Creative people in the creative industries are constantly reminded that they need to be “more businesslike , more  creative and more innovative.”

Usually the people doing the reminding are people with jobs who do not understand the specifics of the creative industries, have never taken a risk, and have never created anything of their own that has real value.  That’s helluva a claim, and that’s what it feels like for nearly every person working in this sector, and I know it from experience.

Yes there are some tools and some skills from the business world that can be useful to you, but we need to understand them and adapt them to our own creative ends.

From this perspective I enjoy designing and delivering training programmes in a variety of contexts. For example I work with Creative Laois, designing and delivering a programme in business planning and creative entrepreneurship for people working in the cultural and creative industries. I lecture at the Quinn School of Business in UCD  and on the MA in Culture Policy and Arts Management at Queen’s University Belfast.

I’ve always enjoyed sharing the knowledge and my starting point is understanding what you want to achieve and what you feel you need to know.

“… hugely informative… it was all valuable… As an entrepreneur you are likely to be at the head of many of your projects and in that position it is better to have an overall impression of what’s required than to have expertise in a fraction of the areas… I’ve come away from the course excited…

― Adam Cullen – Composer and Film Maker

“…revolutionary ideas about how artists can manage and sustain their careers. He was a generous, passionate, innovative teacher…really keen to connect with everyone’s ideas and to help them personally. I would recommend this course to anyone in any artistic walk of life”.  

― Christianne O’Mahony – Writer, Stand-Up Comic and Actor

“It made me realise I am not insane to  do what I do… brings huge clarity to everything you CAN do to make a good career…HUGELY empowering… makes you get behind your ideas, aims and projects if they are big… I wish it was part of any artistic course ever made to be honest. What…

― Clare Dunne – Actor, Screenwriter