AGDA’s Creative Business Basics event launches Monday, Sept 14 at Melbourne’s RMIT Design Hub
The third instalment of AGDA’s Design Means Business event series, Creative Business Basics, is set to launch on Monday 14th September at Melbourne’s RMIT Design Hub.
Creative Business Basics will once again focus on essential topics that every design professional needs to know about.
Featuring presentations from four leading industry professionals, the event has been specially curated to tackle those critical questions that sit at the pointy end of businesses operating in the creative industries.
- How should you protect and commercialise your intellectual property?
- What strategies will best deliver a sustainable business model for your design practice?
- What’s the best way to form and maintain great client relationships?
- How can your design business harness the power of social media?
With dedicated time for an in-depth Q and A session, this is a chance to put the questions you’ve always wanted to know to a panel of experts.
Come with an open mind and leave with the knowledge and insights you need to change your business for the better.
Speakers and topics include:
Jo Gilbert, creative business coach – Melbourne
Gilbert is a consultant, coach, mentor and trainer. She helps creative SME’s grow, through business, financial, operational and new business development strategies and human resource, service capability and systems management. Over 8 years, she has worked closely with managers and staff of ad agencies, architects, design studios and more in Melbourne, Sydney, New Zealand and the USA. Gilbert shares 30+ years experience with leading creative and production firms and deep knowledge of both business and creative process. She lectured in advertising and communication design at RMIT and Swinburne Universities for five years and is a regular guest lecturer at The Academy of Design.
Topic – Great Client Relationships
Account directors and managers are responsible for managing client relationships and expectations. They represent the voice of the client to the studio and the voice of the studio to the client. Like an agent, they grow the relationship and work towards the best possible project outcomes for both sides. Great relationships are built on the trust that you are immersed in your client’s business and sector, can share valuable strategies and insights, and will nurture the relationship from initial contact to after sales service and beyond.
Michelle Dowdle, Sladen Legal
Dowdle is a specialist that works with creative and innovative business oriented people to protect and commercialise their intellectual property in Australia and internationally. Dowdle’s areas of expertise include trade marks, copyright, patents, designs, misleading and deceptive conduct and passing off. From start-ups and SMEs through to large organisations, Dowdle has a commercial focus with extensive experience in IP protection and enforcement, licensing, manufacturing and distribution arrangements, sales transactions, research and development and IP audits.
Topic – Protecting your IP
Dowdle will be exploring intellectual property and copyright issues that are relevant to designers and design studios. Dowdle will provide a practical overview of the intellectual property that designers create and use on a daily basis. Also, through real examples as a practising intellectual property specialist, Dowdle will identify business risks relating to how copyright is owned, transferred, used and infringed and discuss how these risks directly impact on your clients.
Andrew Pegler, Andrew Pegler Media
Pegler specialises in concise, powerful, corporate copy that connect business with its audience. His clients include NAB, ANZ, Telstra, Rio Tinto, and a number of Victorian and Federal ministries, departments and agencies. Pegler is based in Melbourne but works with clients worldwide. His plain-English training is essential for any organisation that requires its staff to write clearly, effectively, and in plain English.
Topic – Using LinkedIn to promote your business
LinkedIn is the pre-eminent site for professionals seeking to build influence, grow networks and gain employment or new business. If you’re not on LinkedIn then, as Lara Bingle would say, “Where the bloody hell are you?”In this session Pegler takes us on a guided tour through the labyrinth of communications, sharing his knowledge on how to write thought-provoking LinkedIn posts, and how to amplify these across social media to drive new business and cement your online influence. Chances are, you’ve already noticed Pegler’s knack for translating fancy concepts and ideas into clear, accessible language – in the numerous LinkedIn posts he’s ghosted for leading industry figures.
Greg Branson, Design Business Council
Branson’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and design’s role in business. In 2005 he founded the Design Business Council (DBC) to provide design management professional development for designers and design clients. Branson has travelled extensively overseas, to research the role of design in business. He is a member of the US based Design Management Institute (DMI) an organisation that conducts extensive research into design management, design practice, design strategy, design thinking and design effectiveness.
Topic – Strategy for designers
Design studios must develop strategies to gain, retain and grow clients. It’s no longer good enough to aimlessly canvas in every industry segment and take on any work that comes along. It’s also not sustainable to passively wait for the work to roll in. Design studios need a plan to get work that fits their profile and stimulates good design; that adds value for the client and the studio. The approach Branson uses is called the design business strategiser. The approach is tailored to work for small or large design studios.
Date – Monday 14th September
Time : 6.30pm – 8.30pm (Doors open 6pm)
Venue: Ground floor, RMIT Design Hub
Building 100, Corner Victoria and Swanston Streets, Carlton