A matter of PRiorities

A couple of Fridays back, the Birmingham Post ran a story about how Birmingham City Council had spent £135,000 on PR, to support the launch of the plans for the new City of Birmingham Library. Stunned, I sat in disbelief, swore a lot, wrote a blog post, then filed it away as  that kind of thing should never ever be aired. So…two weeks on, let’s see if I can be more sensible about it:

Firstly, when PR itself generates bad publicity, that doesn’t reflect too highly on those conducting the exercise. For that reason if no other, Mr Mike “media mad” Whitby should be clawing some of the money back.

Claims of generating £500,000 worth of “coverage” are excrement plucked out of the air – there can be no justifiable calculation to reaching that figure. Usually, these kind of people try to claim the equivalent value of the coverage if it was gained through advertisements, but they are not one and the same thing and are not comparable. Besides, there’s one important point – “coverage” is a means to an end, it is not and end in itself. So what if you got “coverage”, did the right people get the right message? And what of the people who didn’t read it, see it, or hear it?

Coverage IS NOT a measure of success, ever. It can help on that road, but when all you have to claim is “coverage”, then there’s a glaring gap to reporting actual success. In this case, some of that coverage was negative, so, that’s £500,000 – £500,000 = £0.

The second point of concern is really worrying for any Brummie council tax payer. This £135K was just to launch the “plan” of what they want to do, so we can only expect an even heftier budget for the actual launch of the actual library, should it ever get built.

The council seeks to justify this with a lot of pompous waffle “The £193 million Library of Birmingham is a very major project of national and international, as well as local and regional, significance and our communications strategy needs to be proportionate in scale and range”  – and they then throw in a Gordon Brown-ism about it being essential during the recession. Yes, indeed, the people and businesses of Birmingham will surely be comforted by news of a PLANNED library when they are otherwise struggling.

This is a library. It’s not the NEC, it’s not the NIA/Symphony Hall – it’s a library. That is not to devalue the place, or the work of those inside it – but claims of such a venture being of international significance and a big draw for investment into the region are claims too far. The present library is an important resource  – but plonking it in a new building does not suddenly change it’s status to international deal-maker. I can’t see any investor, anywhere saying “wow, Birmingham is going to have a new library, let’s invest” as they might have done over previous civic projects. And I’m sure there must be at least 1 or 2 people in Manchester/Glasgow/London who’ve seen that Birmingham will get a new library, in a few years time, and have put it in their diaries and booked a hotel. Spending £135k on the actual launch is worrying, but spending it on launching a plan is irresponsible at best.

The whole point of the library must surely be that it is a resource for the PEOPLE of Birmingham and the Midlands. So, one can only assume that the point of the PR exercise was rather more inward looking: “Look what we’re going to do, aren’t we big/clever/important”. The whole thing stinks of being someone’s “look what I’ve done” pet project….totally devoid of thought for the public. We don’t need a library designed by some hugely expensive show-boaters – just something  practical, that’s not an eyesore would do. There are rather too many other deserving causes in this city to blow money on excess.

So my third point of concern is a matter of priorities – both by Birmingham City Council – and those PR companies who butter up the egos of those running these pet projects. The Post reported that the £135,000 was “paid from the Leisure, Sport and Culture portfolio, which is struggling to meet bills for municipal golf courses, allotments, libraries and swimming pools”.

So, we brummies have a load of broken and closed swimming pools, but hey, we’ve got a load of PR about a library that isn’t even built yet. Fantastic. Why bother with things we could all benefit from, when we can have a share of that mythical £500,000 worth of “coverage”. For sure, there are times when there may be a greater good, but this is surely not it.

So what did we get for £135,000? Well it doesn’t take that to get “coverage” – the Council’s own PR team are no doubt capable of compiling a good story and liaising with journalists to sell-in the public interest to their readers/viewers/listeners.

One of the directors of one of the companies involved says: “Most of the budget was not on fees but on the launch events and materials to promote the library to local people, national and international stakeholders”.

