Introducing: Sam Ward

As the people who follow our blog will know already, we are big fans of independent fashion and designers. We love projects that showcase this talent and scene, and although the catwalk show and the magazine photo-shoots are the things that catch the eye and write the headlines, the people behind the scenes that make things happen are the driving force behind that end result. We recently sat down with one of those very people: Sam Ward.

Sam has been heavily involved in the 'Leeds Scene' for a number of years. This is based in both personal and professional roots - She is friends with pretty much every cool indie designer and store owner in the city and she has worked for Leeds Guide and Harvey Nichols in the past, something she looks back on fondly:

"The Leeds Guide, was possibly the most fun you could have at work. Everyone talks about how great The Leeds Guide is, and I still love reading it now – there’s nothing like it in the North, they’re a great bunch of people with a true passion for the city, being independent themselves, they have this hugely balanced view of what Leeds needs. From there, I fell into the Press and Marketing job at Harvey Nichols. I was well out of my depth and learnt a lot of very harsh lessons very quickly. Luckily, I had a great mentor who pushed me right over the edge – I needed it in order to prove to everyone (including myself) that I could do that job really well. I miss the store every day – it has this really eclectic mix of people engulfed in this crazy fashion bubble – I love it!"

We got to know Sam last year during two Marketing Leeds projects: Leeds in Vancouver and Leeds in Barcelona. The Barcelona project gave a taster of the fashion talent Leeds has and the Vancouver project showcased that talent in a huge way to an international audience. Sam was one of the main players in the Vancouver project and we asked her how it had come about:

"I think we were all a little stunned with how it came about. I knew that Lisa Chadderton (who used to be Marketing Manager at Corn Exchange) was working on Vancouver Fashion Week and thought it would be a fantastic opportunity for James (Steward). I spoke to Marketing Leeds very briefly about what a fantastic opportunity it was for not only the designers but to promote Leeds as a city on an international stage, put a proposal together overnight and crossed my fingers. I was a bit teary when we got the go-ahead as I knew it was such an exciting project for everyone involved.

My primary role was to build relationships with international media, and maximise every opportunity to promote the designers and our wonderful city. In reality, I looked after everything from writing the press releases to dressing models on the day – it was an overwhelming experience, and in spite of a couple of hairy moments, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I also had some fantastic support over there from Katherine Busby – she is now the Events Manager at Harvey Nichols, having previously worked as Marketing Manager for Marketing Leeds – we had never worked together before, but made a fantastic team and it would be great to work with her again in the future."

We followed the project with interest back here in the UK. We always believe in the talent from our home city but to receive international acclaim and recognition is proof that the belief in well placed. We asked Sam to talk about the reaction to the show:

"Everyone has been unbelievably supportive and positive about the project. I think it changed many people’s perceptions about Marketing Leeds, and rightly so. It’s not easy for them as an organisation to keep everybody happy, and this was a fantastically creative way of promoting Leeds as a leading retail destination.

I wrote guest blogs for The Guardian which was a major highlight, and the comments on there were amazing – it was just good to see that so many people believed in what we were doing. My Dad told me that my three blogs were like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – great start, a bit confusing in the middle but with a cracking final chapter. I was like, ‘Cheers, Dad’! I added all the blogs to my Facebook and people who I went to school with  15 years ago were messaging me to say how amazing the project was. The best feedback was from Leeds innovators and those pushing for change in the city – they have a completely different approach and it was great to see that they were just as excited as I was.

James and I have some very exciting plans in the pipeline which we can’t really talk about just yet. It’s been such a whirlwind since we returned from Vancouver, and we’ve gone from spending every second either together or on the phone to each other to having a little bit of time out. We’re working on a list of target boutiques, talking to manufacturers and getting some fantastic advice from Marketing Leeds on how best to take the James Steward brand to the next level. I’ll continue with my day job – I’m very lucky to work with a team of incredibly talented people; it just means that I’ll be burning the midnight oil for the foreseeable future!"

