Category: Organisations

The Creative Business: 12 Modules

The Creative Business is a series of 12 modules of information about developing creative enterprises, written especially for people running businesses in the creative industries. The information is particularly relevant to creative businesses and cultural enterprises in the fields of Advertising, Literature and Publishing, Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Music, Design, Cultural Heritage, and Crafts. Written …

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The Business of Culture

For many people, the words ‘business’ and ‘culture’ don’t sit comfortably side by side. Some people assume that culture has to be non-commercial to be valid, and therefore to apply commercial thinking to cultural endeavour is to pervert it. But even charities and ‘non-for-profit’ organisations in the arts and cultural sector need to be business-like, …

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Creative Business Guide

A useful and readable ‘Creative, Cultural and Digital Industries Guide’ has been published by Business Link West Midlands It is available in hardcopy from Business Link West Midlands and downloadable as a free eBook in PDF format below. This creative business guide was written by David Parrish, author of the book ‘T-Shirts and Suits: A …

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Telling Africa’s Story to the World

Telling Africa’s story from Africans’ point of view is the mission of Africa Media Online, the agency representing African media professionals to the global market. “In the ‘information society’, if we are to create some semblance of global information democracy, it is important that Africans are heard from their perspective,” says Africa Media Online’s David …

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Innovating for the ‘Base of the Pyramid’

TÉLO is the first public telephone especially designed for public transport vehicles. Using a card for payment, millions of people using public transport are already using the phone on buses, trains and underground transport networks. Founded in August 2004, by Paulo Lerner and André Averbug, Brazilian company PV Inova (Public Vehicular Innovations) invented the system …

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The ‘E-Myth’

Michael E Gerber, in his book on the E-Myth (E-Myth Revisited), points out that there is a fundamental difference between knowing a technical skill or trade (eg as a designer, mechanic, chef) and running a business based on that skill (a design agency, a workshop or a restaurant). Many would-be entrepreneurs who break away from …

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The Community Interest Company (CIC)

The Community Interest Company is a legal structure designed for Social Enterprises. Company legislation was never designed for community and voluntary sector organisations whose ethos is ‘not-for-profit’ (or more precisely ‘non-profit-distributing’). Social enterprises, in particular, have no legal structure designed specifically for them and tend to register as a ‘Company Limited by Guarantee without Share …

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