← Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Daring Forever (Find your Extraordinary)
Building a creative community with patience, persistence and purpose - Katy Cowan (Creative Boom)
00:56:01
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- [00:01]
Radim Malinich
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- [00:51]
Katie Cowan
I would say the first five or six years with Creative Boom because I had this kind of crazy idea which I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with, that if you have a passion, creative passion, that's a hobby, you feel dirty in a way if you turned it into something that made money. And also, I didn't really like all the kind of advertising that was being splashed around on websites at the time. I just wanted to create a resource that was free and available to creative.
- [01:27]
Radim Malinich
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radi Malinj and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking some of the most celebrated figures in a creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles, how they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in a 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. Thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. You ready? Once upon a time, my guest today used to be a charmesved, a happy explorer with boundless curiosity about people and the world around her. By the time she could hold a pen, she was writing stories, capturing snippets of the world as she saw it. Many years later, after a spell in broadcast journalism and pr, she's the founding editor of Creative Boom, where she has spent the last 15 years celebrating creativity, sharing stories, and shining a spotlight on talented individuals who inspire us. In our inspirational conversation, we talked about transforming her passion project with patience, persistence and purpose. It's my utmost pleasure to introduce Katie Cowan. Katie, so happy to see you today. How are you doing?
- [03:17]
Katie Cowan
I'm great. Radim, how are you?
- [03:19]
Radim Malinich
I'm great. I mean, I'll use words of our friend Ben Tallon and say this is your away fixture because I featured on your podcast pretty much about a year ago and we talked about my book and I'm super excited to have you here today because I want to talk about what you do and yeah, everything that you've done for our community, for the design industries, for those who have may never heard of Creative Boom, which I think is very unlikely. Would you please introduce yourself?
- [03:46]
Katie Cowan
Yeah, sure. I'm Katie Cowan. I am the founding editor of Creative Boom, which is a platform that celebrates, inspires and supports the creative community. And you can tell I've written that a million times. But we are basically a magazine, a podcast and a community for creative professionals everywhere. And we've been going for 15 years very proudly, but it's only really been the last four years that I've been able to focus exclusively on my what I would call passion project. So there you go. Yeah, love it.
- [04:18]
Radim Malinich
Thank you for that. And as I said, thank you for everything that you've been doing. And I want to go back to the beginning, to trace back to the roots and the reasons and the ideas.
- [04:28]
Katie Cowan
So I was looking through some old photographs the other day and I came across this picture of myself and it was probably at Eastbourne in 1980, possibly when I was about two years old and I'm flying down a helter skelter that's probably a million times high and would be banned due to today's health and safety standards. And I've got a ridiculously insane grin on my face and I rang my mum and I was like, how old was I in this picture? She was like, oh, you could have been 18 months. That's when you started running off away from us before we could stop you and flinging yourself up really high ladders and throwing yourself down slides, laughing your head off. And before we could even grab you, and it's a safety, you'd be doing it again. I was obviously thinking about our chat today and I thought, gosh, that's pretty much I've not changed. That's pretty much how I approach life. Opportunities, work, things. I see something, I'm like, I'm going to do that and then I don't worry about the circumstances with that kind of attitude. When it came to starting something like Creative Boom, it was just, yeah, I'll do that. It's a no brainer. So why did I start it? Yes, I studied journalism at university because I always loved writing stories and I always was interested in people. So I went and did that. I started my career in broadcast because that was Something my tutor at the time recommended that I do. He said that I had a good voice for radio and a good face for tv. I was like, oh, thank you very much, I'll take that as a compliment. So I went down that route, ended up working for regional and national radio stations for about five years and then realized that actually if I was going to get a mortgage one day and have a life then journalism wasn't probably the right career because it was very poorly paid. So I went into PR and marketing which is if you're a journalist it's like you've sold your soul to the devil, you've made a deal at the crossroads and there's no going back. But I enjoyed it. I like the creativity that I discovered in PR and marketing, writing press releases. It was like journalism but felt a lot more creative. You had to come up with ways to get your clients into their favourite media, magazines, radio, all the rest of it. I loved it. But because I'm that feisty little two year old who likes to run up a helter skelter and throw herself down it, I also quickly learned that working for other people sucked. So I thought I'm going to go freelance. I had my boyfriend at the time, he's now my husband Tom, he was like just go freelance because all of his family, his father was an engineer and ran his own business for many years. His mother very both intelligent parents. His mother still runs her own business and she's in her 60s now, very successful. Tom ran his own business and they were all like just run your own business. And I came from a very risk averse family even though I was the only nutter that would throw myself down slides. So I did that and I started building some clients. I got really, really busy. This was all in 2007, 2008, took on staff, suddenly found myself running an agency. Oh, how did that happen? But somewhere along the line the fun stopped and I thought this is, I'm now having to serve the overheads and taking on work that I don't necessarily enjoy. And it took me another 10 years before I changed things. But anyway, I thought I was looking around at the landscape at the time. There'd been a big economic crisis over in the States that affected everywhere and I had a lot of friends saying, gosh, I don't know what to do, I've got no freelance work, I'm a graphic designer, I haven't seen a client in ages. I wish I could get into that publication or that publication, get a bit of publicity but I'm too small and my work that I do isn't like fancy enough or whatever. And I thought, you know what, I'm bored. I'm going to do my own magazine and I'm going to call it Creative Boom because I want to help create an industry boom in the creative industries. And that was it really. Just whacked something up on WordPress. Very lucky that I have a husband who's a software developer. We just did something very bootstrapped, very cheap. If you want to be featured, send us your work and a little bit of blurb and we'll whack it up there. And it was literally that two lines. This is Katie Cowan, she is a graphic designer. Here's a link to her website. That's how it began 15 years later and I'm finally working on it full time. So that is the kind of short version of the story. But yeah, it was out of boredom and bringing two skills together.