As we have said in lots of our 'introducing' posts, we are developing a number of projects at the moment, working with some of the city's most interesting talent and influencers. We actually had our first 'official' meet in December. Team Hebe are very excited about some of the projects coming out of this group of people and Sam feels the same:

"I’m excited and humbled to be collaborating with so many talented individuals on upcoming projects. When Lee sent through the introductions e-mail I couldn’t believe I was going to be working with all these amazing people. I’ve followed Bangs and a Bun for ages; she’s nuts but I just love her – she’s straight talking, and that’s super-important in a project like this. I think there can be times when influencers meet and talk a lot, without saying anything at all – that won’t happen with us – I can see us all having an opinion on everything, and leaving each meeting with a list of action points as long as our arms – and that’s definitely a good thing!

In terms of how it can help the city, having a team of highly creative, dedicated individuals who are all pushing to challenge perceptions of our city can only be a good thing. I think we all know from experience that a project doesn’t have to be big budget and ‘jazz hands’ in order for it to be successful – all you need is a lot of people who want to make it happen."

We agree 100% with Sam and are looking forward to working on things with her this year. She is one of the most important cogs in Leeds' underground and provides brilliant support to some of our best talent. Keep up the good work Sam!

More 'introducing' posts here:

Introducing: James Steward

Introducing: Marc Leaf

Introducing: Muireann Carey-Campbell

Introducing: iCallShotGun

Introducing: Bethanie Lunn

The Hebe Week In Pics

The pap having canapes at the Relish Book Launch in Harvey NicholsSTP with the photographer at the Relish Book Launch in Harvey NicholsRelish Yorkshire Second Helping (the book's name), introduction by Tessa Bramley, one of few female Michelin chefs in UKLee winding down in The Bracken FoxDouble Papped!Marcus takes some cool snaps out and about LeedsMarcus makes some new friends in LeedsSimon and I visit PSL - The Stag And The HoundOur colourful Hebe OfficeThe benches on Albion Place, Leeds remind me of Barcelona

Art and social media, or art and the social medium? Some thoughts on #artconvo

Screen shot from www.ivy4evr.co.uk, Blast Theory's SMS based collaboration with novelist Tony White

Yesterday I attended one in a series of Cultural Conversations, organised by Emma Bearman (@culturevultures) of Culture Vulture fame, wonderfully facilitated by Mike Chitty (@mikechitty) and bringing together a real range of people from artists, curators and producers, to writers and teachers, to technologists and marketeers.

The day used Open Space methods to get a number of small, participant driven, conversations going about the possibilities for using social media within a contemporary art context.

Due to the unforeseen I only managed to participate in two conversations on the day, both very strongly connected by a question about the possibilities for social media as the medium. Interestingly, this idea seemed to divide the room and draw out some strong voices on either side. On the one hand, there were some who felt that social media platforms, as platforms for something, could only be thought of as a means to an end. On the other hand there were those who seemed excited by the idea that social media could be employed as the context for making valid aesthetic experiences, which engage audiences as the end in themselves.

It is this division, or disjunction, between action (how we use it) and idea (what we use it for), that I have taken away with me; along with a question about how we might begin to reconcile these two positions. Put another way, is the value of social media, in a contemporary art context, only in its use as a communication channel or knowledge sharing tool, or do we want to push it further? Whilst it was clear (and you can see this from a quick review of #artconvo activity) that yesterday's event was a helpful one for many of the folk who attended, I felt the conversation was lacking a dimension because it failed to pursue this line of enquiry.

I should point out immediately that this is not meant as criticism, nor aimed at the organisers or any of the lovely people I spoke to. Rather, this reflection is about trying to understand why us 'arts lot' are so very far behind in our thinking about digital in general.

Before the event @culturevultures tweeted the following: "[w]hich artists (living) would you really like to see on Twitter and why?". My nee-jerk response to this question is that I don't really care which artists are online as long as they have something interesting to say or, even better, something important to show us that will alter the way we think about social media, if only for an instant.

I had attended the event with high hopes that I would hear people speaking about ideas and projects that challenged, pushed or just had fun with social media, as well as hearing from those who champion platforms like Twitter as a valuable tool for communication, promotion, occasional activism, and shameless self-promotion. I wanted to leave feeling a sense of expanded possibility, as well as learning something of the 'how-to-do'. I wanted to think about Twitter and Facebook and Foursquare, and so on, as the means of engaging audiences with art, as art, not just as a means of promoting physical works in physical spaces. In a way, I want social media to help art and ideas find people, not the other way around.

