Market Disruption
Experienced in responding to market failures and creatively disrupting markets to deliver better returns for investor’s, customers, residents and stakeholders.
Creative economist helps with downsizing, upscaling and accelerating organic growth in response to industry sector collapse or market failure.
When markets are failing, it is tempting to try to save them, cut costs, do more - of the same. But, if the market is changing, no longer serving the intended purpose or locality, it may be time to try something very different. Creative Economist is experienced in responding to market failures and creatively disrupting markets to deliver better returns for investors, customers, residents and stakeholders.
We work across the public, private, community and commercial sectors including: manufacturing industry; property markets; adult and social care provision; financial services and investment provision; creative and digital growth; youth, employment and leisure services; street scene, car parking and grounds maintenance; manufacturing; high streets and retail parks.
Creative Economist have used land and assets of little or no interest to others to create free revenues for reinvestment, and radically redesigned a range of public and commercial services with their customers to improve outcomes at radically reduced costs.
Creative Economist brings diverse people together, allowing worlds to collide, resulting in unanticipated creativity and innovation from which new products, services, markets, values and delivery mechanisms arise.
Beautiful Ideas
Using earned income from match day parking derived from stalled development sites in North Liverpool and Salford, and match investment from Government and private investors, £500,000 was invested in ‘beautiful ideas’. The rules were simple – ventures must do some good in that place and be potentially viable.
The first invitation was issued in an area where 25 years of ‘help’ and regeneration had made no difference to the deprivation index ranking. 100 ideas came from those oft described as poor, disadvantaged, refugees, mentally ill, youths, retirees, criminal and lonely. We called them entrepreneurs. A street running academy, a drag artists collective, a maker space, a laundry and a night club set up; digitally printed shoes; hand-made cakes; new homes; and festivals were produced, services that, healed, cared, educated and created found customers.
Within 3 years 25 Beautiful Ideas had a collective turnover of £3million, employed 168 people full and part time, occupied 160,000 sqft of previously derelict space and levered £1.2M of additional investment. Ventures clustered in 5 places began to have social impact valued at between £6.6M and £11.3M as other entrepreneurs joined them. Community ownership of assets ensures those creating value are sharing in the benefits.
Creative Economist continues to support circa 50 of those ventures
across Liverpool & Manchester City Regions replacing dependence and competitiveness with interdependence and collaboration.
Here are links to some of those enterprises:
https://kittyslaunderette.org.uk/
https://www.theurbancupcakery.co.uk/
https://liverpool6community.wixsite.com/website
https://www.merseyregeneration.com/#!
Open Maker
In 2018/19 our Open Maker project secured £120,000 to enable 5 creative and digital enterprises to prototype their innovations in partnership with the Manufacturing Industry. To date 4 of 5 of those invested in have secured substantial follow on investment and/or commercial contracts.
Salford Makers SHOP – developed a new model of local, collective manufacture and hyper local retail. This collective of cross art from: artists; designers; educators; makers, share space, equipment, supply and distribution chains. Their portfolio combines traditional crafts with new technology production for sale.
Farm Urban - Farm Urban's team of bio-scientists and engineers take science fresh from the lab to link leading research with local food production. They create innovative and sustainable ways to grow food in the heart of the city and green technology into the classroom. Farm Urban presents students with the real-world problem of food security and challenges them to find innovative and creative solutions.
Objocopier – is a 3D photocopier that allows people in different places and different countries, to co-design 3D objects. Applications range from crafts-people to museums to the automotive industry and allows people to design in three dimensions across continents without travel. Objocopier featured at Las Vegas to CES2019 Extreme Tech Challenge.
Print Pattern Archive - Cheryl O’Meara is an established surface print designer. She owns and manages an archive of 50,000 antique and vintage printed fabrics, originally housed in New York’s Fashion District. Cheryl worked with manufacturers to revive these prints for commercial use using data capture equipment that has resulted in the launch of her first wallpaper collection.
https://www.printpatternarchive.com/
Origami Pulse - are a team of three women that are passionate about using the creative art and science of Origami to “Improve life, one fold at a time” They work with individuals and companies to teach, innovate and create through the medium of origami. They have all used Origami to improve their lives in times of mental ill-health and now deliver social prescribing, origami invention and products to science, cultural, health and educational clients.
Dream Big?
What if the next big thing is a thousand small things?
Home-working and mobile businesses are an essential feature of South Wales economies where distance is a barrier to the employment offers in urban conurbations.
Dream Big invites tenants of Hafod Home & Care to explore new ideas that create employment and positively impact the Welsh Valleys.
In the face of coronavirus Hafod have immediately recognised the value small and local, distributed and community led ventures offer. Rather than delaying or scaling back community investment, they are scaling up.
Dream Big finds, values, supports and celebrates and connects micro ventures that exist and are possible in Hafod hinterlands.
https://www.hafod.org.uk/dreambig/