Bright Future for Fashion Designers as CreativeTT gets down to business

Following the successful fashion export showcase, ModeTT, last Saturday at the Radisson Poolside, Trinidad and Tobago fashion designers can look forward to strategic and timely initiatives from state enterprise, CreativeTT and its subsidiary FashionTT. Pursuant to its mandate, to stimulate and facilitate business development and

export activities of the creative industries in Trinidad and Tobago to generate national wealth, CreativeTT collaborated with ExporTT to implement an export trade mission to the French Caribbean Outermost Regions (FCORs), which takes the form of a comprehensive Fashion Look book.

This trade mission was designed along a phased process, which encouraged designers to assess their business models and plans and determine their export readiness. ModeTT was therefore an opportunity for designers who succeeded through the open call, application and interview processes, to show their submissions to a panel of local, regional and international experts. Panelists and attendees alike were impressed with the exceptional quality of all designs delivered on the runway and encouraged by the strategic direction articulated.

Chief Executive Officer of CreativeTT, Ria Karim, speaking at the event, highlighted a series of projects carded for roll-out in the coming months, focused on fostering commercial activity in the sector and supporting export focused capacity development.

“With a new team in place and charged with a powerful strategic intent, CreativeTT will continue along an aggressive and ambitious schedule of initiatives which address some of the most critical issues facing the creative sector, both at the macro and micro levels.”

Karim continued by outlining specific activities that will positively impact the fashion community in the near future. She highlighted programmes that focus on financing, business incubation, capacity development, manufacturing and marketing our fashion merchandise to targeted global audiences.

“We at CreativeTT are focused and we are energized. We stand ready to work with you to unleash the massive creative potential of our people, not just in terms of its very expression and manifestation, but in ways that create jobs, generate wealth, and contribute to the social and economic wellbeing of our nation.”

FILMTT SETS SIGHTS ON GROWING A TECHNOLOGY INFUSED FILM INDUSTRY

Creative industries have been becoming increasingly more dependant on technology globally and locally, and the Film Industry is no different. With a focus on export and global relevance, the Film Company of Trinidad and Tobago (FilmTT) is gearing up its summer campaign to stimulate the use of smartphone and mobile device technology in short-film making. The Trinidad and Tobago Smartphone film festival launched on May 27^th, 2015, in this regard.

Through the Smartphone Film Festival, FilmTT plans to engage hundreds of local mobile device users in the globally trending shot-film making activity. The use of easily accessible technology, in this instance, for film-making, will broaden accessibility to the billion dollar industry. With major music videos and festival screenings turning to smartphone cameras for shooting, FilmTT is pushing Trinidad and Tobago right in the direction of modern, worldwide practices.

FilmTT is a subsidiary of CreativeTT, and is focused on stimulating and facilitating business development and export activities in the film industry in Trinidad and Tobago, to generate national wealth. The Smartphone Film Festival is stimulating the film-making activities in a manner that is easy and inexpensive to budding film makers in Trinidad and Tobago.

14 Ministers later, 3 Steps that can be taken

Photo Courtesy: guardian.co.tt

With a record breaking 14 Ministers walking the Governmental Green Mile in just four years of Our Lady’s Administration, the people of Trinidad and Tobago have begun to lose faith, and our once “Do So” population may be considering hanging up their yellow jerseys. Is there hope in the management of this crisis as the 2015 General Election draws nearer? The people’s faith seems to be dwindling. This post explores three steps that the Government of the People’s Partnership can observe in saving face as they enter the political battlefield of 2015, or is that 2014?

 

1. Take a good look at the real scope and act accordingly.

Yes, the Prime Minister has followed Crisis Communication 101 and admitted the faults of the government and sought to rectify them by dismissing misbehaving ministers. Where this strategy has failed is that we are no longer dealing with the dismissal of a couple ministers, we’re looking at ‘Guinness World Record’ worthy feat, and a total lack of confidence in government by a vast majority. The naughty corner simply won’t work any more. Can we agree that the PM has not acknowledged that she made T&T history by highlighting the incompetence of the people she hand selected?

