Lecture in Progress is three; evolving from inspirational editorial platform to impactful careers engine
By: Alex Bec
Tags: Careers, Creative Industry, Creative Careers, Creativity, Education

Lecture in Progress is three; evolving from inspirational editorial platform to impactful careers engine

An update on how we’re helping emerging talent understand the creative industry, find opportunities and work in a healthy and fulfilling way.

Three years ago we launched Lecture in Progress. A free resource to empower emerging creative talent with information and first-hand accounts that demystify the day-to-day workings of the creative world.

The platform emerged out of running It’s Nice That for well over a decade and not wanting to ignore the huge volume of requests we were receiving from young creatives looking for advice on how to enter the world of creative work.

In this past 12 months, a lot has happened, and the global context of everything, let alone careers and job prospects, has changed beyond anyone’s wildest predictions. As I type we are in lockdown against Covid-19, and as a global population we are wondering how we will all emerge from this unprecedented event.

However, there are many (many) more qualified people to comment on what the world will look like post-pandemic, so for now, forgive me for concentrating solely on something I feel qualified to comment on; what we’re doing at Lecture in Progress.

This year has seen some important strides in our offer. Most notably, the addition of our Opportunities Board; a centralised hub for entry-level creative opportunities and jobs. Unlike a traditional jobs board, the board features anything from awards schemes, bursaries, desk space, apprenticeships, short courses, mentoring opportunities and more. Although simple in its execution, this online tool is a critical addition to our platform, as it evolves our offer from simply inspiring and demystifying what creative careers look like, to actually offering tangible opportunities to our audience.

The board is in its infancy currently, but is fast becoming a go-to destination for those starting out to find opportunities. It’s also starting to act as a hub for incredible organisations to give further exposure to the opportunities they are generating. As we‘ve learnt about the world of education and careers, it struck us that the sheer wealth of brilliant organisations offering opportunities needed pooling into one destination to create the scale and reach their work deserves.

This gear shift to majoring on impact was always part of the plan. We hoped that our initial purpose of providing inspiration would expand to encouraging action as well, to become a critical resource for the next generation.

Tangible impact has been the real north star for us over the last 12 months, and alongside the opportunities board, we’ve seen huge success with other initiatives that have helped us impact the careers of young creatives.

We facilitated portfolio reviews for the first time (with thanks to our founding partners GF Smith for their incredible space), and seen attendees get their first internships, and in some cases even jobs off the back of the experience.

GF Smith Portfolio Reviews

We co-hosted our first-ever hackathon for one of our longest-standing partners Google, offering emerging talent from different backgrounds and disciplines the chance to find innovative solutions to issues around digital wellbeing, mentored by the Google team.

And most recently, we created our first series of in-depth guides available for free to all of our audience on the topic of becoming ‘Work Ready’ (again thanks to an amazing external company, this time Wix).

All of this alongside the relentless weekly editorial from our team (which is now 5 strong) adding to our ever-growing our archive of original editorial, which has seen our reach grow a whopping 90% in the last twelve months.

The reach of Lecture in Progress

We’ve published 250 articles over the last 12 months, featuring a diverse range of creatives.

Before I muse on what the next twelve months holds for us, I wanted to take the chance to say a huge thank you to everyone who is working so hard to make Lecture in Progress happen.

Firstly, to our brand partners this year; The Paul Smith Foundation, GF Smith, Google, giffgaff, Shutterstock and Colophon Foundry. Without their support Lecture in Progress would simply not exist. As a self-funded, bootstrapped business focussed on making impact over profit we cannot overstate the importance of their help enough. Companies like these truly care about the next generation of talent, and when we emerge from the other side of the unprecedented time we find ourselves in, I would expect they will undoubtedly be the ones leading the way with opportunities for emerging creatives.

Alongside them, our agency partners The Academy, Anyways Creative, Kaliedo Grafik, Ogilvy, ustwo and Amplify are also true champions of talent in their organisations, and we’re thrilled to be associated with them.

Also a huge thanks to the brands who have run our first campaigns with us this year; DeutscheBank’s DBACE awards scheme and Wix — both of whom we’ve really enjoyed getting to know and find ways to help them with their own goals and missions.

Next, to everyone who’s been featured on the platform over the last twelve months; either on the site itself, on our podcast, newspaper or in any other way. Your generosity has enabled us to share insight to tens of thousands of people who really need it. Some of the most generous that stick in my mind are the articles that offered the most vulnerability — from Michael Driver’s candid insight into his challenges with managing his money, through to Tori West’s honesty about the necessity of unglamorous side jobs to help make ends meet. Respect to you all.