- [09:26]
Radim Malinich
I think you say it came together out of boredom, but I think it came together as a sort of myriad of life skills and experiences that you wanted to bring together because you said you want to study journalism because you love stories and people. The love for stories I feel is such a gift because not many people latch on the right thing. We inhale stories like we get them blasted to us through pixels on our TVs, especially now. But those years ago, where was the love for stories? Were you avid reader? What was their family member? There was a good influence. But stories, how did it come about?
- [10:01]
Katie Cowan
I guess my parents were absolutely amazing. They gave me a really good foundation. I was always encouraged to read. My mum's very creative. She was a teacher. Dad worked in marketing and then later became a teacher himself. My grandfather actually was a journalist and my great grandfather was a journalist. He worked for the Northeastern Daily Gazette and I think he was the sub editor, which I'm quite proud of back in the day when newspapers ruled the earth. So I don't know where it comes from. I guess I just started writing stories when I was very young. My mum has still got one that I wrote when I was three. It's about a little girl meeting a fairy. And I can't remember the premise of it, but it's something about making someone's wish come true. Something very sweet and innocent. And I've been writing stories ever since. God, I remember when my dad first got a PC in 1994, 95. And there was. I can't remember the desktop publishing software, but there was this thing that you could Create, I think it would have been in something like Word, but you could create the front page of a magazine and you could turn it, you know, I would write headlines and I would put in pictures and I would write full front page stories. And I don't know, I just always loved journalism. Like I had this hero, Kate Ady, who used to be the foreign correspondent I think for the BBC. And I was like, that's what I'm gonna do one day. And my dad was terrified because she'd be in Sierra Leone or like some place at the time that was having troubles. And I think on Spitting Image they used to have a puppet of her where she would say, this is Kate Ad getting the hell out of here. And I just really wanted to be her. And I think for a long time I wanted to be a French correspondent for one of the big newspapers in London. So yeah, I don't know where it comes from. How do you know that you wanted to do what you do? It just instinctively builds, doesn't it, from a young age.
- [11:58]
Radim Malinich
I think what you described about Helter Skelter and what a mad thing that was. I think there should be some statistic how many people we lost because they just went off the edge. I'm liking the, the linkage in your family that with the granddad was in journalism and there was always, always people encouraging you to read because some of the most amazing storytellers I've met really come from the childhoods being enticed to read. So you said that you defined yourself running an agency with people and you said the fun stopped but you still took you 10 years to actually get out of it.
- [12:32]
Katie Cowan
Yeah, I think as you get older you lose some of that spirit, don't you? Of, oh, this isn't working, I'm going to change it. But it's not necessarily you being scared to. You've got responsibilities and you've got people that you employ and you care about these people and you don't want them to suffer and you think you're on the right track as well. It's easy to get into this mindset that you are building something that is going to become a success and there was potential there. Definitely. Actually, I'm not sure many people have done this. When people want to change something, they'll close it down, won't they? I didn't do that. I stubbornly held on for about four or five years and just naturally downsized the business. And the crazy thing is we've still got all the same clients because the business is still there. I'm still a director of that business. It's just that we've absolutely shifted it so that it's just software and systems, because that was what it was. I was running a business with my husband and he's a software developer and I'm pr and we just found we were increasingly winning each other work and we said, what are we doing? Let's bring our skills together and we could have gone really far with it. But I can't speak for Tom, but I think we're both similar in that we're both free spirits and we've carved a life out for ourselves now and a business that works for us and doesn't require stuff. We'll be back after a quick break.
- [14:03]
Radim Malinich
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your creative journey, you can pick up one of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration, all the Way to Career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping one worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show Notes Any day should be a new book day. That sense of freedom that you've been describing. It's interesting because when you think of that quote like, I want to be in a meeting, I want to run a meeting, I don't want to be in a meeting. I think this is the sort of the story of our lives. Like we want to create agencies and we happen to create agencies, then we realize I don't want to run the agency because we both spoke to Stefan about happiness and how we do things and he had a quite good and eloquent way of describing, like how we are still not very developed in actually preempting the future happiness, that we think that when we arrive at our destination that it was going to be sunshine and ice cream. And you realize the struggle was fun compared to this. Like, what's next? What's there? I think and you being a free spirit, it's been amazing to watch your journey, like what you're creating, what you call the passion project. You've created a community which is almost essential place where people actually find their voices and find the kindred spirits in the industry. I just feel like that the result of the turmoil or despair or unhappiness has actually come to a right place because I think the good things happen beyond that comfort zone, beyond that risk. And I think what you've created is incredible. It's nice to pay compliment back to you because what you created is the perseverance. Because you said it's been 15 years but only last four years, you've been actually making it as a full time. And we can make our own assumptions about people's stories and journeys. What do you mean the last four years? It looks like they've been making a living out of it for a long time. So let's talk about that sort of business side of things, if you can, for a bit before we focus on the creatives and their stories. But you've got Tom, your husband, software developer, like doing the things and because you're getting clients. But how do you keep going when it's not earning?
