the blog

Watch our 1st action learning video and find out how to apply for our new programme

So as you know, we’re launching a new, entirely free, action learning programme for folk working in Colchester’s creative sector – everyone from artists and freelancers, to those running their own creative businesses or working in larger cultural organisations. Applications close on 2 June.    Take a look at our intro video Earlier this week, […]Read More

Free action learning programme for Colchester’s creative & digital sector OPEN NOW FOR APPLICATIONS

I’m really excited to be bringing action learning to 37 Queen Street…. I’m a big fan of action learning as a professional development tool; having joined my first set around 10 years ago, it’s something that has really informed my development as a leader and entrepreneur. Having run action learning programmes up and down the […]Read More

Quotas, safe spaces, and image obsession – Report from the Leeds Open Space

There was a great turn out at Sheaf Street on Monday 26 March for good food and an evening of conversation and debate about how we can begin to tackle inequality in the music industry.  In fact so good was the Leeds open space that I was struck dumb (literally, with the flu, hence the […]Read More

Mentoring, Imposter Syndrome, Role Models and More – Report from the Liverpool Open Space

So, exactly how can we how we can begin to tackle inequality in the music industry? This question was the focus of a day of discussion, reflection and debate at the wonderful Constellations in Liverpool last Saturday. A small but select gathering of musicians, promoters, journalists and researchers came together for the second of our […]Read More

Making gender equality in the music industry a reality…. What can we all do?

The music industry can look an awful lot like a man’s world, even in 2018. Fewer than 1 in 5 songwriters in the UK are female, just 1 in 6 labels are majority-owned by women, and fewer than a third of those working in the industry are female. Get to the upper echelons, and only […]Read More

[View the story “Here’s one we made earlier – notes from our Make Do & Bend Ideas Lab” on Storify]Read More

A manifesto for the curious and the generous

I’m writing this from Liverpool, where I’ve been for the past 2 days for the inaugural Binary Festival, a brilliant get together of innovators, makers, creatives and inventors. Over the past two days, I’ve stared and listened in wonder as the brilliant Sam Aaron did the most awesome live coding, been inspired by the force […]Read More

Make, Do & Bend – the title of our Ideas Lab, yes, but also a good philosophy

Imagine the scene – 25 or so of Europe’s most curious and forward thinking composers, musicians and creative technologists, gathered together at NESTA HQ for a ‘nothing’s impossible’ day of plotting and conspiring, eating and drinking, thinking and doing. All in the name of exploring the next frontiers of live performance, and how digital technology […]Read More

Boomstand – the pop up sound system going places

Hwa Young Jung blogs on the latest outing of Boomstand, a pop up sound system developed during the hub’s Bring & Byte hack weekend in Hebden Bridge in May 2015. Boomstand is a sound system for public space. We install pop-up sound systems in public spaces for anyone to play music through and for musicians, poets, […]Read More

Get curious… Get Generous… Reflections from Venues Day Business Up, Be Inspired panel

Earlier this week I joined 300 other delegates at the Music Venue Trust’s second Venues Day, all of us enjoying the slightly weird experience of drinking tea in the Ministry of Sound bar at 10am on a Tuesday morning. And all of us clutching hot off the press copies of the GLA’s Rescue Plan for […]Read More