Reviewing the networks of Birmingham’s independent arts organisations

HONK! IF YOU ? CONTEMPORARY ART, by Cheryl Jones, Nathaniel Pitt, and Matt Westbrook. Courtesy of Grand Union, Eastside Projects and PITT Projects.

We’ve recently been reviewing the networks of Birmingham’s independent arts organisations. Last Thursday saw the second workshop with the Birmingham Independent Arts Forum. Following on from the benchmarking workshop in October 2011 this workshop looked not at the quantitative but at the qualitative aspects of small arts organisations. In particular we reviewed the great breadth and depth of working relationships that organisations such as Big Brum, Craftspace, Creative Alliance, Eastside Projects, Playhouse and Women in Theatre establish and maintain in order to deliver their programme.

It swiftly became clear how diverse and complex these relationships are. Their flexibility is based on mutual trust and an in depth understanding of the needs of each organisation. This enables a single relationship to develop to deliver multiple strands of activity over a long period of time; for funding to be channeled through either or both parties depending on the circumstances of the project and for an open and ongoing channel of communication to be maintained both during and between projects.

In some senses the small number of employees in such organisations helps the development of relationships … no silos or departments to lead to Chinese whispers and easy access to directors for rapid decision making.

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The sparkle of new fashion married with entrepreneurial awareness

Thanks to Philip Delamore, Director of the Fashion Digital Studio at the London College of Fashion (LCF) we had the fun of attending LCF’s MA shows last night. As a global leader in fashion teaching LCF is pretty much bound to be able to turn out top notch new designers. Last night was no exception. However the other pleasure of chatting with these graduates is that they seem more aware of the entrepreneurial challenges they face as they enter the fashion world. We had in depth conversations about how these designers thought they could refine the work they’ve shown in the MA degree show into products that could be sold at a price point suitable to their status as young designers but which would still allow them to make a profit on the work. The fluency with which graduates could discuss the inter connection between the price the market would pay, the cost of production and the altering of designs to make to these price points was a great step on from the sorts of conversations we would have had five years ago. For those where bulk manufacturing is essential due to high tech production requirements then this conversation added in the dimension of licensing to larger companies and the refining of the designs to make production cost effective.

What a joy … both the design and the business conversations.

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Young Designer Awards and JEANSATION

From the Fashion Designers and Craft Makers Network we bring you news of the 2012 Young Designer Awards – registering now! and a unique competition opportunity for entrants of the Young Designer Awards called JEANSATION.

Joanna Marcella the founder of the prestigious Young Designer Awards launches the 2012 Young Designer Awards and the Radical Designer Awards this month. This initiative is set up to support and motivate designers who wish to become fashion stars of the future. Designers will be asked to research Alexander McQueen’s work and to come up with between 3-4 designs that take inspiration form his work.

As for JEANSATION, this is an International Jeans contest for creative talent. Designers will be expected to produce a small avant-garde collection of jeans or denim looks. The most outstanding designs will be selected and will be put through as the UK entrants for this international competition. Jeansation competition takes place in Monte-Carlo, Monaco and is open to designers aged between 18 to 32 years. JEANSATION 2 will take place in the Autumn of 2012.

Join the Fashion Designers and Craft Makers Network facebook group

For further details about all competitions and to register interest contact Joanna on the details below:

Contact: Joanna Marcella Reid

Mob: 07940 647 102

Email: youngdesignerawards@hotmail.com

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Read outside your business

There are so many good reasons to feed your mind with reading material outside of your specific business activities as well as outside of the world of business in general. The potential for inspiration when changing the usual patterns of your thinking can be limitless. I once went on a course with the Cultural Leadership Programme and the pre-course homework was to watch The Magnificent Seven. In the film Chris, played by Yul Brynner, is tasked with pulling together the ultimate gun fighting team to help defend a village targeted by bandits. It’s a brilliant film and a great example of a particular style of leadership in action. We had fun at the course analysing the film in detail. More on a selection of films that might shed light on how you do business coming soon.

Meanwhile there is a lot to be gleaned from the following book titles – just some of our favourites that we will be drawing your attention to over the next few weeks for your reading pleasure.

-The Salaried Masses, Siegfried Kracauer – it’ll remind you why you don’t want to be an employee

- The Years With Ross, James Thurber (a book about the editor of the New Yorker Harold Ross, about how all these creatives worked together)

- First You Have To Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode

- Flatland, Edwin A Abbott

- Rock’n’Roll, Tom Stoppard

- I Don’t Mean To Be Rude But, Simon Cowell

- Murder in Samarkand, Craig Murray

More suggestions coming soon…feel free to suggest your own in the comments below.

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Barbara Schmidt – Jewellery Books

“Jewellery is a media for communication” states Barbara Schmidt on her website www.barbara-schmidt-schmuck.de – specifically Barbara is interested in the sending of jewellery as gifts disguised inside books or on a postcard.

We love the ingenuity behind the Guardian Angel Book and Monthrings – within the pages of the books that can be sent out as gifts or purchased as a unique treat, are versatile and fun rings by assorted international jewellery designers. In a Monthrings book there are 12 rings, a ring for each month of the year – how fabulous!

The Postcardrings appeal to the more DIY jewellery wearers among us as they are sent through the post in an envelope and ‘awoken to life through the receiver’ – that would be a great bit of mail to receive on your doormat.

With these product ideas we love the innovation and combination of book and product design with good-looking functional jewellery.

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Facebook for Fashion

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking to quite a few fashion folks including the brilliant Not Just a Label and Fashion Angel teams. Part of this discussion has been around how fashion designers are starting to use facebook as the place to publish a new collection and as a means to acquire new and international clients. This was something we first came across in Beirut when visiting the studios of Lara Khoury and Ronald.

