Today I received an email suggesting that lecturers at the University weren't happy with the way we had taken the theme for the degree show and wanted us to follow the other group's theme. This was very worrying and caused a lot of panic as many people had already started projects for it.
In the morning, we discussed this with the lecturers and they seemed to know nothing about this. It seemed that there was either some confusion or a breakdown in communication with the staff. Either way, we were given the go-ahead to continue our projects so nothing has actually changed which is a big relief.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
My First Stop Motion
Today myself, Sally and Allister started putting together everything on a project we were doing, Making Time, a stop motion animation. None of us had made a stop motion animation before. Even though it is approaching the end of the year, it is still important to learn as many new skills as I can so I find this project especially exciting. We were learning about many things such as skeletons, animation styles. lighting, camera, sound and stage making. We designed a stage and had it made for us in the woodwork department. I always enjoy using the other departments to further digital projects. We have come across all sorts of new problems and new solutions as you would expect when somebody is working in a new medium. We have also learnt some new software, iStopMotion, which is basic but it is useful to learn as many different types of software as possible.
Act Meeting
Today we had another act meeting. We had all gone away thinking of specific ideas for what each of us could do and then today came back to discuss them further. We talked about different works people were making, how we could merge them together better, how to setup the room and what equipment we would need. My part of the project is to oversee the firework display that we will be making. I will be overseeing it and making most of the fireworks, while organising how other people's similar work can fit into it and including other people's fireworks.
We arranged to meet up once a week to continue seeing other people's progress and making sure that we all work together rather than seperately.
We arranged to meet up once a week to continue seeing other people's progress and making sure that we all work together rather than seperately.
Improving Website Traffic Seminar.
Today there was a short seminar on how to increase traffic to personal websites. It was very short but had some useful points to remember.
The main way to get a lot of traffic is to have a website with a clear purpose in the first place. Use the 'rule of three' (3 personal strengths, 3 methods of advertising, 3 mediums of advertising) to establish this.
It is also incredibly important to make sure that your website appears high in search rankings. To do this, its important to ensure that the keywords are accurate on the web page's META tags. It's best to find a niche market and use words that represent that for the META tags.
Finally, it helps to have other websites linking to your website. This is one of the criteria Google uses to determine rankings and it will help a lot if people are actually using those links to find your site.
Personally, I must make sure that I think through the purpose of my personal website clearly, find a niche to appeal to and make sure my website is promoted through other websites. I could do this by putting my URL wherever I can (facebook, myspace, forums, anything with a profile opportunity).
The main way to get a lot of traffic is to have a website with a clear purpose in the first place. Use the 'rule of three' (3 personal strengths, 3 methods of advertising, 3 mediums of advertising) to establish this.
It is also incredibly important to make sure that your website appears high in search rankings. To do this, its important to ensure that the keywords are accurate on the web page's META tags. It's best to find a niche market and use words that represent that for the META tags.
Finally, it helps to have other websites linking to your website. This is one of the criteria Google uses to determine rankings and it will help a lot if people are actually using those links to find your site.
Personally, I must make sure that I think through the purpose of my personal website clearly, find a niche to appeal to and make sure my website is promoted through other websites. I could do this by putting my URL wherever I can (facebook, myspace, forums, anything with a profile opportunity).
Sunday, 27 April 2008
What was the Brief?
Introduction
I have chosen to investigate a recent highly popular campaign. It was special because it connected different media to create something that intrigued people and got a lot of people talking. I am looking at Lost's season 2 advertising campaign.
The nature of the television show Lost is one of cliffhangers, hidden themes and withheld information. This causes it to be addictive because people are always wanting to find out more about the show's themes and narrative. Knowing this, the creators of the series decided to do something new and interesting, give them the option to do this, but not by using the actual television show.
Background of Lost
The show is the result of collaboration between ABC Studio's Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber. The concept of the show itself is a mix of ideas taken from both book, television and video games. The main influences were from the book Lord of the Flies, the television show Survivor and the video game Myst. It became one of the most expensive television shows to create, causing one of the executives at ABC Studios to be fired because of the risk.
Who commissioned the campaign?
ABC Studios commissioned this work to promote their shows above other television network's shows.
The Hanso Foundation Campaign
The series has never shied away from having a big budget and this side-campaign for the show stayed true to this. It started by showing adverts on television. The first one advertised a rather vague foundation's website to go to. Strangely, there was not even a hint that it was to do with the television program Lost. Even if you were inclined enough to visit it online, the actual website at first glance didn't seem to tie in to the television program. This I find is a rather strange tactic. To advertise a foundation in the hope that some people will be curious enough to visit their website and then explore it enough to realise that it is a television-show tie in seems quite risky. However, people did do this and were very excited that they had found something out to do with the television show that they immediately started telling everybody who was interested in the show. This created quite a buzz because suddenly everybody was on the fake foundation's websites looking for clues about the show.
