Creativity Is A Business

What excites you about your job? What is your job? - Technician? Manager? Creative Guy? Client Servicing? Other?

Do you have an answer? To the First question - What excites you about your job?

All of us have had a pretty good season. Everything lined up for the Event & Entertainment businesses this year. Hit Movies, lots of great new music, Concert Tours, large scale weddings, shows and corporate events - everybody seems to have enjoyed a juicy slice of the pie.

What excites you going ahead? If you’re successful in this business, it’s pretty much a sad and common fact that our families don’t get to see us as much as they’d like. So after a good year, is your excitement diverted away from your job - OR are you hungrily waiting for next season to see how far you can take things?

Now’s a good time to think things through. What’s the mindset you bringing to PALM?

As PALM goes bigger every year - it throws up lots of opportunities to do more of what you did last year. Trouble is - if you not focussed and you have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) you could be so swamped that instead of exhilaration you could just end up confused and exhausted.

Wouldn’t want to wish that on you, buddy ! So here’s a short list of ideas that I hope helps you Get ‘MOFIT’ (most out of it).Which is why I had asked you - What excites you about your job?

Is it the actual doing of the work? Yeah - we’re a dumb breed - some of us actually enjoy the late nights and stale pizza - because after all that, we get to see the best show we can think of in our minds.

Is it the perks / benefits that come with the job? Hanging with the cool guys. Gotta be up there with the latest or else the next guy will know more than me !

Is being a team leader and bring in a project that everybody associated is proud of - and we all made money!

Or - In these troubled times - You are just glad you still have a job and life is trundling along.

My simple and humble advise to each and every one of you is this - GET CREATIVE.

To all my ‘Creative’ Brothers - aren’t you just a little tired of the sameness of all the shows? In my opinion most creativity is diverted into - what can I find on the net to meet my clients brief? How can I reproduce a million dollar idea in the cheapest possible cost?

There’s little shame in this approach - all of us have done it at some time or another. Trouble is the net is vast and all reaching. Even kids in tiny villages are watching movies and have access on how things are done. It’s no coincidence that the latest crop of stars from both the sports and entertainment world hail from smaller towns. Could it be that the disadvantage of ‘Not much to do’ is converted into the advantage of ‘Have Lots of time to Practice !’ If that’s true - then they are at your door buddy - how are you going to deal with it?

Push your creativity by being the confluence of art forms that have not been explored before.

Take advantage of the big city and bring together more and more arts and crafts and create something that is visually unique.

India has had a glorious design past. So many many influences. I’ve had great fun exploring a huge variety of them. Then I got bored. Bored of updating old ideas. I went looking for fresh stuff. I knew enough of the past to skirt all the obvious traps and create something Indian for today.

Modern Indian painting is pushing in that direction. New forms, shapes and colour schemes are jumping up. I urge you to explore them.

Aren’t you just a little bit tired of having computers move lights and blink all over the place. I came across this great line - ‘The machines are learning - Are You?’ It terrified me, and got me to move my tired old bones into fresh directions. Machines are great at processing large volumes of work predictably and consistently. So I looking for avenues where the exact opposite tells a great story.

I sincerely hope that the old principal of ‘Build something great - the people and the money will come’ holds true cause when you in the middle of this, looking for money and good partners is almost impossible. So stand out and hope they find you.

Creativity becomes the core business. The backbone of your existence. To be successful in the future you will have to build a business around it the old fashioned way - but with modern tools.

Land, Labour, Capital and Management - the factors of production remain the same. But today we look for them and attract them differently.

If you are a Business Guy - I hope this sparks some interest. I firmly believe that this is where the money will be, going ahead.

Of course there are many avenues for you to explore at PALM. Lots of manufacturers and traders you are going to make some amazing deals with. Good Luck. I can only urge you to look at equipment that encourages creativity. Are you scratching your head? It’s an odd idea. How can equipment encourage creativity? Fair Question.

For that you need to understand the mindset of the guy who designed the equipment. Take some time. Each piece of equipment is designed for a certain specific purpose. Sometimes it is a quick fix or a nagging update that fixes a common glitch that users experience and complaint. And there is tremendous value there.

But every once in a while you will come across a designer that asks himself or his team - ‘How do we make it better?‘

There are two typical ways a team responds. One - it throws in every feature imaginable, sometimes after lots of market feedback and many arguments centred around what will the market pay for.

If the team gets it right - you have the beginnings of a good product. It will begin well and last until a new set of requirements jump up in the market. Then it will be phased out or upgraded into a sexier box.

Then you have the other rarer team who asks - ‘What happens if....‘ Should they ask themselves the right question which triggers their flight into the fresh direction - you will find a quiet launch of something nobody actually knows what to do with.

Then slowly as some aficionados get trapped into the net - a user group will form around the product and much traffic will be noticed on their user forums. Suddenly there is a Eureka moment when either the market or the designers hit on the missing piece that bridges into the mainstream market.

Early users will display the new skills and suddenly some fresh and unique looks will form. People will try and replicate that with their own equipment. That is the acid test. Can they? If they can - all the effort is wasted.

But if their existing equipment just can’t get there - or if it takes ages to set up the desired effect - the mass market will pounce onto the product and within a short time - you have a winner.

It takes a knack and some courage to identify and invest in this - but if it pays off - entire careers can be created by getting just one great step right. As you go about your regular business - at least keep an eye or a ear open for one such. It will be worth it.

And Now onto the third guy. All I have to remind you brother is ‘This is a blood and guts business. It’s about passion and persistence. Gobs of it to make you ignore the inconvenience.’

So choose - Get Technical and then push your creativity. Or step away from the bits and bobs and focus in fashioning a business where things change every day. Tough but exciting. If you simply floating along - the younger guys are faster swimmers and will overtake you really soon.

Good Luck Guys. You got a PALM in your hands.

(The views expressed by the author are his own personal comments and the magazine does not subscribe to them).