Materials. Well, where are they? I’ve not seen any, but forgive me, I only live and work in the city.

The suspicious item on the shopping list is “events” – which might as well read “tax-payer funded party”. Sure, there must be a model of the proposal somewhere in town, with a couple of presentation boards, but that’s not £135k’s worth. They most certainly had a rather handsome party, with booze and vulgar canapés on tap. It certainly wouldn’t be the only one taking place in this city each year.

Were the people of Birmingham invited? Are they ever invited to these parties. Of course not. Just the great and the good. And don’t be fooled into thinking that the world’s media was in attendance – they most probably didn’t have the time. If you have to butter people up with booze and food, it must be because there’s otherwise not too much substance to your message.

All this egotistical nonsense gives PR a bad name – and is certainly not in the interests of the people of Birmingham, the people who are unwittingly writing the cheques to prop up the egos of those who should be SERVING US, not ABUSING US.

Anyone for a spot of CIVIC DUTY in the upper echelons of Birmingham City Council?

All hail the Post (and the Mail) for running this story. It got me to part with 70p.

Show & tell: the power of insight over what you write

Generally speaking, in the world of selling products and services, any form of marketing communication shares a common and somewhat inevitable feature – it’s always positive. It’s so inevitable that you can’t blame ‘the outside world’ for not actually believing, or at least not paying too much attention to these messages.

It’s not so much that people think marketers are a big bunch of liars – there are numerous regulations to prevent that – it’s just that whilst they’re inevitably told something is good for them, it’s also inevitable that it can’t always be true to their specific needs and nuances.

Producers of fast-moving consumer goods have long been adept at dealing with this marketing problem. When launching a new product, they’ll very often let you try it first with a free trial, or supermarket sampling point. For all the advertising they can do, the sure-fire sale will come from the customer with satisfactory insight into the product.

Whilst free trials are clearly not applicable to everything, I believe that the concept of providing insight to make the deal could be universal. It’s all very well TELLING people that what you offer is good, you’ve got to find a way to SHOW them too. Insight can come in many forms, from those free samples, to expert or consumer reviews, or perhaps by going beyond the marketing billboard and sharing more information about who you are and what you do.

Unfortunately, ’consumer insight’ often just seems to refer to a one-way process, whereby marketers learn about their market. However, possibly numbed by marketing’s “it’s all good” communication, people are turning the tables and wanting to learn more about the products, services and organisations that they’re dealing with. They’re armed with a ‘killer’ tool too, a veritable goldmine of insight about product, service and organisational performance – the Internet!

My own route to final purchase can certainly now relegate ‘official’ marketing communication materials behind other more insightful factors – and sometimes avoids them altogether. When buying say a digital camera, I’d head straight for the Internet to see what’s available from a selection of retailers, before seeking editorial and user reviews of cameras that might meet my requirements. I’ll probably only visit manufacturer websites to confirm specification details, since they’ll inevitably tell me everything is wonderful.

Who has the most influence on my decision-making? The people trying to sell me something, the people paid to review something, or the member of the public who has purchased the product with their own money? Whilst ‘the public’ can’t be wholly relied upon, since there’s always that tendency to only speak up when something is bad, not good, people who’ve already been through the purchasing process carry a lot of influence. They’ve no vested interest in selling me something and have tested the product from a consumer’s eye-view.

If lots of people say a product is poor, or lots of people suggest the service from a retailer is poor, it would seem wise to consider looking elsewhere. You do however have to weed out the people who didn’t bother to read the instructions, or properly research what they were buying in the first place!

Many internet retailers have sought to capitalise on this phenomenon. Amazon and Expedia have provided user reviews on their sites for some time. The price comparison site, Moneysupermarket.com, actively promotes user reviews as key selling point of their service. I’m sure some of the more negative comments will have slowed some product/service sales, but the benefit must surely be that more people purchase the product/service to best satisfy their needs and expectations. Happy customers might then provide happy insight for others.