Soon to follow was another television advert with a phone number to the foundation. This provided another medium for fans of the show to get information.
The site and campaign was constantly updated, adding new sections, new puzzles, new characters and themes, keeping the Lost fan base alert for new information that could emerge any time. This kept the campaign held in people's discussion for a long time.
The Campaign - Television Adverts
The Television adverts were very short, vague but had powerful themes throughout. For example, in this advert, powerful images move around the screen. These show the ideas of science, architecture, genetics, space travel and religion. However, it also very briefly zooms in on a sinister looking man, overlooking the world. It would be easy to not notice this as it is not very clear and the images are much brighter and attention-grabbing than the dark figure. However, it is a very unsettling image and certain people would feel compelled to look into this organisation a little.
The Campaign - First Website
This was the website that existed before the television campaign began. It was very dull with no extra information for people to discover. I imagine that this was not to draw attention to it. The Hanso Foundation logo appeared a few times on things during the first season of Lost so it is obvious that this website had been planned from the start of the series.
The Campaign - Second Website
This was the second version of the website, relaunched to coincide with the television campaign prompting visitors to go there. This was the main website for the campaign. It used web technologies such as flash, video and streaming audio to create a game for its visitors. On first glance it's just a regular fancy website for a company that has lots of money to make one with. However, when exploring it you can find secret links to new pages, pages that require puzzles to be solved and passworded pages with passwords that can be worked out from watching the show. It is highly unusual to have such a big scale show reveal clues about an Internet game. This website has its own themes such as the projects that the foundation does, the people and also its opposition. The page is frequently attacked by a fictional hacker revealing a different perspective to the website and questioning the foundation's motives. This adds a whole new depth to the user's experience as it puts them somewhere between the foundation and the hacker, searching for information.
The Campaign - Current Website (27/04/08)
The current website seems to show the end of the Internet side of the campaign with a final page displaying an ending letter by the foundation's leader. However, even within this, there is a secret word you can click to display a haunting, unsettling video loop. This suggests that this isn't the end because even with this apparent 'conclusion' to the campaign, there are secrets within it.
What was the Brief?
What is the problem to be solved?
The campaign was needed to promote a new incredibly expensive television series that was a very high-risk project. The television show was hoping to be a cult-hit with a variety of themes including religion, mysticism, horror, science and philosophy. The campaign needed to tie into these themes and create more excitement about the show.
What is the solution going to be?
The solution would be to use a mixture of advertising techniques to draw more attention from the audience building up the shows reputation. This would then advertise the show further by word of mouth.
How will the solution be implemented?
The solution would have a main focal point, a website. The website would tie in with some of the show's themes.
The website would make the user want to find out more information.
The website should hold the user's interest through the duration of the television show which was to be screened at the same time as the website was active.
Who is the target audience?
The target audience is existing fans of the show. They have to be existing fans of the show or they will not understand the references to it on the website. Indirectly, this will cause a lot of discussion interesting new potential viewers and causing further excitement for the existing fans. The existing fans are interested in themes like science, philosophy, religion and technology so it is likely that they will be aged between 14-60 and mostly computer literate.
Over what time scale is the campaign going to be active?
The web campaign should keep users interested whilst the show is being aired on television. To do this, new parts of the campaign should be added over the time scale. This could be done by getting user's to use information from the television show to unlock new parts of the website. To add further interest, the website should have a fictional hacker that strikes occasionally giving the user a different perspective.
Where will the campaign be located?
The campaign will stretch across several areas. These include television shows, television advertisements, call centers and on the Internet.
How will the campaign be executed?
There will need to be communication with the show's scriptwriters to create a fictional foundation and storyline for the website to follow.
There will need to be discussion with set managers so that hints for the website are shown on the television show.
Call centers need to be set up worldwide to allow people to phone the fictional Hanso foundation.
There will need to be a script of when and how the website will update.
Conclusion
This campaign was interesting because it used a tactic that is very rarely used. Sure, interactive tie-in websites aren't all that uncommon but the way that this one is executed is very unexpected. A 'secret' advertisement campaign? In theory it should completely fail but because the creator's new the audience on such a personal level, it completely worked. I think that it's important to learn from this campaign that it's ok to break the rules of advertising and to go with what you feel will work for the product.
