Creative Durham
Nov. 24th, 2007 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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durham_rambler received an invitation for yesterday afternoon, to an event being organised by Creative Durham; it sounded like a business / networky event, and we were curious, but with no clear idea of whether it had anything to offer us (or vice versa). When I turned over the letter of invitation to see if there were any further details on the back, the reverse of the page was solid bright pink, which is informative in its own way; and when I checked the web address given on the letter, I found an advertisement for the hosting service (since replaced by Creative Durham's own holding page) - likewise.
So we should have known better, but it was Friday afternoon, and we were curious, so we went along: a large room in a hotel, with four or five display stands, rows of chairs, coffee set up outside and a respectable number of people, none of whom I recognised, and who looked a little sparse in the large space available. We'd just began to talk to web developers WOW Solutions (one of the exhibitors, possibly because are designing Creative Durham's own web site), when a demonstration of Lindy Jazz took over: we were invited, quite insistently, to participate in a session of learning simple steps as a means of communicating - in pairs of whom one is the follower and one is the leader. No thanks. After this had gone on for some 20 minutes, we decided to leave, but met Jill Newey, one of the organisers, in the lobby, and were happy to spend five minutes with her, chatting about the organisation and what she was hoping it would do.
We then returned to the meeting room for a speech from Creative Durham's patron, Lord Mackenzie. I was a little distracted from what he was saying by the large screen behind him, on which the company's logo did its dance all the time he was speaking. He told us that he does a fair amount of after-dinner speaking, and much of his material (particularly the jokes) would have fitted into a generic after-dinner speech; but he did also say some things about the importance of the creative sector in the community which were genuinely interesting - and conducive to cynicism about why the business services people are now getting interested. He also urged us to go away and tell our friends about the afternoon; up to that point I had thought it would be unkind to do so, but if that's what he wants...
The other thing that persuaded me to blog about the afternoon was the dinner party we went to that evening. We were invited by an old friend to dine, to chat and enjoy good company, and to be entertained by her godson who is developing an act as a magician. So after dinner we arranged our chair round the table on which was arrayed a large collection of props - boxes, cards, cups, swathes of purple silk, all presided over by a flower fairy figurine. And while we drank our coffee, we were entertained by a variety of tricks - and there was discussion after about how did he do this - or that?, but I don't know, I was just enjoying the presentation.
In between times I was talking to our hostess's son and his partner, who had recently organised Bombay Mix, a film festival to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Indian independence. Here's Meena talking about it to BBC London, and here are Lionel's alternative street signs for Deptford.
Your point being? That I don't see any point where those two events connect (except that they both happened on the same day, and to me). That I am surrounded by a huge amount of genuine creativity (not least on the f-list of this journal), and perhaps it was present at the "creative business" event, but if it was, it was keeping a low profile. That Creative Durham as an organisation is not about being creative, or about providing services to people who are being creative, but about providing (and that means selling - it is a business, after all) services to people who provide services to people who are creative. Which is a little indirect. If someone sees this as a business opportunity, and wants to put their own money into following it up, well, good luck to them - and in fact they said they had received funding for their website, which I assume is new business funding, and I suppose they're as entitled to as any other new business (I suppose) - so long as they aren't displacing funding and support which might otherwise go direct to creative work.
And I apologise for the length of this rant: I feel much better now...
durham_rambler received an invitation for yesterday afternoon, to an event being organised by Creative Durham; it sounded like a business / networky event, and we were curious, but with no clear idea of whether it had anything to offer us (or vice versa). When I turned over the letter of invitation to see if there were any further details on the back, the reverse of the page was solid bright pink, which is informative in its own way; and when I checked the web address given on the letter, I found an advertisement for the hosting service (since replaced by Creative Durham's own holding page) - likewise.So we should have known better, but it was Friday afternoon, and we were curious, so we went along: a large room in a hotel, with four or five display stands, rows of chairs, coffee set up outside and a respectable number of people, none of whom I recognised, and who looked a little sparse in the large space available. We'd just began to talk to web developers WOW Solutions (one of the exhibitors, possibly because are designing Creative Durham's own web site), when a demonstration of Lindy Jazz took over: we were invited, quite insistently, to participate in a session of learning simple steps as a means of communicating - in pairs of whom one is the follower and one is the leader. No thanks. After this had gone on for some 20 minutes, we decided to leave, but met Jill Newey, one of the organisers, in the lobby, and were happy to spend five minutes with her, chatting about the organisation and what she was hoping it would do.
We then returned to the meeting room for a speech from Creative Durham's patron, Lord Mackenzie. I was a little distracted from what he was saying by the large screen behind him, on which the company's logo did its dance all the time he was speaking. He told us that he does a fair amount of after-dinner speaking, and much of his material (particularly the jokes) would have fitted into a generic after-dinner speech; but he did also say some things about the importance of the creative sector in the community which were genuinely interesting - and conducive to cynicism about why the business services people are now getting interested. He also urged us to go away and tell our friends about the afternoon; up to that point I had thought it would be unkind to do so, but if that's what he wants...
The other thing that persuaded me to blog about the afternoon was the dinner party we went to that evening. We were invited by an old friend to dine, to chat and enjoy good company, and to be entertained by her godson who is developing an act as a magician. So after dinner we arranged our chair round the table on which was arrayed a large collection of props - boxes, cards, cups, swathes of purple silk, all presided over by a flower fairy figurine. And while we drank our coffee, we were entertained by a variety of tricks - and there was discussion after about how did he do this - or that?, but I don't know, I was just enjoying the presentation.
