Designer Breakfast on 26th March @ the St Bride Library

On Thursday I attended my first Designer Breakfast, mixing with an eclectic crowd of creatives intent on networking and learning useful things about how to run and grow their businesses.

This breakfast asked the question: How do you band together as a group of equals with a shared set of values and an eye on the big project? How do you organise in a way that is equitable, viable and rewarding? Amanda Tatham welcomed us and introduced the speakers.

Claudie Plen of specialist change consultancy Edge Thinking gave an interactive seminar that addressed the must-ask questions of successful collaboration today. She did so in an authoritative and engaging way, with lots of audience participation. We had to work! I came away with some useful ideas on structuring work collaboratively, with ticklists of issues that need to be addressed if planning to do so successfully and enjoyably.

Paul Richards then presented an example of such successful collaboration by talking about his agency, Be Like Water, a fluid agency of partner professionals united by an idea – creating better work in a better way.He is a man with a compelling use of language and one phrase remains with me - people are what they show they are and not what they tell they are.

Many people stayed on afterwords to discuss these and other matters further. I will endeavour to return next month's Designer Breakfast and thereafter as it really was a morning well spent.