We are in the third week of the Business Acumen for Artists programme. One of the most critical leverage points for Business which has emerged from this process is the way in which multiple forms of artistic expression can help to invigorate organisational thinking. We ran a process last week at the UCT GSB called the Think Indaba where we used visual process facilitation to help delegates to visualise Africa in 2012. The findings were profoundly positive not only because it allowed executives to start thinking through another medium but also because of the pride which emerged at the end of the process and what they had created together. What this brought up for us in terms of the BAA was how rich a deposit the language of creativity is for business – imagine being able to document a journey you go on with your EXCO through represented images, melodies, and even theatre that they create by means of a guided facilitated process together!  Consultants are so often looking for the next big thing to differentiate their offerings in the market. I for one, after having seen the extraordinary success of this tool am all for the tracing of multiple creative disciplines into the texturing of strategy and multiple perspectives so crucial for business value creation and sustainability. Try it – you might even surprise yourself at the results. 

I am suddenly inspired by the idea of a group multi-media exhibition at the end of our programme. The complete project I am working on is HUGE and will only be realised in 2010, but a slice, a snippet could well be part of a Sharp Artists exhibition (We’ll have to think of a sexier title – “Business Acumen” isn’t very sticky.) At tea time tonight I went scouting for a site for my performance art piece for the exhhibition(shot gun on the eucalyptus trees near the parking lot)… can’t you just see our work being, hung, projected, shown, sung… PLAYED all over and around the community centre for one juicy night?

Thank you to all for the rousing “Happy Birthday”. I’ll miss ya’ll next week as I’ll be working. If you are up for a night of excellent, thought-provoking, challenging theatre. Don’t miss my production of The Tricky Part opening at the Baxter Theatre on 11 September and running till the end of September. (not quite sure about blogg protocol – is it ok to use it for shameless marketing?) Jacqueline

Firstly, thanks to Elspeth Donovan for providing a practical approach to what many find a daunting exercise. What I found heartening was that many of you could start relating the business case to the business plan – realising that making a plan for your efforts is not an otherwordly exercise but one which can be cracked open with ease if one has the right attitude and a model from which to work. Remember that if you don’t have a coherent story that interests you, why should it interest anyone else. And finally, to draw on the NA meeting which happens on a Monday night next door to us – If you work it, it works! E

It was a real delight for me to be part of Monday evening, and our time together on Monday has stayed with me through the course of this week, with resonances of it popping up at unexpected times. I have been particularly struck once again by the re-confirmation that at the heart of all that we do, the work on ourselves remains fundamental to our well being and our success. Knowing who we are, what we need, what gives the meaning and purpose to our days, and what we value is the foundation from which we need to move. Our time together has been a gentle reminder to me to go back to reflecting on these things and I trust that you will too. There must always be time to think about what really matters to each of us and allow this to be a compass, otherwise it is too easy to be swallowed up by the hecticness of every day and to squander precious time. Cultivating our capacity to discern and exercise good judgment is so critical in navigating knotty issues of integrity and value – and I believe that this only comes through real consistent attention to ourselves. On a practical note, I am a firm believer in taking and adapting tools and ideas to make them work in our own situations so in terms of the models and tools that Elaine and I shared with you – take what works, apply it, adapt it – push the boundaries of the ideas and the frameworks. They are simply there as aids so feel free to use, test, adapt and discard as you need to. As Bradley has so aptly put it, this course is about prompting the right questions so that you can develop the answer that will work best for you – and I would love to see the outcomes of that process. So E – please invite me back again!

So Monday was hard for me. i am used to being in a space where I design processes and programmes. Monday was about stepping up to the plate – delivering with my design partner whom I have closed mulit-million rand deals with on actually running a process. monday for me was about integrity and self trust – being able to integrate the Flash with the Fear and Fundamentals. A model for real business practise/ Yes. Thank you to you all for challenging the models I brought with excitement from the business school from kick -ass expensive international consultants . Yeah – maybe Exchange IS NOT always about a misunderstanding of what the perception of value looks like. Nice to have a group who don’t buy into sexy words. i think you all rock! And I am very proud to be your guide on this Journey. *Yay*

Robert Poynton | rob@oyf.com | oyf.com | IP: 196.14.132.5

Hola. This is Rob. He of the loud T shirt. Monday night may well not have been what you were expecting from a business course. Which is perhaps a learning in itself. Personally, as someone that straddles business and creative worlds I think Fletcher was right – its not ‘us’ and ‘them’, which I think implies not so much learning a new language, but learning to find a way to use what you already have in a new context. If you feel like an imposter when you step into the business world you should remember that so do most business people, most of the time. The other thing I think is huge, is to disconnect price and worth, in your own mind (or heart). Price is what someone will pay for something, worth is a completely different question. So what you charge is not what you are worth. If you don’t make this distinction it can be hard to charge proper money, because you are always putting your personal worth in play. By the same token, even if you can charge a lot, that doesn’t make what you do necessarily good. For me it was a revelation when I realised that most stuff gets sold because of how much energy and work people put into selling it, not because of how good it is. When some other improv group got hired for a big job I used to think they must be better than us. They might be, but it doesn’t necessarily follow. Realising this helped me a lot. I am talking about my stuff, business stuff, here, though Max’s story, which I thought was very helpful, made the same point about art (when she dressed up to deliver her work to a gallery). Being business-like isn’t alien. It just requires common sense and clarity and energy and discipline just like anything else. Hopefully, by the end of the course, you will end up wondering why any of this ever seemed strange at all…..

I am programme directing the Business Acumen for Artists thirteen week process as part of UCT Graduate School’s Corporate Social Investment. I have created this blog as a space to share ideas around the learning that comes out of this journey – insights for business and creatives.

We kick off tomorrow night with Robert Poynton of On your Feet fame . We have brought him to South Africa to run the process underpinning the Executive Leadership Programme  at UCT GSB and he kindly volunteered to run the first process on the programme. The course is part of our voluntary involvement with the Observatory Community centre and all the monies will go to renovating the Victorian house that the centre operates in.

We have had to close the applications because of the phenomenal reponse we got from the market; helped largely by the blogging efforts of Max Kaizen and Dave Duarte (tx*). So the profile of the delegates (26 in total) is an extraordinary cross section

MusicianSingerFine artist/freelance illustratorTheatre makerVisual artistGraphic artistMultimediaArtistCeramic artistJewellery, T-shirt designRadio, production companyTheatre directorJewellerProducing diary of performing artsCeramicistFilmmakerArtistGraphic designerVisual artistDrama teacher and painterClothing designerFine artistMusicianGlass & toy making

I have also included a breakdown of the timetable to give you a sense of what we are trying to achieve with this. You are welcome to use any concepts or ideas that come out of this learning – my request is just that you share back the findings that you have. My hope is that this space will be a geminating ground for much discovery and joy. Here’s to the celebration of one of the most important mash-ups – Business and Art!