SERVICES
Kwesi has never been one to use tricks or ‘gloss’ to produce an effect. He used the same approach in this picture, no tricks, strings or photoshop just solid training and knowhow. This is how he approaches his work and service to clients.
Kwesi offers a range of services that emerge from his creative outlook.
Corporate
- Choreography & creative direction for events, productions & experiential marketing
- Creative Business & Product Development
- Team Architecture – Embody Company Culture
Non-Corporate
- Creative Placemaking – The Cultural Assembly
- Choreography & Creative Direction
- Education & Participation
- Empty Property Sourcing
Choreography & creative direction for corporate events, productions & experiential marketing.
With Kwesi’s input and knowledge of creating performance, an events producer can concentrate on the bigger picture. The ‘magic’ cannot be learnt overnight and can be the difference between the success or failure of a launch or campaign. He takes the time to understand the message of the product and the company’s culture. He then uses Design Thinking to iterate any existing ideas and combines this with his expertise in captivating an audience using storyline, performance, technology and most importantly, imagery. The brand becomes integral to the performance and the emotive story is driven by the products identity. This is content marketing 2.0! To be different one has to do something different.
Team Architecture – Company Culture
As a Director Kwesi has worked with groups who have never met before and coached them to give polished performances by the end of one day of working with him because he has built trust, understanding and a shared vision/culture. Most businesses would want to achieve these results for their teams in a short space of time read how your team can be as effective.Applying the techniques to business teams is natural for Kwesi, but knowing what to apply is key. It boils down to the fact that teams are made up of people, regardless of what industry they work in, they have needs when working as part of a group when they are not met they become destructive if they do not have the correct channels of communication in place or a conducive environment. Kwesi provides Team Architecture, teambuilding 2.0, to deal with the needs of the individual, the team and the company. He develops tailor made packages for you and your team. Why? Because every team and company are different, so a standard off the shelf corporate away day where everyone has great fun climbing ropes or taking part in competitive team games is a fun way to build a team but is limited in what it can achieve. When the staff returns to work the problems still exist because specific issues haven’t been addressed. See how Kwesi’s approach differs from the things you may have already tried.
View PDF – Team Architecture [/read]
Creative Business & Product Development
Kwesi is passionate about creativity in the workplace. It is proven that if one regularly uses the creative part of their brain they are more likely to create solutions and innovations in other environments they are in. Kwesi has been a creative thinker for 20 + years, has worked
in businesses and
on businesses, so making the transition to thinking innovatively for a corporate client is simple. Kwesi’s objective is to help employees be more creative in their careers and help them to solve problems for their company and its customers. If a company isn’t serving its customers’ needs above and beyond its competitors, then they will continue to be a competitor and not a leader. He believes every one is creative so he helps people who believe they are not creative change that belief so they can make the same transitions and bring innovation to their work. If they have ever solved a problem then they have been creative
. Creativity is king but is woefully undervalued and unrecognised in most businesses even though every business or product begins with a creative thought process.
- Current product development teams are inward looking
- Products focus on profit and not solving customers’ problems
- A company relying on how they have always done business
If a company is operating the same way it did 3 years ago if it’s still alive it is already going under if it doesn’t adapt.
Some solutions Kwesi can help you implement:
- Deliver innovation workshops that are fun, kinetic and focused
- Use a Design Thinking methodology to iterate new products & refresh and develop existing ones
- Cast a creative eye over an existing business plan
- Build creative confidence in your employees – They are the most valuable asset of the company and should know the products & culture better than anyone else
Kwesi uses Design Thinking to help teams think creatively to develop products. In house marketing and product development teams can often become too inward looking and miss opportunities in front of their eyes. He can work with a team to help them look at their products in a different way as well as bring fresh ideas to the table. It is important that the process is playful but focussed. When we are relaxed we function better and we are more efficient.
To quote Bruce Lee “Everything you do, if not in a relaxed state will be done at a lesser level than you are proficient. Thus the tensed expert marksman will aim at a level less than his/her student. And Plato says – You Can Discover More About a Person in an Hour of Play than in a Year of Conversation
The Cultural Assembly (TCA)
Kwesi & Maya Alexander are the Co-Founders of The Cultural Assembly. It is a creative agency that works at the intersection of providing alternative content, audience development and place keeping, through film, live events, digital content and consultancy. They have over 35 years of combined professional experience in the arts, marketing, business development, cultural and entertainment industries. TCA has three main objectives and they are to help:
- Struggling venues to practically develop audiences
- Lacklustre towns, villages and cities develop a local distinctiveness to become a hive of culture, business and innovation
Developing audiences for venues.
TCA use a creative approach to solve the issues associated with falling audiences above problems and can only help to address the challenges of an organisation if they really want to make a change.