I have chosen to investigate a recent highly popular campaign. It was special because it connected different media to create something that intrigued people and got a lot of people talking. I am looking at Lost's season 2 advertising campaign.
The nature of the television show Lost is one of cliffhangers, hidden themes and withheld information. This causes it to be addictive because people are always wanting to find out more about the show's themes and narrative. Knowing this, the creators of the series decided to do something new and interesting, give them the option to do this, but not by using the actual television show.
Background of Lost
The show is the result of collaboration between ABC Studio's Damon Lindelof, J. J. Abrams and Jeffrey Lieber. The concept of the show itself is a mix of ideas taken from both book, television and video games. The main influences were from the book Lord of the Flies, the television show Survivor and the video game Myst. It became one of the most expensive television shows to create, causing one of the executives at ABC Studios to be fired because of the risk.
Who commissioned the campaign?
ABC Studios commissioned this work to promote their shows above other television network's shows.
The Hanso Foundation Campaign
The series has never shied away from having a big budget and this side-campaign for the show stayed true to this. It started by showing adverts on television. The first one advertised a rather vague foundation's website to go to. Strangely, there was not even a hint that it was to do with the television program Lost. Even if you were inclined enough to visit it online, the actual website at first glance didn't seem to tie in to the television program. This I find is a rather strange tactic. To advertise a foundation in the hope that some people will be curious enough to visit their website and then explore it enough to realise that it is a television-show tie in seems quite risky. However, people did do this and were very excited that they had found something out to do with the television show that they immediately started telling everybody who was interested in the show. This created quite a buzz because suddenly everybody was on the fake foundation's websites looking for clues about the show.
Soon to follow was another television advert with a phone number to the foundation. This provided another medium for fans of the show to get information.
The site and campaign was constantly updated, adding new sections, new puzzles, new characters and themes, keeping the Lost fan base alert for new information that could emerge any time. This kept the campaign held in people's discussion for a long time.
The Campaign - Television Adverts
The Television adverts were very short, vague but had powerful themes throughout. For example, in this advert, powerful images move around the screen. These show the ideas of science, architecture, genetics, space travel and religion. However, it also very briefly zooms in on a sinister looking man, overlooking the world. It would be easy to not notice this as it is not very clear and the images are much brighter and attention-grabbing than the dark figure. However, it is a very unsettling image and certain people would feel compelled to look into this organisation a little.
The Campaign - First Website
This was the website that existed before the television campaign began. It was very dull with no extra information for people to discover. I imagine that this was not to draw attention to it. The Hanso Foundation logo appeared a few times on things during the first season of Lost so it is obvious that this website had been planned from the start of the series.
The Campaign - Second Website
This was the second version of the website, relaunched to coincide with the television campaign prompting visitors to go there. This was the main website for the campaign. It used web technologies such as flash, video and streaming audio to create a game for its visitors. On first glance it's just a regular fancy website for a company that has lots of money to make one with. However, when exploring it you can find secret links to new pages, pages that require puzzles to be solved and passworded pages with passwords that can be worked out from watching the show. It is highly unusual to have such a big scale show reveal clues about an Internet game. This website has its own themes such as the projects that the foundation does, the people and also its opposition. The page is frequently attacked by a fictional hacker revealing a different perspective to the website and questioning the foundation's motives. This adds a whole new depth to the user's experience as it puts them somewhere between the foundation and the hacker, searching for information.
The Campaign - Current Website (27/04/08)
The current website seems to show the end of the Internet side of the campaign with a final page displaying an ending letter by the foundation's leader. However, even within this, there is a secret word you can click to display a haunting, unsettling video loop. This suggests that this isn't the end because even with this apparent 'conclusion' to the campaign, there are secrets within it.
What was the Brief?
What is the problem to be solved?
The campaign was needed to promote a new incredibly expensive television series that was a very high-risk project. The television show was hoping to be a cult-hit with a variety of themes including religion, mysticism, horror, science and philosophy. The campaign needed to tie into these themes and create more excitement about the show.
What is the solution going to be?
The solution would be to use a mixture of advertising techniques to draw more attention from the audience building up the shows reputation. This would then advertise the show further by word of mouth.
How will the solution be implemented?
The solution would have a main focal point, a website. The website would tie in with some of the show's themes.
The website would make the user want to find out more information.
The website should hold the user's interest through the duration of the television show which was to be screened at the same time as the website was active.
Who is the target audience?
The target audience is existing fans of the show. They have to be existing fans of the show or they will not understand the references to it on the website. Indirectly, this will cause a lot of discussion interesting new potential viewers and causing further excitement for the existing fans. The existing fans are interested in themes like science, philosophy, religion and technology so it is likely that they will be aged between 14-60 and mostly computer literate.