And finally, of course to Indi, Marianne, Jess, Anna and Siham— the 5 strong Lecture in Progress team. They are a set of some of the most passionate and committed people I’ve ever met, and I’m pleased they are on our side as we strive to increase our influence on the world of creative work. It’s been a joy to see the team grow almost double this year, and I’m sure our continued support and investment in original content and partnerships will see us enable more opportunities than ever in the coming months and years.

So, what’s next for Lecture in Progress? It feels foolish to make any kind of long-term predictions in the current economic climate, but it does feel safe to say that following this shutdown, anything that can stimulate employment and new opportunities must surely be embraced. So…

Our overarching goal is a continuation of this year’s work — to stay committed to creating more impact for the next generation of emerging talent. To grow our Opportunities Board to house hundreds of posts, from right across the UK.

A key strategy in making this happen will be to begin working with more agencies and companies, to give them more visibility to our audience, and most importantly the chance to have their vacancies and entry-level opportunities in front of our growing membership base. We’ll be calling this Company Membership and hope to announce more formal plans for this after the summer to make sure our offer is relevant for the new shape of the economy.

We’re thinking hard about how we can formulate partnerships with the biggest and best brands in the world to give value and opportunity to our audience . With this in mind, we will be developing more bespoke brand campaigns that enable us to spend the time and energy to make sure these have real, depth and value to our audience.

Finally, we must continue to ask ourselves how we disseminate the platform to a broader, harder-to-reach audience who need our advice and support more than ever. How do we make the most out of the necessity of embracing digital communication and learning that has been presented to us, and use it to the advantage of the people who need it? How do we engage sets of people without creative backgrounds, or peers and advisors who know what a creative career looks like? How do we reach younger age groups than 18+? And how do we do so in a way that’s useful to them, and speak to their real needs, not what we assume they need? A huge question, but one that’s always on our mind as we grow…

So, there we have it. Another year over, and although the next one looks more uncertain than ever —we remain completely convinced that the need for a platform like ours to support young people grow fulfilling careers in the creative industry is essential. A complete necessity, and we remain optimistic and excited for the future of work.

We know Lecture in Progress is useful now, but as I said last year, we feel we’ve only scratched the surface of what it can achieve and how it can further our group mission of Enabling Creativity to Thrive. We can confidently predict that opportunities for people with creative skills will only grow in the next 10 years, so it’d be crazy not to continue to invest our time and energy into helping in any way we can.

This is the start of the next phase of our journey, and if you’re interested in getting involved in any way, or have any ideas or feedback for us — please drop us a line: alex@thehudsonbecgroup.com

Here’s to the next 3 years!

Alex

p.s I wanted to share some testimonials from some people we’ve impacted this year below…

An attendee of our Portfolio Review

“After six weeks and applying for 70 jobs, nobody was getting back to me. Now I’ve been offered an internship, one more interview and lots of replies! So grateful, thanks for the amazing work you’re doing!”

Readers of our site:

“I have just discovered this platform, and I would just like to thank the ‘job role’ page explaining all the creative job roles in such a clear way. As someone who has practically zero connections into the creative industry, I find that small page very valuable to start somewhere! Thank you!”

“ I love reading your interviews on Lecture in Progress as it really debunks stereotypes of how the perfect design career should go down”

“@lectureinprog is a truly amazing resource to support people entering the creative industries”

“As a recent graduate, it’s honestly been a life saver and a beautiful guide into the workings of the industry which at times feels nebulous.”

“I think it’s so important to let other young professionals know what they’re getting into — Universities don’t teach this bit enough.”

Tutors from our network across the UK:

“It’s been such a useful resource, especially for those who are already branching out into employment and freelancing and has really upped some of my students ambitions been able to hear from artists and designers who aren’t incredibly famous but are still successful and making interesting work. I wish something that well put together was available when I was a student.”

“”I am a personal paid up member; and I encourage all my students to sign up to your site. I also have heavily promoted your Insight Reports, which have been extremely useful to help students start to understand the Industry.”

“We reference you more and more, when helping students figure out the direction their practice and career will take.Your content is excellent. On an illustration course with 80 students in a year, it enables to talk in an expanded yet applied way about the both subject and possible routes into industry.”

Contributors to the website and podcast

“It’s been fantastic working with you. Thanks for having me in… You all are doing such important work in the design community, so happy to contribute to all that.”

“Thanks for this opportunity, I love the site — would have been great to have something similar when I graduated!”

Attendees of the Google Hackathon:

“What an enriching experience it had been to come across, interact with and learn from the extraordinary creative minds behind Google Creative Lab. Couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity, thanks to Lecture in Progress x Google for choosing us for the hackathon.”

“It’s always great to get hands on with bigger companies and make real-life connections with those working there, it’s totally invaluable for creatives, especially in the early years of their career”

A winner from our Shutterstock Campaign

“Thank you so much for such great news and the opportunity to be part of this! You boosted up my self-confidence that will help me along the way with my artwork. This truly means so much to me.”