Online identity, new media marketing and entreprenruship and more all mixed up!

I have been feeling a long and rather rambling blog post coming on for a few days so here goes.

A lot has been happening in my working life and bits are beginning to join up where other bits are falling away. I'll talk about this a bit more in a bit. Firstly I feel obliged to clear one or two things up. Following the Created in Birminghamwin of the Guardian Media award for Best independent blog (congratulations again to Pete and Stef), Pete Ashton gave an overview of various blogs that he has come across and who make up part of the general blogging milieu within Birmingham. Now the only reason I mention this is he referred to my blog presence as a little schizophrenic and I wanted to explore this a bit.

In my teaching work (although I am called a lecturer in applied research) I teach a module called 'New Media Marketing'. This incidentally is based on a previous career where I had various job titles, which included: 'Online PR and Marketing coordinator, online marketing consultant/strategist, Internet consultant and the such (made up names, for at the time, made up roles - i.e. not that many people even used the internet let alone consulted or taught how to – mid 90’s on). Now I may talk about this work in more detail at some other point. But the point I wanted to make is that within my lecture today I was talking about the concept of online presence and Pete's comment struck me - that my own may be a little ambiguous. But then here's the thing? Does it matter? Should I explain? Is it not working if I have to?

Later on in the day I came across Stef Lewandowski, who I don't think will mind me mentioning a couple of brief points that came from our discussion. We were talking about the debris one leaves in 'cyber space' (sorry couldn't resist haven't heard it called that for a long time but I referred to it in my teaching today - when I cited this event: Virtually there; the future shape of cyber space'.).

Did I mention this was going to be long and rambling (possibly a good moment to hit the back button - except... there is some interesting stuff about why I do what I do?)?

So am I hopelessly off topic in my ponderings here?

Let me try and bring it back together, firstly, an explanation of my two blog thing, then secondly how all these strands, the teaching, the online presence etc fit with my research and the topic of the blog - Creative Enterprise.

1. Back in 2005 I started this blog to accompany an expanding area of research which I had been involved in for some two or three years. I had worked on a research programme looking at a bunch of projects which were exploring social inclusion in the creative industries including Strip search by Hi8us and , projects by the RBSA, Scriptand many others. Throughout this time I interviewed and captured the 'journeys' of the artists, writers and musicians involved. A key issue that kept arising was that ultimately folks needed skills in how to be self-employed, how to seek and exploit opportunities and how to build momentum and confidence around their talent and offering (and a bunch of other things - there are a number of papers published on this). Anyway this whole experience sparked my imagination and I became heavily immersed in the world of enterprise and entrepreneurship within the sector. I finally settled on a PhD topic (I'd say title but keep changing it) and that was ' Gender and Entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries. In my day job i.e. the contract research I get paid to do my work I was beginning to focus on Enterprise curriculum in creative inds HE provision. So out of these two areas this blog was born. It was intended to be an informal space for me to explore issues, and hopefully get feedback, around enterprise within the creative industries sector.

Last year I found I was beginning to go off topic or at least wanting to. So I started a
personal blog. Here I rant on about other stuff (much less than I do here) it is an experiment I might dump it, I might grow it, I can't decide. But the point is that it is not related to this topic. However it probably has the same tone of voice, both are ultimately about me or my experience and a reflection of what is happening at a given time in my life - so in that regard it maybe a little schizophrenic.

2. How do all these things I am waffling on about fit together? And what on earth has any of this got to do with creative enterprise? Well a couple of things. I am aware of are how everything is coming together (in terms of thoughts etc). I am one of those people that really hope that their research feeds into their teaching and guess what mine is! Both in terms of pedagogical considerations and also in terms of content. I am transferring what I know about creative discipline styles of teaching (you may recall earlier postings which talk about characteristics of creative ind education which have implicit enterprise education) to how I deliver my lectures within the business school! The second thing is when teaching New Media Marketing I am aware that a great deal of theory dates as rapidly as the Internet evolves. So I am feeling really privileged to be amongst a bunch of people figuring out how the whole blogging thing works and drawing directly upon their experiences to add context to my lectures - in short you're all going to be case studies!!

