At the Warwick seminar on Wednesday I met Eric Pöttschacher, who introduced me to his Shapeshifters network for creative professionals worldwide:

shapeshifters is made for professional creatives (single entrepreneurs, microbusinesses, firms) from all around the world.

shapeshifters is a new kind of working tool for transnational trade and exchange between small creative businesses. independent entrepreneurs in the creative sector connect with like-minds on other continents in order to develop and promote their products and services on a peer group level.

a viennese graphic designer wants to collaborate with a mexican sign maker; a boston architect is looking for a weaver of custom-made runners; young south african fashion designers aspire to show their work in milan: this is what shapeshifters is all about.

The network looks to be very well moderated, with a high standard of contributions from some very interesting people and projects. Looking down the front page right now, there are posts about Cape Town fashion week, Nikon support in Tanzania, a new device from Brazil for recycling thermic energy in the bathroom, inspirations for scriptwriting and a request for freelance web developers.

The service is completely free, and looks ideal for creative entrepreneurs, artists and freelance creatives. I’ve joined - hope to see you there.

Thanks Eric - nice orange logo too

Gerald Haman, President of Chicago innovation specialists SolutionPeople, has sent me an interesting article about his ‘Thinkubator’ - a ‘Creative Meeting Space’ where corporations can send their teams to turbo-charge their creative batteries. Part of a feature on the theme Innovate or Die Trying by US magazine Training, the article says that “the facility includes giant chair sculptures, disco lighting, a sound system, a professional karaoke system and a rooftop sun deck with panoramic skyline views of the city.”

The ‘Thinkubator’ (Photo courtesy of SolutionPeople)

Haman is quoted saying “Many people focus innovation and creativity training on what happens inside of people’s minds … I’ve found that it’s also important to pay attention to what goes on outside of people’s heads, thereby looking at the physical environment.” The idea is to tap people’s creative potential by taking teams out of their usual working environment and giving them the opportunity to devote time to “blue sky thinking”. As well as providing stimulating and unusual surroundings, SolutionPeople facilitate intensive creativity exercises and games. Haman comments, “We’ve found that the people who are willing to sing karaoke … are the ones who are willing to take risks and generate more ideas.”

I’m intrigued by the Thinkubator - how could I not be curious about a place fitted out with “comfortable and thought-provoking furniture”? I also find it very easy to relate to the idea of a ‘creative break’ in inspiring surroundings as a catalyst for creativity. Earlier this year, on holiday in Japan, wandering around the beautiful temples and shrines of the ancient cities of Kyoto and Nara, I found myself waking up in the morning and writing drafts of several poems almost without effort; something about the change of scene from London had shifted my imagination into a different gear. And after a few nights out in Tokyo I can testify to the power of karaoke to bring out a different side of your personality!

There are also lots of well-known stories of artists and thinkers whose creativity seems to be inspired by a particular location Read the rest of this entry »

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Thanks to the Direct Marketing Association for inviting me to speak at their Creative Inserts seminar yesterday. The mix of agency, media and client delegates and speakers made it an enjoyable and stimulating day.

I was very encouraged by the response to my presentation on creative flow, especially considering the variety of disciplines and industries represented - whatever the medium or working environment, it seems that people have a remarkably similar experience of the state of creative flow. This supports Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s argument for the universality of the flow experience, and my own view that media-neutral creativity is a core discipline across all of the creative industries (and many more besides).

Technorati Tags: creative flow, media-neutral creativity

I was about to go to bed last night when I flicked over to BBC1 and saw Alan Yentob describing the construction of a bridge made entirely of glass. As Alan said, it was like something out of a fairytale, so I settled down for a bedtime story.

Heatherwick’s Rolling Bridge (Not the glass bridge) (GNU licence)

The programme was The Ingenious Thomas Heatherwick, about the English designer and sculptor. The title sounds like a Roald Dahl novel, and the contents were just as fantastic. ‘Ingenious’ is a very apt word to describe Heatherwick’s work - suggestive of something at once mechanical and artistic, with the words ‘genius’ and ‘engineering’ struggling to get out. One of his inventions - ‘Heatherwick’s Rolling Bridge’ sounds as though it should be on display next to ‘Hargreaves’ Spinning Jenny’ in some Museum of Industrial Marvels. Even Heatherwick’s name sounds like a compound of ‘Heathcliff’ and ‘Pickwick’ - another whiff of the nineteenth century, age of invention and endeavour.

Terence Conran appeared on the programme, having had the foresight to commission the art-student Heatherwick to design and build a gazebo for his back garden. Conran compared Heatherwick to Leonardo Da Vinci, which I thought was a bit over-the-top when he said it, early in the programme - but by the end it seemed a pretty accurate comparison. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Thomas Heatherwick

Dr Chris Bilton at the University of Warwick has sent me details of a seminar at the Warwick Business School on 28th June, on the theme of Management of Culture / Culture of Management.

“The seminar will examine the emergence of distinctive approaches to leadership and management in the cultural sector. At a time when the cultural industries are subject to managerial orthodoxies and ‘best practice’ imported from other sectors, this seminar sets out to recapture distinctive traditions of cultural leadership, creative management and cultural entrepreneurship and argues that the management of culture depends upon a distinctive and autonomous culture of management.

Speakers will be Chris Bilton (CCPS, University of Warwick), Giep Hagoort (HKU Amsterdam), Nicola Jennings and Sara Selwood (City University) Paola Merli (De Montfort University), Erich Poettschacher (Instinct Domain, Vienna), David Wilson (Warwick Business School).”

As a part-time student on the MA in Creative and Media Enterprises at Warwick, I know Chris will have interesting and useful things to say. I’m also looking forward to hearing the other speakers, particularly Eric Poettschacher, who is doing some very interesting research on the Creative Industries in Vienna.

And the really good news is that the seminar is free! Details available here. The lecture is part of the Cultural Industries Seminar Network.

Technorati Tags: cultural industries, cultural entrepreneurship, management of culture, management