I’m fundamentally against all of our internet connections being ’sniffed’ by our internet providers for potential copyright infringement, and against the government having any ability to disconnect people or to block websites.

The sudden arrival of Clause 18 without discussion in the Lords is the main problem. It allows web censorship at a government level by enabling them to force ISPs to block certain ‘locations’ (too many questions on what a ‘location’ might be).

This is censorship of the internet and is not a power that a UK government should wield in my opinion. Why is it okay to disconnect someone on suspicion of ‘copyright theft’ but not being discussed for far more serious crimes, for instance? What will happen when our local cafes can no longer offer free wifi, or a family member breaks the rules and shuts the internet account for the whole family? And why is okay for ‘rights holders’ to force expensive court costs onto people who are accused of filesharing without proof. Faced with thousands in costs many people will just roll over. The result – corporate censorship of dissenting voices. Wikileaks.org will be its first
casualty.

I’m encouraging everyone I know to write to their MPs to ask for a proper debate on this important issue – so far it’s only been through
the Lords (the non elected bit), and is currently going to be pushed through under ‘wash up’ on Tuesday without _any_ debate by our elected representatives.

So yes – I’m against the entire bill being put through in its current state because it is flawed and an irresponsible abuse of process to
push it through in the least democratic way possible by a government in its final throes.

Shame on them for treating all of us who understand how the internet works with such distain.

Video from the launch of Creative Republic, with speeches from Helga Henry and Pete Ashton as well as shots from the night and a few interviews with Creative Republic board members.

Oh – and don’t forget to join us if you like what you hear. Next event coming soon…

Video filmed and produced by The Adhere Creative (for love not money). Very much appreciated guys – thanks.

In brief – ever tried drawing a diagram of how you fit into your work environment?

Going on the Cultural Leadership Programme “Leadership Development Day” made me suddenly all excited about doing more in that vein.

So today I finally put the finishing touches to my Clore Leadership Programme application.

I’ve been talking to Mark Ball (Fierce! / Creative Republic) about his experiences on it and it sounds pretty mind-blowing so I’ve decided to pitch myself even though it looks like I’m right at the bottom of the age bracket they usually accept.

It’s basically a 1 year or 2 year development programme for people working in the creative/cultural sector who want to expand their leadership skills. There’s residential development weeks, shadowing opportunities of people you respect, going and working somewhere else in the world for three months at a time to get some interesting perspective, personal development work, media training (with Newsnight presenters? Seriously?) and the chance to connect with a bunch of similarly-inclined and interesting people.

I think I need a bit of a kick up the pants, so I’ve followed Mark’s recommendation and entered myself.

A Crystal Maze of an application process

This has to be the longest and most complicated non-funding-application application form I’ve ever filled in. It actually took me about three weeks!

The deadline is in…. about 21 minutes… and I’m happy to say I’ve got something in early for once.

Shame today couldn’t be said to be as organised. At the last minute I realised that their fancy ‘online application’ had just one tiny part that required a nomination form from the person nominating me to actually sign their name on a piece of paper and get that piece of paper delivered to Clore.

Whoops! Missed that.

Expensive last minute trip to London and an Anneka Rice/crystal-maze style rush around the West End and I got it in on time. Phew.

They asked for simple. Hmm…

The interesting part of this blog post, though – as part of application I was asked to submit an ‘organisation chart’. Huh?

So here we go – this is my best shot at trying to explain the overlaid and cross-connecting world in which I work. I know I have missed a lot out of this diagram – things that are missing are generally in the rest of the application.

My Personal Organisation Chart PDF

This was actually bizarrely helpful in making me understand the various things that I’m up to. Quite clearly I still have far too much going on. Another thing I notice, I removed nearly all of the names from this, but Pete’s and John’s remain – does this mean that I think they aren’t ‘roles’ but are actually the things that make their things work? I guess so, unconsciously.

I have until April to see if I get an interview. So in classic film language:

• What do we do now?
• We wait.
  

But while we’re waiting – ever thought about drawing your own one of these up?

(Photos by me and Isabel – thanks!)

Last night was the launch of Creative Republic and was a great evening. Well done to everyone who helped make it happen, and congratulations again to Pete on Created in Birmingham’s first birthday.It was nice to meet some new people, chat to those I already knew and make ‘real world’ connections with people I’ve only known until now through the web.

