No one achieves anything alone...

To find new solutions to the big problems we face today, we have to bring people together to create the best ideas possible. But what factors lead to a team being creative and innovative? How can you make sure you get the best ideas out of your team?

Linda Folk is a PhD student in the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy studies and will introduce you to the basic principles and techniques of creative teamwork in this hourlong workshop. You will leave with valuable insights into how to lead and work in teams that strive for innovation and change.

You will explore:

• Different ways to generate ideas in teams

• Structures that foster creative teamwork

• What to do and not to do when creating the big new idea.

Please note that this workshop includes team exercises that are part of Linda's PhD research at the University of Warwick. By participating in the workshop you are giving your consent for the anonymized output of these exercises to be used in the completion of her doctoral thesis at the University.

Sounds good. How do I get involved?

If you would like to take part, please complete the online form indicating your availability on the following dates by no later than 17.00 on Friday 2nd February 2019.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with Linda by email: L.Folk@warwick.ac.uk. We will let you know as quickly as possible which slot you have been allocated to.

The rise of the ‘neo-precariat’? The emerging precarious challenges for and responses of formal creative labour in advertising and public relations industries

Dr. Tommy Tse, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, The University of Hong Kong

Wednesday 7^th November, IAS, Millburn House, 13:00-14:30.

In view of the changing state of the creative workforce, this presentation reworks the traditional concept of precarity as a habituated (rather than contingent) state, to explore the diversity of precarisation processes in the creative sector. In doing so it critiques Standing’s (2016) theorisation of the ‘precariat’ as a ‘class-in-the-making’, based on an increasingly temporary employment status and lacking seven forms of labour-related security. The term ‘neo-precarity’ is coined to describe the emerging, normalising perceptions of insecurity among full-time creative labourers. Theoretically, this study identifies the drivers and patterns of three new forms of neo-precarious experience and their derived anxieties and dissatisfactions. Empirically, it demonstrates how technologisation, intergenerational conflicts and the disempowerment of creativity constitute various forms of perceived insecurity among creative workers, including professional status and job status insecurity. The findings illustrate how interactions of Hong Kong public relations and advertising workers with the environmental context, institutional and organisational factors, and multiple actors are reshaping their definitions of career, career success and self-actualisation. Rather than a unique hallmark for non-standard workers, I argue that precarity should be reconceptualised as inherent to—in different degrees—all labour-capital relationships.

On Tuesday 16^th October, two graduates from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy at the University of Warwick reunited with guest lecturer Tony Spong from the AAR in London shortly after a meeting with a new client.

The business partners, Don Lee (Li, Xiaoming) from the MA International Cultural Policy and Management course and Jonathan Sarabadu from the MA Global Media and Communications course connected with Tony Spong from the AAR who helped to further the Warwick Alumni’s business which is now in it’s 2^nd year running. The partners met each other in the centre’s welcoming event in 2015 and the two have developed the partnership since.

Tony Spong, Managing Partner of the AAR, supported Devoch by providing his in-depth understanding of marketing and agency roles. The Warwick graduates first met Tony through the University and valued the support and expertise so much that they have continued to collaborate with their University and lecturers alongside their business development. Don Lee, a Chinese national, sponsored by the University of Warwick has embraced the British business culture becoming a finalist in the IoD’s Director of the Year whilst Jonathan Sarabadu, has continued his service in the RAF Media Reserves squadron whilst developing his cultural understanding of Chinese culture and it’s language. Their company, Devoch, specialises in supporting British companies planning and implementing their strategy to integrate into the Chinese market.

For more information go to: http://www.devoch.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DevochUK/