Ronald’s latest S/S ’12 collection was launched on facebook a few weeks ago and Lara has been shipping to clients across the Middle East for some time now as a result of releasing her Gluttony collection to facebook. We’re wondering if this is a trend in the sales routes for young and emerging designers? Or perhaps it is simply a way to connect to those markets where women have less freedom to travel but have the money to spend such as Saudi Arabia?

Facebook is already used by brands large and small as a marketing tool and a means of interacting with customers and with the likes of tweetdeck and hootsuite it is possible to manage your messaging through multiple channels very easily. The question is, is facebook a serious sales channel?

We don’t know, do you?

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How many measures of cultural value can you think of?

This is the challenge released by Dr Claire Donovan on the DCMS Blog series called Priceless? in the post Bring out your measures.

Claire at DCMS wants to hear about and learn from your experience of measuring or capturing cultural value in order to share best practice in the sector and create a list of 100 ways to measure cultural value. It seems its for a similar purpose albeit different approach to the Arts Council‘s recently launched tender to develop accessible and practical guidance on the best research methodologies to use when measuring the economic footprint of the arts, museums and libraries sector.

Here are the measures that Claire is starting the sector off with:

“I will start the ball rolling by listing some methods Phase One of ‘Measuring Cultural Value’ recommended that DCMS could use.

1. Contingent valuation/stated preference techniques
2. Travel cost/willingness to pay
3. Subjective wellbeing”

Between DCMS and Arts Council I expect the list will reach the thousands during the research into various studies and approaches.

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Getting ahead money

Getting ahead money is an article by Tim Conley for his website Foolish Adventure – a site all about starting and growing a successful online business.

There’s some good advice on how you might want to approach your finances. What do you need to make to pay the bills and make payments each month? How much extra do you want to earn to give yourself a bit of breathing space?

Tim says, “Don’t look for passive income promises…If you want to make a lot of money fast, then you must learn to solve tough problems for others.”

A lot of the advice is about building on your expertise, honing your skills to improve your service each time and start to charge your clients based on your success. When you know you are good your fees should reflect this.

Some food for thought for freelancing artists can also be found in Greg Klerkx’s recent article Price tag for Arts Professional where Greg mentions the current predicament facing artists on what they are prepared to work for and ask for in the climate we are facing at the moment.

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Summary of Friday’s Live Chat – Beyond the five year plan

On Friday we took part in a Live chat on the Guardian Culture Professionals Network site, Beyond the five year plan: future proofing your arts organisation.

Sarah Thelwall chatted online with culture professionals who logged in to pose questions to a panel including Alex Homfray Director BOP Consulting, Mark Robinson Director of Thinking Practice and author of Making Adaptive Resilience Real, Keith Evans Managing Director of CIDA Co, Annette Mees Co-Director of Coney and Andrew Erskine Senior Associate at Tom Fleming Creative Consultancy.

The discussion on future-proofing began with a question about how organisations can get their Board members working harder for them on helping to secure funding and partnerships. All were agreed that in the current climate organisations should be driving their Board to perform and make an impact after firstly assessing whether there are the best match of skills covered by those on the Board. In response Andrew Erskine mentioned Arts & Business and their Board Services resource and Alex Homfray referred to The Clore Leadership Programme and the work they do around auditing Board dynamics.

Sarah went straight to the facts and figures in her recommendation for making your Board work harder by suggesting individuals on the Board are given responsibility for a specific area of income generation – this means organisations need to clearly break down their income into types and discuss at the Board meeting which income types each Board member is going to tackle.

There’s a very brief summary of some of the other topics discussed below. There will be a link to the Guardian’s summary of the chat shortly:

Networks

The power contained within the networks of your Board members should not be underestimated. Map out who they know as an activity at one of your Board meetings – what can be built upon?, where are there gaps in connections?

Often there are interesting discussions to be had with people outside your sector and in other networks that meet. Attend a few different sessions with other groups of professionals that meet and see if after a few of these you come away with any new insights for your organisation.

Shaping the future – what are your goals, what is coming up?, where are the gaps?

In terms of strategically planning for the future panelists discussed benchmarking against peers as a growing necessity in the sector. We were very happy to hear this, it would be great if everyone was using tools such as Culture Benchmark to shape and plan for their future. We know how brilliant this type of thinking and analysis can be!

Trend watching is not going to help your organisation in a general sense unless you relate it directly back to what your organisation does. Devising some metrics for your organisations specific business activities and resources needs would improve your planning for the future when analysing trends in the industry.

Data – not being afraid of what it might reveal

Panelists mentioned that the scrutiny of data is often neglected by many organisations due to their fear of what it might reveal.

Just a few of the resources and techniques mentioned:

Charity Commission – for reports on your peer organisations

Horizon scanning – technique for identifying the drivers of change in your organisation

NESTA’s 12 predictions for 2012

Series of articles by Patrick Hussey, Digital Campaigns Manager at Arts & Business on the impact of digital growth on culture

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Join in Live Chat at noon with Guardian Culture Professionals Network and us

Today Sarah Thelwall will be taking part in a Live Chat – Beyond the five year plan: future proofing your arts organisation with other arts experts on a panel brought together by Guardian Culture Professionals Network. She’ll be discussing how your arts venue, organisation or cultural career can be proofed for the future.

Join in with the proceedings at noon and you’ll be able to ask Sarah about practical tools you can make use of and some strategies to bear in mind.

Culture Professionals Network Live Chats

Join The Guardian each week with a panel of industry experts to share advice, insights, best practice and discuss the biggest issues facing arts and culture

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