- [16:32]
Katie Cowan
It is now, I think we didn't make any money for, I would say the first five or six years with creative boom. Because I had this kind of crazy idea, which I'm sure a lot of your listeners are familiar with, that you, if you have a passion, a creative passion, that's a hobby, you feel dirty in a way if you turned it into something that made money. And also I didn't really like all the kind of advertising that was being splashed around on websites at the time. I just wanted to create a resource that was free and available to creatives. And then I started to realize actually this thing is popular and we've got a lot of traffic and there's a lot of people following us on social media. And it's taken up a lot of my time. And for a long time when I was running the PR agency, it was a great testing ground for things. So that was where we got a lot of value from it. We could try new things, we could get our staff to play around with it, we could get our staff to practice and write things for it. So for a long time it worked in that way, but it started to make some income somewhere along the line. And I just kept thinking in the back of my head, this could be amazing, this could be my full time business if I only just had the courage to jump off the cliff or go on the helter skelter, whatever. And it just got to that point. And I think the pandemic was the tipping point, which is a cliche. A lot of people went through a lot of stuff during that time and realized actually, what are we doing? It's time to have a leap of faith and do that because we don't know how long we've got and actually creative boom, Absolutely love it. And I think if I put my whole heart into it, I think it could be a really big success because the community aspect was successful, but it was just how can I make this a viable business? And so I said, I'm done. I had a client that had left that I was working for PR wise and they rocked up in January 2021 and said, do you want to talk about a renewed contract? No, I said, and then I went downstairs and told Tom the news because it was a very good income. I said over a cup of tea, by the way, I'm not doing this anymore. And you know what? He's absolutely fantastic. We're best friends, we've been together for 20 plus years. He just said, great, brilliant, let's make it happen.
- [19:01]
Radim Malinich
I think I can relate to this because I think journeys are similar. When you give up a high paying client or when you give up a contract like that to an outsider to pass it by and be like, are you mad? What's going to feed you? But to a kindred spirit who understands you, be like, of course, yeah, that, that's the best thing you can have done. Because when I was running my studio it was busy and everything was chaotic and stressful, but you can see that offset. And my wife said, no, you're not doing this anymore. Because I knew I wanted to be room as an author, someone who pushes the thought provoking ideas in situations rather than be queuing up to do staff photos for someone for a website. We just build that kind of stuff and you're thinking, I want to do something different. And when you make that piece with yourself and you tell it to your partner and they go, oh yeah, yeah, oh shit, this is good, this is liberating. Because the journey starts from that thing onwards. You're like, I've given up a security only to be creating something for myself, which can feel scary, especially on the outside. But I totally adore the fact that you said it was five or six years of not making money. This is an old school patience, old school resilience. Because if I was to tell to anybody now, like I'm gonna start a podcast or website or a blog and for six years, you know, I'll be okay if it doesn't make any money. What? That's a lifetime in this general current time. Do you agree that it's like the impatience right now that this would be impossible? Would you have the patience to wait for six years now?
- [20:31]
Katie Cowan
Oh, probably not. When I was 27 when I started cray theme or I'm not very good at maths, I didn't really think, it's like that old thing, isn't it? You look at that big kind of fairground ride and you don't think, oh, that's probably going to be bad for my neck. When you're young, you're just, I'm going to go on that. That looks fun. Whereas now I might be like, ooh. So I think it's a matter of youth. We're full of energy, we've got loads of time. We might not necessarily have the outgoings we have now, the responsibilities we have now. You just think, screw it, we'll do it. But saying that I have had a lot of people come to me over the years and say very politely, how did you do creative boom? And how can I do it faster? And it's always a gentle and kind and compassionate reply back. And actually, I stole the line from Lisa Conston, who is a brilliant illustrator in Portland. You should speak to her. She's wonderful. And she said that my recipe for my thing, for my kind of cake, it's been tweaked and changed and completely overhauled many times over for many, many years. And also the oven has changed, the ingredients have changed. So if I was to give you my recipe, it would be completely outdated. It's like going through maybe like a health injury, like a back injury, which is what I've gone through this year. And I slowly came to realize that no amount of advice you read online helps. You have to go through it yourself. You have to go through the pain yourself. You have to learn what works and what doesn't. I hope that answers your question.
