Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

It is essential that local businesses collaborate and look to global markets during the current recession.

This is the thinking behind “Praxis: Reset; Recover; Restart,” the brainchild of T&T attorney Nigel Floyd, who describes Praxis as a forum where local entrepreneurs can come together and partner with each others’ small businesses and trade skills to drive each others’ businesses forward.

“The project is called Praxis, which is Greek for ‘practice’, ‘practical’, so what we’re looking at are people who are practicing entrepreneurs covering a wide range of fields, people who are in business for and by themselves.”
Lloyd says he came up with the idea while performing in the world-famous musical Les Miserables with the Marionettes Chorale in 2014 and 2015, and seeing the difficulties the company went through to put on the production. “I felt I was witnessing a phenomenon that involved the morphing of a chorale group half a century old into an up-and-coming production house. I was disturbed by the hoops it had to go through to get the needed resources, because if you don’t have corporate support you can’t go very far, but I also realized that a certain type and level of legal services that are aligned with that organization were needed.”
Floyd said he started to look around for sustainable models that can be used to support the Arts. “The thinking is when you are doing something groundbreaking in the arts in this part of the world, you’re on your own until you refine your model, and your project will usually never get off the ground without sponsorship from the corporate world, the government or a rich benefactor. But, on the other hand, there have been numerous examples of self-sustaining models in the production of comedy shows, film-making, musical ventures, visual and video arts, most of which have not had any of these inputs.” An example he found was the rapso group 3 Canal, “which has an extremely streamlined, very successful business model through a process of partnering with and bringing out each other’s skill sets.”
Floyd said he came up with the idea of reaching out to the Caribbean Diaspora, collecting and curating their stories of what worked and what didn’t in foreign markets and using that information to help local businesses take their efforts overseas. “One of the things we don’t do enough in our small businesses and entrepreneurial efforts is we don’t collect and/or curate our intellectual capital. Even when we do, we don’t see the value in it because we don’t collaborate. It’s much easier to have a successful business model doing your particular aspect of the arts if you have access to what has worked for people who are already in the field.” He said the aim is to take local businesses where there are no recessions, because even though T&T is in a recession, the rest of the world is not, and so the theme of the project is “Local Gone Global.”
The whole construct of “Local Gone Global” is to tap into the people who are working abroad and are Caribbean-oriented and Caribbean-based. “I’m asking them to come to help us build the bridge, because the infrastructure needs work. When they’re outside, they’re accustomed to having certain infrastructural facilities which are not currently in place in the Caribbean, so they can’t come back here to live. But quite a few of these people are interested in coming, talking and sharing and they want a bridge, so I’m laying the foundation for a bridge for the diaspora to come and share what it is they’re doing.” Floyd also emphasized that he did not want to bring foreigners here to tell locals what to do, as often happens. “I don’t need somebody to tell me how they dealt with a recession in New York, I need somebody to come and tell me their story so I could craft a model to jumpstart my business here.”
Floyd said he reached out to people in the Arts first, not just theatre, dance and film artists, but technical people, writers and graphic artists etc., who are also important, as well as persons in the traditional professions, social sciences and small businesses.
In its mission to build global networks of Caribbean entrepreneurs, Praxis will be hosting seminars, conferences and training workshops. The first of these, titled “Creating Opportunities for Your Business in a Recession” will be on March 15 with speakers that are well-respected in their various fields, including several young speakers with Trinidadian roots. Floyd says those who have registered online thus far will be coming to the seminar with a view towards partnering with each other.
Speakers will include Joan John, former Deputy Governor (Operations) of the Central Bank of T&T, L. Anthony Watkins of CONSULTinc, Nicole Carter of Creative Flame Media, Dwayne Matthews of Kur8tor.com and David F. Mewa of Supreme Logic.
The seminar will be held on Tuesday March 15 at the Torenia Hall, Centre of Excellence, Macoya from 9 am to 3 pm. Cost $1,000. Call: 372-8479 or email: praxiscaribbean@gmail.com.