And breathe! not sure if I'm done or if any of this makes sense but I have typed enough ... for now.

Memories

Today I went over to Wolverhampton School of Art an Design, the place where some 14 years ago I graduated with a degree in Fine Art, Time-based Media. It was more than a little weird to mooch about. I was over for a meeting and sort of insisted on heading for the 7th floor. The thing that was weird was that I ended up telling my story of my career to the lady I was meeting. As the career 'journeys' of creative graduates makes up a large proportion of my research, it was strange to hear myself regaling my own story.

I was so touched to back in the place, especially as the lady serving coffee recognised me! (obviously spent rather longer in the canteen than you're meant to) but I also remembered the fun we had, the weird and sometimes ridiculous, sometimes pretentious movies we made, the odd exhibitions we set up in strange locations, the opportunities to show our films shows at places like the London Film-makers coop and the general rehearsal (private views included) of a life in the arts that this gave.

Unfortunately there were no students about which added to the wierdness, but generally it was just totally ace to be back in the big old Brutalist building over looking the ring-road.

push and pull in creative entrepreneurship:briefly

I saw my supervisors today, both of whom I like a lot and who seem to compliment each other in style and give me the right mix of kick up arse and support. Some interesting issues came up, well for me anyway. Apart from the usual things of me needing to pay attention to regular stuff like punctuation etc. there were some points around 'Push and Pull' factors to why folks become entrepreneurs.

I expect I might talk about this a bit more at some point and have a feeling I may have published something around this already, although perhaps not here. But the thing was around this 'if you go to art school are you then pushed into entrepreneurship (self-employment)?' or by going to art school are you responding to an 'entrepreneurial' pull or as I described a desire for independence?

Or am I just going entrepreneurship crazy?

Presentations from CURS

You may recall an earlier post relating to an event over at University of Birmingham - 'Creativity and the Creative Value chain', well they've published all the presentations here. Along with news of their next event. Thanks to Ian for the link.

Birmingham Bloggers

Birmingham Bloggers

I live and work in Birmingham UK.

Last night I went to the first meeting of 'Birmingham UK bloggers' (name under review). We met in the back of the Kitchen Garden cafe, in the Kings Heath neighbourhood of Birmingham. I was a lone, late 30's female, amongst a group of rather young men (not an altogether unpleasant experience) and I know those that turned up where not particularly reflective of the wider local blogging community - it did mean, however, that our table was a veritable smorgasbord of gadgets! Anyway enough of the observations.

The thing about a meeting like this is that it is hard to figure out why we're getting together. I guess to meet and share with a bunch of folks with a similar pursuit. What became clear was that the role of blogging is changing, with user generated content cited as more heavily read than the generic corporate type websites (I don't have ref for this but think it was the gist of what one of the other bloggers said) it would seem that all sorts of organisations are looking to the blogging community to either harvest or exploit this content.

Now in some respects this is a good thing. I mean we write this stuff, imagine someone, somewhere reads and cares and if someone links to you well then that's all good. But what came across strongly was the sense of what characterises a good blog. For me authenticity and independence stuck out. From my perspective I blog here about my research and my personal blog about my personal rantings and stuff. It is not specifically about where I live and not about where I work. But of course, these things are often interrelated, there are cross-overs and frequently there might be issues, which would be of interest or might feed well into some other organisations context/agenda.

I get the sense that the blogging community is at a strange point - a bunch of organisations were cited, who either: want a blog, content, or appear to have a bunch of ready made stuff. But how as a community do we organise ourselves? Should we organise ourselves? Should we be capitalising on our networks and content? Should we be promoting the city we live in? or be using our blogs to do so? Should we be happy to have our content re-purposed for some other organisations benefit/context/agenda? Now this is not to say that this blog is of any huge value to anyone other than me having a place to waffle on, but I got the sense last night that these are some issues we (the bloggers) need to be considering.

I should say that some of this discussion was in the context of this Guardian article which failed to give Birmingham a mention so for my part I will do my bit for my local blogging community because, well, I said I would. These will include having a specific Birmingham UK bloggers blogroll and tagging my postings with ‘Birmingham UK’ where appropriate (maybe always?) and by the same token I would encourage others to do the same.

