Westminster Council bought the copyright in the design of its iconic street signs (pictured). This means that it can now generate income fom licensing this intellectual property to businesses. The designs were created by Misha Black in 1967 and the copyright remained with the designer until his death, when it passed to his estate. Black’s …
Tag: copyright
Don’t Co-operate
In contrast to the business strategies of collaboraton or Co-opetition, there is another strategy to consider: ‘Don’t Co-operate’. This is one of the characteristics of the success of Apple Inc., according to Wired Magazine in an article called ‘How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong’. The article shows how Apple breaks several of …
Beware ‘Copyright Grabs’
Photographer Chiz Dakin (Peak Images) asked me to warn other photographers about the problem of ‘copyright grabs’. Chiz is concerned about the trend for businesses, particularly large corporations, to “grab copyright in any image they can get their hands on”, as she puts it. This practice is a hazard for photographers who don’t carefully read …
Paul Arden RIP
Advertising genius Paul Arden died on 02 April 2008. Some of his most influential work was done while he was executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi for 14 years. Paul was responsible for advertising campaigns for clients such as The Independent (“The Independent. It is – are you?”), Toyota (“The car in front is …
Freemium: Give it away free!
Creative entrepreneurs often ask me how they can make money from their music or computer games when MP3 files and software is so easy to copy. One answer is to use the fact that people copy your stuff to change a threat into an opportunity. Banda Calypso’s music is copied onto CDs and sold on …
Let your heart drive you…
A creative passion is often the driving force for creative entrepreneurs. My advice is always to recognise this, in order to understand our own motivations in business. In other words, what ‘makes us tick’. I was asked recently by Putte Svensson from Rockparty in Hultsfred, Sweden, what would be my advice if someone said they …
1,000 True Fans
Instead of dreaming about having millions of fans, nurture one thousand ‘true fans’. That’s the advice for creative individuals from guru Kevin Kelly. He writes: “A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art – needs to acquire only 1,000 …
Selling stories (“We don’t sell beer…”)
The Duvel Cafe in Stockholm is a bar which sells a range of Belgian beers. They are tasty, strong and expensive (compared to England). I was fascinated by the beer glasses as much as the beer itself, so I took a couple of photos. Part of what I was buying and enjoying was the packaging …
Managing Cash Flow and Fixed Costs
One of the biggest challenges for creative businesses, especially fast-growing enterprises, is the management of cash flow. When businesses fail, it’s frequently because of a cash flow crisis rather than lack of profitability. The gap between cash outflows and cash inflows becomes too big and they run out of cash. An unprofitable business will inevitably …
Selling cheese: an error of marketing strategy
An incident in the the BBC TV programme ‘The Apprentice’ provided an excellent example of a marketing error. It also demonstrated how the term ‘marketing’ is often misunderstood and used simply to mean ‘advertising’ or ‘selling’. In fact the marketing process goes much deeper than selling. In one episode, Sir Alan Sugar sent his teams …