[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p63BwVm_ojw]
I love it when a big, capitalist, for profit asks a really good question in an advert!
Via @ChrisBrogan
Archives for July 2010
Entrepreneur’s Workshop With LOCA
Creative Connections
Date: Wednesday 21 July
Time: 6.30 – 8.30 pm
Venue: 51b Holme Bank Mills, Station Road, Mirfield, WF14 8NA
(From Mirfield go under the bridge for Mirfield railway station and turn left following the road with the large sign for James Walker Properties.
From Hopton turn right just before the Mirfield railway station bridge and following the road with the large sign for James Walker Properties).
Creative Connections are quarterly events for artists and creative businesses in and around North Kirklees, run by Loca as part of its Creative Business Support Programme.
As well as encouraging the development of a supportive and well connected community of creative people within North Kirklees we are also encouraging people to look at their businesses more professionally and with more of a critical eye. With this in mind we have a very motivational and thought provoking presentation to offer to you.
Mike Chitty is a writer, trainer, coach and adviser on enterprise and entrepreneurship. Despite having a background in physics his work strikes a chord with creative people and artists of all kinds. In this 30 minute session Mike will provide a fast paced, honest and highly practical introduction to The Entrepreneur’s Workshop and introduce us to 10 powerful tools that can help us make sure that our creative enterprises serve us rather than the other way round.
Twitter: @mikechitty
Facebook: mikechitty
As an extra bonus, we are holding the evening’s event at the new studio of Andrew Warburton, Area Rugs and Carpets where you be able to view inspirational work by Andrew, Dylan Edwards and Amazed Rugs. Andrew will once again demonstrate the production methods he uses to create his bespoke, high quality rugs and there will be the opportunity to have a go for the more adventurous among you.
Creative Connections is a chance to meet informally with other creative people to pick up ideas, information and contacts which may be useful in your work. It’s also a great opportunity to promote your own work and what’s going on creatively in the local area, so please do use it as a platform to let people know about events or projects that you are involved in, or to sound out interest in an idea you’re developing, or to request information. Why not bring along your portfolio, brochures or other visual material to show your work to others and help develop your contacts?
The Loca team looks forward to seeing you at Creative Connections. Please contact us if you have any particular access needs.
Please park in the free car park. Andrews studio is under the barriers to the right. There are three small steps up to the workshop with handrails.
The evening is free and light refreshments will be provided.
RSVP to Loca on 01924 488844 or email: loca.admin@loca.co.uk
Dead Badger Does not Inconvenience Taxpayer…honest Guv’
Every now and again news breaks of yet another ‘council gaffe’.
This mornings delight features a crew sub-contracted to Hampshire Council to paint white lines on the road. The decaying carcass of a dead badger meant they had to avoid painting about a metre of road.
These things happen. The street cleaning crew did not get there before the line painters. No great outrage, just a mildy amusing article and accompanying picture.
No outrage until you get to the piece where the council spokesman said that the carcass would be cleared away and the crew would return to complete the white lines at ‘no extra cost to the taxpayer‘ because the contractor was working to a fixed price. Now we can split hairs over the meaning of ‘extra cost to the taxpayer’ but of course this sort of thing incurs extra cost and in most cases these will be built into the tendering price for the job.
I am not sure what it costs to get one of those crews out to paint just a metre of white line where a badger once lay dead – but my guess is it is not cheap. The cost needs to be understood and feedback into the system so that it understands the costs associated with getting simple things wrong. If fixed cost contracts mean that councils believe they can be less efficient because the consequences will not revert to the taxpayer we are in a very mixed up world.
Arts Funding in a Web 2.0 World
I tend to agree with JG Ballard when he said:
The trouble is the alternatives to pursuing public funding are so damned hard. They traditionally rely on someone liking your art enough (or believing it to be a decent investment proposition), to want to actually buy it at a price that does not lose the artist money and that values their time and skill reasonably.
But what if we set up a site where artists could pitch their projects at the ‘drawing board’ stage, including the budget necessary to create the work, and then donations were crowd sourced from the web?
It could look a bit like this from the US.
- Does such a platform exist here in the UK?
- Could it?
- Should it?
Kurt Cobain and MC Hammer as Enterprise Gurus
In a week when Dragon’s Den has returned to our screen portraying a particular take on entrepreneurship I htink that we can get fresh inspiration for entrepreneurial good practice from less mainstream reference points. Here are a couple of examples from the music industry.
Nirvana are not the usual reference point when considering characteristics of the successful entrepreneurial start up, but this post teaches some valuable lessons:
http://lateralaction.com/articles/kurt-cobain-startup-success/
I also love this podcast where rappers and other ‘street’ musicians talk with Stanford University about the impact of the internet on their business models – featuring 80s legend MC Hammer and Quincy Jones III
http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2047
Thanks to Hope&Social’s own @edhombre for pointing me at the Cobain piece. Hope & Social are finding their own ways to build customer loyalty and make a living (and fun lives) from the music industry without having to sell tons of bytes.