Interview with Julian

We have interviewed several Young professionals to gain more insight from their point of view. Julian participated in the IMI Lab in the fall semester of 2021. In this interview, you can read more about her experience during the IMI lab.

Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Julian Remmers, I am currently a third-year creative business student at Inholland Haarlem. 24 years old and I also live in Haarlem. I have always had a great passion for music and images.

What do you do during your studies?

I did an internship at Nomobo, which is a Livestream broadcasting party. They take many actions when it comes to festivals. Arranging an Ultra Miami Livestream and also corporate parties in it. It is a very interesting mix of EDM, more visuals, and broadcasting. Which I could not have found anywhere else.

Why did you choose IMI lab?

The first reason is that music is a great passion for me, which is also one of the reasons that I started studying creative business. I do the Dutch version of creative business, so I already had a lot of lessons in Dutch. So, for me, it was very attractive that it was in English, and therefore much more internationally oriented. We have another English-language music minor within creative business, which was a bit more internal. This is of course arranged more by an external party. I was interested in seeing how things were arranged outside Inholland, outside my studies. I was therefore curious to see how it that would look like in a different form.

What is your favorite music genre?

EDM, dance, and electronic music. You have all kinds of sub genres in it, but I enjoy all of it. By the way, I’m very broad-minded, but EDM is what I started with myself and what I still work with the most. So that has a very special place in my heart.

Do you ever visit a festival or concert?

Yes, I do it much less than people expect of me. I think maybe once or twice a year. It’s significantly less, which is kind of funny because I work in that industry myself. Lately, I’ve went to loads of festivals, but that was because of my internship. It’s interesting, I’m very up to date with the festivals. But I either just don’t have the right group of friends or I’m short on cash. Then I decide to not buy the ticket.

So which is the best place you’ve been to?

The one that will always stay with me is liquicity, that is a drum n’ bass festival that was given in Geesterambacht. After all, not such a big festival, many people don’t even know the name. What attracted me is that there was an organization behind it, but it didn’t feel huge. You could do things like a small arcade hall with classic games, a carousel, and a ball pit with a DJ in it. It wasn’t too big, but there was a lot to do. I thought that was very cool. At big festivals, you often stand in line for half an hour for things. This was just the ideal mix.

How did you experience IMI Lab?

What I noticed, in the beginning, is the mixture of studies. Many come together, IMI is of course mostly in the domain of CB. It sometimes felt a bit like a repetition of the material for us. We have been working with the theory of design thinking for 2 years. Where others were new, it was familiar territory to us. The big difference I noticed is that it is much stricter in our study. That’s actually very much against how design thinking works. During this minor, I noticed that it is the way how design thinking should work. It was also promoted a lot more. In my opinion, that is the right way of design thinking, where you really work as a student… or not even as a student but as a young professional. As a YP you are equal to your coaches (teachers), which is also part of design thinking. With a teacher above you with an authority function, you don’t get that freedom. The coaches were a very interesting mix. You have people who are active in the field, people with a lot of experience and knowledge. So that’s also very helpful to see. You will receive up-to-date feedback in terms of knowledge from the coaches. In my own study, it is the case that teachers have sometimes not been in the field for 5 years. At IMI it was really like “I did this last week”. And the client, we had Elrow. That’s the biggest client I’ve ever had for a school project.

 Did IMI lab start you doing something with the music industry?

At first, it felt a bit like taking a step back. I came into a team with a lot of passion, but no prior expertise in the industry. It didn’t feel like I was moving forward. But in the end, a lot of students around me were very motivated. I got to know different sides of the industry. For example, our coach Ken had accompanied Jefferson Airplane on his tours. Tom told us about doing the Popronde. You had so many diverse aspects that you picked up a lot of them. That has given me a lot of insights, I have been able to know much better in which direction of the industry I want to go.

Do you have a tip for future IMI students?

That’s a really good one. If you come more from a theoretical study where you have exams and do not work in a project-oriented way, prepare yourself that you can get a culture shock. That you are not told what to do, there is no right or wrong. At IMI you learn to have more confidence in yourself. You are actually going through a creative process and developing self-criticism. You are going to develop a creative concept. So, the coaches don’t always have an answer for you. Be prepared for that. If you’re really used to the traditional way, this is anything but that. You will do your own thing and come up with your own creations and evaluate them yourself. So basically, just the design thinking method, can come as a shock to people who are not used to that.