- [22:18]
Radim Malinich
I can definitely. Talking about ingredients and ovens and formulas. I think that's my chat. I love it because in my book Creativity for Sale, I talk about that. We all have magic formula. We all have that something that projects our soul, that expression. That's why we're here for. Let's say yours is stories, mine is, let's say, visual storytelling. Somebody else has got a love for typography code or something. And this is our magic formula that we need to almost identify and then multiply. Okay, double down on it. This is what you do. And then use our superpowers. In your case of patience or tenacity, being able to go that sort of extra mile is what makes the magic formula of sort of work. So this is your recipe and this is your oven. This is how you make things go. And since you mentioned A quote by Lisa. Actually, I had a quote by a guy called Don Martel, and he said that the last mile is rarely crowded because not everyone is prepared to go that far. Talking about the extra mile and talking about going that far, that's necessary. Yet it sometimes feels in such a short supply. And I think with the stream of press releases and people pitching to you their projects and obviously the income of the information and stories coming to you, how much of good stuff and how much of the bad stuff do you see every day?
- [23:30]
Katie Cowan
Let's be honest, this is the frustration, isn't it? Because I started this thing because I wanted to help people who weren't getting noticed to have a voice. People that didn't necessarily traditionally, back then anyway, get a platform to share their stories. And I was so young and full of overconfidence. And I thought, yeah, I'm going to solve this. And in the process have become another platform that has to curate, that has to choose, that has to pick some people over others because we only have so much time and resource. It's one of my biggest frustrations. It's probably what caused me to have a bad background and burnout a couple of times over the years. If I'm honest, I don't know where it comes from, this kind of need. Maybe it comes from my Nana, actually, if I think about it, because my Nana was a nun at one point, which she was like the real life Maria. And yes, we do sing the Sound of Music a lot in our family, which is absurd. But yeah, we have to curate. And it frustrates me that we've not become a gatekeeper because, oh God, that would kill me inside if that was the way we were perceived. Because that's not what I want. I still want us to try and be as good as we can possibly be. Welcome, everyone. But if there is maybe somebody not suitable for the podcast, for example, then I will think of another opportunity that I can give that person to have some exposure on Creative Beam. If somebody comes to me and their work is still not quite developed, then I will give them an opportunity to maybe feature in a tips article with a quote. So there are ways that we can still help people. It's very subtle, it's very gentle. And now I've probably got people listening to this thinking, oh gosh, is that why she didn't feature my work? No, it's not. It wasn't you. But come back to us in a couple of years time when you've developed your style and when you've got More confident at what you're out putting out there and you've had a bit more experience. So it's really tough choosing, but we have to choose. It's just the way it is.
- [25:33]
Radim Malinich
That was one of my points. I wanted to ask about curation because when you speak to PR people, design PR people, they're like, you can speak to a website and the website has eight spaces and 200 press releases. What do you choose? How do you choose it? Because what I think your longevity is that the long term curation that has carried a website, it has got its own corner of the Internet, no doubt. There's websites doing different things for different people. And if you try to be creative and be featured, all of those websites, you find yourselves coming up against many walls because you're not suitable for everyone. And I think that pre 2000 designed platforms or media, whatever you would call it, websites, especially the heyday of Pixel Surgeon and that kind of stuff, it was a chaos, it was free for all. It was amazing. Like you could be everywhere all the time. Because we were less worried about the curation and more about like, holy shit, we're making stuff. It's digital, it's amazing, it's fast, it's crazy. We've got this community. So it was like easier to get to be featured, but also it was easier to get lost because there was so much more information. Whereas what you once described at the time when you started creative boom, the media was slightly more traditional. I remember still buying Design Week in, in print, whereas you can come online today, you were like, oh, I can join the dots pretty quickly of how I can be potentially this good, this far and have this opportunity to be featured. So you mentioned curation and burnout and growth in some ways. Looks like now you've got more people around you. So is there a filter or process that you put your work through that you know what's going well and hopefully attracting the right people?
- [27:13]
Katie Cowan
Yeah. So basically we've grown up. We were chaotic and fun and lively back in the early days and since I've doubled down, we did put some systems in place a good ten years ago, possibly longer, I can't remember. But yeah, when I started focusing on this full time, there was a lot of growing up. What are our processes? Things like a media pack, a forward features list, all the kind of media contacts that we'd built up, getting a system in place so that we actually have. We use something called capsule, so we've got all the contact details and we, we've built relationships with PR people over 15 years. It's one of the things that I find is my strength, that I've worked journalism side and PR side. So I know what the PR people want and I know how to run a magazine. We're now with the ipso, which is like an official media platform which is holding us to account for very high standards of journalism ethics. And we have a proper complaints procedure in place. All of my writers are proper, qualified journalists and they all agree to that standard. There's all these things that have been on a huge list that I have been working my way through over the last four years. Last year we focused exclusively on the new website design and basically refreshing our brand. And there's always something on the horizon. So, yeah, it's bringing the chaos into this considered platform that is a proper magazine. And so honestly, I'm so proud of it because if you could have looked at it even just 10 years ago and where we were and what we were doing compared to now, it's such a shift and to be considered when we have PR people tell us that they love our magazine and their clients really want to get into it and it's one of their favorites because we do this, this and this. That's just so nice to hear because it's involved a lot of work to get there.
