Latest / Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub / Creating a career in the creative economy - Jan Horn

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Creating a career in the creative economy - Jan Horn · Let Them Fly - Heather Harries Ed Hub

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Let Them Fly, podcast that answers questions that parents want answers to across Jobai.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And today we welcome Jan Horn, Managing Director of SAE University based in Jobai, a global specialist in creative media education.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely to be here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So university is where people train in film, animation, game design, development, audio design.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you've got nearly three decades of education under your own belt.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been in the business for quite a long time.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an amazing journey in education for me.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I started my career as a teacher, which seems quite a long time ago now.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are in Dubai, managing a creative media university, and it's just been a fantastic journey.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's very interesting.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: We met we met a year ago, maybe two years ago, and you inspired me with your enthusiasm for creative economy, which was a word I'd never heard of before.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to kind of pretend I knew what it meant, and I had to go and look it up, and and it just made perfect sense.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what I just want you to very quickly talk about is how did you get from teaching in South Africa to higher education, further education, yeah, higher education, you are, um, in creative economy.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look, I mean, it's a long story.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So and and I give me the highlights.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll we'll stick to the highlights.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, I started my career as a teacher.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I became a school principal when I was actually quite young.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just turned 30 and I was managing and running a school.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: After doing that for a couple of years, I realized this is probably not going to be where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had developed my own uh training consultancy during my uh period as a teacher and as a uh a school principal.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I left the formal uh education um department and I started my own thing as an entrepreneur.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and through that, I ran a project for a private higher education institution in South Africa and eventually ended up becoming the campus director for one of their campuses.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that started my journey in the higher education space.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I then also, as part of my journey within that group, took over the management of a um a creative media or creative focused uh higher education institution.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And once I started doing that, I realized I have arrived home.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is the place where I feel this is where I can have the most impact.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it was a it's specializing in uh really assisting talented, creative people towards how do they use something that comes natural to them and turn that into a career and something that can sustain them financially.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that really just opened so many doors and so many views on uh, you know, uh pathways for young people that I've been passionate about since then.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think one of the things you hear, you know, children, they have they have several dreams, and you know, one of them is I always want to be a famous footballer, but another is, you know, you quite often hear children saying, I want to design games, and parents are very quick to say, not so sure, that's a great idea.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see if we can get a proper job.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So if you had to place one idea and sort of one um idea at the heart of a mother whose child doesn't really know what they want to do, and mother's probably not very sure because it's a new industry.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: So before that fear takes over, what would be the one I one theme you would give to a parent who's got a child who's got maybe a different idea about their outcome?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think the main idea is, you know, children are all different, and the path towards what gives them purpose in life is not always the same for everybody.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, paths are not straight and paths are not uh universal.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing is that to just recognize that everything depends on the individual.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as parents, as educators, schools, we all say we are there to guide individuals towards achieving their own individual goals based on their strengths and talents.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So then we have to do that.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have to recognize that every individual child has got different strengths and talents and focus on their strengths.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Don't focus on your fears, focus on what you see their strengths are.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the path will become clear in time.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we feel that we have to push it, we have to force it, but we want everything to happen immediately in a con, you know, in in like a timeline that suits us.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Things tend to work out for the best if we focus on the the evidence that presents itself.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think children do always find their way.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: I my my biggest saying is always trust the process, yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because very, very, very rarely child children don't find their way, and we tend to get quite hung up on things that perhaps don't matter on the way.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you've spent your whole kind of career in education and with young people.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Give me the advice or give me how that's influenced how you parent your children.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, I wish it made me a better parent.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I hope that it did, um, because I've worked with hundreds and thousands of young people.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think the one thing that it had taught me as a parent is the fact that you've got to give your children the opportunity to follow their own path, you know, to show you what they really um want to do, show you their strengths, and you just support them and build their confidence.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Confidence is actually the most important thing that we can develop in our young people for them to feel confident in the way that they interact with the world.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that we do that is to by is by by recognizing them and making them feel as if they are seen.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just they just want to be seen, they just want to be known, they just want to be uh validated, that the things that they are doing are good and that the it it it it leads them somewhere.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That gives them confidence.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it really is about just not forcing them in any specific direction, but giving them the support so that they can know whichever direction they choose to go, you are there to support them.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that gives them the confidence to be able to try things, to test things until they find their way.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what you said there is absolutely right because use the words they choose.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think too often we see careers that parents choose.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: And really, that's that's so inappropriate because you've done your life, it's their chance now.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and I we see it all the time.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we see it so many times.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that for me, this is probably the most constant thing that I see in my daily life and what I do for a living, is the influence that parents have, where they have a preconceived idea of where they believe their children should end up.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And not looking at the evidence that the children show them of where their natural talent lies.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to them, if you give them the opportunity to show you what they are good at, and for them to be able to build their confidence to know that that thing that you love so much, you can actually build a career out of that, then their path becomes clear.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The confusion comes is when when parents feel, no, but I don't know enough about that direction or course or career path in order to.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it it's it's sometimes because they're not confident about it, and that insecurity then gets projected on the child.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so for me, it's really about just understanding that you are not your child, your child is an individual, they need to live their life based on the gifts that they have been given.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so somewhere you've worked through all with all of these children for a very long time, but you are definitely the champion, I would say, out here of creative economy.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: You are the person who bangs that drum perhaps the loudest.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, might even be the only person who's banging it at the moment.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not too sure.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: But what made you, what was the one point in your whole career that made you convinced that creative economy is the right drum to play, really?