There’s obviously still a need to ‘tell’ people things, arguably in the digital camera example, many years of straightforward marketing communication had planted the idea in my head that particular manufacturers/retailers made or sold digital cameras. However, that wasn’t the deal-maker for me – it was from other peers satisfied with both the product and the service from the retailer. Marketing in this instance isn’t just about what you’ve got to say – it’s as much about what everyone else is saying too.

However, many companies and organisations still haven’t grasped the power of insight over what they write. There is much high-level, often inward-looking, marketing fanfare, “We’re doing this and you should take note” – but this isn’t good enough to close a deal or make a sale. People want to know more and if you don’t supply it, or ‘cultivate’ and signpost it from your wider stakeholders, they might just go digging on Google and who knows what they’ll find!

There are numerous examples to highlight, but one was particularly of interest in a previous professional life. Many (most/all?!) universities have grasped the need to provide insight into the overall student experience of life at their institution, but they tend to stop at that high level. When it comes down to the course you want to study, there’s often just a page of dry text, telling you how great the course is.

Where are the lecturer’s blogs to give you a flavour of their expertise and ideas? Where are the examples of student’s work – which would be particularly insightful for creative courses? Where are the real students studying the course, in their words, not blatantly manufactured case studies? Where’s the real insight into the course?! People will start digging around the internet long before the ‘open day’. In fact, by digging around myself, it’s clear that there’s one institution in Birmingham who receive glowing endorsements from their students all around the internet – they’re so missing a New-trick-man!

I therefore think that the key things to bear in mind are:

1) People will dig for insight – so open up and don’t hide behind a billboard of marketing speak. In this new environment of increased consumer scrutiny, ‘marketing’ becomes, more than ever, a task fulfilled by every part of the organisation.

2) Deliver on your promises, meet and exceed expectations. Happy customers provide happy insight for others.

Indeed, I distinctly remember a quality management book saying that “a good manager does not market their organisation – a good manager facilitates their organisation to market itself”. Combine that philosophy with a more open approach to marketing communications and you’ve got to be on to a good thing?

Twitter: Turbo-charged ‘word of mouth’

A question posed on Twitter this week asked “What are the benefits of twitter from a marketing perspective?” My immediate response was “it’s turbo-charged ‘word of mouth’…for good and bad things”.

Despite having markedly different uses and meanings to people, there can be no doubting Twitter’s power for spreading information by ‘word of mouth’. The old adage used to be that if your organisation provided someone with a particularly pleasant experience, they’d tell their immediate friends, family and colleagues – more so if they were unhappy! If it was a particularly strong sound-bite, those people would tell further people, potentially increasing the exposure of that initial communication.

However, the internet now enables those discussions to take place on a global and potentially lingering platform. Comments, good or bad, tend to hang around longer on the internet than if spoken over the garden fence, printed in a newspaper, or even featured on a consumer affairs television programme. Whilst there are many means for ‘word of mouth’ to operate on the internet, I think that Twitter has some particularly pertinent features:

* It’s in real-time: So word gets out VERY quickly. People use Twitter as they’re doing and experiencing things – they post their ‘tweets’ as and when things happen. So if someone’s say sat in a restaurant enjoying/hating the experience, they give a live commentary to the world via their mobile phones.

*Re-tweeting: This is where other people re-post your tweet – typically referencing you as the originator. Even if a user has a small number of followers, it only takes a small percentage of those to ‘re-tweet’ a posting for the exposure of the message to snowball. Interestingly, people will generally only ‘re-tweet’ something that they think will be useful/interesting/entertaining to the people who follow their twitter stream. Re-tweeting rubbish could knock their personal credibility!

There’s a move in some corners to avoid the “cut and paste” nature of re-tweeting and regurgitate the posting in your own words – referencing the originator as “via @username”. The effect is similar – although there’s some risk that the real gist of the originators post might be lost in interpretation!

* Twitter Search: Potentially a goldmine for marketers. Twitter search enables you to find out what people are saying about almost anything you can think of. Here are a few examples of what people have recently said about two randomly selected companies:

Poundland http://search.twitter.com/search?q=Poundland

“You know poundland do hip-flasks now. AMAZING. my nights out will never be halted due to no more funds. Whoop!”