We know that many venues are experiencing the following issues:
- Decreasing audiences resulting in lower turnover
- A disengaged community
- No solid contemporary brand or identity
- No inclusive audience development plan
The environment and demographics have changed considerably around many UK venues and typically their methods of engagement are no longer working and are out of date. There is also a resistance to change and lack of know how, how to respond to the changes, hence the venue now experiencing difficulties. The subsidies from charities and other funding streams are dwindling and there is a tendency to react (habit), rather than respond (considered approach) to the difficulties. Refreshing the approach and adopting new methods is crucial in order for survival. The Cultural Assembly is most effective in helping with the transition. We can create a strong interdependent relationship with an organisation, the community, local producers, businesses and artists to achieve remarkable results that develop audiences, improve the organisations profile/brand and diversify their income streams.
Revitalising Failing High Streets
The Cultural Assembly also has the experience and vision to be able to help lacklustre, villages, towns or city centres facing common challenges such as:
- Decreasing footfall and city/town centre economy
- Not being a place of choice to visit
- No recognisable town brand or distinctiveness
- Losing touch with the local community
We can help plan and devise projects that add value and engagement around a high street and surrounding neighborhoods that redefines the shopping and social experience for visitors and residents, making an area an exiting year round destination to visit for reasons beyond shopping. We can develop activity and events along with local councils, businesses and organisations with the scope to achieve a holistic customer relationship strategy (CRS) for the town. We are extremely fortunate that failing high streets are high on the governments agenda because if provides the impetus to find a solution for the problem and rethink how a high street can continue to be the catalyst for success and be crucial to a towns revival so it can become a thriving intersection of culture, exciting business opportunities and innovation. We are in a time where the arts, culture and business find themselves placed at an optimum position to be mutually beneficial to each other, we can’t miss the opportunity to make our high street grow again. The future isn’t in retail the government commissioned the Portas report yet still councils and lanldlords have been slow to respond which has quickened the decline. A town has to develop its brand and distinctiveness in order to stand out. All the activity of an area that is trying to re-invent/regenerate itself has to come from what makes it distinctive and that comes from the areas resources, aims, people and what it is historically ‘famous’ for. The brand is more than a logo, tag line or a colour scheme.
The Cultural Assembly is responding to the reasons why people do or do not visit a high street in the UK. The Mary Portas’ report on the changing high streets was informative however in many town and cities the knowledge has not been implemented. The high street will never be the same again because of online shopping, changing demographics and out of town retail parks. The rules of engagement have changed. Landlords, residents, councils and planning departments are instrumental in re-writing the rules. Accepting change and knowing how to implement changes can be daunting. This is where The Cultural Assembly can help reinvent high streets through pop up stores, cultural events and alternative uses of empty spaces. The mantra of ‘We need more footfall’! This has to be replaced with, ‘How can we improve the offer so footfall increases’?
This is the result of Kwesi’s most recent project with Suffolk Coastal and The Cultural Engine, where he created a place making plan for the regeneration of the Martelo Park in Felixstowe.
With Kwesi’s input and knowledge of creating performance, an events producer can concentrate on the bigger picture. The ‘magic’ cannot be learnt overnight and can be the difference between the success or failure of a launch or campaign. He takes the time to understand the message of the product and the company’s culture. He then uses Design Thinking to iterate any existing ideas and combines this with his expertise in captivating an audience using storyline, performance, technology and most importantly, imagery. The brand becomes integral to the performance and the emotive story is driven by the products identity. This is content marketing 2.0! To be different one has to do something different.
As a Director Kwesi has worked with groups who have never met before and coached them to give polished performances by the end of one day of working with him because he has built trust, understanding and a shared vision/culture. Most businesses would want to achieve these results for their teams in a short space of time read how your team can be as effective.Applying the techniques to business teams is natural for Kwesi, but knowing what to apply is key. It boils down to the fact that teams are made up of people, regardless of what industry they work in, they have needs when working as part of a group when they are not met they become destructive if they do not have the correct channels of communication in place or a conducive environment. Kwesi provides Team Architecture, teambuilding 2.0, to deal with the needs of the individual, the team and the company. He develops tailor made packages for you and your team. Why? Because every team and company are different, so a standard off the shelf corporate away day where everyone has great fun climbing ropes or taking part in competitive team games is a fun way to build a team but is limited in what it can achieve. When the staff returns to work the problems still exist because specific issues haven’t been addressed. See how Kwesi’s approach differs from the things you may have already tried. View PDF – Team Architecture [/read]
Kwesi & Maya Alexander are the Co-Founders of The Cultural Assembly. It is a creative agency that works at the intersection of providing alternative content, audience development and place keeping, through film, live events, digital content and consultancy. They have over 35 years of combined professional experience in the arts, marketing, business development, cultural and entertainment industries. TCA has three main objectives and they are to help:
The Cultural Assembly also has the experience and vision to be able to help lacklustre, villages, towns or city centres facing common challenges such as:
