This is my bittersweet sixteenth blog. It marks the end of this module and this course. Unlike my previous blogs, this one is not about sharing something I saw or learned; with this one, I will reflect on all my past blogs, and on what I have learned during the whole of our design-thinking journey.
Starting a Blog, building a network
I am going to start with the very beginning, when I was new to the course and to the country. The first time we were asked to blog, I did not know much about the concept nor the benefits of it. In the design-thinking module, blogging was introduced as a networking and sharing tool alongside all other social media.
The misconception I had during the early stages was that I wanted every blog to be perfect before posting it. It made it difficult to decide what to talk about, how to share it. One of our guest speakers during the module was Rob Fitzpatrick who runs the startup toolkit blog.
He explained that building a network takes time and needs commitment. Regularly writing, and making a habit out of it, is the best way to become good.
I blogged about his lecture later and, as he said, it did get easier with time.
Looking back at my blogs now, they sort of reflect my learning experience in particular and my experience in the course and in the United Kingdom in general.
Blogging was one of the social media tools alongside twitter facebook and others, which came up during the module. I did not have a twitter account prior to this module and I discovered that it is not just for gossip at all. It is really one of the best ways to share any information and know what is happening in the world. The key in any social media is knowing how to use it; because when used correctly, it can be quite efficient. My relationship with digital media has dramatically changed since the beginning of this year and I wrote about it in one of my final blogs.
“ Multidimensional interactions have altered the basic rules of communication” (Maggiani ,2012). One of the main assets of a company is its reputation and nowadays, the best way to build a good one is the word of mouth accelerated by the social media. If people share a video about something, or tweet about a product, then it becomes a trend and it goes viral. This builds the reputation of the person or the company in a speedy way. “Past research proposed that a positive reputation is a resource leading to competitive advantage”(e.g.,Barney,1991;Hall,1992) One example I talked about in one of my previous blogs as well was Kony 2012. It went worldwide so fast that everybody knew who he was in the same week!
Creative thinking
On another note, one of the main topics of my blogs was inevitably the entrepreneurship module and my learning in the business field. To start with, coming from a filmmaking background, I have no business education and always related management to finance, numbers and bureaucratic “boring” jobs. But, my intention to gain skills that would help me in case I want to open my own business in the future pushed me into joining the Management and the creative economy course. This combination seems a bit odd- combining creativity and management two very opposite sides of a coin usually- but many lectures and talks changed my mind.
Creative thinking was not so long ago only related to arts and certain industries and completely separated from business and management. However recently, creativity is becoming the subject of many debates and the source of competitive advantage to many companies. Hence, the relevance of this module! Many wrote about creative thinking techniques as tools to develop superior ideas (Clapham 1997; Goldenberg et al. 1999; Lemons 2005; Osborn 1953).
Creativity has now infiltrated other disciplines especially in the entrepreneurship field.
Actually, one of the first conferences I attended was part of the entrepreneurship experience held by Kingston University. The main speaker there; Ryan Pinnick discussed the creativity involved in being an entrepreneur. I started noticing how creativity is not only related to the product or idea in itself but also to the entire approach to making a business successful. It goes into the marketing strategy, the reaching out to the target market, and to literally every aspect of the business process.
Another example was one of our first lectures in design thinking about personas, which highlighted the importance of creating a story behind any product or service. When people relate to something they buy it.
I attended a very eye opening discussion about leadership as the art of telling meaningful stories where the lecturer Clemens Sedmak discussed how important it is for people to find themselves in a story, and how a good leader is one who is able to convince people that he shares their story.
“Leading is the art of motivation a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal” (Sedmak,2011 )
And even when trying to build our business, our intention is to make our brand a leading one. One that has a story people can relate to.
Fairs, Museums and other insirations
I also found visiting fairs and museums inspiring in the sense that seeing other people’s work makes you think about the story they have behind it, how they got inspired to do it.
My first fair was Frieze art fair which was very interesting. It was the first time I see a fair of that scale and looking at pieces of art, art lovers and artist was quite unique.