Over what time scale is the campaign going to be active?
The web campaign should keep users interested whilst the show is being aired on television. To do this, new parts of the campaign should be added over the time scale. This could be done by getting user's to use information from the television show to unlock new parts of the website. To add further interest, the website should have a fictional hacker that strikes occasionally giving the user a different perspective.
Where will the campaign be located?
The campaign will stretch across several areas. These include television shows, television advertisements, call centers and on the Internet.
How will the campaign be executed?
There will need to be communication with the show's scriptwriters to create a fictional foundation and storyline for the website to follow.
There will need to be discussion with set managers so that hints for the website are shown on the television show.
Call centers need to be set up worldwide to allow people to phone the fictional Hanso foundation.
There will need to be a script of when and how the website will update.
Conclusion
This campaign was interesting because it used a tactic that is very rarely used. Sure, interactive tie-in websites aren't all that uncommon but the way that this one is executed is very unexpected. A 'secret' advertisement campaign? In theory it should completely fail but because the creator's new the audience on such a personal level, it completely worked. I think that it's important to learn from this campaign that it's ok to break the rules of advertising and to go with what you feel will work for the product.
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Portfolio Surgery
Today was the portfolio surgery. Unfortunately, there were no video game developers invited. Because of this, I decided to chose a surgery with Plum Digital Media. I am familiar with them because I went on a work experience interview with them and it was the sort of small company that I would like to work in. There was the choice to attend two surgeries but as no companies were majorly tailored to what I wanted to do, I felt I should just go to one to get some general advice on improving my portfolio and use the other time constructively on work.
The surgery was with Gary Hinton, the director. I came in wanting to know the best way of presenting myself as a creative person with original ideas with an interest in developing interesting styles. I feel that this is important in the games industry.
I presented my work to him straight from my pen drive. I chose not to develop a fancy interface for this because I wanted the focus to be on which work I should have in my portfolio to give the impression that I want rather than my ability to create a nice interface.
I asked him whether his small company did any games design. He told me that sometimes they get work to create publicity games on micro-sites. I found this surprising because the company was such a small size that I wouldn't expect them to be able to deal with that. I also asked him if my work gave the right impression. He said it did as it showed that I had quite personal ideas. He did suggest that I need to show my work-process a lot more. I showed him one project blog and he said that blogs are often seen as a little geeky and not as easy to use as flicking through a sketchbook. I agree with this. He put a lot of emphasis on people showing how they work and how they get their ideas. He feels that it is more important to see the thought process and the ablity to lay down clear ideas as they can be explained to clients easier.
From my personal portfolio presentation, I came away feeling that the work I have in it gives the right impression but that I need to supply more sketchbooks to explain the thought process.
I also watched one other person's presentation. His interest lied in graphic design and animation so it was a little different to what I was interested in. However it was still interesting. Because he wanted to be a graphic designer, his work was criticised more than mine. This makes sense because graphic design is about giving the right impression and feel. He also did not have much supporting work and was told that he should bring some more.
When concluding the interview, Gary started to discuss ways of getting noticed. He suggests developing something interesting and mailshotting it to employers and other people to draw attention to yourself. He also suggested finding a way to draw attention to myself at the degree show this year, even if it is by doing something like playing loud music. I think that playing loud music would show a disrespect to the other peoples space and work but it is definitely a good idea to find some way of draw attention to my own area.
In all, the session was really useful. It made me feel more confident about showing my work and gave me lots of ideas on how to improve my portfolio presentation.
The surgery was with Gary Hinton, the director. I came in wanting to know the best way of presenting myself as a creative person with original ideas with an interest in developing interesting styles. I feel that this is important in the games industry.
I presented my work to him straight from my pen drive. I chose not to develop a fancy interface for this because I wanted the focus to be on which work I should have in my portfolio to give the impression that I want rather than my ability to create a nice interface.
I asked him whether his small company did any games design. He told me that sometimes they get work to create publicity games on micro-sites. I found this surprising because the company was such a small size that I wouldn't expect them to be able to deal with that. I also asked him if my work gave the right impression. He said it did as it showed that I had quite personal ideas. He did suggest that I need to show my work-process a lot more. I showed him one project blog and he said that blogs are often seen as a little geeky and not as easy to use as flicking through a sketchbook. I agree with this. He put a lot of emphasis on people showing how they work and how they get their ideas. He feels that it is more important to see the thought process and the ablity to lay down clear ideas as they can be explained to clients easier.
From my personal portfolio presentation, I came away feeling that the work I have in it gives the right impression but that I need to supply more sketchbooks to explain the thought process.