In between times I was talking to our hostess's son and his partner, who had recently organised Bombay Mix, a film festival to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of Indian independence. Here's Meena talking about it to BBC London, and here are Lionel's alternative street signs for Deptford.
Your point being? That I don't see any point where those two events connect (except that they both happened on the same day, and to me). That I am surrounded by a huge amount of genuine creativity (not least on the f-list of this journal), and perhaps it was present at the "creative business" event, but if it was, it was keeping a low profile. That Creative Durham as an organisation is not about being creative, or about providing services to people who are being creative, but about providing (and that means selling - it is a business, after all) services to people who provide services to people who are creative. Which is a little indirect. If someone sees this as a business opportunity, and wants to put their own money into following it up, well, good luck to them - and in fact they said they had received funding for their website, which I assume is new business funding, and I suppose they're as entitled to as any other new business (I suppose) - so long as they aren't displacing funding and support which might otherwise go direct to creative work.
And I apologise for the length of this rant: I feel much better now...
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Cascading Style Sheets
Date: 2007-11-25 06:08 pm (UTC)The web designer in me particularly liked this one, though I don't think Lionel designed it. A lot of his are there, including the bendy bus.
Creative Durham
Date: 2007-11-26 11:46 am (UTC)"If someone sees this as a business opportunity, and wants to put their own money into following it up, well, good luck to them"
Creative Durham isn't actually a business, it's a self-funded project contributed to by people who genuinely want to help those with 'creative talent' make a better living from it.
"I am surrounded by a huge amount of genuine creativity (not least on the f-list of this journal), and perhaps it was present at the "creative business" event, but if it was, it was keeping a low profile"
By insistent, I guess you mean you were asked if you'd like to *come out from behind the post you were hiding behind* to join in a bit of dancing. Realise dancing isn't everyone's bag, but the magician thing at business events has been done soooo many times ;-) What would've worked better do you think?
As you say, the launch event was attended by "a respectable number of people, none of whom I recognised" and we think this in itself presents new contacts and opportunities for people in creative businesses?
Four new business opportunities have already arisen from the launch, and there's concrete interest and offers of joint working with other organisations who aim to support creative businesses too.
"Creative Durham as an organisation is not about being creative, or about providing services to people who are being creative, but about providing (and that means selling - it is a business, after all) services to people who provide services to people who are creative"
Creative Durham isn't actually a business (see above). As an organisation it's all about bringing together people with creative talents and business skills: sharing knowledge, experience, and resources to help them develop commercially and win new business. The skills and experience of the people behind Creative Durham are around facilitation and collaboration - helping people and businesses work together to achieve things they can't do alone. The following concepts are what is being sold:
a) there is more creative talent around in County Durham than we know about - or indeed shout about
b) the people with that talent could achieve more in business with more help and signposting
c) businesses generally need to be more switched on to the benefits of creativity (art in the workplace, performing art for personal development, opportunities for podcasting in the marketing mix, etc.) and be aware that they can source this kind of thing locally
d) the people behind Creative Durham have the will, the knowledge and the contacts to try and make the above happen - but need a steer from the creatives themselves to do so
"received funding for their website, which I assume is new business funding, and I suppose they're as entitled to as any other new business (I suppose) - so long as they aren't displacing funding and support which might otherwise go direct to creative work"
Creative Durham isn't actually a business (see above). The project has received a small amount of funding from Business Link to help towards joint marketing activities on behalf of the sector, but other than that Creative Durham isn't eligible for Arts Council etc funding if that's what you mean?
Would be really interested to know what funding you are talking of that currently goes direct to creative work as this is exactly the kind of thing Creative Durham needs to let members know about and help them access funding for themselves?
Hope to see you again soon!
Jude
Re: Creative Durham
Date: 2007-11-26 09:02 pm (UTC)Thanks for dropping by - and, since you didn't leave an e-mail address, I'll just have to hope you drop by again and pick up this brief answer to your very detailed comments.
You ask what I would have preferred to the dance exercise; I'd better say that I have nothing against dance, and if it worked for you, that's fine. I did think that it went on a bit long, because I could only spare limited time away from work, and a large part of the event was scheduled for speeches, so the dance was eating into the talking-to-people time, which I found more useful. As I said, I thought our five minutes with Jill were the most constructive part of the afternoon.
I'd have liked more opportunity to talk to the other people there, to find out who they were and what they did, and perhaps in a more formal way which made it easier to accost strangers - moving round a circle, say, or taking turns to talk for two minutes... But I'm sure you know more about these techniques than I do.
I hope you found the feedback useful - even if all you learn from it is that I was able to come away from the event under the very strong impression that Creative Durham is a business venture (something I have no problem with, but I see from your reaction that it isn't the case!). So - but this is just me being curious, you don't have to answer - if it isn't a business, how will it fund itself in the long run? Are you more like a local version of Arts & Business (http://www.aandb.org.uk/), then?
Finally, I don't have any inside information about funding; among our clients, ACENE is the major funding body, though we come across others, not all of them in the north-east. But my point was a general one, and is part of a continuing conversation about arts funding.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 12:32 pm (UTC)We are aware that by doing this, it will never suit all tastes and we always want constructive input to try and make a difference to Creative Durham.
We are holding a range of focus groups to share ideas on how we can do this effectively so please contact us if you wish to input some further ideas.
Many thanks
no subject
Date: 2007-11-26 09:07 pm (UTC)Is this still Jude? There's really no clue here about how I might do that.
But don't worry about it, I don't think my input would be very useful to you - we came away from Friday's meeting thinking that this was not for us. No criticism of either party, and who knows how things might turn out in the future, but right now let's leave it there.