“Just been watching a great DVD, ‘Unseen Beatles’. Poundland, £1. Total bargain.”

“I’m a regular Poundland customer although I do draw the line at Lidl even I have (some) standards.”

Sainsburys http://search.twitter.com/search?q=sainsburys

“I have a new god, and its name is Sainsburys Southern Fried Chicken Wrap. Mmm mmm.”

“Has anyone tried the strawberries and jersey cream yoghurts from sainsburys? Their delicious. Try them”

“Loving this weather but well pissed off about pervy builders outside Sainsburys.”

It’s not just the big names that get a mention, almost anything can be found – and it’s a real Pandora’s box. Try typing expletives in the search function and it churns up all sorts of nasties – at the time a writing there’s a person very annoyed with 02!

So what should marketing types do about all this, if anything? It’s certainly a challenge, not least because it often seems in the psyche of marketing people to want to control everything – and here they really can’t, since their brand guidelines document isn’t enforceable on the public! However, I still think Twitter is a great little tool in the marketer’s toolbox – my thoughts, for what they’re worth, are:

1) LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN! It’s all too easy to jump in with both feet by setting up an account and following as many people as you can find, before spamming them with press release-esque announcements. Stop! I believe that the most valuable thing a marketer can get out of Twitter directly is by listening. Use the search function to see what people might be saying about you, your competitors, similar products and services, etc.

Marketers and their managers seem to shy away from such raw insight – after all, you can’t easily generate statistics and create pie-charts for your boardroom presentations which such raw information. However, unlike questionnaires and even focus groups, people’s thoughts on Twitter must rank as the most natural and spontaneous insight that you’re ever likely to capture.

2) Actually, this step isn’t so much for marketers – it’s for the entire organisation. In order to induce positive conversation about you on Twitter, you need to strive to deliver on your promises 100% of the time and exceed people’s expectations. If you do that, the natural positive word of mouth thing will happen – without a hint of a corporate Twitter account harassing people with announcements.

3) If you must set up a corporate account to ‘tweet’ your marketing messages, do so in a way that actually provides a service/benefit to your audience. They need to get something from following you – not merely news that you think is important. Personally, I’m also against trawling through Twitter and following as many people as you can, in the hope they follow you back. Promote the benefits of your Twitter ‘service’ through your usual channels – and pull people towards you that way.

Breaking organisational barriers with ’social technology’

Whilst I’m not at all convinced by that made-up-on-the-spot term ‘social technology’, I’m otherwise lost to find a sensible umbrella term for the diverse ensemble of social networking, social media and other so-called ‘Web 2.0’ tools. Web 2.0 can’t be the sensible umbrella term, since it sounds like you might need a new socket installed in your home/office to receive it. ‘Social networking’ isn’t so bad, but from a business perspective, how often is social networking just assumed to be time-wasting frivolity on Facebook?!

In essence, they’re all ‘technologies for socialising’, be it information, thoughts, ideas, photos, videos, etc. Unfortunately, socialising is probably a bad word too – how many people would more immediately link it to ‘going out on a Saturday night’? However, thinking back to my business school days, ‘socialising’ in an innovation context, was described as the process of individuals sharing tacit knowledge. Sociologists or psychologists would perhaps alternately describe socialisation as ‘the process of learning one’s culture and how to live within it‘.

I think for what follows, all three definitions are useful for exploring the ‘social’ and ‘socialising’ nature of how people are using these new technological tools.

There was an organisation; we’ll call it ‘Jelly Productions’ for anonymity’s sake. Jelly Productions had five divisions, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow and Orange. Some divisions worked together a little, some got on quietly on their own, some competed against others and some actively despised other divisions – or so at least folklore dictated.

Left to manage many of their own affairs and located in different buildings across ‘Jelly Town’, each division had developed its own cultural norms. Apart from maybe senior management – and informal linkages – staff in each division would by and large identify with their division and not stray from that group.

