End of my Internship: Looking Back at my Time with CIDA

Now that I've completed my two months at CIDA as an intern, it's time to look back on the weeks of working with the Creative Industries Development Agency, and list all the things I've learnt here:

1. The East End of London is bursting with culture and creativity
Every Wednesday, our intern group takes a walk down Brick Lane to pick out a new lunch spot. During this walk, we cross paths with so many different ethnicities, hear different languages, notice new street art as well as new restaurants and bars popping up, and walk away with a taste of this eclectic, artistic urban landscape. There are always photographers capturing the graffiti landmarks, or stylists and models preparing for a fashion shoot. You can pick up flyer's showcasing upcoming exhibitions and concerts, and stumble upon vintage shops and markets for precious finds. This means that organically, we're learning a lot about the diverse forms of art communication, marketing, advertising as well as positioning and strategy. It seems - judging by the demographics towards the end of Brick Lane and closer to the Shoreditch area - if you want to become an artist or work in the industry, it's best to set up shop or at least spend a lot of time in Shoreditch. Here your art will get noticed, and you will network with a large crowd of peers, making competition tougher but also visibility more likely.

2. London's Creative and Cultural Industries are Social-Media-Friendly
It's surprising how almost all professionals in media, art, culture and other industries are easy to access online via Twitter or blogs ( I don't use Google+ and LinkedIn so I didn't try either platform). Even British MPs, celebrities and ministers have Twitter account; this gives the public direct access (or at least the illusion of direct access) to these figures and the information they can supply. Concerning the CCI, entire departments handle the social media platforms for major museums like Tate Modern and the V&A, with smaller spaces competing on all possible platforms to generate interest and marketing easier and faster than traditional media channels.Also, most information is available online, which shows great efforts at transparency on the part of industry leaders and members towards the public.

3. Garnering Media Attention is Difficult due to Competition
Because the creative and cultural industry is massive in London with several competitors of CIDA, it is difficult to attract the attention of journalists when seeking media coverage for a creative event. Or at least that's my reasoning when I emailed roughly 150 journalists and received probably no more than five responses about the upcoming Cr8net. This could also be due to several reasons: the email addresses could be outdated or the journalists could have changed positions, the email could be directed to Spam Mail, or its subject could possibly not attract their attention and get sent to trash. My email introduction could either be too formal or too informal, or the information hasn't been attractive enough to compel them to read further. Given my time constraint, I will not find answers to the questions as I can't email them again with a different format to see if that version is more successful.

4. Managing an Asian artist's career can be done from London and researched online
Even though I only sat in on one meeting with Naoko, I was very interested to see the presentation given by my colleagues, who had researched thirty different social media platforms and created profiles of the artist based on her concept, sound and personality. The artist herself was taken aback at the personal information they had found regarding her hobbies and tastes, all of which was available online. Of course, my colleagues' fluency in Cantonese and Mandarin as well as their familiarity with Asian culture gave them access to a wide audience and a wealth of information that a non-Asian speaking researcher would not understand. It was very interesting to observe how it's possible to create and design an up and coming artist's career from scratch here in London, planning the next months of music and video publicity as well as her clothing, appearances and sound.

Aside from these points, I've gained great experience in Internet research, in promoting a brand at a networking event, in attending group meetings and observing CIDA employees at work, in producing videos and speaking on camera about personal experiences and hopes for the future. I've enjoyed my interaction with CIDA's staff as well as my fellow interns, and I've learnt a lot about Asian and British culture, traditions and habits in the process. It's been a very educational time for me and I wish the CIDA team all the best!

Soraya