Mark McGuinness’ new project is a must for anyone working in the creative sector.
I’ll let him explain:
I’ve just created a new blog, Wishful Linking, to share links that may be useful and/or interesting to you as a creative professional. So if you’d like me to send you links to web pages about creativity, creative careers, managing creativity, intellectual property, creative industries, blogging, marketing, time management etc, then sign up for the RSS feed now.
If you don’t know him, he’s the guru when it comes to stuff like this. Get reading!
I’m making the fifth and final New Media 4Cast at the moment. This episode will look at social media for creative people. It’ll be a good way of bringing together everything we’ve been discussing over the last year.
For this episode I’ve interviewed two of Brum’s most illustrious social media gurus Pete Ashton and Nick Booth. They both made a similar point which really struck me.
The crux of it was about elements of social media not having to be finished off, complete and polished. Whereas traditional media (newspapers, TV shows, films) rely on being produced in this way, with social media the depth comes from how these individual pieces are linked together, built on and discussed on to create something that is a whole.
The problem is, so many people are scared witless of blogging and spend far too long worrying about whether their posts are right, complete or perfect.
I was delivering a lecture yesterday to a group of creative industry types and this point seemed to hit the button. I think a lot of early stage bloggers become gripped by fear as I did when I first started. "What if people don’t agree with this?" / "What if I change my mind?" / "Will this sound stupid in 3 years".
My advice is simple. Screw it, just start writing.
3 professional, 3 community and 3 estate-led choirs
An audience of 3,000
1 aim: to sing Birmingham’s truths
On 28th October 2007, REALITY ESTATE will transform the Five Ways Estate, Shopping Centre and roundabout. Developed by Friction Arts and working alongside a roster of internationally renowned artists and the people of Ladywood, together they will ‘sing Birmingham’s truths’, accompanied by some of Birmingham’s best known choirs, to a backdrop of spectacular projections and lighting.
I’ve been working with producers Friction Arts for about six months now helping to embed web 2.0 approaches to the projects they run. It’s first stages at the moment, but the Reality Estate site is the first step, and a good one in the right direction in my opinion.
We’ve just uploaded the new edition of The New Media 4Casts. (I actually finished it before I went away but just didn’t have time to get it up here!)
This month’s show focuses on online music. We’re looking at how the internet has changed the way people are buying, selling, distributing and marketing music.
We got hold of some great interviews for this one, including Emusic, the Hype Machine, Andrew Dubber (one of the UK’s leading experts in online music if you haven’t come across him before), and Craig Hamilton from the band Friends of the Stars.
There’s more to life than Myspace!
For more information on the shows and to subscribe to the podcast, please visit the New Media 4Casts Homepage.
Here’s a quick run-down of the day, including a few interviews I did with some of those involved.
[12:00pm]
I’ve come down to the Spread Eagle Hotel in Midhurst West Sussex to catch the last part of the BBC Innovation Labs South 2007 project. We’ve had two West Midlands agencies in the running this week (383 Project and Persuaders Media) so on behalf of Digital Central I’ve come to see how they get on.
The Innovation Labs is a nationwide challenge set by the BBC. Each year they ask a number of companies to pitch, then if succesful further develop innovative ideas around communicating in new ways with their audience. If the ideas go down well, the companies may be commissioned for futher developmental work with a view to some being used by the BBC in the long term.
For more info on the project background it’s worth checking out the original brief.
The week by all accounts has been a very intense, focussed period of activity. Each group has been working through their ideas with help from a number of established mentors with a view to final presentations delivered today. I must say everyone seems very chipper even though no-one seems to have had any sleep!
I’ve come down to catch the last part of the presentations (which I’m watching right now) and to be here for the final decisions later today.
[12:30 pm]
The presentations are now finished. I caught the last five, including Persuaders Media whose pitch I must say I thought was very impressive. Their idea centres around a sports based game which aims to get young people to be more active and works both on virtual and actual level. I won’t try to describe it here as I won’t do it justice but I’m sure they’ll be putting more info up on their own site soon.
Nice to see Fitz providing a bit of musical accompaniment too.
[12:45 pm]
I just had a chat with John and Sukhi from 383 Project who pitched an idea around new, graphical ways of delivering content.
I also spoke to Matt Marsh from Firsthand Experience, a user research and design strategy consultancy. Matt was one of the mentors and I asked him for his thoughts on the week so far:
[16:00]
We’ve just had the final results.
First, the mentors gave their own awards – including “Best Use of Virtual Characters” for Persuaders Media and “Best Storytellers” for 383 Project.
The commissioners then went through each agency one by one with feedback and decisions on further commissions. Here’s how the West Midlands companies got on:
383 Project:
Although 383’s idea wasn’t given further funding, the feedback they received was one of the best I heard out of all the companies.
Some quotes from the commissioners:
“One of the best projects I’ve seen in the 4 weeks of doing this”
“You are people we can do business with”
“You have clear visual skill especially when working with 14-16 year olds”
The commissioners clearly felt that they wanted to work with 383 Project in the future so I imagine this will lead on to some really interesting stuff.
It’s worth remembering that from the BBC’s point of view the Innovation Labs is just as much about finding new talent than just the ideas that are developed - 383 did very well in this area.
Persuaders Media
The response to Persuaders Media’s project was exceptionally positive – the main problem being that the commissioners felt that the idea was “Too big for the BBC” (their own words!).
Also there was an issue raised in that BBC Sport doesn’t have an agenda to get kids to be more active.
In light of this Matt Locke felt that the idea would suit the 2012 Olympics New Media agenda better and so will be putting some time into helping the agency pitch directly to the 2012 New Media department.
Matt Marsh, in my interview with him felt that the Persuaders’ project was the best one he’d seen all day (full interview above).
I spoke to (a very tired) Stephen and Fitz from Persuaders Media after the project to get their reactions.
I think this is great news for both companies and fantastic to see West Midlands agencies doing so well in a national project like this.
The response to this was very positive - as well as getting in touch with Ben from Inventicus who has already been researching the idea (and was looking for partners), Laura from Unlimited also responded saying she’d been looking into setting up something similar to The Hub in Birmingham.
Lawrence Cairns-Smith from The Studio in Cannon St. (ex Orange Studio) also got in touch as well a number of people who said they’d love to use a space like this if it existed.
So we’re getting together for a meeting next Thursday (5th April), 6pm at the Kitchen (Custard Factory) to see how we can move forward with this. Laura will hopefully from this point on be spending a significant portion of her time devoted to the project so it looks like there’s real potential for this to happen.
If anyone else is interested in coming along then please do - the more input the better.
Also I’d really like to canvas some opinion before the meeting so if you have any.
What kinds of features would you like in a coworking space? Where would you like it to be? How often would you use it?
Either respond using comments or email me direct.
This month’s show is for Film and Documentary makers and looks at how new internet technologies are changing the landscape of this industry. Includes interviews with Patrick Walker from Google, Fabien Rigall from Future Shorts and Emily Renshaw Smith from Current TV.
For more information on the shows and to subscribe to the podcast, please visit the New Media 4Casts Homepage.
Brightcove - Set up your own online TV station, including advertising revenue and direct sale systems)
Comments, ideas and suggestions
Please let us know what you think of the issues raised in the show. Do you have any other interesting stories or experience in this field? What would you like to see covered in future shows?
I spent an enjoyable half-hour this afternoon interviewing Emily Renshaw-Smith from Current TV for the next show in the New Media 4Casts series for 4Talent. The show will look at the opportunities opened up by new technology for film and documentary makers. It’s been a really interesting one so far and we should be online within a couple of weeks or so.
Here’s the beef, taken from the email I originally received about the project:
“Current TV, which launched August 1, 2005, is the first national network created by, for and with an 18-34 year-old audience. The network shows young adults what’s going on in their world, in their voice. Current is also the first network in history whose programming is supplied in part by the very audience who watches it. It has developed the television industry’s leading model of “viewer created content” (VC2), which comprises roughly one-third of Current’s on-air broadcast, and allows the audience to submit short-form, nonfiction video “pods. Its award-winning programming ranges from the current trends in technology, fashion, music and videogames, to pressing issues such as the environment, relationships, parenting, finance, and politics. Current is available in 30 million U.S. Homes and will be launching in the UK and Ireland in March.”
“… We’re launching in 8+ million homes in the UK and Ireland in March. And we’re looking for filmmakers who can help us make an impact when we do. …”
They’re also running a competition - 1st prize is lunch with Al Gore. Not a bad contact to have in your address book I reckon. It’d be great to see a Midlands based filmmaker win this.
If you’re interested, get in touch using their website.
Being someone who likes to move around between places while I’m working, and who does sometimes miss sitting in an office with a group of other like-minded people, I was really interested by an post on Co-working spaces I read on the Creativity Exchange blog today.
The idea is to create a flexible working space which can be hired out whenever necessary but more importantly to create a social space and sense of community around the space. As the post put it (sort of) “Part cubicle, part coffee shop”
I think this is exactly the kind of space we need in Birmingham City Centre and / or in Eastside. I’d use it. It fits exactly into a lot of what I think Glenn Howells was trying to say about the importance of dialogue to the development of the creative industries at the Eastside Dialogues last year.
One of the interesting things is that the idea has a wiki which spaces all over the world can use to share information and best practice on how to set one of these places up as well as finding other people to collaborate with when doing so. Having checked it out I’m pleased to see there are already plans to set one up in Birmingham. I’ve emailed Ben who’s proposed the idea to find out more and will post more if and when he gets back to me.
In the meantime I’d be interested to know what people’s thoughts on this are. Would you use it if there was one here? What features would you like it to have?
