Meeting the Irish contingent in Cork Airport on Saturday afternoon (January 21st) for only the second time, was daunting. 12 days with complete strangers was daunting enough, never mind 12 days with strangers abroad in a Big Brother style program as our lectures and tutors would be grading our performance on the trip and so would be monitoring us throughout each day!

Arriving into Gatwick Saturday evening we were buzzing with excitement. Dragging our excessive amount of luggage behind us we got to Southampton spirits still high. Of course, the Irish contingent checked in at speed and regrouped in the local pub “The Ginny Bridge”. To our surprise, shock and somewhat disgust the pubs close at 11.30pm and so we had no other choice but to explore the nightlife of the Southampton nightclubs!

Sunday morning was the beginning of something amazing. We met our international counterparts, who would soon turn from strangers to lifelong friends. After 3 hours of teamwork workshops, we all went for lunch followed by a guided tour of Southampton looking for something for each of the senses – another team building exercise!

Monday was the day for seriously intense brainstorming. Short, quick brainstorming sessions resulted in wacky, crazy, off the wall daft ideas being put down on our “Idea Cloud”. We later realised the crazier the idea – the better! By Monday evening, after a long and exhausting of idea generation – we had 3 ideas.

Tuesday was our day to work on our 3 main ideas and whittle them down to our brainchild idea. By Tuesday evening, while exhausted, hungry and homesick we had decided. Our business was to be called Thyme Out. It would be a Spa In a Bag with a very unique selling point: the customer gets an experience as well as a physical product. We were delighted with our progress and made the brave decision to go with our gut feeling and take the risk of developing this idea rather than work on our final three.

After a few drinks with the Irish contingent (including lecturers) in a local pub that night, spirits were back at an all-time high…Nothing like an Irish get-together for a laugh and a bag of chips (and a pea fritter!!) on the way home.

Wednesday was one of the most important days for our team. It involved quite a bit of planning to organise who was doing what. I was chosen as Project Manager and so after a busy few hours of delegation we regrouped in the hotel lobby and made a plan of action for the following day. Wednesday was full of pricing, negotiation, haggling and running around the streets of Southampton trying to find the best prices of materials before the shops closed at 5pm! That night we worked out the costs, profit margins and all the other necessary details before we could go into production the following day.

Wednesday evening, we got to meet 5 creative entrepreneurs from Southampton and surrounding areas. We pitched our ideas to them in the “Dragons Den” style but in a more relaxed atmosphere of coffee and digestive biscuits! We then got feedback from each of the entrepreneurs. I found this extremely helpful and wished we could talk to each of the entrepreneurs for longer! Taking on board all the advice we received that evening, we added some information about us and our product to out packaging. With the aim of going into production that evening, we spilt up to buy materials in the shops – however to our utter disappointment (and somewhat anger and frustration!!) the shops were closed! Nothing we could do but work on our sales pitch, promotional material and acquisition of places to sell in the coming days. The shops being closed felt like the biggest disaster we could have been hit with… but instead turned out to be the biggest blessing. We worked on the elements of our business that we would have otherwise neglected. Our brand “Thyme Out”, needed to be developed and promoted. After a long day with few breaks – we hit our beds well into the early hours of the morning!

Thursday was the day of our Trade Show in the Solent University Conference Centre. 3pm felt like filled with marketing, production and figuring out where we would sell our product in the following 4 days. Printing was done, posters were hung up in as many places as we could and flyers were handed out. Solent Conference Centre went from factory to palace in 30 minutes flat, and we were ready to SELL! SELL! SELL! Just before the first people arrived, I gathered my team together for a pep talk. I had never given one before, nor had I prepared so while huddled together, there was a spilt second of silence before my “business head” bolted off on a motivational talk! I wanted my team to engage with our visitors on a personal level. I advised them all to introduce themselves personally and shake their hands, get their name and ask about what it was like to be in University in Southampton. I asked the team to sell indirectly by telling each person about the TCE program, our nationalities, and our talents and finally about the product we decided to create. We sold over 30 products in one hour – the most successful turnover of the trade show!

After the delight of the Trade Show, we took the evening off to enjoy Southampton and relish in our miniature successes!

Friday morning at 8am was the opening of our pop-up factory in the hotel lobby… 14 hours later we had 274 packages made and ready to sell. Exhausted kicked in and it was an early night for all.

