Birmingham Opera Company

Birmingham Opera Company
Originally uploaded by letmein

Conference Report

Many of you who attended the Creative Enterprise conference last January, commented not only on the relevance of this conference, but also on the need to create a ‘community of practice’ and better share and disseminate information. Part of our response to this challenge, was to set up this blog, as a tool for sharing information and to invite you to continue the debate.

Charlotte Carey’s conference report (now available to download), gives an excellent overview of the conference, outlining the context, the key themes and action points. For me there are two important messages. Firstly, the lack of research in this area must be addressed and should aim to inform curriculum development. Secondly, we should work with our partners to deliver appropriate support for art & design students in a language and style that suits them.

I think all of us agreed that enterprise skills are crucial irrespective of whether a graduate sets up their own business or if we are looking at the sense of enterprise. Many of us also smiled in recognition when Alison Branagan held up the extensive careers advice she was given as an art & design undergraduate – a leaflet.

I believe that our courses need to offer students a balance between focusing on their creative development, an awareness of business and the wider context for their work and an entrepreneurial approach. As Woody Allen put it, ‘If show business wasn’t a business it would be called show show’.

Full report and executive summary are now available to download. We look forward to your comments and further debate.

Download report here

UKBI Create 06 feedback

The Old Marconi factory houses 'Liverpool Digital' a cluster new media and games companies and also the home of Digital Inc. an incubation unit run in partnership with John Moores University for emerging digital media companies.

This year they hosted the UKBI's (UK Business Incubation) annual creative industries conference Create 06. The conference was key-noted by Mike Herd, Executive Director of The Sussex Innovation Centre. Who spoke at length about the need for incubation organisations to inspire ambition and that ambition was the driving force behind a business succeeding, he even stipulated, alongside a market (and demand), ambition as the two criteria he considered when meeting a would-be business owner for the first time.

As he asked 'How do we become ambition incubators?'

The day was then split into two parallel sessions, I went for the full audience participation session run by an organisation called Learning House, an incubation unit working specifically with disadvantage communities. An interesting point they had identified was that entrepreneur's and artists are similar in that they are both creating something. The audience participation bit was asking us to discuss the role of the creative industries in facilitating regeneration. An interesting discussion was had using a 'learning cafe' style, we were encouraged to doodle and make notes on the table cloth (flip chart paper on the table) and feedback our ideas to the group.

The afternoon session I attended was equally participatory, looking at an area of particular interest to me which was how do we measure what we do and how successful it is. The facilitator Richard Strudwick from Wandsworth Youth Enterprise Centre offered a useful framework by which to help delegates think about how they measure and communicate their work to various audiences e.g potential participants, funders, stakeholders etc.

All in all it was a reasonably useful day, but their was little real emphasis (at least in the sessions I attended) about the issues facing Creative industries, with only a brief mention from a delegate who questioned the need for 'dirty incubation' i.e. spaces were artists, performers, dancers etc could have the appropriate space to make their work. Other wise it was pretty generic. I look forward to receiving feedback from other sessions and will hopefully pass it on here.

Report coming soon.

Following the success of the Creative Enterprise conference, a report is being written which will be made available from this site shortly. The report discusses issues that arose on the day and will explore some of the potential next steps for higher education establishments hoping to provide enterprise support to their students.

Vacancy at leading UK educational Charity.

Swan Resources on behalf of D&AD are currently looking to recruit a Manager to run their Universities and Colleges Programme. This is a new and challenging role aimed at developing and managing an all year round programme for course leaders and tutors across the UK and internationally.

The role will ensure that advertising, design and communications teachers in universities and colleges are kept up to date with industry developments through events, teaching resources, exhibitions and training.

It would suit someone with experience and knowledge of the higher education sector, who has good contacts in the field of creative communications /education and a strong awareness and understanding of the creative industry sector.

The role offers plenty of scope for development and promotion within D&AD. For more details email Gazelle Swann at email@swanhumanresources.com or call her on 07951 516 502

Enterprise Fest 2006

UCE Birmingham will be holding its annual
Enterprise Fest on March 15.

Blogs

If you have a relevant blog and would like us to add it to our list please email me details: joe.norman@uce.ac.uk

Cheers

Joe

Creative Enterprise Day

Creative Enterprise Day 25 January - Birmingham

The Creative Enterprise day at the Custard Factory was a great success. The event was a 'sell out' with 90 delegates listening to keynote speeches from Michele Mooney (Director CDC, UCE); Alison Branagan (Central St. Martins College of Art and Design); Gaynor Richards (Department of Culture, Media and Sport) and Sara Harris (Screen Media Lab).

There was also three case studies presented by participants of NESTA's Insight Out programme – Matt Grimes and Simon Kaguramamba – and Kelly Atkins, who attended NESTA's Academy, these were particularly well received and provoked a lot of interest.

In the afternoon delegates attended one of three panel sessions that looked at Research, Widening Participation and Responsibility of Delivery before gathering for a final summing up session.

In the near future we'll be making many of the findings and papers that have resulted from the event available for downloading, as well as making some of the speeches and discussions available as podcasts.

As soon as these are available we'll let you know .

If you were unable to attend the event and would like a copy of the Delegates Pack it's available to download here

You can read Charlotte Carey's comments about the event here, Dave Harte at Digital Central has also written about it, as has Antonio Gould.

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to the new Creative Enterprise Blog.

The idea for this was hatched in the aftermath of our succesful Creative Enterprise event in January - more of which to follow.

Having managed to get so many people together, all with a shared interest in the roll of enterprise in the curriculum, we felt it was important to keep some kind of dialogue going.

Something that was raised at the event was that there was a lack of information on what work and research was being done, it became obvious that although a great deal was being undertaken - it's often being done in isolation.

We hope this site can start to rectify that, and that it can be a place where news, upcoming events, ideas, contacts and materials can be shared and discussed.

For this to work we obviously need your input, so please post replies - we'd also welcome your ideas and suggestions.

Many thanks.