- [29:18]
Radim Malinich
What you're describing is growing up, you might use that word, but you mentioned chaos and then growing up and systems, and that's pretty much defines as we are as human beings. Chaos is brilliant. When you're young, you want to start a riot, but then you realize we've had two days of riots. What do we do next with the riot? We somehow need to find our own ways of what our rules are when we do that. And what you describe about the ipso, that again, that shows the intent of what you want to create, where you want to go. Because I'm sure you've interviewed lots of people through your podcast and for your creative boom about the fact that we don't have a plan at the beginning. Plan doesn't exist. We're like, oh, let's go and we'll see what happens now when we get to the bottom of it. Whereas when we get older, we start planning and we are very happy about planning. It's like, I know five steps ahead, I know what I'll be doing in five years time and I'm really happy. But if I was Talking to my 30 year old self like, off, what are you doing? I mean, there's all of these things to Do. So do you feel different by knowing what's happening next and do you feel like you see more clearer in the dark?
- [30:23]
Katie Cowan
Oh, God, yeah. I do love a list, a to do list. I'm very motivated by ticking things off it. I use an app called Things, which is the only thing I use to plan everything, which it's quite chaotic but for me I just like the simplicity of it. And I have tried other systems over the years to bring writers in, but in the end, actually I've just found a formula that works. The briefs that I send writers, I'll send updates on what we have planned for the next month. We'll tap into marketing events that are happening. We've planned probably a month in advance and for big key events three months in advance. So we're already putting together our annual Christmas gift list, which is very popular. And all my mates who aren't creative, they work in like technical finance, banking. I sound like I've got a bunch of really pretentious friends. Some of them are lawyers and they're like, when's the Christmas gift list out? Going on creative boom. And I'm like, we're planning it, we're planning it, be patient. And then it's just having that kind of what's happening next? So in a couple of weeks time, we've got World Kindness Day on the 13th of November and we've already got a bit of content in place for that, which is great. It's running it like a newsroom, basically, from what I remember back in the day. And oh God, I loved it. It was fantastic. I even loved it when I was involved in a newsroom at our college where we did the same thing and it was like, what's happening next? Who's going to write this story and how are we going to turn this into a nice feature? And who can we approach to interview? And oh, I just love the whole process and bringing it all together. And now, of course, it's more exciting because we can do it all online and filter it out through all these other little vehicles like social media and podcast. And anyway, you've caught me on a kind of passion project. It's my daily fun. I'm like, woo, what have we got lined up for today? Fantastic, let's go.
- [32:19]
Radim Malinich
When you talk about newsrooms, it always makes me remember These sort of mid-90s and mid-2000s press rooms where there's like chaos papers everywhere. And I think your process sounds a bit more serene. I think it's still as dynamic, isn't it? No, because it's done online. So I'm hoping that we still have a few of cigarettes. I know a few applying papers.
- [32:38]
Katie Cowan
It's funny, actually, my first ever work experience was at the Crew Chronicle and the gentleman there used to make me go and buy him cigarettes and I used to sit with him and smoke cigarettes. Silk Cut he liked. And we'd go over the papers and he used to give me life advice and we just didn't smoke. I think it must have been only about 17 or something. Good grief. And then, yeah, I used to work at a radio station in Birmingham and for a good year, I used to have to drive from Stoke down to Birmingham every day because I wanted to be with Tom. Um, I'd moved out of Birmingham at that time and I'd have to get up at 3 in the morning, scrape the ice off the car in the dark and drive down to arrive at 5am Just you have to be there. Because you're the broadcast journalist, you've got to read the news at 6am, but you've also got to write it. And there I would go into this, like, cozy newsroom and there'd be papers stacked high and lots of old monitors and you'd have your sort of soundproof booth ready to go with the red light outside. And it's just you. And you have to get the 6am Bulletins altogether and you have to do prerecord for a different region. And you'd have to write and quickly do the script for the live bulletin at the same time. And then you'd also have to sometimes do pre records for something that went out on the national commercial radio network. So you'd have to listen to the fire and the police banks. Oh, this is Constable Jeffrey Archer reporting for duty at 4am We've had an arson attack at a petrol station in, I don't know, West Bromley. And you'd have to get things down and draw. I loved it. And I think that's what I love about creative boom. It's the immediacy that there's a new story that's come in, it's broken. Right, let's get it on there before everybody else. Let's get somebody to write that up. Okay, you do this and it's just fabulous. It's great fun.
- [34:34]
Radim Malinich
Amazing stories of what you describe and how sort of dynamic content still is produced. But when you compare it to the way most of us work these days, especially on a freelance level or content creation, you write a script for a day and you edit it for a Day you produce the video, it's just create sort of capsule pieces of content, whereas what you were creating back then, it was like a million capsules. 55 minutes. This is busy. This is crazy. And again, I love the dedication, that getting up at 3am, that's living in a warm bed. I remember. Yeah, it's somehow I feel it's. Again, it goes back to a generation. I got stories of getting up at 4am and traveling to uni and that kind of stuff. And it's just. We didn't mind, did we?
- [35:15]
Katie Cowan
We did our time, didn't we? We've done our time.
- [35:19]
Radim Malinich
Absolutely true. So what I want to know. So obviously you're leading this like you are in charge. Did you think you would be leading a team again? Did you? Was that always the plan to grow and do this? Because you have to be on.
