Today I met with Chris and Dave, the two other Myows Copyright Solutions founding partners, for a great brainstorming session in the awe-inspiring Kirstenbosch Gardens.

We joked a bit and had a great time, but more importantly we strategized where we’d want to take our internationally-acclaimed app in 2011. The plan of action we scribbled over 7 hours in Chris’s A3 pad will for sure change the way us freelancers approach copyright management. (more…)

Everyone involved with Myows received an early Christmas gift when our copyright management app was featured alongside DropBox, Basecamp or Google Docs as one of the most useful websites for Freelancers on the very respected creativeboom.co.uk. (more…)

Growing Moustaches in November is a concept. It is an idea. It is not ownable. There is no IP in a concept. Not a drop…

…unless you reduce it to material form. You see, you cannot copyright a concept or register an idea. You can’t show these things to your lawyer or your mum. You cannot hide them under your mattress or reveal them from behind a red velvety curtain. Your dog can’t even eat them. Because they are inside your head and a head is a useless place for your IP to be. BUT, call this concept MOVEMBER, create a logo and register the URL. Now we’re talking. The idea has found material form, a form that somebody can own (and I bet you wish that somebody was you…).

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Back in August, I offered to help my brother-in-law by designing a logo for his new venture http://corprogram.co.za . Admittedly, I didn’t spend more than a few hours on it and followed his wishes to have a 3D globe instead of the letter “O” – but am still pleased with the result which I believe gives his business a professional online image.

Today, while browsing the web for pictures of “blue fire”, I came across a very similar logo for a Fire Protection Service I hadn’t heard of before:

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The Myows Twitter account was granted early access to the new Twitter interface and it’s rather yummy.

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I’ve been asked to divulge the details behind the mysterious case that led to my involvement in the Myows project in the first place. The whole matter was fairly convoluted and I’m not entirely sure that the other party is to blame although a lot of other people seem pretty convinced. But here’s the story – make of it what you will. Just bear in mind that this is my opinion only!
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Working Together to Cultivate Copyright Consciousness

The Copyright Desert

Nearly 2 years ago, Chris and I started thinking about how we could, as creatives, efficiently manage our Copyright. The landscape was empty and dry – think the Kalahari on a hot summers day.

And so, inadvertently, we started gardening: irrigating and sowing. We were growing copyrights. Truth be told, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, or the amazing opportunities that would come out of it all – but we knew we needed such a service and that kept us going.

After 16 months of countless late-night meetings, pre-sunrise Skype convesations with Dave in Singapore and Sundays spent researching and brainstorming (we all run very busy agencies during the week) – Myows launched in early November 2009. We did all this for you as much as for protecting our own agencies’ IP and in many ways, Myows is a community-focused solution to solving a global piracy problem.

The Communal Oasis

I’m no hippie, but I like to think of Myows as a kind of community-maintained Copyright Oasis – a garden of potential, if you’ll indulge me. As with all fledgling gardens, the soil is good and the conditions are optimal for growth! There are few young trees and some flower beds, but lots of room for planting new seeds and bringing more life into the picture – and we need you, our users, to nurture it and make it grow into something amazing that belongs to all of us. Think of it as cultivating a copyright culture, copyright consciousness!

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As pointed out in part 1 of this article, crystallizing your creative business basically involves gathering, mapping out and securing the intellectual property that makes your business unique and valuable. (You may want to read that again).

We do this continuously at Engage Brandcraft – it’s a ongoing work in progress. I think it would need to be in any creative business unless that business has been going for 40 years and the secret recipe hasn’t changed in all that time (as in: not even a new billing system has been added to the mix).

To be sure, there’s no hard and fast way of doing this – the more unique your approach, the more unique your outcomes. I’m only giving you a big picture starting point.

In a nutshell, our cycle consists of three distinct stages but I don’t think that matters either, as long as your end goal is to give structure to the methodologies, approaches and supporting collateral that make your work different and brilliant. Any ideas or input into this would truly be welcome by the way as we intend to continue revisiting this periodically as our business grows and focuses.

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