I also watched one other person's presentation. His interest lied in graphic design and animation so it was a little different to what I was interested in. However it was still interesting. Because he wanted to be a graphic designer, his work was criticised more than mine. This makes sense because graphic design is about giving the right impression and feel. He also did not have much supporting work and was told that he should bring some more.
When concluding the interview, Gary started to discuss ways of getting noticed. He suggests developing something interesting and mailshotting it to employers and other people to draw attention to yourself. He also suggested finding a way to draw attention to myself at the degree show this year, even if it is by doing something like playing loud music. I think that playing loud music would show a disrespect to the other peoples space and work but it is definitely a good idea to find some way of draw attention to my own area.
In all, the session was really useful. It made me feel more confident about showing my work and gave me lots of ideas on how to improve my portfolio presentation.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Personal Skills - Japanese
When I started the course, I wanted to have a skill that would set me apart from other designers. I decided that learning a business language would be a good idea. I decided to take up a Japanese course. Throughout the course, visitors have spoken about their Japanese clients and how they have trouble talking to them as it takes a lot of time to translate. After a little research I discovered that Japan is recently emerging in terms of design. For a country that makes heavy use of interactivity and screens, a lot of what they produce has poor graphical design. I feel that by learning the language I would be able to open both myself and employers up to a large mostly-untapped market.
I have now been studying Japanese part time for almost 3 years and this June I will be taking GCSE exams in it.
London Trip
I had not been to London since I started the course so I was excited to go back and visit the museums with a new perspective.
First we went to the Design Museum. I found this really interesting as it had all kinds of areas of design which is similar to the Sion Hill campus but on a higher level. There was a lot of interesting work on architecture of the future. I found this really inspiring because there was such a high level of detail from things like where the actual building would go and how exactly the space would be used. There was also some work on fashion and furniture. I really like the furniture and lighting ideas. I liked the work at the museum but I was disappointed that they hadn't even considered having a digital design section.
In the afternoon we went to the Tate. I was surprised how big it was. It really had every kind of work there. I found something inspiring on every floor ranging from sculpture and paintings to creatively-shot video and sound installations.
We finished the trip with a visit to Harrods to explore how London's most prestigious department store presents itself. I found it to be a little tacky. The Egyptian style elevator was a very random installation and had no reason to be there. We also looked at some of the packaging and how the space in the shop was used. It was very easy to get lost in there. I personally found Harrods to be have a cheap and tacky appearance which wasn't well suited to the products they were trying to sell.
I really enjoyed going back to London with a more developed artistic perspective and it is definitely worth it to keep going back there to see new exhibits.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Conclusion
The seminars today were very useful. I came not having much knowledge on business and left feeling I understood quite a bit about lots of aspects of them. From deciding what I want my business to be, how not to run it and how to make it appeal to the bank manager. It also sparked conversation with Sally and Allister (who I work with on many projects) about the possibility of starting a partnership. I was surprised on how much emphasis was put on personal attachment to the business and its values.
The things that I will remember from the seminars are the importance of satisfied customers and the best way to accumulate more is through word of mouth and networking.
The things that I will remember from the seminars are the importance of satisfied customers and the best way to accumulate more is through word of mouth and networking.
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Ami Baker
The final lecture of the day was about the actual process of setting up a business with the bank. It was good to end the day on a positive note by giving everyone confidence on how to begin the process.
I learnt that there are 3 relevant types of business I can set up; Sole Traders, Partnerships and Limited Companies, all with big differences.
Soletrader: All aspects of the business are owned by you, including debts incurred. This sounds like a bad idea for a first business because it is one that has a high chance of failure and can leave you with a huge amount of debt. It doesn't appeal to me.
Limited Companies: These are similar to soletraders but are easy to set up, end, manage but are difficult to share and pass on. The main advantage of this type of the limited liability. I feel this might be a good idea if I chose to set up a small business but I would want a lot of experience in the workplace first.
Partnerships: This is probably the option that appeals to me the most. It allows other people into the business and gives joint responsibility over profits and debts incurred. A big benefit of this type of business is the ability for everyone to fundraise together to start the business off and you can also have a bigger business as you'll be drawing on different peoples skillsets and abilities. The main problem with this type of company is that a lot of personal problems can arise between staff such as different attitudes towards decisions and people wanting to leave the partnership. I think for this reason it is important to be sure of you form a partnership with and ensure that they have the same long term goals.
We also talked about the different types of funding a business and how to impress a bank. I think that its more important to consider this at the time of forming a business as it is difficult to know an accurate financial fore cast of where I will be in a few years time.
