Amplified Individuals and Business Resilience
Thursday 18th June 2009
Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University
A free one day event hosted by NLab and Amplified
Economic constraints coupled with new technologies mean that changes in the way we work are creating both dilemmas and opportunities.
The Amplified Individual has the necessary skills to grapple with these challenges and use them to create a resilient business model. This event will explore the nature and characteristics of the Amplified Individual and enhance your own level of amplification. Come along expecting to interact and contribute in order to share the valuable takeaways of an unusual and challenging series of encounters.
We've tried a different way to organise this event. Invitations were
sent to 'seed' people, who in turn invited more. It's already full and
we're ready to go! Watch outputs of the day via hashtag #nlab
In the US at the moment there is a vogue for giving things away. Much of it is altruistic, reflecting a desire to pull together and help the country through tough times, reinforced by Obama's call to give service to the community. In Los Angeles, for example, a yoga instructor is giving free classes to the unemployed, and I saw another store on the TV (can't remember what kind) which offers the same percentage discount on its products that each customer has lost on his or her pension investments, no proof necessary.
But it's fast proving lucrative for some. Probably the first big company to exhibit this community spirit was Denny's, a major restaurant chain which gave away free breakfasts for the Superbowl in February. Since then it has done so well that it's continuing the offer. Two eggs, two pancakes, two rashers of bacon and two sausages - all free for anyone who asks. But it's making big profits for the company. See the maths. A Denny's representative says their next plan is to ask people to pay the favour forwards, and bring in a friend to recommend for a free breakfast too.
Bear in mind that this is not a simple 'buy one, get one free' type of promotion. It's working so well because it addresses an ethos of public service which is familiar to Americans with their pioneer history of communities working together for the good of all to dig a well or raise a barn.
Of course one can be very cynical about this, especially when Denny's are making big profits from it now, but my question is this: would it work in the UK? Could your business offer some kind of giveaway for the benefit of people being hurt by the economy? Could it prove financially viable for you?
A neighbour in my Southern California apartment complex is setting up a new business. She's going to provide services to the growing number of home-schooling families to be found in and around Santa Barbara. There will be group trips to places of interest, science classes on the beach and in nearby woodlands such as the Monarch butterfly sanctuary, and all kinds of 'short course' type activities designed to support the curricula devised by independent home-schoolers. It's a great idea and I wish her well.
My neighbour and many of her home-schooling colleagues are 'economommies' - that is, women who were 'stay-at-home Moms' before the economic downturn but who now need to supplement the family income with paid work which allows them to look after the kids too. They are seeking new and original ways to combine family life with income generation, and there's a new company designed to help people like them - Mom Corps. Mom Corps' mission is two-fold:
Sounds like something we could develop in the UK too. Read more about this topic in Time Magazine's Hard Times Send 'Economoms' Back to the Job Market
I'm in California on a research trip at the moment, and I've been coming across stories about some of the ingenious ways in which American businesses are trying to beat the recession. I'll post them as and when I find them, and hope they're inspiring! Here's the first, from NPR Radio:
Listen Now [3 min 47 sec] add to playlist
Morning Edition, March 25, 2009 · Somewhere beneath the rubble of the housing market collapse, there's an architect trying to dig out and build a clientele. And he's doing it one question at a time.
After getting laid off from an architecture firm for the second time last year, John Morefield had a choice to make: either scratch around for one of the few architecture jobs available in Seattle or do something to control his destiny.
Then he decided: "Now's the time to do the booth."
It's an odd way to grow a business. Every Sunday, Morefield sets up shop at the Ballard Farmers Market. But it isn't anything tangible that Morefield is slinging from behind his small plywood booth; he's selling advice.
For 5 cents, Morefield offers pointers on home improvement projects. He got the idea from the Peanuts cartoon — you remember Lucy and her questionable nuggets of psychiatric help. Read on
Account Manager Jamie Mollart, Senior Web Developer Paul Sculthorpe, and Designer Matt Laws, shared their industry expertise on 18th March as guest speakers at ‘FAME: The Creative Industry Show’ hosted by De Montfort University.
The event, held to showcase successful companies and individuals in fashion, arts and the media in the East Midlands, offered a programme of presentations giving advice on how best to get into the creative industry fields of digital marketing, journalism, web design and broadcasting. RKH's own Jamie, Paul and Matt were chosen as the online and advertising experts and talked about the power of social media; in particular, tools such as Twitter and Facebook, and how these can successfully be used as part of a brand communication strategy.
