Courses
The Creative Business Project offers a wide range of courses at interesting venues in Medway and Folkestone free of charge. For further information, including dates and times, please click on the link below and fill in the Tonic form. For information about the course content please see the listing below and download the leaflets.
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CREATIVE THINKING
How to use creative thinking to improve your creative business
Creativity and creative approaches to all aspects of business can help to develop general strategic growth. This course will teach you some of the techniques for achieving breakthroughs in problem solving and innovation. Creative Thinking will demonstrate how ideas, such as risk-taking, may be used to increase the competitiveness of your business. You will learn the concepts of creative thinking through business and ideas games. Then you will understand how these approaches may be applied to a range of business issues. This course will run for four six-hour sessions on Saturdays from 8th to 29th November.
ENTERPRISE AND INNOVATION
How to develop your creative business
Enterprise, entrepreneurship and innovation are terms used every day in the business world, but what do they mean for your creative work? This course will introduce these terms and make them real by developing a project to show how to use them in your business. You will plan, execute and evaluate a major publicity event to raise awareness about the vibrant Creative Quarter in Folkestone and promote your own business. The project will be mentored by university staff who will provide administrative and creative support. If you have your own creative business, or are hoping to establish one, then this course will help to develop your business skills in a relevant context.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR CREATIVES
How to plan for creative success
Use your creativity to improve your business by understanding entrepreneurship. This course will show you how to use your creative talent to help your business succeed and increase your creative output. You will learn about entrepreneurial behaviour from industry experts, who will explain how they created and developed their businesses. They will teach you how to use entrepreneurship in your own business, as a tool for planning for success. As well as looking at case studies in the creative industries, you will apply your new skills to your own business. Creative practitioners will show you how to examine your current business and write a plan for your future success. This course runs over seven three-hour sessions on Wednesday evenings, from 28th January to 11th March at the New Arts Centre, Chatham.
EVENT DESIGN
How to create a visually exciting event
Whether it's a product or brand launch, team event or in-house celebration, the design and appearance of events is vital to achieving a successful outcome. This course offers you the opportunity to explore event design and experience design from a completely new, visual perspective. You will learn how to tackle the creative and practical challenges of event production. The course will cover the whole process of event design, from how to respond to an event brief and formulate a creative idea, to how to select a venue and present your event concept to others. By the end of the course, you will have developed your idea in a series of evocative mood boards and produced a model to represent your event. This course takes place over twelve sessions, 6.30pm to 8.30pm and began on Monday 21st July, in the Galvanising Shop, Chatham Historic Dockyard. It is now sold out.
MARKETING
How to market your products and services
Understanding how markets work and how to reach the ideal client is vital for the success of all businesses. This course will provide you with an overview of the whole marketing process, from discovering how products and services are developed, through to mastering the dynamics of successful campaigns. At each session you will learn an aspect of the principles of marketing, including understanding buyer behaviour, and how product, service, pricing and distributor decisions are made. You will understand how to undertake market research, position your product or service and write a marketing plan. Then you will apply your new skills to your own business or a case study and compile a marketing report. This course takes place over twelve sessions on Thursday evenings 6pm to 8.30pm at Commissioner's House, Chatham Historic Dockyard, from 11th September to 4th December.
PROBLEM SOLVING
How to tackle a problem in your business
Learn how to use practical and creative skills to deal with a wide range of business issues. This course will take you through the whole problem solving process, from understanding a needs analysis to creating a final product or service. By working through a problem in a practical way, you will learn many new creative skills and approaches that you may apply to your own business. Discover how famous inventors have used special techniques to tackle problems. Improve your productivity by learning how to meet challenges in a fast-moving world and understand how design can help improve your product or service. This course takes place over ten sessions on Tuesday evenings 6pm to 9pm at the New Art Centre, Chatham, from 23rd September.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
How to meet a deadline and a budget
Learn how to manage a project successfully by joining a course that will teach you the main project management criteria while you engage in a real event where time is critical. During this course, the group will organise a multi-media event culminating in a performance. You will join a team of backstage staff and undertake the administrative and business skills needed to put on a show, on time and within budget. You will learn how to co-ordinate the talents of the performers and creative workers and ensure that every task happens in the right order to make the final performance a success. The project will be mentored by university staff who will provide administrative and creative support.
TEAM-BUILDING AND NEGOTIATION
How to work with others to meet the brief
This course will develop your ability to work in a team to conceive, present and negotiate proposals for a client and then produce a real product or service. The first part of the course will develop team building skills and explain the concept of group dynamics, so that everyone works to their strengths. Then you will make a presentation of a team idea to colleagues at work or to another business or institution, such as a local museum, or hospital. You will learn how to negotiate the terms of your proposal and then how to produce a schedule, budget and plan to make the concept real. The final project will be showcased in an event organised by the entire group. This course takes place over ten sessions on Monday evenings 6pm to 9pm at the New Art Centre, Chatham, from 29th September.
VISUAL PRESENTATIONS
How to make a visual presentation
This course will take you beyond Powerpoint and demonstrate the impact of the visual image. Discover how you can make your message more powerful by using images in a creative way. You will study how commercials work by telling a story targeted at a key audience. Film-makers will teach you how to make your message into a narrative with rhythm and pace. You will learn how to undertake visual research, how to create a narrative storyboard and then transform your message into a short film or slide show. Your final work will be screened to an audience, including art directors, and you will receive constructive expert feedback.
This course takes place over twelve sessions on Thursday evenings 6pm to 8.30pm at Commissioner's House, Chatham Historic Dockyard, from 11th September to 4th December.