I learnt that there are 3 relevant types of business I can set up; Sole Traders, Partnerships and Limited Companies, all with big differences.
Soletrader: All aspects of the business are owned by you, including debts incurred. This sounds like a bad idea for a first business because it is one that has a high chance of failure and can leave you with a huge amount of debt. It doesn't appeal to me.
Limited Companies: These are similar to soletraders but are easy to set up, end, manage but are difficult to share and pass on. The main advantage of this type of the limited liability. I feel this might be a good idea if I chose to set up a small business but I would want a lot of experience in the workplace first.
Partnerships: This is probably the option that appeals to me the most. It allows other people into the business and gives joint responsibility over profits and debts incurred. A big benefit of this type of business is the ability for everyone to fundraise together to start the business off and you can also have a bigger business as you'll be drawing on different peoples skillsets and abilities. The main problem with this type of company is that a lot of personal problems can arise between staff such as different attitudes towards decisions and people wanting to leave the partnership. I think for this reason it is important to be sure of you form a partnership with and ensure that they have the same long term goals.
We also talked about the different types of funding a business and how to impress a bank. I think that its more important to consider this at the time of forming a business as it is difficult to know an accurate financial fore cast of where I will be in a few years time.
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Introduction
I had enlisted into a day-long workshop on how to launch your own business. It was incredibly useful. I went wanting to learn more about possibilities of what I could do with my degree, freelancing and how to start a business in general. It covered all 3.
The first session of the day was 'structuring a business plan and identifying your market' with Siobain Hone.
We started by thinking about what we wanted our business to do in one line. This may sound simple but coming up with 1 condensed line of what in particular I want the business to be was quite challenging. I decided that "I want to handle and manage any multimedia work using other freelancers for fields that I am inexperienced in".
Next we discussed what we felt a perfect customer would be like. This was important because defining your perfect customer helps shape what kind of company it is and how you want to market it. I decided that a perfect customer for me would be one that "has a clear objective but who is still open to new ideas".
We discussed other qualities in a customer that would be useful including "willing to go with the contract", "has a good budget", "is informed about what is wanted by the company" and who is "trusting of my expertise".
Next, after establishing how to define a business, we talked about finding the perfect market. This consists of tapping into an area of the market that is going to attract the kind of customers that I want. The most important way of doing this was by networking with other people in the trade that are likely to come across such customers. I feel this could be one of my weaknesses and that it is definitely a good idea to keep ahold of the contacts I have accumulated and to always be ready to make more.
Another major way of getting into the market is by word of mouth. Because of this, I feel it is important to do work to an incredibly high standard and make sure that the first few customers I have are very impressed by me. Other ways of finding the right customers are by talking to businesses, doing surveys, going through trade magazines, self-promotion and exhibitions.
I feel that for me, the right way of getting into the market of customers that I want would be through working at a very high standard and using word of mouth and networking to accumulate clients and a great reputation. I think it's also important for me to attend exhibitions both displaying my work and looking at others to keep in touch with similar designers in the market.
In the next part of the session, we discussed business plans. We discussed what they were in definition and what they needed to be personally. I had never given this much thought before.
We decided that an initial business plan was a "plan for getting an idea into reality". I felt that this was a little vague myself. We then went into more detail and discussed how a business plan should have various milestones of success in and goals. I felt that this was more the essence of a business plan and that a business plan should be used to set and plan financial goals as well as others.
Finally, we learnt out how to produce a business plan suitable for taking to the bank. This consists of having a clear executive summary and unique selling point followed by information about the market and financial details. We were also given a list of various resources for help creating a personal one. This was very useful.
In all, this session was incredibly useful and interesting. I learnt a lot about how to efficiently setup a business and find a market and if I was to do this, I would now feel confident.
The first session of the day was 'structuring a business plan and identifying your market' with Siobain Hone.
We started by thinking about what we wanted our business to do in one line. This may sound simple but coming up with 1 condensed line of what in particular I want the business to be was quite challenging. I decided that "I want to handle and manage any multimedia work using other freelancers for fields that I am inexperienced in".
Next we discussed what we felt a perfect customer would be like. This was important because defining your perfect customer helps shape what kind of company it is and how you want to market it. I decided that a perfect customer for me would be one that "has a clear objective but who is still open to new ideas".
We discussed other qualities in a customer that would be useful including "willing to go with the contract", "has a good budget", "is informed about what is wanted by the company" and who is "trusting of my expertise".
Next, after establishing how to define a business, we talked about finding the perfect market. This consists of tapping into an area of the market that is going to attract the kind of customers that I want. The most important way of doing this was by networking with other people in the trade that are likely to come across such customers. I feel this could be one of my weaknesses and that it is definitely a good idea to keep ahold of the contacts I have accumulated and to always be ready to make more.