New year again

Another busy year awaits me. Already stacks of deadlines loom for various papers and conferences. Part of research being dissemination I can't shy away from these but there never seems to be quite enough time especially as I am about to start teaching significantly more than before. This is all good though - as a researcher I always wanted to feel like my research in some small way might eventually make its way into curriculum and perhaps this year there will be scope for this.

Looking back at my previous two years resolutions some things remain the same:

New Year 05/06

New Year 06/07

1. My PhD is well underway. It is a huge undertaking and is always with me unfortunately I never feel I have enough time to devote to it. My new years resolution in relation to this one is to either get some funding to buy out some of my time and get on with it (I need to think outside the proverbial box on this one) alternatively I need to get into the habit of getting up at 5 a.m (2 hrs before my daughter) and do that everyday. I find the evenings after 9p.m I am just too tired - still enough of this bleating.

2. Networking has gone pretty well this year. My field is expanding. I now keep coming across more and more people who are researching or at least interested in my areas:

a. Gender and entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries
b. Enterprise and entrepreneurship curriculum in/for creative disciplines

Next year (2008) sees the 2nd of the Creative Enterprise conferences here in Birmingham (I'll blog about this in more detail shortly).

3. Blogging - I've done much better in 2007 than 2006 in terms of quantity of postings although had a few wobbles over quality and relevance. For 2008 I guess this blog will continue to evolve. Recently it seems to have turned more into a listings of various conferences and speaking opportunities - I need to have a think about this - interesting or not. To accompany the blog is a Facebook group (which is also under review - (in the way that these things are in a permanent state of review) and earlier this year I began a personal blog where I felt the need to rant about something off topic - here I will shortly be describing my New years plans to reduce my CO2 emissions (ignoring slightly my February trip to NZ).

Challenging gender stereo- types in the work place

Tomorrow I am presenting at the 'Social footprints' symposium at the ICC in Birmingham - this is a free event for Businesses, academics and policy makers to gather and report on various research relating to corporate social responsibility, work/life balance and various other related topics. I am doing a turn:

Challenging Gender Stereotypes in the Workplace; what the soft indicators tell us?

This will be reporting on some research I have carried out over the last couple of years on behalf of the Agender project. Here I have been immersed in the project, from chairing an EU working group looking at 'Women into non-traditional employment' to being part of the UK, specifically Birmingham based, working groups looking at: how we might better support women into some of these roles and as a researcher interviewing the participants throughout the lifetime of the project to capture the: 'soft indicators of distance travelled'. Some of this work has involved a film school, some has looked at construction and sports coaching. Each have their individual characteristics in terms of barriers and opportunities. Interestingly, for me, is that the creative sectors are not so different in terms of their limitations in terms of accessibility and inclusivity.

If I get a chance I'll expand on this in a future post, with a possible glossary of terms for those not fluent is EU speak.

"We're all going to hell in a hand cart"

Today I attended the 'Cultural industries and Climate Change in the West Midlands' event organised by Culture WM.

The scene: 2p.m, The Electric Cinema. Nothing happening, sitting in darkened cinema, other people milling around but no obvious start. 2.30p.m People arrive, sit down at panel arrangement on the stage. So far so strange. But then it started ( I didn't ever manage to get a programme - figured printing it off would just not be right).

Firstly the guy from the Stirrer (again no program no name - I mean he said it once but I didn't hear - so apologies) who introduced the thing and set the tone with: "Not about how climate change will effect cultural sector, more how can the cultural sector effect climate change".

Next he introduced the panel (of four) who each gave a brief talk, the fourth Professor John Thorne from University of Birmingham (I'll look for the URL ) gave a presentation based on his discussion paper. This was followed by questions and some discussion and it was all done by ten to four.

So the headlines for me:

Richard Davis, Director of Marches energy agency started off by suggesting:
"We're on our way to hell in a hand cart". But considered that there were reasons to be hopeful and went on to describe various positive aspects of how companies and countries are responding to Climate change. He suggested that the cultural sector needs to help wean the public off of their addiction and national past time of consumption and shopping.