100% of participants at the RKH seminar said the advice was good. Specific comments also revealed that the session was very helpful for inspiring thoughts on career moves, ideas for creating company business plans and the relevance of digital media.
Credit: Rock Kitchen Harris
"Nervously waiting for our talk to start"
Left: Matt Laws, Shani Lee, Jamie Mollart
Photo credit: Jamie Mollart
"Wow! Thanks for this :) if you need us for any more talks let us know!"
Photo credit: Paul Sculthorpe
Photo courtesy of Billy Abbott
Very interesting time at Amplified08 yesterday, hosted by NESTA. I couldn't resist the session entitled "come and play, have fun" and I ended up playing some impro ball throwing and catching games (not real balls), and trying out the co-creation exercise that led to the pictures above.
Photo courtesy of Billy Abbott
Here's a picture of everyone gathered together for the mid-way whole group session and feedback from some of the workshops. Amplified08 managed to be that hardest of things - both well-organised and remarkably relaxed and informal. The event was put together and run by a host of people, and their enthusiasm, energy and goodwill was infectious.
Photo courtesy of Phil Campbell
Sessions were organised, hosted and facilitated by Amplified08 participants. If you had something you wanted to say, a topic you wanted to explore, you just signed up in advance on the wiki. On the day, you selected your time slot and space (boardroom or pod?), and anyone who was interested joined you. Many of the sessions were filmed (link to follow), and you can see the results along with a host of other cultural products. Here's the instructions for finding the 61+ pages of Twitter comments (tweets) made by people about the event:
Many of the tweets will include links to blogs, pictures and videos.
The next Amplified event takes place in February 2009 - register your interest on the wiki if you are interested in getting news (remember to include your e-mail address) or follow @shanitomorrow, @suethomas on Twitter. The timing of the event was 4-8pm - very handy for people from Leicester wanting to take advantage of cheap travel.
Great post from Mark McGuinness giving an overview of some of the most popular sites including Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.
At the end, Mark asks the following questions:
"What part do social networks play in your creative and professional life?
What are your experiences of the networks on this list?
Have I missed out your favourite network? If so, please tell us
Where it is,
How you use it and
What benefits it offers creative professionals.
What tips can you offer people who are new to social networking?"
What would your answers be?
Barack Obama has taught the world a lesson in the use of social networks. This former community organiser already knew how to connect with many different cultures and communities, then he combined that knowledge with an understanding of social media, and his reach became huge (thanks also to a large and skilfull team). Now we can learn from his success and apply his methods to our own projects. More on this in Read/Write/Web's Obama's Social Media Advantage
There's a lot happening over the next few months and I've picked just three key events for you, two of which are free. They are the Future of Creative Technologies (registration closes this Friday 7th November, so hurry along), Amplified08 and LIFT09. I've also included some travel information for the event in London:
This conference takes place on Thursday 20th November from 9.30-5.00pm at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester. Registration is free and closes on Friday 7th November - so book now to be sure of your place.
Jess Laccetti, who, for a long time, was part of the NLab team, is one of the organisers.
Next is Amplified08, which I posted about at the beginning of the week. It takes place on Thursday 27th November from 4-8pm at NESTA, Plough Place, London. This event has only two hundred places, so if you are interested Declare Your Interest now. The other really interesting aspect of this event is that you can set the agenda - you can share your ideas and put forward topics for discussion, so that you really get what you want from it.
The late afternoon timing of Amplified08 means that you can benefit from off-peak rail travel and maybe even get one of those £1 only fares on National Express. I got a deal for £9 each way - can anyone do better?
This will be the fourth LIFT conference in Europe - and I can recommend it. A huge themed array of fascinating speakers, some engrossing workshops and multiple opportunities for networking, gathering, talking. All the presentations were filmed and are available on the LIFT website. Here's one about forecasting the future:
I also loved Geneva, and I'm looking forward to going back to the Cafe de Paris which serves just the one dish: entrecote steak (plus some marvellously extravagant desserts). it gets very busy and if you want a table to yourself, I suggest going early.
Photo credit: OperationOF
And here's a picture of the steak, complete with herb butter:
Photo credit: Joe Gratz
And another review.
You might have wondered what's been happening with CreativeCoffee Club after our first meeting of the season on 24th September ...
We've had some busy events with new CCC-ers Jaqui Crooks, Gillian Heggs, Jennifer Jones and Ishi Khan-Jackson as well regular supporters Kathy O Driscoll, David James Ross and Thom Corah. Other visitors included Stephen Brown, Stephen Peak, Ashley Carreras and Benoit Welch from De Montfort University and Rakesh Parmar and Sue Porter from Phoenix Arts.
