Remember all those times you were told and reminded to do what you love? If to you this means making your work, your business you may have discovered how easily your inspired momentum can be dampened by business “practicalities.” The risks of doing business may have made your lion heart falter. All the details to tend to may make you question if you have a head for business. And, perhaps, you wonder if you can keep your heart in it all, when stepping into the ring of a competitive business culture. To love your business you have to be able to curate your journey of co-creation and collaboration with others. In this workshop, you will discover how to let your values and way of doing business guide who you serve, and who you work with to be of service. We will strip everything back to the essence of doing business without all of the legal jargon and fictions, beginning with you, as you, so you can choose the types of business arrangements that align best with your vision and mission.

“Work is love made visible.” As a business founder you live and breathe the truth of these words by Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet. When rooting and growing your business you are very aware of the creative energy driving your innovation, operations and legal activities. Did you know, though, that the primary value of your business is in a body of intangible work made visible as intellectual property (IP) to help you propel and sustain its well-being? In this workshop, you will learn to hone your founder “spidey senses” to work with the life-cycle of your IP, in sync with the run-way time of your merchandise and evolution of your services. You will also learn how your IP tracks back to the business relationships and co-creative efforts that drive your business from start-up, through growth and eventually to when you decide to step back, hand over the reins or wind it up.

For a deeper dive into managing the IP of your business check out Kyma PC’s Intellectual Property Program and Workshop Series

Have you resisted having written agreements so that the “legal stuff” doesn’t kill the vibe of a new business relationship? On the flip side, maybe a written agreement you had did not do much to stop a business collaborator from going rogue. No doubt, what makes an agreement stick can be a mystery. However, there’s no denying we get better business outcomes when we take the time to get clear on the purpose and fair exchange at the heart of our business relationships. Well written agreements that capture these understandings are more than tickets for going into court. They can work as beacons to bring us back into alignment with each other when things get off track. In this workshop, we will canvass common business scenarios to discover how intellectual property rights (e.g. copyrights) factor into agreements that support creative work. The approach is experiential and interactive, focusing on what questions to ask to define key terms, consistently value the creative contributions made and allow your business relationships to evolve.

After years of helping clients grow their creative endeavours I have been witness to a fair share of business conflicts. It goes pretty much the way you might imagine. You suddenly learn that something has gone very wrong. You may feel blind-sided, fear, anger, and the impulse to kick into survival mode to protect yourself and right the wrong. Tried and true advice to first breathe is a great first step, but it is not as clear or simple to know what to do next. What if there were a few concrete steps you could take to get yourself and your business on track again, even before having a conversation with a lawyer? This workshop will offer a process to help you regain your footing, get clear on your options, and embark on a path to resolution that leads back to the joys of doing your creative work.

As much as the internet has opened up a diversity of opportunities for more connection and reach across the globe, you may have experienced the ways in which it has led to the devaluation of creative work. At a time when new copyright restrictions were set by law makers to address online content theft, the Creative Commons (CC) was launched to encourage a content sharing culture. While it may seem counter-intuitive to advocate for the unpaid sharing of creative works, the CC highlights the versatility of open copyright licensing to promote fairer exchange for public access to creative works. In this workshop, we will explore how the CC can be part of every creative professional’s business plans, and lead to new opportunities for sharing your works, while also supporting livelihoods.

This five- part workshop series is for creatives and other business owners who want to consciously leverage the intellectual property (IP) they create and use for their businesses. The program offers a 360 view of how to work with IP in business. Each workshop stands on its own and can be followed without attending a preceding workshop.

Intro to Intellectual Property (IP): Creative Assets Lead to Creative Opportunities

This workshop introduces the main forms of intellectual property (IP) that entrepreneurs work with on a regular basis. You will learn how to recognize the IP in your business, what it means to have an IP Strategy, and how to work with the IP to support and grow your business. The themes and concepts presented in this workshop are expanded upon in subsequent workshops.

The Confidentiality Code: Managing Access to Proprietary Information

Confidentiality agreements are about establishing trust foundations for business relationships. Confidential (business) information generally derives its proprietary nature from being kept confidential. Works of art, literature, music and drama are kept under wraps until ready to be released for public enjoyment. Scientific and technological advancements are kept in-house until sufficiently tested or verified for public use. Some forms of IP (e.g. trade secrets) derive their greatest value from being kept secret indefinitely. At the same time, sharing proprietary information is needed for business collaborations to flourish. In this workshop, you will learn how to navigate safeguarding and managing access to proprietary information to support the stewardship of your creations and innovations.

Charting Course for Developing and Acquiring IP

Creating a portfolio of IP assets is like digging for gold and gemstones in legal sandboxes where creatives play. In this workshop, you will learn about the legal rules and business conditions for developing and acquiring IP, such as trademarks and copyrighted content. In this workshop, the underlying logic of the laws that grant different forms of IP rights is presented. We then look at how these laws influence the terms of employment, consulting and service agreements that routinely result in the creation of IP.

Licensing IP: The Thread of Creative Collaboration

Product development, manufacturing, co-marketing, distribution and joint ventures are all examples of business arrangements that depend on the licensing of IP. In its simplest form, an IP license is the permission to use IP. Creating license terms, however, is like weaving a tapestry to bring into view the unique features and requirements of a business endeavor. In this workshop, you will learn to recognize what IP will be leveraged in a collaboration, how to define the scope of permission granted, design the “fair exchange” for the use of IP, and what steps can be taken to manifest and preserve its value.

Just A.S.K.: Strategies for Transforming IP Conflict into Business Value

IP conflict strikes at the creative heart of a business, in addition to its bottom line. Conflicts involving IP are experienced on an interpersonal level even when we don’t directly know the people making the decisions on the other side. In this workshop, the keys to good communication and business results when faced with the risk (or reality) of IP conflict are presented. We will canvass ways of conveying IP related “asks” to convert new prospects into realized opportunities, support brand loyalty with customers, and transform the experience of receiving a “nasty” legal letter into a cooperative solution.