- [35:34]
Katie Cowan
I remember being three or four years old in the playground and playing what time is it, Mr. Wolf? And thoroughly enjoying it, being the Wolf and orchestrating the game with everyone. So maybe I have always been a bit of a kind of leader, maybe, but I just enjoy the work. I really enjoy the chaos, the organizing, bringing it all together, planning something, seeing it on screen, just like I did when I was making those magazines when I was a kid. It's very creative. So did I see myself as doing this? No, not really. I just thought that I would be. I don't know what I thought I would be doing. It's been a very kind of humbling experience, really, to have created something that was just a sort of little hobby and then to find yourself running this magazine and doing partnerships with people like Meta and Microsoft and traveling the world. Our team have been all over Miami, South Korea, Hong Kong, Milan, Australia, New Zealand. I'm so proud of it from that aspect. The funny thing is, we have been to lots and lots of stuff over the years, but this year in particular, which also included Glastonbury, by the way, I was like, why the flipping heck do we get invited to all these amazing things on the year that my flipping back decides to go? So all my writers love me because I'm like, tom, do you want to go to Glastonbury? Backstage passes and everything? He's like, hell, yeah. I'm like, bastard. Like, Abby, do you want to go to Miami and stay on what's it called? My Mind's Gone Blank, the amazing strip on the beach? She's like, sure, and have a free Lexus for a week, you bastard. So I've just been like, lying on the Floor and watching my entire team go and do these amazing things all over the world and write for us. We've just had Emily Gosling come back from a Signal festival in Prague. Great. What about me? So I've been sending out all these lovely emails to all these organizers and say, just to let you know, we're really honored that we've been invited to these things, but next time I'm slipping going. So, yeah, did I expect to lead a team? No, is the short answer. Am I enjoying it? Yes, I absolutely love it. And it's not that I didn't enjoy aspects of running the PR agency before I did. It was fun working with people then, too, and there was lots of joy in the struggle. It's just that this is my baby and this is something that I'm in control of and I can do whatever I want with it and if I make a success, it's on my back. Whereas when you're working for clients, you're at the mercy of them and there's not so much you can push it. It's not hugely creative. Writing press releases for house builders, for example.
- [38:32]
Radim Malinich
Someone does it, someone's happy doing it, that I'm happy for the growth and I'm sorry that it happened in a year where you couldn't go anywhere. At what point did you realize that there's a chance to actually build a brand because it was a platform to champion other people? But creative boob stands for something, and I reiterated it quite a few times today, like how much of a face it's got, like how much of a impression it makes. And obviously you've done quite diligently a lot of work on making sure the website works really well. There's user friendliness and also there's actually a brand. You've got your two eyes checking you around and did lots of auxiliary work with artists for different themes. So when did you realize we need to double down and make the brand really good and standalone on its own?
- [39:16]
Katie Cowan
I think probably about 2016. We started working with a lovely designer called Samantha Wilkinson. She had been working at the Chase in Manchester, Brilliant agency up this way. And we knew we'd been playing around and it'd been very organically thrown together over the years. It was just this, like we said, chaos, fun, brilliant. And we just sat down and said, we need to formalize this and give it a proper brand everywhere. And Samantha was great. We just went through all of this. We had many, many meetings. I think it took us about a year. I just gave her lots of space to play and come up with an idea. And one of her ideas was the eyes. Because I said to her, look, there's. We've got this personality. We're. We're friendly and approachable and warm and we don't take ourselves too seriously. And we want to have some kind of icon that evokes all of that. And I just couldn't think of anything. And then she just came up, pitched the eyes icon, very simple. And I said, I love it. And then Tom just went, do you want me to make the eyes move? And he just did a bit of, kind of very simple, basic development, made them move, follow the curse around. And when you scroll on mobile or iPad or whatever, they move back and forth as if they're reading the text. And it was just that, really, it was just a simple idea from Samantha, which was fantastic. And then it grew from there. And then we went through a kind of refresh last year, 2023, and built on what we'd created. It's really difficult, isn't it? I'm not a graphic designer, but to capture the essence of a brand in your visual communication, it's not an easy thing. You have to go through quite a few exercises and yeah, because you also.
- [41:12]
Radim Malinich
Have quite a lot to balance because you want your background, mostly you want your brand to be there, but also play the supporting actor to the heroes that populate your front pages.
- [41:20]
Katie Cowan
We're not the star of the show. You are the star of the show. And that's what we had to do. We had to not be too fancy, not too cocky, but just nice and subtle and hey, we're here.
- [41:32]
Radim Malinich
What I'm picking up on is the word time, because you said it took a year of this. Like, again, snackable content, bite size tiktoks, which we'll get to in a second. Your five or six years of not being paid and having a year to actually just refine a brand. Your patience is incredible. It's the growth and obviously it's like how you allow yourself to actually have that space to bed in to and explore and find the right balance. Because, yeah, again, the curation versus the brand. Would you change your podcast covers? Just put focus on just the name and stuff. So it's super elegant, it's super beautiful. And yeah, the patience kind of shines through it. But you started creative boom before the social media and the social media arrived. You got your followers. And when we spoke a year ago on my away fixture on your podcast, you asked me if I was on TikTok and I was like, I've opened it twice. Year later, your story about TikTok has changed. Would you like to elaborate on that one?