6.30am Saturday morning I met the project managers from the 5 other teams also involved in the program and we headed down the main street of Southampton to set up our market stall. The day was spent “manning” the stall on a shift basis. I felt it was important that my team took breaks to go shopping, have coffee, and explore Southampton or even sleep! So, we worked out a rota. Everyone worked 3 or 4 hours and had the rest of the day free. We did this again on the Sunday and the free time helped to lift everyone’s spirits.

We attended one of the other groups events on Sunday night in (our newly adopted local pub) Goblets where they had an artistic and musical event. Artists and Musicians from all over Southampton came along and showcased their work, played music, sang songs danced and networked. It also gave the businesses on the TCE Programme an opportunity to sell their products which consisted of T-shirts, a children’s book, “anti-valentines” cards and of course our “Thyme Out”.

Monday was an optional Day Trip to London for all and was a great day out for those that went. The exhaustion had taken its toll on me, and I was sniffling and coughing with a head cold so I decided to stay in Southampton, get to see the city and more importantly dose up on Lemsip and spend some time on Twitter as I was having withdrawal symptoms!!

Tuesday was a day of reflection. There were a few lectures from our tutors but mainly we got into teams and reflected on the week gone by. The overall consensus was “exhausted” “delighted” “proud” “encouraged” “excited” “happy” “looking forward to getting home!!!!”

Tuesday evening we reconvened in the hotel for a beautiful 3-Course meal and awards – where we were all presented with our certificates of completion.

A great night of chatting, reflecting, photo taking and of course it wouldn’t be the same without a sing song into the VERY small hours of the morning – led by the Irish contingent!

The Finland contingent were leaving the hotel at 5am and so we, the Irish did the kind friendly thing and kept them company until they left, then we had a few hours sleep before setting off for Gatwick at 8am.

Landing in Cork Airport on Wednesday afternoon (February 1st) – we were like a group of friend who had known each other for years. In reality, we knew each other for 12 days but got on so well – we ended up being like a family.

Looking back, it was such a fantastic experience. Let me be completely honest… the TCE Program was worth 5 module credits of my final year – which meant I could drop my elective module in the final semester of college. This has huge benefits as it frees up my timetable and gives me more time to focus on my other 5 subjects. In reality, the TCE Program was much much more than that. It was, in all honesty, a life changing experience. I have learned so much about myself, about business and about passion to follow your heart and your gut feeling.

Before going to Southampton, I had an opinion about “creative” people. I no longer think of creative people in this way – I admire their amazing world class talent and I am passionate that musicians and artists alike are brands and need to be developed – just like a company’s brand. In fact, creative thinking is needed in every business – and I definitely learned this from my experience on the TCE.

I was worried that I was not creative enough to come up with a business idea – but in fact, the creative students taught me to let my brain relax and let the ideas flow. The wackier, crazier and more “off the wall” the idea the better – this was what brainstorming was all about. Brainstorming was not about having an idea of a properly developed, market researched business proposal.

This is only the very short version of what we did and what I learned while in Southampton – I don’t think I could ever put down in words the true value I got from the program with far surpasses the value of a 5 credit module for college!

The post TCE – Towards Creative Entrepreneurship: Southampton 2012 appeared first on Aoife Rigney Digital Marketing.

During the twelve days students from various background e.g. music, fine art, design, multimedia, photography, public relations and business will come together and learn about creative entrepreneurship. 

From the outset the students will work in small multi-discipline teams generating business ideas with a view to developing a new product or service in the creative industries sector to sell to paying customers.  Students will learn by doing through a series of interactive lectures, group discussions and workshops. At the end of the programme they will take their commercial project to the people of Southampton.

During the programme students will have access to mentors to offer advice, suggestions and general guidance. The mentors will comprise the programme’s lecturing team and/or creative entrepreneurs. 

The Creative Industries is one of the fastest growing sectors in the European Economy and it is important to promote self-employment as an option to students graduating from the creative arts.  Equally, in today’s information-saturated world, successful entrepreneurship requires creative thinking to stand out from the competition.

The underlying principle of TCE is that entrepreneurship is a matter of attitude and a way of doing one’s work and earning a living. The language of the programme will not feel alien to students working in the creative field. The idea of selling one’s expertise, commercialising one’s skills and finding customers and markets to sell to does not automatically mean destruction of artistic expression or creative intent.  Combining creativity and entrepreneurship, combining the traditional arts education and training of entrepreneurial skills, helps the participants gain totally new perspectives to both topics.

I will be blogging, tweeting and facebooking throughout the process and am delighted to be involved – a very exciting time ahead!

Follow me @aoiferigney for updates!

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