I left last year's Shift Happens event with a similar sense of disappointment about how far we have yet to travel across the digital desert. That event has been going for a number of years now, and it still needed a speaker to spend 20 minutes telling attendees what Creative Commons is. Again, this is not a criticism of an important and well organised event, just a reflection on the distance between our creative community, and others in the design, media and communication industries.

One inspiring thing that sticks with me from Shift Happens 2010, is a provocation made by Andy Field, a director of the Forrest Fringe, who said: "it may be true that no one person can break the internet, but we should all be trying". Field's call wasn't a destructive one; it was a call for us to find the limits, to get radical, in the hope that we might find new and wonder-full ways of making stuff happen. I want the same for all social media.

Perhaps a future Cultural Conversation could learn from Watershed's Theatre Sandbox, we could bring some technology into the space, generate some ideas, and play our part in the conversation about how we take part in the rapid change taking place all around us. Otherwise my fear is that we will miss our chance to be co-creators and innovators, destined only to be users of a system created elsewhere, and for purposes we might one day start to question, seriously.

In the meantime, and as a way of sharing some inspiration, links to a few 'social medium' projects I have found on my travels are included below. Please do send feedback on this post via the comments at the bottom, and if you have other links to projects we should know about please post them there too. Many thanks for reading:

In Now We Are Friends, Robert Fitterman takes on some of the prime features of our intensively-networked present--the broad, continual scatter of personal information thru blogs, databases, and social networking sites. You can find a full synopsis for, or buy a copy of Now We Are Friends here: http://truckbooks.org/cata-fitterman.html. An excerpt from the piece can be found here: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~rmf1/newworks/new_works_now_we_are_friends_37.pdf

Getting Inside Jack Kerouac's Head "is an idea that is a concept that is a blog that is a book that is an object." (Constant Critic) A performative retyping of the recently published original scroll edition of Jack Kerouac’s beat classic, On the Road, Morris’ project first appeared as an ongoing journey through the book, read and re-typed on a Wordpress blog one page per day. The online archive of Getting Inside Jack Kerouac's Head can be found here: http://gettinginsidejackkerouacshead.blogspot.com/. Copies of codex publication of the blog can be purchased here: http://informationasmaterial.com/iam/.

Ivy4Evr is an SMS drama for teenagers created by Blast Theory, written by Tony White, author of novels including Foxy-T (Faber), and commissioned by Channel 4 Education. Find out more here: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_ivy4evr.html. After registering your mobile number and email address on the Ivy4Evr website, participants begin to receive SMS messages from Ivy – ranging from quick updates about the minutiae of her life right at that moment, to pleas for help with her dilemmas about friends versus family, college and band commitments. You can reply to Ivy as often as you like, and the more you do, the more you will hear back from her.

Post note: I found this article by Ben Davis, and thought I should include a link as part of the article: http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/art-and-social-media8-4-10.asp

English First Impressions

This is not the first encounter I have had with English culture (obviously) or the English mentality, but it’s the first time I’ve had the chance to live “normal” everyday life and whatever comes with that. This experience is what also inspired me to write a blog about what I’ve so far felt is the English outlook on social life. 

I want to start by mentioning a couple of things that almost have become cliche’s in how myself as a Swede perceive you, the English. We always talk about - the politeness, the hospitality, and the sarcastic humour. Characteristics like these are probably also the most important “brand values” for the English, and personally it’s also what makes it so easy to get along with everyone while I’m here.

Anyway, from my personal point of view one of the most interesting parts of the English mentality that I’ve seen so far, is the way strangers or new acquaintances are being approached. I think that the English approach in general is very positive and straight forward, which is nice, but what I also like is that it usually shows vulnerability.

And I’m going to explain, since it might seem strange that being vulnerable would be a good thing. To dare give some of yourself, smile and be friendly is in many situations also basically leaving yourself out and open for “attacks” from the surroundings.  

