In many creative industries, networking is a straightforward - if sometimes awkward - procedure. Artists congregate at gallery events, theatre people at opening nights of plays and writers at book launches. Assuming you don't just stand in a corner all night, it's easy to make contacts and share ideas. But what about creative facilitators, some of whom work in prisons, some in boardrooms, some in schools? Project manager Nick Sherrard hopes to map this new sector and build networks between creative facilitators in NZ and the UK.In many creative industries, networking is a straightforward - if sometimes awkward - procedure. Artists congregate at gallery events, theatre people at opening nights of plays and writers at book launches. Assuming you don't just stand in a corner all night, it's easy to make contacts and share ideas. But what about creative facilitators, some of whom work in prisons, some in boardrooms, some in schools? Project manager Nick Sherrard hopes to map this new sector and build networks between creative facilitators in NZ and the UK.******************

"I'm a project manager at the Tower of London, part of Historic Royal Palaces, and also work on a number of creative innovation projects in the UK. In connection to both roles I'm currently working to map what is I think a fairly new but sizeable creative industry.

"When a graphic designer works for a business, or a school, or for a product design team, or even if he hangs his work in a gallery it doesn't occur to him that he is 'changing job'. It doesn't matter who the client or the audience is we all understand what a graphic designer does. And because of that graphic designers share ideas fairly simply.

"In the various projects I run I work with diverse groups of people. Some specialise in working in prisons, some in boardrooms, some in theatre workshops, some in schools. These are the people that help ideas happen. This sector of 'People running workshops' - creative facilitators - is doing pretty well just now. The growth in creative and leadership training in business, in workshop-based education projects, in the arts themselves, in community consultation, in co-design, and many other areas is huge and profitable.

"But we're each stuck in other people's silos. If I run a project in a prison, someone else might be using the same techniques with executives, someone else with their theatre rehearsal, and we'd never interact - never share ideas, never challenge each other, never contribute new perspectives to each other's work. The audience should not define what we do, in the same way as it doesn't for graphic designers.

"Our project is to map this new sector and in so doing network creative facilitators - breaking out of other people's silos. This is sparking some hugely valuable dialogue between practitioners. Its also allowing us to open up debate about the infrastructure we need - in a very human way - in order to build creative economies and communities."

May 2007

For more information, contact Nick Sherrard, project manager at the Tower of London, Historic Royal Palaces.