The main thrust of the event was that we’re setting up an independent, representative group to lobby for, market and represent the needs of the creative and cultural industries in Birmingham and we’d like anyone who agrees with what we’re trying to do to take a look at our Charter and join us.

The Launch of the Creative Republic Charter

Here’s the full text of the Charter:

If you are in advertising, antiques, applied arts, architecture, crafts, design, fashion, film, games, music, performing arts, publishing, software, tv and radio we’d like to hear from you.

Creative Republic is seeking your support.

We are a group of people who make our living in the sector. We passionately believe that a new representative body is needed to support the creative and cultural industries in Birmingham and the region, which is why we’ve set up Creative Republic.

Research indicates that the total GVA (Gross Value Added) of the creative sector in the West Midlands was over £2.5bn back in 2001– and we’re still growing! It has also been suggested that the region could see 250,000 new jobs in the creative and cultural sector over the next seven years. So there’s work to be done to support that projected growth and have our say.

We believe the creative and cultural industries:

1. Add to the quality of life of a city, making it vibrant and dynamic

2. Contribute to the positive image of a city

3. Generate wealth both directly and indirectly

But, we have a few burning issues:

1. Getting more credibility and recognition for the contribution we make

2. Ensuring our significant voice is heard for the benefit of us all

3. Finding a way for us all to come together more effectively

We believe that Birmingham needs an independent representative organisation for us to:

1. Influence decision-making about the city

2. Represent the needs of our industries to those who can make changes

3. Connect creative people with each other and those in other industries

We’ll gain strength in numbers:

To achieve this, we Creative Republic, are seeking your support.

By signing up to this Charter, it enables us to say that we represent your views.

The more people we can say that we represent, the stronger, louder and more effective our voice will be.

Agree with this? Go and sign it »

Creative Republic is now open for business, but what is it, and what’s it for?

Changing Economics 

Birmingham is going through something of a change at the moment. The long-standing manufacturing-based economy has moved onto a heavily ’service’-based economy over recent years and there is increasing discussion on the possibility that we are moving into what’s being called a ‘knowledge economy’ – where creativity, intellectual property, ideas and innovation are the areas of growth and importance to the city’s future development.

So, you’d think that in these times of rapid change, where the ‘creative industries’ are the biggest growth area of the UK economy by the latest figures we have, that there would be widespread recognition of the sector’s importance.

But experience tells us otherwise.

Small is the new Big

As I’ve said a few times ‘Small is the new Big’. The creative and cultural industries in the city are made up mostly of micro-businesses and freelancers, with a relatively small number of businesses having more than ten or so employees, and fewer still getting into the ‘global corp’ level of employment.

But what’s very interesting is that when you add all of those micro-enterprises up, together they make a big impact on Birmingham’s economy.

We account for £1BN of Birmingham’s ‘GVA’, according to research produced by Birmingham University. 

That means we’re bigger than the Financial Services sector in the city, for instance, and all of the universities put together.

Who makes the decisions? 

You’d expect that decision-makers within the city, who have to make day-to-day decisions on the future of where we live to be fully aware of these facts. As far as I’ve noticed, many are still only getting their head around the idea.

At a recent pretty high level meeting I was at, someone actually piped up that “the creative industries hadn’t made an effective case yet”.

That strikes me as something of a problem. If across the world governments and cities are gearing themselves up for a new way of operating and competing on a global stage, and out city’s leaders aren’t valuing our contribution to the city I think something needs to be done.

Is it the case that other parts of the city’s business community get their voices heard more effectively because they have more established business models and more effective networks to get those voices in touch with people who can influence change?

A concerted effort

For the last three years I’ve been connecting up with lots of people, trying to cross-network between the business community and the creative community, finding common ground and common ideas and trying to make interesting things happen.

And the good thing is that along the way I’ve met people who have similar ambitions for this city, so we’ve teamed up and together we’ve set up something called ‘Creative Republic’.

We want to get representatives together from across all areas of the creative and cultural industries in the city, and organise ourselves into a collective voice for what we have to say about the future of the city.

With that £1BN behind us it surprises me that there is no one place that someone can come to in this city to talk to ‘the creatives’, and we’d like to see that change.

There’s power in numbers, and if we all group together and say ‘let’s make this city better through creativity and culture’ I firmly believe we can make a significant impact.

How?