And since we all care, in one way or another, about what people think about us, I think that it’s brave to make yourself fragile to the world. It’s also a sign of good will to approach someone with positivity towards a new potential relation. 

So in essence, I think it’s a sign of character and strength to engage in a conversation with a stranger “arms down”. 

Another perk with this English polite, open and vulnerable approach, is that it’s a great way to get instant feedback, or get a good “read” on what the person you approach feel about you. Will that person answer me back with the same manner? Yes, then good, we’ll get along just fine. If no, they don’t, it’s an instant feedback that I can use to decide where the baseline with that person will be and if we will get along well or not. 

Obviously it’s not a great idea to try to judge someone on this first impression, but that is something we all often do. And since we do that - approach by thinking positive about people, and instead let them prove you wrong - rather then assume they are nasty boring losers before even speaking to them, - is just so much more rewarding and fun in the long run. 

Another thing that I think characterise the English, is their way of showing affection. It’s totally ok to give a compliment about a strangers shoes, or jacket or whatever. This is also completely in line with what I’ve said about showing vulnerability, you never really know what the reaction will be when you basically tell them you admire something about them.  

The last characteristic that I wanted to highlight is something that happens when you reach the friendship status with someone. There is nothing that proves your friend relation more than a couple of mean jokes on your behalf. That someone would crack a really mean joke about your new haircut, with a really nasty tone - thats basically confirmation that they consider you a good friend. In fact, the harsher the comments the closer the friendship. 

If you’re bald, a bit overweight or have a funny looking nose, as soon as you starting hearing jokes about that, then you know that you are amongst good friends. 

What I personally find really nice about the English way of communicating is that it’s really obviously really unpretentious. But as well, transparency is the real winner in the long run, that facade that people like to put on when they go out always comes down in the end, so why not just keep it down from the start? 

Marcus Carlsson

What if Leeds... The Hebe View

Yesterday I attended a meeting to discuss the findings of the What if Leeds consultation. I left the event with a strange feeling: On the one hand I agreed wholeheartedly with some of the things put forward but on the other felt like I did not connect with the new proposals, some of the people who spoke and most of those who attended. I thought it maybe be useful to give my honest feedback on What if Leeds and then some suggestions of how we can help.

A Little Background

To give a little background to Hebe Media for those of you who do not know: We are an ideas factory. A collection of young professionals with one simple mission: to create interesting, cool, fun projects. We do this primarily in the creative industries. We produce projects, create brands, put on events and lots more. Over the past year we have worked with some of the world's biggest brands, cool cities and interesting people. We report on trends, create international communication strategies and lots of other things it would take far to long to explain. So our angle on Leeds is exactly that: our angle, our view on the city and what it is like for a young (the average age of our team is 27) creative business. We also have a Leeds network online which is close to 50,000 members including the 42,000 strong Leeds Facebook page.

To give a little background on a personal level: I am Leeds through and through. Born in Seacroft, raised in Whinmoor. My father is one of 13 children and my mother is one of 8, and virtually all the family and the zillions of cousins and second cousins I have, still live in Leeds. I have seen the best and worst of the city both professionally and personally so feel I am well positioned to give a balanced view. 

What if Leeds... Key Issues

I really liked the points being made about the transport system. Both Tom Riordan and Kieran Bradford (the 15 year old star of the show) emphasised the need for a dramatic improvement in this area, this is something we agree with strongly. The need for more green space in the centre and environmental issues is another issue we fully support. The 'community spirit' issue is of course important but is a complicated one. Leeds does have a great platform to start from - people are passionate about the city and their community, the challenge will be to harness that into something productive and sustainable.

