Walk into a bank or go see a business adviser, ask them for support, tell them that your business plan involves being a pirate, and I wonder what their reaction will be. Perhaps you will be welcomed as a ruthless profit-hungry captain of industry, or maybe your costume will lead to security guards removing you from the premises.
Marxist and Hippy “lets all share stuff and be creative friends” working practices may work well on communes, where there is no money exchanged, and vegetables flourish. This principal may work well for deploying a successful social media strategy, but the focus of the recent “Big Debate” event was about financial gain for the UK, not how well Birmingham can pat itself on the back and chat amongst each other. The strap line brief behind the event (hosted by Birmingham City University and supported by the Birmingham Post) was “Can the Midlands’ creative industries revolutionise the UK economy?”
Familiar faces from the digital industries attended, and an audience research exercise was completed during the day by the university. Charles Leadbeater gave a speech at the start of the day that seemed to inspire the attendees, the audio of which you can listen to here:
Interestingly, Mr. Leadbeater’s book, We Think, employed a wiki style writing and development process, involving 257 contributors, none of whom appear to have received any financial gain from their creative input to the book. At first glance, it seems that the financial winners from this have been the book publishers and Mr. Leadbeater himself. The volunteer contributors are perhaps happy with the gratification and knowledge that their creative work has been published and recognised, thus following the context of the book itself, and the wiki philosophy. However, gratification and pride do not put bread on the table, or a roof over one’s head. If We Think were to make significant profits for Mr Leadbeater, it would be an interesting exercise to see what the volunteer contributor’s reactions would be. Is Mr. Leadbeater following a business model based on principles historically employed by Bartholomew Roberts (1)?
At the event, there seemed to be an over-population of local professionals involved with the digital industries in attendance, as was expected. However, there appeared to be a distinct lack of business leaders, strategists, venture capitalists, manufacturers (of physical goods as opposed to online publishers and designers) and representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the financial sector. This in itself was a significant realisation for me. Yet again, the focus appeared to be inwards; one of internal self congratulation and mutual support, as opposed to external market dominance and global sales success.
Revolutionise – a strong word indeed. The word revolution brings me thoughts of complete change, an extreme opposite direction, led by a strong figurehead, and ruthless practices, employing winning tactics where power is seized and used for maximum gain. This is what a pirate was throughout history- not some sort of cavalier, romantic character from a Hollywood block buster movie.
The historical success of a pirate involved entrepreneurial planning, direction, navigation, stealth, and above all, strong leadership that employed the ruthless practices of plunder, murder, theft and total destruction of the opposition. This was competition at its most extreme, where survival of the fittest was the ultimate goal. Pirates did not need a design committee, steering or focus group.
Translate this into business practice, and appear alongside a competitor with the fluffy communal sharing values as described above, deploy your cutlass, and victory will be yours.
Business is not a meal around a table where everybody makes a nice dish and shares amongst friends. It is a battle for market share and dominance- where shareholders are king, demanding more bounty for further greed and expansion, and failure to deliver the treasure leads to someone walking the plank, for sure.
Business success directly translates to profit. To achieve this, good case studies (of which there are many), have proven that planning and focus on the task in hand are of paramount importance. This means that a business model follows good leadership that is supported by a strong financial model for profit and gain. This does not involve a creative process- it is a simple rule of good business practice. Whatever creative process is involved in developing the product, there comes a time when profit must be gained to ensure continued sustainability and growth. This means manufacturing a product for one price, and selling this for a profit- a simple, straightforward and proven strategy. To deliver profit requires successful planning, definition, leadership and direction, not a creative experiment. The product can be developed via a creative process, but there comes a time in any business that the focus must switch to the importance of actually making profit.
“Can the Midlands’ creative industries revolutionise the UK economy?” If the Midlands continue to deploy the values discussed at The Big Debate, the real pirates will win the battle for sure.
To contact your nearest business-focused pirate, their headquarters are not located at a dock at the Gas Street Basin. To find them, I suggest you head to London. Some have already set sail.
(1) Charles Johnson (1724), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, p. 250.
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[...] of the creative industries and online activist movements, not once were the phrases ‘pirate’ or ‘JFDI’ mentioned, suggesting a more planned and structured approach was in this case, [...]