That’s the easy bit.

Turn up to a party we’re organising at Concrete at the Big Peg, Hockley on Thursday the 21st February.

Have a chat, meet other like-minded people, enjoy a (free if you get there early enough) drink, have some fierce conversations and see what you think about what we’re proposing.

If you like what you hear, and you want to get involved then that’s great – we’re looking for people to join us and make great things happen.

Details of the party are on the Creative Republic website, and if you’re a Facebook user there’s a Facebook event. Or just turn up on the day, but be sure to RSVP to Lorraine – lorraine@creativerepublic.org.uk

See you there?

I’ve just arrived home from an excellent day on the Cultural Leadership Programme’s (CLP) “Leadership Development Days” programme, and while it’s fresh I’m going to write up an overview of what it was all about and what I got out of it.

CLP is all about raising skills in the creative and cultural sector – something I think needs to be up the priority list (especially given the West Midlands productivity and skills gaps).

In line with what I’ve been saying about ‘where are the leaders’, and in fact what Gordon Brown’s been talking about recently, I thought that it was high time that I booked myself onto a relevant course to see if I could pick up some tips on making myself more effective in making interesting things happen in the world.

Morning in London

As with many ‘creative and cultural’ things, the focus point is London, so I went down on the train the night before and got a hotel to be fresh for the day. The venue was on the South Bank – in fact Ernst & Young’s (slightly too-) impressive offices at More London Place.

CLP run events all round the UK – I just wanted to get on the first one, so I was happy travelling – although it worked out pretty expensive all in. £130 for the hotel + £40 for the train + food etc, but given that the training was free, that seemed fair to me.

Arriving there in the opulent corporate surroundings I’d already struck up a conversation with one of the other participants and within about ten minutes I’d got talking to nearly everyone attending. Very friendly indeed.

Slash/slash careers

In the usual ’say a bit about yourself’ round-robin intro it was obvious that a lot of my co-attendees were quite similar to me. Many had a “slash / slash” way of describing themselves. “I’m an artist slash educator slash chairman of x” and so on – and people with quite a variety of backgrounds too.

Priorities: BME / disabled / micro-businesses

The other thing to note was there was a good mix of people from a wide range of cultural (which in this definition includes creative enterprise) organisations, and there was a strong presence of people with disabilities and people from a BME (is this jargon?) background. That’s because CLP sees these groups and creative micro-businesses (strangely this is defined by number of employees – Last.FM anyone?) as priorities.

I really learnt a thing or two talking to a blind musician and a deaf artist who both helped me understand how disabilities can have an impact on how people perceive them and how they have to often be more effective leaders to make impact. In fact this kind of frank discussion with people that you may not normally come into contact with was one of the best things about the day. As always – the bits in-between can often be as good as if not better than what’s programmed.

So what was the programme?

I’m not going to give a full run-down of the programme of the day here – that would be a bit harsh to the organisers: People Create.

What I will do is give a rough overview and pick out a few things that were good for me.

Hopes and fears

We worked out the kinds of things that we were hoping to get out of the day, and what we were potentially worried about. This sprawled into some general discussions about hopes and fears of just ‘being’ a leader. Mine: I’m looking for a way to make some judgements about a range of opportunities that I currently have in front of me and to work out which way to go with them. Simply put – this coming week is all about making tough choices that may have some lasting impact for me! So a fear: perhaps my personality type leads me far more towards the ‘ideas’ side than the day to day management of a company – is that dangerous? More on that below.

Follower / Manager / Leader

Then some work on definitions. My thinking on what defines a manager as opposed to a leader is to do with ‘granularity’ of decision-making. The ‘important’ people I’ve had the opportunity to connect with over the last few years all seem to share the trait that their words seem to carry a lot of weight, and that it’s possible to make large strategic changes with just a few words here and there. In contrast – the managers that I know tend to be involved in making lots of small decisions more often. Perhaps this is a simplification – others disagreed.

The conclusion though – in the cultural sector, classic models of organisation structure don’t apply too well. If I look at myself, there are leaders who I work with at which point I’m a follower, there are projects where there is a leader and I am implementor/manager, and then there are the things that I directly lead on.

So, really I’m all three depending on what time of day it is and what situation I am in. A social graph type model might work well to describe this. (Could we draw a social graph of our leadership?)

