The Creative Incubator: Shaping the Future of the Creative Industry

After three days of hard work the first edition of the Creative Incubator has officially come to an end, we are very excited to be able to share the results of the work in November at the ADCE Festival in Barcelona.

The last module of the Creative Incubator that took place in Berlin was designed for creatives from across Europe to come together and recognize the hardships they face in their occupation in order to rethink the way the industry functions at its core and cooperatively come up with new business models to reshape it and hopefully catalyze an industry evolution.

Fergus O’Hare, Global Creative Director and mentor at our programme, is currently taking a sabbatical to fulfill a lifelong dream: to build a house from the ground using YouTube videos. His lectures were about his journey as a creative person: coming from a very traditional background to running the Facebook Creative Shop in Asia-Pacific. He elaborated on the lessons he learned throughout his fascinating career journey regarding technology, advertisement innovation, and, above all, human values.

Another brilliant mentor of this program, Luis Villa, the Strategy Director of Fjord who considers himself “obsessed about the human side of business and the impact of technology on our lives”, also stressed the importance of fostering interpersonal relationships with everyone around you, stating that:

His thought-provoking talk explored the exponential and constant expansion of technology, the way it is changing our society, and how we should embrace parts of it change without losing sight of the bigger picture.

“The pace of change is never as slow as it is today. Technology changes exponentially, but society doesn’t change at the same speed” – Luis Villa

In his perspective, professionals such as sociologists, anthropologists and creatives will be the mediators between the old and the new way of seeing things, making sense out of the chaos, the ambiguity, and the shifts that technology brings to society. Ultimately, creatives will be the agents of change, building a bridge between those who see technology as a threat and those who see an opportunity in it.

Overall there were four mentors from various professional fields who gave engaging lectures and shared their experiences with the participants. One of the mentors was Axel Quack, the Strategy Director at the design company Frog Germany. In his lecture Axel called for a reformation of the creative industry due to faster moving times: 

“In today’s age of turbulence, where everything moves faster, companies need more nimble, less destructive strategies, allowing for faster innovation, effective employee training, and effortless reorganization. Perhaps most important, companies need to empower their employees to solve the challenges that impact short and long-term plans. This implies a critical need for new leadership models.” – Axel Quack

Jamshid Alamuti, the CEO and Co-Founder of Pi School, also gave an inspiring presentation in which he went more in-depth into the creative industries structural nuances and technicalities of the business, and elaborated on ways to navigate these, while also touching upon the integral problems that they face.

After listening to these talks and participating in vigorous discussions, the participants from across Europe sat down together to continue designing the solution-driven ideas and concepts that gained shape during the previous modules in Rome and Barcelona. The next step of this process was working on a white paper to be used as a proposal for a transversal model for many different industries.

“It’s comforting to see that we all confront the same industry issues, but it was even more rewarding to be working on solutions together with some of Europe’s finest and smartest Marketing & Advertising professionals.” – Cristiana Belodan, Senior Brand Consultant

In the end, with the mentoring of some of the leading experts in the world, the participants successfully redesigned current business structures and thereby found a way to come one step closer to redesigning the future of the creative industry.

Join us in November, at the ADCE Festival in Barcelona, and be part of the movement that is reshaping the path of the creative industry.

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