A lady from the DCMS called Patricia (again issue with programme) spoke about how their main activity now had sustainable development at its heart. She also spoke about some research they had commissioned into what existing research had been carried out. Looking at the effect of climate change on the cultural industries. She also said they'd have some practical case studies of how other cultural orgs had adapted to climate change. She also spoke about how the West Midlands were doing okay and that it was coming from grass roots rather than government.

Next a lady from the National Trust spoke of how buildings were being wrecked by flooding. She suggested that the heritage sector were 'the canaries in the coal mine' as they are having to deal with the effects of climate change everyday. She was the first to mention the idea of a 'Green audit' something it became clear that we should all do.

After a short and funny little film about climate change, Prof Thorne (from the Climate and Atmospheric Research group UOB) gave his key note.

We are in, what he described as, enhanced global warming, experiencing changes at a decadal pace (as opposed to thousands of years previously). Encouragingly countries have been pulling together in the last 12 months. Scientists are now looking to other sectors to get people to change habits. Currently we each generate 10-11 tonnes of CO2 we need to reduce this to 3 tonnes, as our climate gets hotter we'll need to use less water, ultimately we all need to change our behaviour.

Bearing in mind some stuff around Birmingham's master plans I thought this was particularly poignant:

'We need innovation, we need to use our intellect "the green revolution to start here as did the industrial revolution, we need to put the WM at the forefront of this revolution'.

He spoke about how the Cultural industries can help:

-They can help with communicating the issues (e.g. Al Gore film)
-They can pledge to make changes
-They can innovate and be enterprising
-he also spoke about cultural climatology but I didn't quite get that
- He suggested a season of events - cultural events highlighting issues of climate change
- Practical education and training
- Websites
- Price reductions on tickets to theatre, cinema etc for those who cycle, walk or use public transport
-Climate change heritage walks

Following this questions from the audience and some examples of folks building carbon neutral art galleries etc. there were also questions around who funds the innovation?

Anyway this is a very brief round up of some of the points addressed at this event - I have yet to absorb or consider what all this means. Certainly climate change is a huge anxiety, however I felt that the speakers set out some inspirational means that we might all engage in doing something about mitigation and/or adaption.

There are mighty challenges ahead of us all (most of which are only touched upon here) but by the same token there are opportunities to reinvent how we live, do business, curate our exhibitions, play the music we play, light and heat the venues and theatres we use and ultimately lead the way through out practice. There were discussions around green procurement strategies and other funding ideas, but I guess for me I was thinking about how to we teach our students to have this embedded in their thinking? How do SME's and creative entrepreneurs respond and lead on this? How will they need to adapt their practice? and how as a community can we all get each other moving on this stuff?

Creative industries - theory and practice

Today I have been at the University of Birmingham's Business School. I was attending a seminar Creativity and the Creative Value Chain. Anyway turns out it was an extremely interesting day with lots of food for thought with speakers from across the UK. Some highlights for me:

Defining the creative industries - this is a troublesome area - and some in-depth critique on the issues of, for example, lumping a bunch of 'sub-secotors together were discussed. This is something I've written about previously. There was some quite serious suggestions that the reasons for the particular UK definitions and inclusion of some sub-secotors, over others, might be a little more cynical than one might hope.

Some interesting work testing out Richard Florida's theories of what makes a creative city - an interesting UK map with creativity levels illustrated in increasingly darker shades of blue: Birmingham quite dark blue, Solihull quite dark, Sandwell positively anaemic.

I was joined by several colleagues from my university, some of whom were speaking in the second half of the day (I was not on this occasion). I was struck , pleasantly, by what I realise is a bit of a characteristic of my own place of work. You see what was evident is that we are pretty industry facing - the three presentations by colleagues were all about how they and the respective projects they represent engage with, support and work in collaboration with the local and regional creative industries sector. It was great to hear this practical stuff to put all the earlier theoretical stuff into context. Very interesting.

