It's great to be proved wrong (really!)

I offer support to social enterprises through a variety of means – one of which is as a mentor through the Unltd Connect programme.

Recently I was 'paired' with One&Other, a new media enterprise in York that’s seeking to use news channels and digital publishing to share good news and build communities rather than simply 'telling tales' to make money.

They've already attracted a lot of initial interest from within this industry, and one of the topics that I wanted to explore with them (as well as everything on their 'wish list') was that of their legal form – they incorporated as a CIC and I wanted to explore with them why they'd chosen this structure given my experience of this form: briefly, I'm skeptical of the tangible benefits that being a CIC might offer based on published research and my own experiences, but am always open to being proved wrong about that.

I think it’s important that I remain open in this way, seeking opportunities to be proved wrong in my understanding and stance on all sorts of issues, because if I don't I risk become an entrenched cynic and it also offers me new opportunities to further enhance my own knowledge which can surely only be a good thing for everyone?

Anyway – their experience of being a CIC is fantastic! It's allowing them to achieve one of their principle aims: creating opportunities and generating invitations for them to explain and explore what social enterprise is within an industry that's largely unaware of it and the potential it can offer, because when they meet people as say 'we're a CIC' people are invariably asking 'what's that then?'

So thank you One&Other for proving me wrong – I hope to be able to return the favour someday ;-)

are the creative industries actually the destructive industries?

I was invited to be a keynote speaker at a recent RSA/Future Artists/Potico unconference on enterprise and the creative industries, and through discussions and debate with particpants there am beginning to think that the creative industries are actually quite dangerous...

after all, creativity demands that we challange our accepted (and comfortable) norms, expectations, knowledge and wisdom - manifestations of work from within the creative industries often cause upset, shock and dislike and so are often dismissed out of hand and not seen to be of value;

and maybe that's why in the UK we don't embrace the creative industries as well as other nations do (and the associated limitations that we therefore place on our society and economy in doing so) - we keep them on the fringes of acceptability because they are so disruptive and (personally) challenging. But can't such destructive tendancy utimately a good thing?