Obviously as with any meeting like this, everyone goes with their own 'agenda' and a desire to hear something relevant to them. The last two points on the 'key issues' list were particularly interesting to us on a personal level. These points were - "Jobs and work for young people" and "greater recognition of culture and arts in Leeds". Again from a personal point of view I would have loved more discussion of the creative industries and how Leeds can develop it's own businesses and talent in this area. I firmly believe that in the future, Leeds (and frankly the whole of Europe and America) will become more of a creative economy. We can name this differently, 'Knowledge economy' or the 'Cultural industries' etc, but they all float around the same basis: ideas, intellectual property, brands will be our economic future. The UK Dept for Culture and Sport lists the creative sectors as:

• Advertising
• Architecture
• Arts and antique markets
• Crafts
• Design
• Designer Fashion
• Film, video and photography
• Software, computer games and electronic publishing
• Music and the visual and performing arts
• Publishing
• Television
• Radio

We are currently directly involved in projects that cover at least 8 of those areas, so going back to the original point: this is something I wanted to hear something about at the What if Leeds event. We are a new business growing very quickly and we made our home in Leeds. However in the future, what will stop us moving our company elsewhere? What can the city do to support businesses like ours to grow here? What benefit is there to staying in Leeds? It seems initially that this is not a priority moving forward for Leeds. I see all kinds of bodies/ groups /organisations that claim to represent people like us (either because of our age, 'industry' or location) but speaking honestly, they really don't represent us as individuals or as a company at all.

What we would love to see

There was a video at the event which you can see here. One of the comments that really stood out to me was "What if Leeds could be the next Berlin?" ...we would love it if Leeds was even considered in the same creative league as Berlin! We are currently planning a project there and it is definitely one of the coolest cities in the world right now. Four members of our team have at some point lived in Barcelona and this is another city we should look to take inspiration from. Of course those cities have a different political and social history from which they can draw inspiration, but we can definitely adopt and embrace some of their attitudes and inspirations. 

We need to have more of an open mind in Leeds and not try and measure something immediately. Some of the best projects I have seen in the last few years in cities like Berlin and Barcelona start small, they appeal to niches and they inspire either something that can take the concept to new markets or in some cases inspire a 2.0 version that is even better then the original. Usually in those cities, the first thing you hear is "how can we help?" rather then "you can not do that because..." and this makes a massive difference.

"Jobs and work for young people"

There was a lot of talk at the meeting about the level of unemployment among young people in Leeds. Councillor Wakefield in particular spoke about his despair at the current situation and his and the council's desire to change this. This issue is a massive one for the UK in general not just Leeds and is something we talk about regularly in the Hebe office. We have a really firm viewpoint on this which is based in both small scale research and our own personal experiences. For a lot of people university fees and student loans etc are not the thing that stop them entering further education, it is the fact that some people just don't want to. 

Some young people do not grow up dreaming of studying economics or becoming a lawyer, they want to be a footballer, a singer or a entrepreneur / mogul like Jay-Z! How can we channel those ambitions and passions into something? We firmly believe getting young people involved in real-life projects about the things they are passionate about can help develop other skills. Some do not want to listen to a 60 year old guy in a suit, they want to talk to the people who's names are on flyers, people who appear in music videos, fashion magazines... people they want to be like! 

What can we do? 

In every single project we create we try to implement some kind of learning and development for both our team members and also offer opportunities to young professionals and freelancers. In some of the projects we have coming up this year we are taking it further and including talented young people from high schools in Leeds. This will give these young people first hand experience of talking to, learning from and being around the people they look up to and respect and will hopefully fuel further creativity and lead to them developing some amazing projects of their own over the coming years. 

We will also be submitting plans soon for something that could be major advancement for the city in this area. We have learned a lot working with forward thinking people in 'education' like Hyper Island and have consulted with some of Leeds' best creative talent and everyone involved is passionate about helping the next generation and 'giving something something back'. More on this project soon...

Conclusion

What if Leeds produced a number of issues that we agree are very important to the city. The massive challenge now is developing a plan that addresses those issues, and not just a plan for the next year... a plan for the next 20 years. Getting the right people onside will be key in the early days. There is some wonderful talent in the city which is under-utilised, either by choice or because of lack of awareness but that needs to change. 

We at Hebe are more then willing to help where we can and contribute to this city's future. In 2030 I will be 48 and want to be able to look back at this period as the time when our input was heard and we helped shape the future of what could be one of the best cities around. The thing stopping us moving to another city right now is the potential in Leeds and the room to create something special that we can be proud of in the future. I am sure there are more like us, we just have to create a strategy that people can identify with and get behind. Not one overall strategy has to 'fit all' we can all develop lots of new things and hopefully the sum of those parts will produce something exciting and sustainable.