Female entrepreneurship conference tomorrow

Tomorrow I will be heading over to Birmingham Chamber of Commerce to present. I am one of several speakers and the main thrust of the event is to celebrate the work carried out on and ESF EQUAL project. This is the info I have on it:

Making Women's Enterprise More Equal

An event to celebrate the success of

EQUAL Women into Business work in the Midlands

A mainstreaming and networking opportunity

designed to share and connect best practice

Dear Colleague,

I would like to invite you to the Making Women's Enterprise More Equal event.

When : Monday 19th November 2007 12 noon – 3 pm

Where : `The Hospitality Suite, Birmingham Chamber of Commerce

75 Harborne Road, Birmingham, B15 3DH

What :

- Key Note Speakers, including Lorely Burt, MP and Jill Parker, Enterprise Brokerage Director, Business Link West Midlands

- Presentations of products and outcomes generated by EQUAL projects in the region

- Showcases

- Demonstrations and Stalls

- Networking Buffet Lunch


I believe this is a free event - any interested parties can email me and I'll forward to the organiser. I'll be presenting the stuff have done recently around ' Gender and entrepreneurship in the Creative Industries'.

A little feedback

Back from Glasgow, having had a full-on time. Both my presentations went pretty well, it was standing room only in the women's track on Wednesday afternoon - but I guess it helps presenting in the first session. I got some interesting questions and feedback and met a couple of interesting others working in similar areas. Following the welcoming reception, much wine and not quite enough sleep, I got up on Thursday morning to deliver my second paper. Another good audience of some 60-odd people - this was in the enterprise education track and an increasingly intimidating audience (the more often I go to this conference the more I realise how high ranking and influential some of the other delegates are - in the world of enterprise, small business policy and academia that is). Still it was a good opportunity for me to talk about some of my ideas, thoughts and research around contextual enterprise education - more on this soon as a paper which relates this to the Creative inds should emerge in the public-ish domain in the not too distant future (fingers crossed).

I guess I should also take this opportunity to thank my co-authors who are all helping me to become a better and more thoughtful writer and whose ideas help make these papers, I think, pretty interesting reading. When I get the chance I'll try to feedback some more around what the great and the good feel we should be doing for entrepreneurs and small businesses here in the UK and what the threats and challenges etc might be. Incidentally do email if I can furnish you with any of my stuff.

Off to Glasgow

I am currently putting together a bunch of slides for a conference I am attending over the next few days in Glasgow. The ISBE (Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship)conference is annual and in its 30th year. It attracts approx 600 delegates to come and listen to what's happening in terms of research, education and policy relating to entrepreneurship, enterprise and small business stuff. I am again presneting two papers this year - click the titles to go to the abstract and see what I've been up to:


Supporting enterprise educators; how to promote enterprise in new areas ®

Gender and entrepreneurship in the creative industries; what the literature tells us ®

This conference is extremely full-on with 9 thematic tracks running concurrently. Over the past four years, since I have been attending I have noticed the increase of attention to the creative industries at this conference - I'll report back on how it went and what sort of feedback I recieved - for now I'm back to the powerpoint - so annoying that I can't use Keynote for it!

Blog doubt and lack of focus

I've been reading a lot of other peoples blogs lately and becoming more inclined to comment on what they've got to say. This has led me to reflect on this blog which has been ticking a long for the last couple of years with occasional spurts of activity and then longer periods of inactivity. I've been beginning to think what's it all for? Who exactly am I writing this for? who benefits and is any of it of any interest or value to me or to anyone else? Perhaps the fact that I am questioning this in the first place is a sign.

So this posting is based on that reflection and for me to consider and re-state (for my own benefit) the purpose and scope of this blog. I think originally it was to accompany my research, get some comments and feedback from other folks working in the field. I guess also to help me reflect on all the stuff I 'take in' through reading, interviewing people and generally absorbing through my work and life. The benefit to me is that it is a non-academic environment to write freely.

Perhaps I am in a state of flux? I am a little unfocussed, I work on a number of research projects, usually related to gender or enterprise or the creative industries and if I am lucky they collide and in so doing have relevance to my PhD stuff. When reflecting with colleagues about another project (wellbeing and work/life balance stuff) I realised that my own work/life balance is shot. Ah you see - I am way off topic! Or perhaps there is a link here. The point really is that I am currently so overwhelmed with all the various projects I am working on that I am struggling to focus on the big one. This blog was intended to help me focus on my personal research and right now it is not working. So what to do? Give up? (Anyone who knows me knows I am pretty crummy at giving things up - although a blog is hardly a vice - unless I suppose if it is coming from some sort of narcissistic position - will have to ask psychologist friends).

