Well it’s been a week of firsts.....first week as an official postgrad, first time at a creative arts university and first ever attempt into the intriguing world of blogging.
This will be my means of documenting my working progress and ideas as a new student of arts management & business in an attempt to make sense of everything that is thrown my way before my head potentially explodes. Such a dauntingly large amount of space for what feels like so few words but let’s give this bad boy a bash...
So the introductory lecture into our research methods module was based on the theories of Roland Barthes and his work ‘Mythologies’ which looks at the language of signs and the way in which we can “read” visual photographs and art work; discovering ‘keys’ which enable us to delve deeper into the stories and meanings behind them.
Despite being fascinated by the world of arts, and its vital means of expression and communication, it got me thinking further how this creative tool is also crucial within the business sector. Every brand or company relies on visuals in the form of marketing/promotion/advertising materials in order to connect with their customer base and increase profits, so it is essential that these are presented in such a way to ‘strike up’ the right desired message. Sounds obvious on paper, but it got me thinking how, from my own personal experience, the link between creativity and innovative business strategy is so easily overlooked.
Our first assignment to get us thinking about this was, unfortunately for me, to produce a self portrait that told a story about ourselves...I will not bother posting a copy of my work on here as although the idea template seemed good, the execution of actually getting my hands dirty and making the damn thing went, shall we say, ‘titantic-ally’ bad....merely reminding me I was born to be the manager, not the artist/designer. Thank God.
The next stage of research methods this week was looking at the importance of asking yourself key questions when conducting research in order to evaluate its importance, noting its strengths vs. weakness, area of interest vs. irrelevance etc. This process is often compared by many research theorists to that of distillation, teaching that “the spirit of life is present in anything”, but in order to be obtained we have to filter out the unnecessary.
An extremely useful book that we were introduced to, and one I would definitely recommend to anyone about to conduct research for essay/dissertation work, is ‘Creative Research: The Theory and Practice of Research for the Creative Industries’ by Hilary Collins. It is clearly structured in colour coded sections and covers everything from useful methods of thinking for deciding on a research topic, different means and approaches of research, and then how to analyse data and results in order to relate back to your initial question(s).
Another book of interest, I’ve become slightly engrossed in this week is that of ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ by W Chan Kim & Renee Mauborgne which uses a very helpful metaphor in order to highlight the differences between attempting to compete within an already saturated business market (within the bloody ‘cut-throat’ red ocean) and generating new business strategy that attracts a new ‘uncontested’ customer base (thus opening up ‘blue ocean space’).
It cites many identifiable examples of this, one being that of Cirque Du Soleil who transformed the circus industry in the 80s by turning their attention away from competing with leading circus companies, who at that time targeted their shows at the traditional family audience market, and instead created work that incorporated more sophisticated theatre arts & scenography, as well as coherent choreography and themes, whilst eliminating expensive gimmicks such as the use of animals, thus successfully bringing in the ‘higher end’ market of customers who would normally attend more conventional theatre venues.
The other key piece of learning this week within my Management Imperative module was the introduction to the Global PESTEL concept which looks at the wider external factors that may affect profits/loss etc of business and brand innovation in the present and near future. It is known that many companies are guilty of ignoring this ‘bigger picture’ which can have the devastating consequences of either unknowingly increasing their risk of failure or making themselves oblivious to potential ‘jackpot’ business opportunities.
Politics
Economics
Social Culture
Technology
Environmental/Ethical
Legal Frameworks
Our task from this was to create a group presentation on a PESTAL analysis of a creative industry of our choice within a country of our choice.
We chose to focus on the fashion business within the UK, with our main argument centred around the idea that the fashion industry in this country at the moment cannot be considered stable. Due to the aims of the new coalition government (which in itself could be seen as unstable in terms of having two sets of differing political policies coming into conflict) to clear the extensive deficit caused by the recent economic recession and over-spending by the previous labour government, this has caused a rise in taxes & VAT, reduction in government funding and job losses, with the overall repercussions of this being that the majority of the population now has less disposable income, something which ‘non-necessity’ industries such as fashion and retail depends upon.
So that pretty much concludes the key points of learning from week 1.....ok, maybe I had more words in me than I thought.
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