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, thank you for the compliment.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do bang on that drum.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I sometimes do feel like.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I do mean it in a nice way.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I know you do.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's not me.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it's the government of this amazing country that set the pace.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: The initiatives that the UAE and specifically in Dubai that have been implemented by the leadership of this amazing city and country around the development of the creative economy shows us what the future of this country and this city is.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to look at what it is that they're doing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Quite recently, a couple of months ago, the Dubai government, through the Department of Culture, launched a new commission for film and game development.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't know this.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Huge investments that they are making.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm doing is making sure that people are aware of this.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: To tell people that there is an economy, an industry that is being developed right in front of your eyes, but you unfortunately don't know about it because you might not be following those people on social media channels.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't know.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's that's you know what where I feel I fit in is to amplify the message that's already out there so that people can make informed choices.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: What has it been that have guided me towards this thing?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not been one specific incident or one student.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's been all of them.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's the fact that through my experience in education, I've realized that there are enough people banging the drum for the mainstream careers.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's enough people pushing young people towards law and engineering and business and finance.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are not enough people creating awareness of the alternatives that exist.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where my voice is.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: My voice is to talk to the people and for the people who also need an alternative because they are not a lawyer.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with being a lawyer.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: My youngest daughter has been accepted at university to study law.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: My eldest daughter is studying at the medical faculty of a university.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with any of those careers, but that was their choices.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it is about creating an understanding of the career paths that exist in careers that normally won't get that same level of exposure.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because the biggest problem that face our young people today, the biggest challenge that they see for themselves, not what we as adults see, is a path to employment.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where are they going to find jobs?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you speak to the majority of young people today and you ask them what is the biggest thing that worries them, what is their biggest fear?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Their biggest concern is where am I going to find a job?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the creative economy, there are jobs for young people.
• 13:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: There are jobs available for young people.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: The creative economy is growing faster than young people are getting qualified in the creative economy.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because nobody tells them that it's there.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where my voice comes.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say it quite plainly and quite loudly.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, for a child who wants to make films, um, music, games, be a DJ, um anything else.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think my mind has gone blank within, but but doesn't want to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a real career?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a safe career?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, 100%.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So let me just define what we talk about when in our context we talk about the creative media industry, all right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's the creative disciplines of let's say things like animation, game development, game design, audio engineering, music production, um, film production, um, design, visual communication.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So these virtual reality, augmented reality, all of these new media kind of disciplines.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So are they real careers?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely 100%.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um to give you an example, the gaming industry as an industry that generates revenue internationally has overtaken the revenue that is generated by the film and music industry combined.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think of all the Hollywood movies, Bollywood movies, and any movie industry that exists in the world, and you think of all of the music artists that we know, all the pop singers and everybody that's out there making billions and billions and billions, you put all of those two together, the gaming industry is bigger than both of those combined.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then people still think the gaming industry is only a hobby.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a real career.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So if you start doing the research and you understand the impact of these growing industries out there, then people start understanding where they can fit in.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make a different also just another distinction.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say, for example, you have somebody that's really passionate about motor racing.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Formula One, something that a lot of people are really interested in and passionate about.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say Formula One racing.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to work in Formula One, let's say you want to have a career in Formula One, you don't have to become the Formula One racing driver.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be the guy that's going to race in the car.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can work behind the scenes in Formula One in many different roles.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the same way with gaming in film.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be the film director that does the number one movie that gets the accolades at the Oscars.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you can work in that industry.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can be the one, you can still use your natural talent and your passion in an industry where you feel at home.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the difference.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is the pathway that we don't always make clear to young people.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, how, I mean, obviously, um, putting sort of things like STEM and school aside, how do parents move from encouraging a child to think, to stop thinking of their sort of sitting in the evening on a game, on an Xbox game as a hobby?