Here's Ishi performing at the Brewery Tap Comedy Club earlier this year:
We also had a visit from Rohan Gunatillake:
Rohan leads the Web Connect strand within the NESTA Connect team, which explores the role the social web plays in innovation. Among many other things, NESTA supports Amplified08 and Ken Thompson's work on SwarmTeams. Ken spoke at the NLab Social Networks Conference in the summer.
I went down to London for my first visit to CreativeCoffee Club London on 1st October and saw for myself the amazing view from the Heights Restaurant at St George's Hotel in Langham Place, Regent Street.
Photograph courtesy Toby Moores
CreativeCoffee Club London is very different to CCC Leicester and well worth a visit. The event is enjoying a nomadic life at present, looking for a new home, but for the latest up-to-the-minute news about where it will be on any given Wednesday, follow @DT, @sizemore or @sleepydog on twitter.com.
I met lots of interesting people including Allix Harrison-D'Arcy, whose company does rapid prototyping for esoteric platforms, and who has some great quotes on his facebook profile. I think this one might be my favourite, but it's hard to decide:
Other great people included Steve Lawson (due at CCC Leicester on 5th November - I'm really looking forward to that), Jenny Brown, Joanne Jacobs and David Jennings. Here's a cute mix of Leicester and London CCC-ers from Flickr:
CreativeCoffee Club London is reviewing whether it should change its hours from 10-12pm to 11-1pm. I've suggested the latter would be really helpful for Leicester people who'd like to visit as we would be able to take advantage of off-peak travel. If you have thoughts about this, or you have something to say about anything else included here, please add your comments below. We'd love to hear from you.
News of a really exciting event in London - Amplified08: The Network of Networks
Thursday 27th November 4-8pm at NESTA, Plough Place, London.
This is a really great way to meet other CreativeCoffee Club like-minded folk, expand your network and your mind at the same time!
Shani, Toby and I will be going and we really look forward to seeing you there.
Tickets are limited - only 200 - and I recommend that you sign up as soon as you can.
NLab got into gear with the first CreativeCoffee Club of the Season on Wednesday 24th September when we heard about Helen Roscoe's photography exhibition from 6th-31st October at The Exhibition Gallery, Hinckley Library, Lancaster Road, Hinckley. Helen has teamed up with make up artist Jessica Nurse to work on a collaborative body of works surrounding the beauty and artistic form of body art.
It was great to catch up with Coffee Club regulars Carl Dawson, Jamie Mollart and Ian Moore, Trevor Wood, Karl Craig-West, Sean Clark and George Ballentyne. Mike Atherton visited from London and, with Toby Moores and Sue Thomas, enjoyed a stimulating discussion with Phil Campbell. Other visitors included Mike Wilkinson and Nur Yaryare and long-time Coffee Club friend Professor Stephen Brown, Director of CREEM.
But just a word about this past year:
- we saw the inauguration of CreativeCoffee Club, an idea from Toby Moores, David Terrar and David Tebbutt, inspired by the IOCT's creativity strolls on a Thursday afternoon.
- CreativeCoffee Club garnered hundreds of members in just a few days with clubs meeting in London, Liverpool and Bangor, as well as Palo Alto and New York. Leicester has been the most consistent of these, with over sixty small businesses taking part.
- our partnership with Vijay Riyait from iQubed. Vijay has been involved in all our activities, but I'd like to highlight the Facebook for Business event in November 2007, which Vijay and I put together.
- the NLab Social Networks Conference in June 2008, attended by 140 small business delegates, with a line-up of national and international speakers, plus an array of workshops from our partners and local small businesses.
- the organisations which helped us to reach diverse small businesses through the city and region, including Mainstream Partnership, Princes Trust, Leicestershire Business Voice, Federation of Small Businesses, LCB Depot, Business Link, Cattalyst, Creative Leicestershire, East Midlands Incubation Network, EM Media and UKita.
NLab has been awarded a further three years support from the Higher Education Innovation Fund to continue its work with small businesses in Leicester and the East Midlands.
Videos of the 2008 NLab conference are now online at Vimeo. Enjoy!
PS: within hours of the site going live, Experientia sorted out the assets and presented them very tidily here. Thanks Experientia - very impressive!
PPS: And Roland Harwood has added a follow-up blog post.
Recent Comments