- [42:33]
Katie Cowan
Yeah, I did do a few sort of videos, stupidly. I've taken them all down, actually, because I just thought, this is the thing. It's me going back to the slide and throwing myself down it and then maybe getting a little bit of a bruise on the knee and going. And then dusting off and going back up the slide again. You try things out. I might have changed a lot and calmed down a lot over the last 15 years and some might say matured. People who know me very well may argue with that, but I just. I've never lost the spirit of just trying something and if it doesn't work and I'm not happy with it, scrap it, try something else. So for a little while, I was putting out some videos on TikTok of me talking to camera and doing some various different bits of content. Really good fun. Loved every minute of it. Quickly realized this is a lot of work and I've got other fires I'm fighting. So it's a regroup. I'm like thinking about what we're going to create next and it might take me six months before I reveal what that is. But I am actually in the process of talking to various people on what we do next. I've got some pretty big plans for next year.
- [43:45]
Radim Malinich
I look forward to seeing them. But I did not see somebody when you posted it because I only caught it and not on TikTok, somewhere else. But did you say that you had a troll or you were like, there was something. There was an instant negative reaction or feedback.
- [43:59]
Katie Cowan
It caught me by surprise because one of the most amazing things about Creative Boom over the years is that we haven't had a lot of grease. We've barely had any grief whatsoever. I'm ready for it, honestly. I've got a very thick skin these days. Yeah, I think it's the brand. I think the eyes just soften things. People don't seem to. It's very odd. I go on other media websites and I see everybody falling out in the comments and we just don't have that because I think we very smartly cultivated a warm and friendly space. So I think that's why I want people to feel when they come on Creative Boom. I don't want them to feel intimidated or, oh, God, I don't belong here. I want them to go, oh, this is nice. They've got nice work. Oh, we're all in this together. This is nice, warm and cuddly.
- [44:44]
Radim Malinich
It brings me onto. Although we didn't talk about your TikTok troll, it brings me on the topic that you mentioned as a world kindness day in a couple of weeks time and in the last many years we've seen a big shift talking about mental health, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, empathy. Because yes, you talk about the punch ups in comment sections and being on the Internet for the last 24 years with showing my work, oh my God, I've seen every kind of wrong. I once actually created an alter ego called Gwyneth and I was just taking on them just like have you been brought in school? Oh yeah. It was inspired by Gwyneth Paltrow. Gwyneth. So I was like, Gwyneth obviously is like sending some daggers back. But things are changing and I think we know more about ourselves and hopefully be influencing the up and comers and even the old schools have a look at themselves for those older ones, hey, you don't have to be that way. And for the newbies, look, the world is a little bit broken but there's a way to navigate it and actually find your path that isn't as destructive as it was for some of us. Just trying to work it out on the fly. So from your perspective, how have you seen the shift in awareness of mental health?
- [45:56]
Katie Cowan
It's definitely grown over the last two decades. When I worked in pr, the industry was wild. If you saw something happening, it was just like bosses, clients didn't handle it very well. So I've seen a very positive shift of people being looked after better and everybody, especially with men, especially with the men I know in my own life, everybody's got a much healthier approach, which is great. It's absolutely fantastic. And we cover a lot of the subjects online. I think even with myself, I've always just got my head down and cracked on. I've never asked. I've tried not to ask for help because I'm a bit of an island. I just think I can do it all on my own and burnt myself out a couple of times. And I must admit it's only been recently that I've started to acknowledge that I can't do it on my own. I've been super busy and I've been doing all these things and I've been trying to build a business and at one time build two at the same time, which was just insane. And now I've got to that stage in life where I'm like, I'm actually going to make an effort and build a network. I probably did it naturally anyway, but now I'm making a concerted effort to reach out to old acquaintances and friends and go to events. Oh my goodness. Given I couldn't get off the floor from January to June much, I can't wait to get back out there. In fact, I was in Manchester yesterday for the first time in a year and it was really emotional moment. I allowed myself to have that moment and say, wow, Katie, you should be proud of yourself. And I don't think I would have done that 10 years ago. So, yeah, I think we have a lot to thank for that conversation around mental health because in my generation where the way we were brought up, you just had to crack on, get on with it and be strong.
- [47:52]
Radim Malinich
I think a lot of things have changed. I don't think there's many 17 year olds sitting in the Gazette smoking cigarettes with their buzz going on the paper.
- [47:59]
Katie Cowan
I can't believe I shared that.
- [48:01]
Radim Malinich
I have an experience working part time for a sign making studio where literally on Monday morning they had deliveries of like 20 bottles of wine. They were just like people were just drinking all day long and smoking. It was just. I was like 15 or something.
- [48:13]
Katie Cowan
Yeah, that was probably the generation above us, I would say absolutely crazy. I remember being in newsrooms with people smoking and having an ashtray on top of those piles of paper. Crazy.
- [48:25]
Radim Malinich
Crazy, right? It's crazy. I like when you say that you're an island. Is it to protect yourself? Is it to build resilience? Is it to build a moat so you are safer?
