Photography by Gareth Buddo
Around a month ago, The Creative Condition got involved in a week-long business development course at a York university.
Over the five days which the Acorns course ran, each of us took part in workshops and discussions, led by eminent entrepreneurs and covering aspects of business management, from legal issues to accounting and from marketing to networking.
Dom, our Marketing and PR Manager, believes the course has been useful in guiding our own plans for the future: “Over the course of the week, you have professionals who have made a success of themselves and shown entrepreneural flair. I think we came out of it with a stronger structure, feeling a bit more together and more positive about everything.”
Already, the relationships nurtured between the entreprenuers who attended this particular week of Acorns sessions are leading to business collaborations; already, Mike shall be working alongside Jo Blackburn of Sona Creative Marketing – who joined us on the week-long course – to develop a promotional strategy for a translation service.
“There’s a lot of opportunity there,” Dom acknowledges of the potential to work with our fellow Acorns alumni; “It’s bearing some fruit, and I think it’s come from all us hopefully making a good impression on people.”
All of us will be catching up with the progress of the other attendees next week, and Dom looks forward to seeing how everyone’s entreprenueral path has panned out in the meantime. “I feel people may not have taken over the world quite yet, but they’ll have made starts,” he admits. “The person you walk into an Acorns course is different to the person you walk out as: a much more level approach to working in business.”
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The Acorns course coincides with a busy period for us at The Creative Condition. We already know what Mike’s been up to, but what about Dom?
“I’m doing a lot of blog work now, which is something I’m interested in pursuing,” he says. “I’m going to be doing some blogs for an international web analytics service – I’ll be taking that role on fairly soon.”
Dom is also employing his skills in “building content” to other areas, including developing new working links through existing customers. On the back of his work covering news and events related to The Phoenix Centre, Dom is now working on a personal basis with Yorkshire-based artists.
“It’s a nice challenge for me,” he reflects on this particular venture; “It’s always enjoyable to work one-to-one with people.”
Dom is also continuing to share his everyday craft with school students, an element of his work he is highly passionate about. “I’ve being doing more work in schools; I love that, using journalism as a skill through workshops. It’s been a lot of fun to do.”