Another very special museum was The museum of everything which combined the work of special needs artists. This fair was so exceptional because it shows so clearly how art is the best tool to express the darkest most intimate feelings and inspire others to do the same.
Even if fairs are not directly related to our business, as I mentioned before, creativity is integrated in everything and inspiration can come from everywhere. It can come by looking at what other companies are doing to market their products. An example I blogged about was the starbucks free latte.
The company offered free lattes to introduce the new version of the drink in all its UK shops. People were queuing up like crazy to get a free drink. Starbucks managed to create a big media buzz and market its product.
Apple for example creates the pre-order system before releasing its new products to create a waiting list and see how much this product is wanted by people before even the release date!
In my WID group business, when we wanted to give an extra push to get rid of remaining stocks in march (since our product is seasonal) we offered a free picture of the customer holding an emotion or any expression with every purchase of a WID bookmark Calendar. We then sent the picture with a thank you note to the customers. In that case, we had to be creative in our promotion and come up with new ways of selling our product.
WID business group
The group business was the heart of this module in particular and this course in general. My journey with WID was a great learning experience on many levels. First it meant collaborating with people coming each from a different cultural and academic backgrounds. This was both challenging and enriching. In fact, collaboration is at the heart of my course since it combines two different disciplines and merges them together. Collaborative thinking is a tool used by many creative companies in order to come up with their new products. A great example would be Pixar, the famous animation movie-making studio. When Ed Catmul talks about how they work there, he insists on the importance of bringing together the right people and having them collaborate. “ creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many problems”. E.Catmull, (2009).
Then, after the group was formed ,our next challenge was to come up with a product that combined our skills since we did not want to outsource any of it given our time and material constraints. We came up with our company name WID (Words-Images and Dates) which is about making Art Useful.
Our idea was a bookmark calendar with twelve pictures, one for every month. The pictures represented emotions and had related quotes on every picture. We wanted each picture to tell a story and create a set of stories for booklovers to accompany them wherever they go. After coming up with the idea, we went through market research, prototyping etc. One particularly hard task was to pitch our idea at several points of our journey. The first time was in December when we had our first Dragons Den . We had to explain our idea within three minutes. Pitching is not as easy as it might sound. Fitting all the steps into a short period of time while keeping the jury interested was actually quite difficult. We took into consideration what the jury told us and carried on. During the second part of the year, we sold and advertised for our product, which was one of the highlights for me. In fact, we managed to make profit, which is great, and came up with an Advert that really incorporated the story behind our product. We then had to give a final pitch and report about the business. During this phase, we really took into consideration all that we have been told so far, reflected on the good and bad decisions we made, and prepared for our presentation. Pitching is in fact more essential than I thought, because in a way, to sell our product we need to sell ourselves. Presentation skills are not to be underestimated at all. One great example would “Levi Roots”, a contestant on dragons Den. He was selling a regular sauce but caught the attention of the jury with his personality. Body language is to be used wisely during public presentations to make the audience interested until the end.
Final refection
As I mentioned in the beginning, this is a bittersweet blog. It actually marks the end of this learning experience. Learning came from more than one aspect. It was in being in contact with new cultures and working alongside so many different people, making our own business and dealing with all the challenges and difficulties but also rewarding moments of it. I have a completely new perspective on business and entrepreneurship and I know how important it is to be creative every step of the way. I also know that using new media is an advantage entrepreneurs did not have a few years ago. It is free, unlimited and universal and I should learn to make the best out of it for any future business idea or plan I have. As I mentioned before, pitching is another aspect of entrepreneurship I never gave much thought to. Now I know how essential presentation skills are. I have to tell my story and make it everybody’s story as well! The Mace course in general was a journey more than a course because learning was not limited to the classroom; it was in the entire experience. My first future step is my final research project where I will seek to combine creativity and business in the filmmaking industry. This combination that seemed very vague in the beginning became a clear concept now and hopefully holds many opportunities for the future.
