Helga Henry
Hi - my name's Helga Henry and I want you to work to your heart's content.
I run an organisation called Fierce Earth in Birmingham - an arts production and training company that specialises in bringing creativity and culture to your work and your city.
In training people with talent who want to start a creative business through to coaching business executives who are doubling their turnover every year, I have found a number of useful ideas, resources, concepts and frameworks. This blog has a number of them all in one place. Use the tags to find the information you need. I've added some links below to the things I refer to most.
Getting Started in your Business:
If you want to start a creative business you need a cushion, a plan and some space. I explain those concepts here. Other start up considerations are tagged under "business start up".
Assessing where your vision is and where your strengths lie is a great pre-planning step. There's some information on vision here, here and here. Then on strengths here and here.
I'm also a massive fan of getting a mentor as a way of keeping your plans on track and inspiring you.
Planning Tools:
I am a big fan of simple lists and easy frameworks - such as this traffic light list.
You can get help with resources you don't have by thinking about skill swaps.
There are also a number of really excellent publications about getting started and I particularly recommend the NESTA toolkit, T-shirt and Suits and the Time Management book by Mark McGuiness - links to all the above are available here.
Legal Stuff:
There are a number of posts in this blog about contracts - best thing to do to find them is click on the "Contracts" tag on the side - or here.
Also I have some useful links to information about Intellectual Property (ie copyright, design right, patents and trade marks) here.
Resources:
The internet is chock full of hints, tips and useful resources. I've written about a few of those I have particularly found useful. Click on the "Resources" tag to find all my recommended resources.
There is a lot of information on networking: why you should bother, how to do it, where to do it and what to do after you have met someone to build a relationship. Click on the "Networking" tag for the full picture.
If you are more interested in presentation skills - watch my pechha kuccha talk on overcoming the fear of public speaking and click on the "Presentation" tag to get some useful planning and delivery tips.
Planning and coaching techniques
Finally, the blog contains lots of planning or coaching techniques: exercises that might help you figure out what you want to do next and how. Again, look for the "Coaching" tags to help you find those articles. They range from making a "happy list" to throwing away the stuff that gets in the way of you being awesome. They can take five minutes or five years. It's a mixed bag.
A bit about me:
I've had a varied career - including an 8 year stint as a corporate lawyer - and lots of experiences working and on boards of a number of creative and cultural organisations. In 2008 - 2010 I was lucky enough to be selected to be the NESTA supported Clore Fellow for Entrepreneurial Cultural Organisations. I have been chair of the boards of Geese Theatre, Creative Republic andSwitchboard amongst others. Currently I am on the Board of MADE* and Creative Advantage Fund.
If you want to know more or have any questions - get in touch.
Contact Helga
Email: Helga@fierceearth.com