Some suggested reading around these ideas came up: Herman Hesse’s The Journey to the East and Robert Greenleaf’s The Servant-Leader Within: A Transformative Path.

Influence vs Leadership

Before I went on the day I was a little confused as to the potential difference between ‘influence’ and ‘leadership’.

I guess I had some preconceptions about what the two mean, but I think I’ve come to some relevant conclusions for myself.

“Leadership” seems to imply to me the idea of a strict corporate structure, where there is a hierarchy of people, each of whom has a number of ‘followers’.

“Influence” seems to imply changing the opinions of those leaders to achieve a particular objective by making them choose new solutions to problems or to change their decision-making behaviour.

So to be honest, I think of myself more of an ‘influencer’ than a ‘leader’ – I mean, who does anyone working in a micro-business actually lead?

The conclusion was that in the creative industries, there are loads of people operating on that micro level (Small is the new Big), so actually we may be seeing a wave of a new leadership style less defined by the size of the organisation you work for, but by the number of people you can influence with your ideas. To that end, we could be looking at self-publishing / blogging / networking (the stuff I’ve been boring people with for some time) as a potential model for micro-businesses to adopt to achieve more influence and from that become more effective leaders in that ’social graph’:

What’s clear is that in the creative industries where micro-businesses are by far the biggest group of businesses, old models of ‘leadership’ just don’t apply. A freelancer doesn’t have a line-manager, but she would have a number of people in her sphere of influence, which is a two-way thing.

I’d compare this to some of the Neural Network theory I picked up at university. The human brain relies on formal connections – neurons, but a lot of what goes on in the brain is also tied into releases of hormones and neurotransmitters which are more ’spacial’ in their effects – activating particular groups of neurons based on where that release of hormones occurs in the brain.

So – if big business are the neurons, creative micro-businesses get to be the neurotransmitters?

A bit of personality

Something we were asked to do before going down for the day was an online personality questionnaire, and on the day we worked through what some of the results meant using examples and a few scenarios. Interestingly I didn’t get my results in advanced so as well as getting the results that were spit out by the online tool, it was also nice to work through what my personality type is.

To cut a long story short, I’m an “ENTP“:

Interesting chart – so what does it mean and how is that going to help?

I’ve done a few online tests in the past – silly IQ tests, spacial awareness, pattern recognition (which I’m strangely competent at) and other ‘understand yourself’ diversions.

But this is probably the first time that I’ve actually sat down and tried to work out how to use my own knowledge of myself to influence my own decision-making.

Here’s a snippet from PersonalityPage.com:

“ENTPs are idea people.”

First line of my LinkedIn profile:

“I’m the ideas guy.”

So at least I know something about myself. How about how I work?

It turns out that ENTP types are notorious for being energetic at the beginning and ends of projects – when the idea kicks in, and when the deadline looms. Other types (Swap P – perceiving for J – judging) are more into planning things out and having a series of milestones:

Ah – so that explains why I find it much easier to do my best work under a bit of pressure, and when I’m feeling inspired. That’s good to know too. When I looked at my ‘P versus J’ count I was at 63 out of 70, meaning that I’m quite extreme in how I work like this.

So that tells me that whatever I want to it should be based on inspiration, ‘feeling it’, and not being based around lots of (oh that’s so boring) milestones – that will give me an outlet for my best work.

On the flipside though, we talked about how ‘balance’ is important for an ENTP, and some of the best teams in the world are based on an ENTP type teaming up with someone of the opposite way of working – the solid organiser to my ‘be inspired’ type.

And when I look back over the years, the times when things have worked out well were when I was joining up with someone like that, and when they didn’t it was either that that person let me down or where there was nobody to provide that structure.

Interesting… should I be hiring? / looking for a very organised collaborator right now?

This throws up a huge set of issues. At the moment I seem overloaded with ideas, connections, opportunities, things randomly winning awards (CiB and 4tips most recently). So perhaps it’s time to solidify some ideas and really push them forward in a big way. I think that might be the theme for the year for me.

Once upon a time…

Prior to the day we were sent a book – Harvard Business Review On The Mind Of The Leader (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) and a couple of DVDs, which were different for all of us.

We spent some time discussing the stories of each of the ‘leaders’ in those films, and putting their leadership styles into a number of distinct categories based on the book.

