing which ones we actually use! But we are also thinking of putting case studies on the CIDA website and portal (www.creativeportal.org) as a regular item, so I'm sure they'll all get used, one way or another!
Talking of books, Ana Carla Fonseca, a fabulous Creative Industries specialist in Sao Paulo, and Peter Kageyama of Creative Cities Summits, based in Tampa, Florida, both of whom work with us on various projects, are putting together a book due out before the end of the year. Called Creative City Perspectives, it features articles by about 18 different commentators (including me!) and has an Introduction by Charles Landry. After all the work involved in coordinating such a book, it's getting exciting seeing it coming to fruition -
Am happy to tell you we recently won a contract with the West Midlands Business Link to provide Innovation Advisory Services for SME businesses - that hasn't started yet but should be stimulating when it does. And of course we continue working with our partners in Doncaster Council - we are working with their LEGI programme, Success Doncaster, and meeting some extraordinary creative businesses; and the Council is also a partner in our Interreg ECCE Innovation transnational programme which is a fascinating project. As part of it, we've commissioned Graham Devlin to undertake a piece of research for us, looking at how HE supports R&D in the arts sector - he's taken an unexpected approach to it and I think it will prove fairly provocative in the end. Hopefully, it will be ready by the end of the year, and we'll be running a conference early next year to launch it.
Talking of European projects, we've won two Leonardo contracts, one to do with creativity and the other to do with innovation - working with Finland, Flanders and Barcelona on the latter - I'm particularly happy that at last we have a partner from the sunny South! - and Denmark joins us on the other. They both demand interesting work that complements what we are doing elsewhere so the synchronicity has been useful. The whole creativity and innovation agenda is a real hot topic in the EU just now - Keith has been invited to be founding member of a new EU network, EICI, that focuses just on this, so we are in at the heart of it all!
Finally, for now, we continue to work with the British Council Creative Economy Unit on their Creative Enterprise programme in Sub Saharan Africa. I'm probably going out to Kenya and Nigeria next month to work with tutors out there to help in the delivery of the course - meanwhile, the artists we worked with in Zimbabwe a few months ago are even now going from major city to major city in that country, delivering the course we did with them - apparently, it's going beautifully and Virginia ( Pirie, writer, www.nai.uu.se , and all round fabulous woman!) dropped me a note to say how responsive all the participants were - how fantastic that they can continue to develop their creative businesses and practice despite all that is going on out there -
There are a number of other possibilities on the horizon and exciting negotiations going on, from Middlesborough to Singapore - but I'd better wait for confirmations before I talk about them - !
Ah, well - there is one more thing you might be interested in! - I've been invited to address the Commonwealth Business Conference in Trinidad this November. It's all hugely formal, with Presidents, Prime Ministers and Ministers as well as leading international business leaders attending - I've been invited because of 'CIDA's strong global presence and experience in the creative industries' so all that travelling has paid off! Seriously, it's a thrill and I'm delighted - and, by the way, there is already a queue of people offering to carry my bags.................................!!
That's it for now - but there have been some really interesting pieces posted on the LinkedIn groups I belong to so will add them later on - does one say good bye at the end of a blog? Seems odd - I wonder what the etiquette is?
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