However, within those informal linkages were the seeds of change. If a person in Blue is a friend or acquaintance with a person in Red, an exchange of information and insight can take place, which undermines the physical and cultural barriers that have otherwise come to encircle each division. Whilst often derided as idle gossip networks, there can be real power in utilising informal linkages, albeit ‘out in the open’. And that’s what started to happen…

Using freely available tools on the Internet, some staff established blogs to record their work, experiences and ideas. Other net-savvy members of staff discovered these blogs and joined in, to the point where a small blogging community was formed. Also, sometime before the recent media furore over Twitter, people had started to experiment with that too.

With this social technology to link, share and collaborate, physical and cultural barriers to communication, amongst these people at least, had been broken. The cultural norms that people would otherwise be socialised into now encompassed all of Jelly Productions. These pioneers were in essence establishing a new Jelly Productions-wide culture.

The direct result of that wasn’t a rebellious group of individuals negatively undermining traditional management and communication structures. They used their new-found tools and opportunities to do their jobs more effectively.

In one example, people from Red were holding an event in Blue’s building. Learning about this event from Twitter – and being part of the newfound “we’re all on the same side actually” networked group – someone from Blue arranged for some extra help for Red. Red could have managed the event on their own, but with Blue’s local knowledge and few extra hands, the event was even more successful. In another example, someone in Orange decided to run a trial with a social networking tool. They blogged about it, so people from Blue and Red were able to follow the trial, share ideas and join the learning experience.

These are just small examples, but possibly reason enough to get sociologists excited about the potential impact of social technologies on organisations – and potentially society in general. Of course, being a manager in a networked ‘conversation organisation’ (yes, I’m groaning at that one too) presents a raft of new challenges. Not least because instead of just looking up and down the organisational chart, you’ve got to look from side to side and all around! Above all else, they just need to be part of the network, not resisting it. Resistance is futile, unless you can stop your people using the internet or their mobile phones at all times.

From a knowledge management perspective, there are further potential advantages of the ‘conversation organisation’. Once, through a chance meeting (a friend of a friend’s cousin type link), Blue and Yellow discovered that they could link their seemingly unrelated expertise together for a new project, which turned out to be a major success.

What if you increased the probability of these chance meetings? If the organisation is networked, talking and sharing, then aren’t you doing just that? Perhaps it isn’t necessary or desirable in every organisation, but in a knowledge-based one, it seems vital to unlock the full potential of that organisation.

I’m sure if I Google’d all this, I’d find several large, probably technology-centric, US companies doing this already. However, I’m also sure that I’d find plenty of UK companies and organisations who regard ‘internal communications’ as the task of producing a quarterly Sunday supplement-esque glossy newsletter, filled with ‘top-down’ propaganda.

Selling social media by talking business first

A question on the Birmingham Post discussion group on LinkedIn has got my mind whirring. The question asked ‘Do you find it difficult communicating the usefulness of tools like LinkedIn?’

I think that the key here is to actually step away from the social media/web 2.0 table for a second and also park the apparent usefulness/benefits to one side too.

I see LinkedIn and alike as tools – a means to achieve an end – so I believe that the initial focus needs to be on those end objectives. As a crass example, if you’re renovating a house, you decide what you want to do before heading to the DIY store – you wouldn’t first head to B&Q, buy a load of tools and then decide what to do with them.

Business or other organisational objectives are the best opening gambit as they’re largely time immemorial, widely understood by the management population – and are what people actually need/want to achieve. Try this for size:

Q1) Do you want to increase sales by reaching new customers?
Answer – Yes.
Response – You could achieve this with x, y or z tools.

Q2) Do you want to use LinkedIn, it’s great for networking?
Answer – Ummm, excuse me?

Now, for sure, that is a little contrived – but all the same, the business objective-led approach is more compelling. There’s no strange technical terms or names, just straightforward business speak that you wouldn’t say no to.