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: How do they encourage their children to move it from a hobby to a potential career?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a, you know, we we we tend to talk a lot about gaming and and and you know, young people playing games.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very big distinction between people that play games and people that make games.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um to build a career out of playing games is very, very difficult.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: That means you become the Formula One racing driver.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be literally the best person playing that game out of millions and millions of people that play that game.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some people can do that and they become successful in that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I advocate for.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not advocating for people that are interested in gaming to become the number one game playing guy in the world.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's like saying everybody that's interested in cars should become the racing car driver in the Formula One.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's not what I'm saying.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying within that industry, there are opportunities for people that are interested in games to work in the gaming industry.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can work in the gaming industry as a designer, you can work as an audio engineer, you can work as a film uh producer, you can work as a music producer in the gaming industry.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I think the first step for people is to understand what it means to be in that industry and what are the skills that are required.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then if the child really shows a passion towards that, expose them to um to the opportunities where they can develop those skills, right?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of times children show us what they really, really enjoy.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: They tend to do it a lot.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they tend to do the things that they really enjoy doing a lot.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an indication for us to nudge them, but oh spend a little bit more time doing this.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Encourage them, um, give them the confidence that even that activity that they enjoy doing so much can lead to a career.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't do that, it feels to them as if something that's really important to them has no value and it doesn't matter.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that really sets them on the path to explore more, to look into it more.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every single child that I have ever come across in my life loves to draw.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just give a child a piece of paper and some colored pencils and then entertain themselves for hours.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that every single child who loves to draw is going to end up being an artist or a graphic designer.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's the ones that keep on doing that once they get to a certain age in their mid-teens, and they still love doing that.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's an indication that you should give them the opportunity to explore that.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you've led me beautifully in.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: I seem to remember seeing um some posts recently about the summer courses that SAE University are running, and what a great opportunity to understand what that's exactly why we do it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Tell tell me a little bit about those.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so those we we do courses, short courses, and what we call summer camps, not just in the summer, every holiday when there's a break of schools uh in Dubai, um, then we do these.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's in the midterm breaks, it's in the winter break, it's in the summer break.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: The ones that are obviously coming up now would be for the summer break because that's you know uh imminent.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But these are literally uh four-day camps that run for a week period where young people can come.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what ages?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh anything from the age of 12 to 16 years old.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And give me some of the titles of the camps that they so it would be focused on design, graphic design, it would be focused on audio engineering or music production, it would be develop your own game, it would be design your own uh uh uh um uh gaming platform, it would be come and make a movie.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you work with real cameras and a real gear and you shoot a movie scene.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's all of the different disciplines that I've mentioned.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh build a character, an animation character.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so many of our young people are interested in anime, for example, you know, which is very popular, and build an anime character and animate it.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's an opportunity for them to really just take that thing that they are so interested in and explore it and just take it to another level and then understand what I can actually do with this, this this passion that I have, something that makes me feel so good when I do it.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, what can I do with this?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the kids love it.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: I really look forward to those.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um, I'm gonna just wrap up here on a on thank you so much for joining us.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: But I have one last question.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you could give your seven-year-old self, knowing everything that you know about life to date, what piece of advice would you give your seven-year-old self?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness, if I seven-year-old, I would probably, I don't know if I would even remember myself at seven years old.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think what I would say at that stage is um be careful of the bugs that you are collecting.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because I used to collect bugs when I was uh at that age, and I used to have a box where I would keep them.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one time I did that, and one of the bees got out and it stung me, and I got I was very upset about that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think I would rather go back to my 17-year-old self, which is that awkward stage in between being a teenager and before you go into more adult life, and being that confused teenager, not knowing where things are going to lead to in your life, and just say, it's gonna be okay.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be okay, things are gonna work out.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Just continue doing the things that you feel um passionate about, and things will find its way.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what I would tell myself.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Jan Horn, um, from SAU University.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's been, as always, a pleasure.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Your conversation is inspiring.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, Let Them Fly, our podcast that's here to answer questions that parents have across the UAE.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as I always say, just trust the process.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a pleasure being here.