Another major way of getting into the market is by word of mouth. Because of this, I feel it is important to do work to an incredibly high standard and make sure that the first few customers I have are very impressed by me. Other ways of finding the right customers are by talking to businesses, doing surveys, going through trade magazines, self-promotion and exhibitions.
I feel that for me, the right way of getting into the market of customers that I want would be through working at a very high standard and using word of mouth and networking to accumulate clients and a great reputation. I think it's also important for me to attend exhibitions both displaying my work and looking at others to keep in touch with similar designers in the market.
In the next part of the session, we discussed business plans. We discussed what they were in definition and what they needed to be personally. I had never given this much thought before.
We decided that an initial business plan was a "plan for getting an idea into reality". I felt that this was a little vague myself. We then went into more detail and discussed how a business plan should have various milestones of success in and goals. I felt that this was more the essence of a business plan and that a business plan should be used to set and plan financial goals as well as others.
Finally, we learnt out how to produce a business plan suitable for taking to the bank. This consists of having a clear executive summary and unique selling point followed by information about the market and financial details. We were also given a list of various resources for help creating a personal one. This was very useful.
In all, this session was incredibly useful and interesting. I learnt a lot about how to efficiently setup a business and find a market and if I was to do this, I would now feel confident.
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Marc Braddock
The following lecturer was the least successful and most questionable of the workshop's guests. The lecture was entitled "Eyes wide open" and was about the dangers of dealing in business. It was interesting because it was delivered with a view that business is very difficult and you need to be aware of everything that could go wrong which was a different approach to the others. He pointed out that you always need to be aware of the following:
Financial risks - Spending money on anything is a gamble and may not always get you more money than you've spent.
Competition - Other competition in the area needs to be taken seriously and you need to aim to attract their customers to gain a high percentage of sales in the market.
Target audience - It's important to know who you are selling to and if that might change.
Business opportunities - Always be on the lookout for business opportunities and consider them very carefully.
Financial changes - If you're not meeting your financial forecast, don't shrug it off.
How well you are doing - Look at how you are operating within the business and ask others how they see you.
What staff are doing - Check that staff are working efficiently.
After giving us this advice, he revealed that he had 2 failed businesses and was returning to work at the University as he needed more money. This was a little worrying after taking on board all of his business advice but I realise that there is a lot to be learnt about where he went wrong and admired him for taking that honest approach. He had a lot of good points about running a business in general. I feel that although the message he was trying to deliver was that you need to be constantly alert and outdoing others in a business, this doesn't always apply to every business model. For example, Sally Reah didn't take this approach and was successful.
Personally, I feel that the important things he said to keep on board were to keep focused on customers and finances as if you have happy customers and a healthy cash flow then there is no reason why the business can't succeed and grow from there.
Another useful thing I got from this was his list of costs that are easily forgotten about such as indemnity, accountancy, travel costs, pension, health care, computers, energy, phone, marketing costs, training and coaching.
One topic he covered, which the others didn't, is why even choose to own a business. The list we generated consisted of
Freedom from making money for employers
Satisfaction of proving you can run a business
Choose your own clients (if successful enough)
Potential to grow the business and earn more
Keep own copyrights
Not having to have a job with no satisfaction
Flexible working hours
Opportunity to get learn more skills.
I feel that not having much experience in the marketplace yet, most of these didn't apply to me. Those which I feel are important are the opportunity to learn new skills and getting job satisfaction.
Finally, he went on to talk about reasons the business might not survive. These included having bad motivations, the inability to tell if the business is being successful, inability to learn from mistakes. I feel that these would not affect me as much as they did him if I was started a business because I would have more of a personal interest in what I'm offering and I also always want to learn and improve.
In all, Marc Braddock didn't hide that he made lots of mistakes and held a grudge against the business world but he raised some very important points that are worth keeping in mind.
Financial risks - Spending money on anything is a gamble and may not always get you more money than you've spent.
Competition - Other competition in the area needs to be taken seriously and you need to aim to attract their customers to gain a high percentage of sales in the market.
Target audience - It's important to know who you are selling to and if that might change.
Business opportunities - Always be on the lookout for business opportunities and consider them very carefully.
Financial changes - If you're not meeting your financial forecast, don't shrug it off.
How well you are doing - Look at how you are operating within the business and ask others how they see you.
What staff are doing - Check that staff are working efficiently.