Quite interesting then that the ‘collaborative’ style which I’ve seen being part of Creative Republic where there kind of is ‘no leader’ was the one style that didn’t seem to have a character covering it, whereas others – The ‘charismatic leader’, the ‘transactional leader’ were everywhere.

It struck me that a good way to make things happen in the world is to adopt the right style for the right situation. Sometimes it’s best just to let some things happen, others to discuss and share decision making, and at other times you need to take the reins and push a thing forward. Running your own company is the latter – if you don’t do something who’s going to?

So for micro-businesses an adaptable style of ‘leadership’ is probably best. Without the resources behind you it’s impossible to boss people around into doing things for your idea. It takes gentle cajoling, influencing and continued bits of inspiration to get people where you think you’d like them to go…

The Hero’s Journey

And to end, we personalised some of that ’story’-based work on the films into our own personal ‘journeys’ (not too happy with that term but it is relevant in this situation).

This is a well-used way of generalising some concepts about personal progress in life, and was surprisingly effective for me to frame some of the things I’ve been doing and challenges I’ve faced. Running a company and donating loads of time to non-profit work isn’t easy – bad stuff happens as well as good!

We’re all familiar with those solitary epic films where a character triumphs over adversity to complete some kind of quest. You can apply some of that thinking to your own progress using a model called “The Hero’s Journey“.

The idea, is that you can break your story up into:

• The real world
• A call to adventure
• Gathering allies
• Gaining a mentor
• A nemesis
• A turning point
• Bringing home the bacon

I paraphase, but you get the idea.

What was really interesting in this is the idea of the ‘nemesis’ – every success story has a low point where something external (or internal perhaps?) causes a hiccup in the flow, a challenge to overcome. Hitting that ‘low point’ can be terrible at the time, but looking back can actually prove to be very valuable times – they provide drive for you, something to act against to achieve what you want to do.

So, here are a few of low points I’ve had, and looking back I’m thinking that they were all helpful in some way to get me to where I am now:

Meningitis at university – I nearly had to leave when I suddenly got ill. Instead I recovered in hospital, worked harder, took all of my exams and carried on going – in fact it was lying on a hospital bed I thought that 3form would be a good idea.

Christmas 2003 – I get a phone call from my then business partner saying he’s not coming back to work (he did eventually – freelance), then a week later my programmer gets hospitalised and I’m left wondering what I’m supposed to do now – just after signing the lease on the office. What I did – refocus and went with the flow. Looking back I’d wish I’d done a few things different, but hey.

Getting let down by friends – having to readjust how I trust people around me. Deciding to focus back on what I’m doing so I can achieve big things and making sure that I put family at the top of the list. The end result – a wonderful new home office where I got to see my daughter walk for the first time last month. I’d have missed that if I’d been playing ‘distant dad’.

These particular ‘nemesis’ moments are particularly obvious when you start looking back, and the further back they are the more obvious they are. And what’s great (a few people said this) that everyone has those low points – you just need to work through them to your advantage.

A ‘hole’ in the plotline?

In that ‘hero’s journey’ list above you’ll see the slot labelled “Gaining a mentor“.

Over the years I’ve had a few people I’ve leant on for advice and guidance, but to date I’ve not had a connection with someone who’s really been there and done something similar to me. Jonathan Slade is probably the closest match to the word ‘mentor’, although his advice is based very strongly in business models, financial planning and so on. Useful stuff, but I think what I’ve been missing is a total connection with someone who’s been involved at the top level of their game in the creative scene for years, with some time on their hands to share some advice and experience.

I talk about this all the time, but seriously – how come I’ve gone so far and not made that connection yet?!

Another thing for me to do then, perhaps – make a few persistent phone calls to that certain person that I admire for what they’ve done and see if they’ll lend me a hand bouncing some ideas around on this particularly great idea I’ve been brewing this year… watch this space!

A better ‘about me’ page?

Taking a day out of a busy schedule can often seem like a challenging thing to do. Especially if you work in a micro-enterprise. Time is money.

But skills are money too, and what I got out of the day was that I need to spend some more time on my own personal development. I’ll probably sign onto their next level of training as a result.

It wasn’t mind-blowing stuff – but it certainly solidified a few things for me and it’s helped me to inform my own decision-making about where I want my career to progress, what I’m naturally good at and what I need to work on to make myself effective.

If you haven’t done anything similar I’d certainly recommend it.