Greg Orme is the Chief Executive of the Centre for Creative Business, a joint venture between Europe’s highest-ranked business school, London Business School and Europe’s largest creative university, University of the Arts London. The Centre for Creative Business is Europe’s pre-eminent organisation helping creative industry management teams to grow more profitable businesses through management courses, networking, events, conferences, research and media.

Greg is a regular commentator and writer in national media on leadership and strategy. His media and journalistic background, together with an MBA from London Business School, enables him to be creative and analytical in his approach to business. In 2002, he co-founded a boutique strategy consultancy, 4future, which works at board level with FTSE 100 companies to maximise the potential of their business. Prior to completing an MBA at London Business School, Greg spent ten years in the media as a journalist and editor.

Greg’s position in an organisation that is a key player in the development of the UK Creative Industries enables him to give a good overview of the state of people management across the sector. He also suggests that some creative managers may be better coaches than they realise.

The book Greg refers to is Creative Industries: Contracts Between Art and Commerce by Richard E. Caves, (Harvard University Press, 2000). We also refer to Greg’s recent article, Special, Moi?, published in the June edition of PACT magazine (the trade body for the screen based creative industries).

Click the ‘AUDIO MP3′ icon below to hear the interview.

 Interview with Greg Orme: Download

The Creative Review blog highlights an excellent e-book for aspiring graphic designers - Twenty Four Seven by Adam Graveley.

A couple of years ago Graveley was looking for his first graphic design job and couldn’t find a useful guide - so he showed a lot of initiative by researching and writing it himself, by asking for advice from renowned designers Tom Roope (Tomato Interactive, UK), Alexander Gelman (Design Machine, NY), Jan Wilker (Karlssonwilker Inc, NY), Jonathan Ellery (Browns Design, London), Peter Saville (London) and Adrian Shaughnessy (TiRA, London). And when he couldn’t find a publisher, he showed even more initiative by designing and publishing it himself as an e-book.

It’s lushly designed and full of the kind of practical advice that should help to direct creative enthusiasm without crushing it. The big name interviewees offer wisdom based on years of experience, but Graveley gives plenty of useful tips himself, written in the tone of the bloke at the desk opposite you:

You will not have six weeks to complete a brief. You will need to produce relevant concepts quickly and must be able to articulate them in progress meetings. You could only have a few hours to produce something. You have to be able to handle yourself when time is running out. You will panic, you will cock up and you will learn from your mistakes. Be aware of time management.

I’m not a graphic designer but if you’re looking to land your first job at a design studio this sounds like a voice worth listening to.

Creative Review has launched a blog to complement its print and digital editions. In the March 2006 Creative Review editor Patrick Burgoyne wrote a thoughtful feature about “the role of the blog in the creative community”. In it he said:

you might expect this inky-fingered representative of the ancient regime to disparage the blog. But I’m a fan. I recognise that blogs offer important new opportunities for the creative community and that they do certain things better than print can. I also recognise that we can help each other.

I think he’s right to suggest that blogging and traditional media can be both/and instead of either/or. E.g. a poetry blog can be a great place to talk about poetry, and someone like Robert Bruce does a great job of presenting poetry in an engaging way, but when I look at most of what comes out of the Technorati ‘poetry’ feed, it makes me appreciate the quality of a magazine like Magma even more.

As you’d expect, the Creative Review blog is very easy on the eye. It’s a bit early to judge the content, but the first few posts include some cool videos and an e-book link that looks so useful for aspiring graphic designers that I’ll devote a separate post to it. My only small gripe is having to register to leave a comment - surely they haven’t been spammed into submission already?

Overall then, a promising start and a welcome addition to the creative conversation. s

Here’s the latest interview for my research project on Perceptions of Coaching in the UK Creative Industries. Neil Youngson is Technical Director of Cabinet UK Ltd, a small London-based creative digital agency providing clients with comprehensive interactive solutions. Projects are varied, examples being on-line stores for the V&A Museum and Hidden Art, a global brand extranet for Orange, and a photo kiosk solution for cruise ships.

In addition to bespoke solutions Cabinet has created a suite of hosted software applications called PictureCabinet, which is a system for managing image collections and generating revenues through on-line image licensing and print sales. PictureCabinet is used by a number of cultural institutions such as the V&A Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Museum of London, the National Theatre, and the National Museum of Photography Film and Television. Not all the hosted collections are from such traditional institutions though, the expanding list of clients includes Hed Kandi, Poker Images, Buyagift, and Chelsea Blues in black and white - a collection Neil disapproves of being an Arsenal fan! View some of these projects at Memory Prints.

Cabinet is a small company employing 12 staff from 6 different countries. The role of the directors is very much hands-on in terms of running projects, dealing with clients, and providing creative and technical input.

Neil describes the experience of working as part of a small team of highly-skilled workers, in which the culture of collaboration and mutual learning enables the directors to manage with a light touch.

Click the ‘AUDIO MP3′ icon below to hear the interview.

 Interview with Neil Youngson: Download