Normal 0 While the recession keeping a fierce grip on the nation, and with many people feeling fearful, or unable, to spend money on High Street goods this holiday season, this economic situation could bring opportunity to transform how we think about our role as consumers, and see some of us turn into creators.
Remember the punk rock DIY culture that emerged out of the 80s recession? Many people looked toward that time of economic hardship, as also being a time of great art with the likes of Vivienne Westwood showing how good fashion design could come from surprising places. What if people struggling in these economic hard times could harness that punk rock type of creative spirit and make something from what they have already, in the form of skills, clothes, film, books, music or just in day-to-day business life? This recession-led holiday season may be about the deconstruction of old consumer ways and the rebirth of a new creator class.
Coming up 28 November is an opportunity to find out how to tap into the power of creativity, and apply it to the consumer world, the workplace and life. The Live to Create workshops, a series of one-day sessions to help people unleash creativity, are hosted by Lucy Wills, who wears many professional hats as a successful vintage jewellery designer, performer, creativity consultant, teacher and climate activist. She’s teamed up with Erica Grigg, of Carbon Outreach, to teach others how to apply creativity, and help people flip from being consumers to creators.
Both women are fellows of the RSA and have hosted workshops at business conferences in the UK and USA. Both are also active in the climate change movement, with Wills performing as a mermaid at many rallies, and being a visual symbol of the activist events. The Live to Create workshops are geared toward professionals in all areas of business, who are seeking new approaches to applying creativity in the workplace and in personal life.
“We have to each become our own brand champions, and to decide for ourselves what we really need. Our current culture encourages us to define ourselves through what we eat, wear, watch and read. Even those in the creative industries suffer, fearful to step outside their areas of expertise or create for themselves as well as for their paying clients,” said Wills, who has worked in corporate environments as well as being a creative entrepreneur. “There are so many barriers in the way - both practical and social, however through our combined experiences and those from whom we have learnt we believe we have a process that enables you to break through - in just one day.”
Professionals who find themselves in a pressure-filled work environment will be given tools in these workshops to help them apply more creativity and problem solving to everyday issues. Exploring how to launch creative projects, without making the mistake of over-spending on budget, will also be addressed.
“We believe that creativity is the key to unlocking a truer sense of self and to bring deeper meaning and richness into all aspects of our lives,” said Wills.
Live to Create is a series of seven sessions, being held now, and into 2010, and has room for 14 participants. Book your space here.
My consultancy Hai Media Group is supporting the Live to Create workshop series, because we feel passionately that people need help to thrive creatively in the business world and in their personal lives.
Creating more, consuming less,
-Lisa
*Photo of Lucy Wills by photographer Retts Wood.
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This year’s She Says Golden Stiletto Awards (the second year for the awards honouring women in digital advertising) brought together top talent in London's digital advertising industry to celebrate female achievements in creativity, and showed that there is growing appeal for the organization, and its mission to showcase female talent in the digital sector.
She Says Golden Stiletto Awards is the only award ceremony of its kind that is for women, and judged by women working in the advertising industry, with judges for this year’s nearly 30 entries including:
Johannah Bailey, Programme Director Global Communications - Unilever
Liz Sivell, Creative Director at R/GA
Ida GronBlom, Senior Creative - Wieden + Kennedy
Toni Smith, Managing Director – The Viral Factory
Elspeth Lynn, Executive Creative Director – Profero
Charlotte Mcelany, Senior Writer – Creative Review
At the awards ceremony, held October 29 at the Getty Gallery who are sponsors of the awards, finalists showed a selection of digital advertising projects that demonstrated how the online medium can offer multiple layers of engagement for all types of demographic audiences. Women-led digital projects included an augmented reality campaign for BMW, an online/offline campaign that got 100 participants dancing for 24 hours in a “music phone dance-off” to promote the Samsung Beat DJ music phone, and a charity campaign for British Red Cross to change your online status, that had zero budget and seven days to plan.
The awards event itself attracted women from all aspects of the digital industry, including animator Sarra Hornby who spends hours working with paper and cotton thread to create animated shorts for commercial use. Although her work was not in the finals, she said that the She Says gathering offered her a powerful networking community to increase her professional career.
It seems cities beyond London are hungry for the same level of woman-to-woman professional interaction, as branches of She Says are now springing up in New York, San Francisco, LA, Vienna Paris, Sydney and Brighton, and more than 1,500 women are members. SheSays was launched in March 2007 by two female Creative Directors (Laura Jordan Bambach from Glue and Alessandra Lariu from Agency Republic at the time) who noticed that there weren't many women in top positions in digital agencies. She Says offers women in the creative and digital industries free networking and mentoring opportunities at monthly events held across the world with the aim getting more women into the industry and to the top of it.
This year’s Golden Stiletto Award winners include:
First place: Modern Foreign Languages
Second place: BMW Z4 airbrush
Third place: The Last Call
Commended: Look beyond the label
See photos from the award ceremony here.
Glad to see women winning,
We all know that the day-in day-out work-a-day world of being in a creative agency is not always filled with euphoric moments of creative epiphany, and that's why nights and weekends should be for seeking out inspiration, sometimes in the form of wild, decadent good old-fashioned 90s-style night clubbing.
If you are pressured to consistently develop creative campaigns, be it digital or traditional, in advertising, marketing, public relations or social media, it is the world around you that is going to give you that jolt of insight for a client. For this I prescribe clubbing. Iggy Pop's song Nightclubbing should be ringing in your head now. Can you hear his lyrics about exploring urban delights until the wee morning hours?
However, your inspiration may come not from dull mega West End night spots, but from the pits of seedy grime in far flung postal codes. I'm thinking about this now, because I went out over the weekend for Halloween, but was a little surprised at the lack of outrageous costumes I found across London, clearly the clubbing generation has changed a lot from my 90s heydays. In fact, most people didn't bother to dress up at all.
I'm told that is because Halloween isn't really big in the UK, and that part (I'm a New Yorker living in London) is one of my cultural learnings here. So, being one of a handful of people who dressed to the nines for Halloween, and felt like more of a spectacle than I expected, I'm encouraging all the young creative people I know at agencies this week to go out clubbing, 90s-style and bring back some inspiration that might apply to a client campaign.
I'm showing my age, as I remember going out clubbing and finding the legendary "club kids" showing off like peacocks like Richie Rich, RuPaul and Amanda Lepore (who some of my friends affectionately nicknamed "Amanda Le Whore".) Back in the 90s club scene, nearly everyone would be out showcasing creativity with outfits, dancing and sometimes outrageous antics. My day job at the time was with a big agency, and unfortunately, a lot of the executives made fun of me for clubbing, as I'd get outted because it was awfully hard to get all the glitter off by Monday morning. Yet, many of those same executives dragged me into numerous brainstorming sessions, when they wanted some creative insight.
Now, mentoring junior creatives, I'm encouraging them to seek out the most creative night club scene they can find and come come back and report in Monday AM meetings. How can you be creative if you aren't living creatively?
Still creativly clubbing now and then,
*Photo of Richie Rich courtesy of Newyorksocialdiary.com
Sing along with Iggy Pop:
Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're what's happening Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're an ice machine We see people brand new people They're something to see When we're nightclubbing Bright-white clubbing Oh isn't it wild? Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We're walking through town Nightclubbing we're nightclubbing We walk like a ghost We learn dances brand new dances Like the nuclear bomb When we're nightclubbing Bright white clubbing Oh isn't it wild...
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Lisa Devaney
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Last login: 16 Nov 2009
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