One of the benefits of this blog is that it has introduced me to a bunch of people and opportunities I wouldn’t have had previously, and which relate to my research. On that basis it would be worth continuing. It has also offered me the opportunity to try out some ideas or describe them at least. However whether I have anything interesting/of value to say right now is an issue. I am interested - why do other people blog? What do they get out of it? How often do you doubt your blogs purpose? And why do we need to share? i.e. why am I going to click the publish button right about now?!?

For now I am done.

Incidentally I lasted three days when I gave up coffee last week - so expect a posting by the end of the week.

Might be of interest

There is some stuff about La traviata and other shows I've been to in the last week on my personal blog it is a little off topic for here but might be of interest.

Last Friday= Michael Wolf talk + Plus party

Friday night I went along to the very chilly Wild Building in Digbeth (Birmingham UK). Here a large and drafty warehouse with all original fixtures and fittings housed the Plus design festival. I was heading along to the Michael Wolf talk and energy permitting (and I knew it would) the end of show party and launch of Blink magazine.

The contrast between the large drafty environment and the slick (and by this mean tight, professional often beautiful) design stands was powerful. It was one of those moments when you feel like you could really be in any uber cool, urban, down-town art/design thing, anywhere in the world. Although I did have a few encounters with some Nathan Barley types.

Michael Wolf was also pretty cool - I'm not sure what I was expecting - but as I perched, rather recklessly on a bean bag with my legs buckled under a tiny coffee table in - did I mention it was drafty - in a cold spot, I didn't even notice the hour or so of the talk pass. For me it was reminiscent (the talk not the environment) of sitting at my uncle Charlie's (an artist) kitchen table listening to him and my dad (a graphic designer) disseminate pearls of wisdom about art and design and what's good, bad, the history and future of and all sorts of anecdotes.

However enough of that the format took the form of local designer Stef Lewandowski chairing a panel who directed questions to Michael (apparently he prefers this format as it requires less preparation).

Here are some points and thoughts that struck me:

- He spoke about the need for designers to be taught (I guess as students - so listen out HE ) about how to articulate the value of their contribution. 'What is your contribution worth to the client?' This is something I recall from my own distant freelancing days. Getting your head round the idea that a piece of design might be the making of a product success - so what is its value in that context?

- Recognising that new designers struggle sometimes to have the confidence to say how much they 'cost', he suggested role-play and the sort of experiential learning that I have advocated many times. He was suggested young designers (or old for that matter) role play amongst their colleagues and rehearse.

- He also spoke of being 'real' - this was a bit spooky for me after various 'authenticity' rants I've had in the last few weeks.

- Interestingly when I asked about how the UK were fairing in the context of increased competition from 'emerging economies' he spoke of the only real competition being with oneself - you're only as good as your last piece of work etc.

- When I pursued this with questioning this further and in the context of 10 years of governmental policy aiming to support and grow our creative industries he suggested that things were a little bleak. But that ultimately the issue was that companies (and by this I understood clients) were 'rather boring now' and the 'need for creativity to throughout a company'. This was an interesting perspective in the work that I am involved in as it sort of suggests a much more holistic approach is needed.

There was much much more however..

After the talk I loitered for the party. It was like being at an animated version of Facebook - I am always struck by how generally, people are much more attractive in the flesh - not just to look at but much more friendly somehow. The atmosphere was upbeat with free beers and cocktails and some delicious food from the patisserie in Kings heath (Chorizo sausage roll! I know I never even thought of it before but it really works). There was also a band of very cute/cool teenage girls who looked vaguely familiar I think they may live round my way. I really liked them and felt like there was something very cool and sort of constructive/creative and professional about their whole vibe - especially as they were pretty young and the place was packed full of the great and good of Birmingham's arts mafia. I missed the last few hours as sought refuge in the pub.