There are so many business objectives that social media tools could be means to help achieve, not just the marketing-oriented ones that are most talked about. However, I believe that the mass adoption of these new tools can only happen if we initially put the tools back in the box and focus on the business objectives people need to achieve first.

Lead by business needs, not technology tools.

The dividing line

Anything dated before this post is from my previous life as a Marketing Communications Officer at the Technology Innovation Centre – anything dated after this post is completely unrelated to the Technology Innovation Centre.

Universities Unite to Enhance Enterprise Education

Leading practitioners of enterprise education from across the UK, will be sharing the latest innovations in enterprise skills development, at the fourth annual Technology Enhanced Enterprise Education (TE3) Open Day. This year’s event will take place at Birmingham City University’s Technology Innovation Centre (tic) on Wednesday 16th July 2008.

Established in 2003, the TE3 project has developed into a collaborative community of Midlands-based enterprise education specialists. In order to expand this collaboration to a national stage, the TE3 Open Day is co-organised with Enterprise Educators UK, a national network of over 500 higher education practitioners from 83 member institutions.

TE3 Open Day co-ordinator, Charlotte Carey, a Lecturer in Applied Research at Birmingham City University’s Business School says: “The main emphasis of this year’s event is on play, as we want delegates to get hands-on and experience the technologies themselves. Sessions will range from high-technology virtual worlds, to mind-mapping table cloths!”

The event’s opening session will explore how internet-based ‘Web 2.0’ applications can be utilised to create engaging and connected enterprise education. The Head of the TE3 project, the University of Birmingham’s Dr Kelly Smith, will join Birmingham City University’s Charlotte Carey to assess the use of Web 2.0 tools, including blogging, social-networking, wiki’s and Twitter, in enterprise-related curriculum.

The University of Wolverhampton’s Jane Edwards and Kevin Brace will then take delegates on a short tour of the virtual learning spaces in the internet-based virtual world, Second Life. Delegates will be invited to sample a virtual enterprise project, which allows participants to experience the cut and thrust of business, in a low-risk virtual environment.

The open day programme also includes an exploration of a wide range of high and low-technology solutions for student engagement and curriculum development, with contributions from Leeds Metropolitan University’s Alison Price and Sheffield Hallam University’s Dr Simon Brown.

Commenting on the importance of enterprise skills development, the Head of the TE3 project, Dr Kelly Smith says: “Enterprise education gives students both an alternative career option and the confidence to make a difference in whatever type of work they choose. By utilising new technology, we can spread learning opportunities to a wider audience and make learning more engaging, helping more students to develop vital entrepreneurial skills”.

Dr Simon Brown, Director for Enterprise Teaching and Learning, Sheffield Hallam University and Vice-Chair, Enterprise Educators UK says: “The TE3 Open Day is a great opportunity for colleagues from different backgrounds to meet and share experiences. Our association with this event provides a welcome opportunity for members of Enterprise Educators UK to learn from this well established and highly regarded project.”

The TE3 Open Day will take place at tic’s Millennium Point campus in Birmingham City Centre. Further event information can be found at www.te3.bham.ac.uk

Jazz and hip-hop star Soweto Kinch joins Creative Networks

Birmingham’s multi award-winning jazz and hip-hop musician, Soweto Kinch, will join this month’s Creative Networks event, to explore the resurgence of live music and its positive impact on local communities. Organised by Birmingham City University’s Technology Innovation Centre (TIC), the event will take place at Millennium Point, on Thursday 24th April.

In a period where the music industry is shifting from physical-format music sales, to a wide range of internet-based digital distribution strategies, there has been a significant resurgence in live music performance. Research by Mintel indicates that attendance at live music events doubled between 2001 and 2007, when the market was estimated to be worth £743 million. This figure is forecast to rise to £836 million by 2009.

Dave Taylor of TIC’s Centre for Interactive Media comments: “Faced with considerable change and turmoil, it is interesting to see how the industry has turned to its roots in live performance. The live experience cannot be replicated and revenue generation is relatively straightforward.”

