The University of Creative Arts in association with The Work Foundation created a conference on Friday which was awe inspiring. (Note to other conference organizers, let the creatives organize it! They know what their doing!)
It was encouraging to be in a room with high end creatives who are trading commerce on a grand scale and to be soaking up the atmosphere. Admittedly I went along just to observe and to see what they were all going to be discussing, I didn't think for one minitue the day would prove so engaging, interesting and inspiring.
As soon as I arrived I was met by the beaming smile of Will Wong: Social Entrepenur of 3become1 and straight away the day was looking fantastic. I sat down at my table next to a lovely man named Chris Ragg who has a wealth of experience in creative business and has offered us some mentoring which I gladly accepted! We were led through a series of talks by various creatives all focusing on how to inspire commerce and leadership in the creative industries. Speakers included Dianne Taylor of UCA, Ben Reid of The Work Foundation, Dr Martin Bouette, Florence Harmlin (an amazing woman whose I really hope to work with soon) and Mandy Hare from The Hazlitt in Maidstone, (also making exciting new plans for the Hazlitt Centre!)We were also treated to a great talk by Nathan Shedroff from California who mentioned that Californian views about creative business were not all together friendly but it sounds like they are pioneering great change on that topic with their Masters in Design Strategy Program. (In another life i'd love to partake!) After a delicious lunch we listened to a talk by Martin Smith who is a special adviser for Ingenious Media (the people who invested in X-men, Avatar and many more) His talk was focused on Finance, Investment and the Creative Industries and I've got to say that even though we will always be small fish in a big pond (it is not our desire to become a mulit-billion pound company like his) his talk was encompassing of all industries and it really gave me a positive boost, not to mention the contacts that have arisen out of that and points of research to follow up. To hear him say the work that social interest companies such as ourselves is valuable and to hear that he invests in projects such as ours gives me massive hope for our industry and FAF's future.
The day ended with small breakout sessions and I sat in with Derek Wyatt who provided some key contacts for us that I am in the process of following up now, we shared a few glasses of wine after this which sent me on the train back to Kent with a warm fuzzy glow about my face and a sudden need to nap.
Many thanks to The Work Foundation and UCA for putting on a truly brilliant event which could have had us all sitting there drinking wine and talking business till the early hours.
Some links from Friday which may be of use to any other start up creative business's:
