Group Growth
This week Module lead Simon Poulter divided us into multidisciplinary groups. From previous lectures Simon discussed key elements to create a successful group, the main being communication. I took the lead in this and devised a point of communications on both Microsoft teams and WhatsApp to ensure that any person within the group can communicate clearly. We scheduled an online meeting the next day to introduce ourselves and clearly outline what we can and cannot bring to the group, after finding out my personality type and combining this with Dr leigh Morland’s approach, I found it much easier to communicate this. On the Friday we scheduled a face-to-face meeting to discuss some initial ideas. From this we created an initial concept power point to which we presented to Simon Poulter and Professor Alex Coles on the 16th of February. From this I created simple notes and points we needed to focus on for the following week.
Personal Growth
From the initial lecture with S.Poulter on the 9th February. I already had some ideas brewing, from analysing who was in my group and their individual disciplines. When joining in September 2021, I really struggled to bond with other creative disciplines within the MA and felt that there was a fundamental space missing from the university where creative postgraduates can gather and socialise. Not only this, but I struggled to find a space where I could leave my things safely without it being moved. I wanted to try push this idea into the initial discussions to gather more primary research from my fellow members of the group to see whether they had similar initial struggles.
From my discipline perspective, I knew that the project would need a space so thought that this initial idea and from feedback from the group that this was a project that had the most potential for good research and analyses depth that can be explored equally amongst the group within the time frame.
Research
Initial research focused on existing spaces and business models; the one I found most intriguing was Soho House, a simple concept that has been expanded and developed across continents. From the concept, to execution, the brand and space targets are clear and direct. Taking a lead with Megan Firth in the group who’s discipline is communications & promotions, I think we will work well in leading the discussions and pushing the development over the course of the module. From L.Morland’s lecture on entrepreneurship it inspired both of us to really take that leap into the leadership roles.
As a group we went away to gather individual research, my to aims for the week were to gather further research into Soho House and the existing space within the University campus; mark out the problem, possible solutions and find the existing university colour palette.
Soho House targets traveling creative people. Their aim is to bring creative people together to create a niche group of collectives that can create and collaborate work. The space offers restaurants, bedrooms and studio/exhibition spaces. Whilst offering spaces Soho house also offers soho works where members can work, Soho home, where members can buy all furniture in the soho houses to have in their own home. The issue with this business structure is that it has a rather expensive membership programme and the target audience we outlined are unlikely to be able to afford memberships such as these. So, when developing the research, I found it vital to gather inspiration but also have realistic approach into how the business model will form.
After going through all our initial research, we thought as a group that targeting creative postgraduate students within universities will create the best business model, where the University will act as the client, and the postgraduate students as the target audience. This way the student won’t have to pay a membership but they can use the space created within the university ground over the course of their degree.
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