The Rural Cultural Business Innovation Programme, part of Creative Fuse North East, is an exciting opportunity for cultural, creative and craft businesses, sole traders and social enterprises in Northumberland to learn and apply effective and modern approaches to product and service development as well as project management.
This hands-on programme takes leading techniques from fast-growing businesses and tailors them to the unique challenges and opportunities for rural creative industry. Expect accessible concepts, practical tools, and varied, well-paced workshops, all based around your business.
A pair of day-long courses, with a gap between each session, will be held in both the Hexham and Alnwick areas:
Session 1: An introduction to the principles of lean startup, agile and personal resilience methodologies. Learn how these can make you more effective in identifying and realising opportunity while reducing wasted effort.
Session 2: Putting these principles into action and using a range of tools to create an effective approach to product creation, service development and project management.
The first sessions will be held in early January 2018, with the second sessions in early February 2018.
Take it Further
A number of participating businesses and registered sole traders will be offered five days of additional bespoke innovation support, designed around the needs of the individual 
organisations taking work patterns into account. These will be held during the spring and summer.
The programme is free for creative businesses and requires a commitment of up to 42 hours until the end of September 2018 (including the 2 days of initial training). If you would like to be part of this initiative please register your interest, using this online form http://eepurl.com/c_DtUH
Creative Fuse North East is an action research project coordinated by all five universities in the region. We work alongside SMEs, freelancers, artists, cultural organisations and large businesses within the region’s Creative, Digital and IT (CDIT) sector. We work with the idea of ‘fusion’ – the combination of creative art and design skills with technology expertise. Through our research and practical innovation support programme, we hope to promote fusion within businesses and stimulate economic growth. CreativeFuseNE.org.uk