- [48:37]
Katie Cowan
Gosh, I feel like this is a counseling session.
- [48:39]
Radim Malinich
I'm sorry.
- [48:40]
Katie Cowan
No, I think I've always been very independent. I don't want help from anyone. One, I can do this on my own. No, leave me alone. There was this. Ernie's passed away sadly. My dear father in law, Richard, just this time last year actually and there was this moment where we were doing a very difficult challenge on a bike ride. We were all road cyclists and we were going around Snowdonia in Wales and there's this hill at the end that's notorious. It takes about 20 minutes to climb and it's steep and we were going up it. And my dear father in law was very competitive. He was like a local legend. He used to win lots of races and he was amazing. He would climb mountains and he put his hand on my small of my back to help push me up and give me some help because he was really supportive. He cycled along me all the way around this Course he was so proud of us. And I said, get off, Richard, get off. I'm doing this myself. And it was pa. It was hard, but I'm like, I'm doing this myself. And he was proud of me for that moment. I was proud of me for that moment. Particularly as I was seeing grown men who'd given up and were by the side of the road with their arms on the sort of saddles going, oh, like, oh, God, he's. Don't look at them. Keep moving forward. One of my proudest moments. So, yeah, I think it's that mostly. But, yeah, maybe not wanting to owe anybody anything, you know, because I don't want to let anyone down because I'm too busy doing my shit. And I am a busy thing. I can't do everything. I can't be there for everyone, which is another frustration. So I'm like, just get in. Go out fast as possible. Do my own thing. But then you hurt your back. You spend a year in chronic pain. I'm coming out at the end of it now, thank God. And you learn things when you're staring at the ceiling, you think, flipping out, Katie, get a grip. And like, what am I going to change about myself? What can I do? What can I build on? And one of the things I kept thinking was, I need to get out there and spend more time with other people and realize that it's okay to do that. It's okay to sometimes say, hey, can we go for a coffee? I'll kind of pick your brain about. I get those messages all the time and those emails all the time, can we go for a coffee? And I can pick your brain. And it's always in London as well. I'm like, you do realize I live up near Manchester. It would take a whole day, never mind. But I want to do that. I want to go and meet more people and go out and do things. And it's not like I haven't. But it's just never been a focus because I just want to do it on my own. I don't want to rely on anyone not changing.
- [51:18]
Radim Malinich
I think there is a way of being generous and being selfish, because I believe that we should say yes to everything we can learn from. And they say no to things that you can actually have time to grow. Audrey Hepburn has said, you've got two hands, one to help yourself and one to help somebody else. What you've been doing, I think in most brilliant ways, just like you've used both of your hands to help others, most of the Time and having your unwanted recent resetter with your back. And it's almost felt like a sort of second pandemic to you. Because if you're stuck indoors and going out to Manchester like you did yesterday, that must have felt overwhelming because we build that social resilience, that energy that you can spend outside. And when we all came out of Pandemic, we were like, we went out for an hour. I'm so happy for you that you making a breakthrough. You're growing. You get in this to a place that almost never imagined because it's great and it's changing lots of people's lives. So I want to end this on a positive note and ask you, what's your most favorite experience of running Creative Boom in the last 15 years?
- [52:19]
Katie Cowan
Oh, my goodness, there's so many. You've put me on the spot there. Just the people just being able to talk to people that maybe I wouldn't have been able to chat with before. The doors that this thing opens. Being able to pick the brains of some of the world's greatest creative minds, see what they're thinking. I love figuring out what people are all talking about, what the theme is on everybody's minds, being able to be part of that kind of whirlwind at the time and just being able to do something. I love how many people can say that they do that. I get up in the morning at the moment, I do my physio and strength routine. I go out the door, I walk for half an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes two. I come back, poor Tom's reading a really nice book, relaxing with a cup of tea, and I come in, I'm like, I really think we should do an events page on Creative Beam. What do you think? Should we do that? That would be great. And he's like, it's half seven in the morning. And I'm like, sorry, sorry, I forgot, I forgot. I'll go make some toast. Do you want some toast? And it's that that I really love the most. I just feel so proud that I've been able to walk this sometimes, drag myself along the pavement path and carve it out to be this wonderful thing. And the thing I love the most is that I feel like I'm only just getting started. There's so much more that I want to do. And I gave myself a target at the very start of this. I gave myself a five year target. By the end of 2025, I want to be turning over this amount of money. I want to have done this. I want to done that. I've already hit that target and we're already set to really build on that next year, and I've got some really amazing plans for next year. So I feel like it's a new beginning again, and that's what I enjoy the most. There's always something new to learn, there are always amazing new people to meet and talk with, and there's always something that I can grow from. And that's why I love creative. Boom.
- [54:23]
Radim Malinich
Katie, every word that you've said today shows the passion for your passion project, and I'm really happy that it's working for you that you've created something remarkable. So thank you for your time today and for sharing your story with me.
- [54:35]
Katie Cowan
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
- [54:49]
Radim Malinich
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions or even suggestions, so please get in touch via the show notes or social channels. This episode was produced and presented by me, Radim Malinich. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil MacKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode. Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or your regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out. Thank you.