The increased focus on live performance is illustrated by the growing use of ‘multi-rights’ or ‘360 degree’ contracts. These seek to share the revenue of an artist’s tour and merchandise sales, in addition to the traditional percentage of recorded music sales. Madonna has famously moved from a major record label, to sign a $120million multi-rights contract with Live Nation, a specialist live event promoter. Other artists such as Prince and The Charlatans, have also increasingly relied on live performance revenues, after giving away their latest albums for free.

Dave Taylor says: “Whilst established acts may be able to rely on their existing profile to take this extreme approach, it is vital that grass-roots talent is still able to progress from pubs, clubs and community centres, into larger arenas on the national and international stage.”

Creative Networks’ special guest speaker, Soweto Kinch, is a shining example of a local talent that has reached the global stage. He demonstrated a passion for jazz at an early age, initially playing the clarinet, before taking up his trademark instrument, the alto saxophone, aged nine. After completing a degree in Modern History at Oxford University, Soweto was offered a place on the ‘Tomorrow’s Warriors’ jazz musician development programme, established by British jazz legend, Gary Crosby.

Having initially gained prominence through live performance with his band, the Soweto Kinch Trio, Soweto’s debut solo album, ‘Conversations With the Unseen’, was released in 2003 to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Successfully fusing jazz and hip-hop, the album earned Soweto the MOBO Award for ‘Best Jazz Act’ in 2003, and a major international tour followed. These live performances resulted in the 2004 BBC Radio Jazz Awards for ‘Best Band’ and ‘Best Instrumentalist’.

A passionate advocate of the power of music to inspire and transform communities, Soweto’s second album, ‘A Life In The Day Of B19 – Tales Of The Tower Block’, was inspired by his immediate surroundings in Birmingham. With narrative supplied by former BBC newsreader, Moira Stuart, this ground-breaking jazz concept album follows the everyday challenges of three men in a block of Birmingham council flats.

The album is a response to Soweto’s belief that media coverage of certain areas of Birmingham negatively focuses on stories of crime and unemployment. He suggests that the immense talent and rich cultural inspiration in these areas deserves greater coverage, in order to instil people with a high estimation of their capabilities and a vision of what is possible.

TIC’s Dave Taylor says: ”Just as Soweto’s music is an inspiration to the communities of Birmingham, his experience and insight will be inspirational to his fellow musicians. As always, we extend a warm invitation to all creative freelancers, companies and groups.”

Established in 2004, Creative Networks is a regular monthly gathering of up to 200 creative community professionals. The event is free and opens from 6pm. Anyone interested in attending should contact Creative Networks Co-ordinator, Scarlet Scardanelli, on 0121 331 5400 or e-mail creative.networks@tic.ac.uk.

Further Reading:

Myspace: Soweto Kinch:

http://www.myspace.com/sowetokinch

Dune Music – Soweto Kinch:

http://www.dune-music.com/artist_index.asp?ID=2

A Life in the Day of B19: Tales of the Tower Block:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Day-B19-Tales-Block/dp/B000HXDHD2/sr=8-1/qid=1159894097/ref=pd_ka_1?ie=UTF8&s=music

Mintel reports on live industry growth

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storyCode=1031576&sectioncode=1

UK Venues: Thank you for the music

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/770680/UK-Venues-Thank-music/

A change of tune

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9443082

Madonna announces huge Live Nation deal

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21324512/

Charlatans to give away new album as free download

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/charlatans-to-give-away-new-album-as-free-download-395626.html

Mama nurtures new talent as live music group becomes labels’ envy

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2641418.ece

Internet and middle-aged fans fuel live music boom

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23408177-details/Internet+and+middle-aged+fans+fuel+live+music+boom/article.do

Anthony J Huges:

http://anthonyjhughes.vox.com/

Podnosh – Soweto Kinch:

http://www.podnosh.com/blog/category/soweto-kinch/

Birmingham Music Scene

http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2007/04/24/birmingham_music_scene_feature.shtml

Live Music Forum

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Creative_industries/music/live_music_forum.htm