About
Welcome to Wishful Thinking.
I work as a business coach and trainer for professional artists and creative companies. My own creative medium is poetry.
This website is about creativity, coaching and business, how they fit together and whether the seams show. It’s a space for me to share my ideas and enthusiasms, and to connect with creative people.
If you’re new to Wishful Thinking you might like to start with the ‘Best of’ page. And you can sign up to receive every new update via e-mail or RSS. (What’s RSS?)
And if you’d like to know more about what I can do for you as a creative professional, read on…
If Your Business Is Creativity, Your Business Is People
If you are running a business in the Creative Industries – such as a design studio, an advertising agency, a computer games developer or an architect’s practice – creativity is not an “added extra” or a “nice-to-have”. It is the essence of your product and your competitive advantage.
And to produce outstanding creative work, it’s essential to get the following ‘people factors’ right:
- Imagination – Creative Thinking and Execution
- Collaboration – Creative Partnerships and Teamwork
- Direction – Inspiring, Managing and Developing Your Creative Team
Yet there are still relatively few services specifically designed to help creative businesses get the best out of their people. Which is why I created Wishful Thinking, to provide a specialist coaching and training service for creative businesses.
With my track record of providing coaching and training for organisations I am fully aware of the commercial realities of your business. And as a published poet with over 10 years’ experience of coaching creative artists and performers, I find it easy to tune into the needs of creative professionals.
Mark McGuinness
I’m a business coach specialising in the Creative Industries and professional artists and creatives. I deal with the ‘people factor’ in the creative process – the imagination, collaboration and direction that are essential for creative and commercial success.
I’ve spent over 10 years coaching creative professionals in all kinds of media – including novelists, actors, graphic designers, visual artists, classical and popular musicians, DJs, composers, copywriters, film directors, programmers and architects. I’ve also delivered coaching, training and consulting for organisations including Channel 4, the BBC, Transport for London, The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Gist, Vodafone, BT, Servier Laboratories, the Arts Council and Arts & Business.
My creative and business interests have converged with Wishful Thinking Creative Coaching, a specialist coaching and training service for creative businesses such as design studios, ad agencies, film and TV production companies, computer games developers, architect’s practices and fashion designers.
In 2006 I passed the MA in Creative and Media Enterprises at the University of Warwick, with distinction. My MA dissertation was a research project on Perceptions of Coaching in the UK Creative Industries. You can listen to podcasts of my research interviews with managers, directors and development professionals across a range of creative industries. In 2009 I will publish a revised version of my research report on this site.
My work has been featured in publications including Creative Review, the Wall Street Journal, Mslexia and The Author.
I’m also a poet and one of the editors of Magma poetry magazine. My poetry site is MarkMcGuinness.com.
The photo of me is by Christina Jansen at Valentino.