 

2. Ditch Crisis Comms 101 and Get Creative

Crisis Communication Management 101 tells us to remind the people of your brand identity and brand values. Unfortunately what may have worked six Ministers ago will not work at number 14. What’s needed is a DEMONSTRATION of those values with the use of an outstanding ground up PR strategy. A cabinet reshuffle is not the answer. May I suggest a highly publicized, transparent Ministerial workshop (not in a fancy foreign country) that seeks to re-engineer the ministers’ approach to people and leadership. This approach should  achieve a ground breaking, novel, psychological paradigm shift. It appears that these ministers are disconnected from reality. They need to change their apparent perspective of their rights as ministers. There needs to be a change in the way they approach service to the people, because the current approach has to go, along with its monarchical way of thinking where princes and princesses sit on their high horses and the people served them.

The fact is you need a real strategy that not just “I fired them because I’m a good person.”

 

3. Document, Share, Make History

If this drastic demonstration of said values is well documented and shared with the public, maybe they’ll begin to believe in the potential for real internal change. The dirty linen of the government of today has made history in this country. Why not let the clean up campaign do the same?

We live in a technologically driven society, where opinions are led and messages travel through a vast network of well- everyone. For the first time in history there has been a major shift from mainstream media to a medium of the people (its called the Internet). Unfortunately for the PP, this government has fallen under the most scrutiny in our political history because we are equipped with a magnifying glass called Social Media. Viral videos, memes and posts cannot be overlooked as part of the language of Trinbagonians.

The point is, whatever the strategy that is employed, manage the way you are viewed. Meeting the people where they are looking at you and present yourself with a new face. This new face should outline the ways that the strategy has served as an intervention to change the governance we have come to expect of the PP.

 

 

Photo Courtesy: Guardian.co.tt

Are you a writer or an editor?

As we work together on projects- at work, at school, at plans or whatever – someone plays the role of writer and someone plays the role of editor.

The writer sits on the clouds of her mind and sings the song of her heart. With carefree bliss, she creates a direction or inspires a movement.

On the other hand, the editor structures the plan and develops the system for execution. He is grounded and focused on ensuring that things are done the right way.

Both are equally important to the process and depend on each other to develop something beautiful. But one of the most important things to note is that they are two very different people. The writer is the flower, basking in the glory of the sun and soaking up its goodness, the editor is the gardener.

Which are you? More importantly, which are you in this moment?

Get Inspired- Stand on the shoulders of those who went before you.

One of the things I read about Leonardo Da Vinci is that he was a teacher. His teaching method was was very specific and was probably considered a bit frustrating by his students. He used to have them repaint work that he created until they got it right, and only then will they be guided into creation of their own works of art.

The same principle holds today in the workplace. I’m sure Da Vinci’s students wanted to dive straight into their own creativity and grow their celebrity status quickly. Clearly impossible if they just copied his work, right? But Da Vinci ensured that they were adequately inspired by the way he did things, by the way he structured his work, and by the way he represented his thoughts, before they began. 

His years of research and training gave him a technique that was tried and tested, and allowed him to create a framework and even a formula for his art that took him to stardom. Being a student of his meant that you got to tap into his formulas and frameworks, and then execute.

What does this mean for you? It means that as a student of the world, you can tap into the geniuses of those before you by reading articles, journals and white papers before you embark on a project. Get inspired by observing how those in your field have structured their work, and how they presented their ideas. It might not be a bad idea to pattern your work like theirs until it comes naturally enough for you to create your own pattern.

Da Vinci didn’t become who he was when he died overnight. It took a lot of observation and inspiration to create world class works of art; and i’m sure he stood on the shoulders of those who went before him.

As cliche as it is, start with a plan.

Every choice you make in business fits into a framework. If you’re a good planner, execution becomes easy for you or any other person on your team.
It’s easy for us to feel the creeping sensation of overwhelm, but focus your energies firstly on developing and understanding the framework.
The details, the creative and the ease of momentum come after. Everything else is chaos.

The Future of TV and where the Caribbean should be now.