Running my first workshop

This module has taken me to some very unexpected places, the freedom I've given myself has allowed that, but if you would have told me at the start of this module that by the end I'd be running a branding workshop to a business that had nothing to do with art, I'd have ran a mile in the opposite direction..

But last night that's exactly what I did..

And this is where creative freedom and not having a plan and gotten me, you see, I've always had a plan, I've always strived towards something, I've always had a business idea up my sleeve, obviously, nothings ever worked out that well.. For the first time in my life it feels that since I started this Masters degree I haven't really had a plan, I've taken the course ethos and rode the waves, moving from one thing to the next, building on something I've done, noticing connections and creating in that way, but this module specifically, the master of plasticine ethos is to have no plan, and it's weird that I'm in this position right now.

Because recently my mind frame has been taken on a ride and done a full 360 flip, and there's a pattern throughout this that I've been able to recognise, and in some sense really does bring this module together.

It started with the thought experiment, where I came up with the idea of the creative laboratories, I consider this the first building blocks to the master of plasticine module/ research project, I had a plan of what I wanted to get form this masters before that module, but it broke me and sent me down a completely different path, which is what the module intended to do. Through play, and creative development that idea then turned into a business proposal, something that I am now working on with another student on the MA, and that has lead me down the route from what I consider maybe some of the most creative thinking I've ever done, to mixing that with this seemingly commercial world of branding and marketing, as an artist it's kind of natural to steer yourself away from this world, but I have always had an interest in this, with the Sculpt Factory project, I began attempting to brand and market myself, and the project as a whole, in the end the project kind of took a different route from the original plan, so the branding wasn't as slick as it was going to be, but I'm not sure it would have been the same project with more of a solid branding.. but that's the artist part of me, experimenting with things like that, and so it should be, as artists we should play with branding and marketing, and not just in a satirical way like i did with the Plastic Baby Co stuff either..

So, I think this way of thinking, this slight change in mentality from turning this creative personal project which is the creative laboratories into a business that I eventually want to earn money off of, has had to incite a change in my thinking, more along these branding routes, which at the start scared me, oh no, I'm, becoming a commercial slave, but that very way of thinking is within itself, I've realised, completely un-creative in it's nature. I believe branding and marketing does have a place in art, and hopefully the creative labs will prove that you can mix branding and creativity with art and business to create something that coexists as both a business and an art project in one, it's metamodern, beyond art.

And that's what's exciting to me.

It's this way of thinking, this development that made me spend my monthly audible credit on a book called 'building a story brand' by Donald Miller, I hoped to find new insights into branding for the creative labs, and what I found was a connection to screenwriting, the whole premise of this book is taking story telling techniques that I have been using in screen writing for years and adapting them into your branding, it made so much sense to me to look at things this way, and this slight change of perspective has suddenly made branding a creative practice for me. I know how to tell a story, I've been doing it since I was ten years old, I've learned about the rules, the structures, and I've learned how to break them in the right places too, this audiobook spoke to me and confirmed that by creating the narrative around the creative labs in the right way, and infusing that with the creative idea's weve been implementing, that this really could be something cool and interesting..

..but then.

I was going through these motions, being the master of plasticine in my pretty wild home-made module and then this massive spanner comes flying through the air and wacked me on the side of the head.

That spanner came in the form of a job opportunity. This job opening is to join a marketing team as a journalist, is the job title, but I think it will mostly involve video journalism, and a bit of copywriting and a bit of branding and marketing. The position is part time, so I'd be able to carry on with my MA for the next year, it will be busy, but there might be opportunity to even gain more time from this, weirdly.

I won't bore with the details of the job itself, but it's something that at first thought, I thought maybe I wasn't qualified for this job, it's a marketing team position, I've got qualifications in film and sculpture. But on further thought, and reminding myself of the storybrand ideas, I really think this could be a great job role for me..

But, this is not the kind of job I can apply for with some of my recent work I don't think.. I mean what would I show them.. ? My alter ego Dai Jones having a tantrum at the sculpt factory? I don't think that would fly..

So I've been spending a bit of time dong things to build up a portfolio that's specific to this job, and I've felt guilty that I'm not putting as much time into my degree, but really this is like a result of this module in many ways, the development, the thinking that I've gone through during this module has lead me to applying for this job, and I think it should be celebrated as part of this module, whether I get the job or not, putting together this portfolio is a triumph in creative thinking, which is what this module is based on, through this process I have discovered a brand new outlet to put my creativity to the test.

Building my new portfolio specific to this job role has involved me filming a bike race organised by my parents, and when working on that I noticed that their branding isn't that great (sorry mum) so I thought it would be of benefit to both them and myself to write a story brand workshop based on the book, but adding in my own ideas and techniques that I've picked up from my screenwriting background too, and this is what I did last night, I went up to my parents house and ran an hour long workshop, my mum burst out in laughter two minutes into the workshop at the idea of me running a workshop in a serious manner, but she eventually got used to the idea.

All in all I think the workshop went well, I noticed about half way through that I was doing this stupid little nervous cough thing in between sentences, I gotta get rid of that. I did prepare a brainstorming template specific to my parents business that I wanted to go through with them during the workshop, but I couldn't remember what website I used to create it on... I'll put that down to preparation, I mean, I did prepare it, I just didn't get it prepared for the actual workshop, I think a good fix for this would be to use a power point and have these things linked from that, not giving me the opportunity to loose things I've created, and trying to remember what I'd prepared before hand.. and relating to that perfectly is the powerpoint presentation, I didn't have a presentation, I've seen too many ted talks, I didn't think I needed one, I had a few things come up on screen, but it wasn't always specific to what I was talking about. I noticed my parents looking at the screen when there was nothing to look at, I've also been reading a book called 'the back of the napkin (by Dan Roam) : solving problems and selling ideas, with pictures' I really should have been emphasising what I was saying with images etc.. It dawned on my at this point in my workshop why people actually use powerpoint presentations.. It's all a learning curve.

And I think having a narrative, a beginning a middle and and end to a workshop would have brought the points home, especially in a workshop dedicated to the power of story..

Learning all of this is great, but the main thing I took from running my first workshop is the truth that the best way of learning about a subject, really is to teach it. When explaining things to them I realised what I'd missed, the connections I hadn't put in, parts of the narrative that were missing, and I learned myself, from them responding to what I was saying, ah they didn't quite understand that part, maybe this bit needs to be a bit clearer etc.. And even, ah, form their response, I understand what I'm saying, seeing it from a different perspective, having it spoken back to me in a slightly different way, it embeds the idea into my brain, teaching really is a great way of learning.

My brother also runs his own Cycling Coaching business, and I think it would be a great opportunity to run this same workshop for him, if he'd be interested, and this time I'd use a powerpoint and try implementing the things I've learned from this one. There's also something coming to mind from a book I've read called 'The art of creative thinking' by Rod Judkins, where he mentions running workshops and presentations and the creative ideas he put into those workshops to help them stick into peoples minds, I think I need to go back over this part and take some inspiration with new eyes.

Here's to the next one, and a possible new direction moving forward..