After giving us this advice, he revealed that he had 2 failed businesses and was returning to work at the University as he needed more money. This was a little worrying after taking on board all of his business advice but I realise that there is a lot to be learnt about where he went wrong and admired him for taking that honest approach. He had a lot of good points about running a business in general. I feel that although the message he was trying to deliver was that you need to be constantly alert and outdoing others in a business, this doesn't always apply to every business model. For example, Sally Reah didn't take this approach and was successful.
Personally, I feel that the important things he said to keep on board were to keep focused on customers and finances as if you have happy customers and a healthy cash flow then there is no reason why the business can't succeed and grow from there.
Another useful thing I got from this was his list of costs that are easily forgotten about such as indemnity, accountancy, travel costs, pension, health care, computers, energy, phone, marketing costs, training and coaching.
One topic he covered, which the others didn't, is why even choose to own a business. The list we generated consisted of
Freedom from making money for employers
Satisfaction of proving you can run a business
Choose your own clients (if successful enough)
Potential to grow the business and earn more
Keep own copyrights
Not having to have a job with no satisfaction
Flexible working hours
Opportunity to get learn more skills.
I feel that not having much experience in the marketplace yet, most of these didn't apply to me. Those which I feel are important are the opportunity to learn new skills and getting job satisfaction.
Finally, he went on to talk about reasons the business might not survive. These included having bad motivations, the inability to tell if the business is being successful, inability to learn from mistakes. I feel that these would not affect me as much as they did him if I was started a business because I would have more of a personal interest in what I'm offering and I also always want to learn and improve.
In all, Marc Braddock didn't hide that he made lots of mistakes and held a grudge against the business world but he raised some very important points that are worth keeping in mind.
Entrepreneurship Seminars - Setting up a Business
The next part of the seminar was delivered by Sally Reah, a woman who finished a Graphic Communication degree to end up designing jewellery.
I found this especially interested as I wanted to learn more about careers indirectly related to my degree. She had a very nontraditional path in becoming a business owner. After University she went travelling which became her source of inspiration for making jewellery. She then had a stall in a market in Ibiza and after that, one in Devon. This is where her business started to take structure.
I felt that she was interesting to me because I also am planning to travel after University and use the experience I gain in my work.
When starting off, she became popular through word of mouth rather than business cards. I thought this might be very difficult as she only had a small-sized stall but it appears word of mouth and looking after your existing customers is the best way to keep a steady base of customers that will accumulate. After a base was accumulated she then started to join local design groups and forums. It was surprising that she waited so late to start networking. Her next step was to setup e-commerce. I feel that she was aware her approach was not very plan-based and tactical. However, she was still successful but it took a long time.
For me, I would prefer a more planned structure approach to make a living but it does go to show that you don't always need to be constantly expanding, as long as you are generating enough money and happy.
She went on to talk about the art community which she is involved in. She stressed that it was very important to stay connected to the culture and developments of your area as its very easy to lose touch and this could make your business unsuccessful.
I found this part of the day interesting as it had a more personal touch to it as opposed to the rather serious side of business that the day would be heavy in. I feel that this was because she was passionate about her jewellery and this showed through her products. In all, the main point I got from this lecture was that it's important to enjoy your work and care about the customer's opinion because this is a very important building block that needs to be in the foundations of a business.
I found this especially interested as I wanted to learn more about careers indirectly related to my degree. She had a very nontraditional path in becoming a business owner. After University she went travelling which became her source of inspiration for making jewellery. She then had a stall in a market in Ibiza and after that, one in Devon. This is where her business started to take structure.
I felt that she was interesting to me because I also am planning to travel after University and use the experience I gain in my work.
When starting off, she became popular through word of mouth rather than business cards. I thought this might be very difficult as she only had a small-sized stall but it appears word of mouth and looking after your existing customers is the best way to keep a steady base of customers that will accumulate. After a base was accumulated she then started to join local design groups and forums. It was surprising that she waited so late to start networking. Her next step was to setup e-commerce. I feel that she was aware her approach was not very plan-based and tactical. However, she was still successful but it took a long time.
For me, I would prefer a more planned structure approach to make a living but it does go to show that you don't always need to be constantly expanding, as long as you are generating enough money and happy.
She went on to talk about the art community which she is involved in. She stressed that it was very important to stay connected to the culture and developments of your area as its very easy to lose touch and this could make your business unsuccessful.
I found this part of the day interesting as it had a more personal touch to it as opposed to the rather serious side of business that the day would be heavy in. I feel that this was because she was passionate about her jewellery and this showed through her products. In all, the main point I got from this lecture was that it's important to enjoy your work and care about the customer's opinion because this is a very important building block that needs to be in the foundations of a business.
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