Creative Credits - Get your Lottery Ticket!

Earlier today I attended the launch of the Creative Credits scheme in Manchester. It was a very well attended event which included an interesting debate organised by Nesta about the important issues facing Manchester in the new economy.

Creative Credits are an experimental attempt to engender co-operation and collaboration between businesses. It gives small and medium enterprises the opportunity to get up to £4000 to purchase support from a creative business provided they're willing to invest up to £1,000 themselves.

The creative credit could be spent on such things as helping you design a new product or develop an innovative way for your business to address new markets - perhaps through a transactional web-site when you've never done that before.

Creative Credits will be allocated on a random basis initially to 75 companies that have simply applied and been judged eligible.

It really does seem very simple; to be eligible a business simply has to be a limited company based in one of the Greater Manchester council areas, registered for VAT and employing less than 250 people and not involved in the creative sector itself; to apply it simply needs to complete a simple form on the Creative Credits website www.creative-credits.org.uk, look there for full details and conditions.

The form needs to be completed by the 8th of October and the awardees will be announced shortly after.

Creative Credits are a gift for businesses wanting to do something different with their business. You don't even need to dream up the project before you put in the application - I'm sure many businesses like I-COM could at that stage provide you some creative input into how you might spend them.

Take your chance and try to get your share of the Creative Credit pot now.