2015 Review | Taking Stock, Switching Paths, Future Gazing

Recapping the year and welcoming the future.

In terms of gigs in 2015, the final total was 3 keynotes, 6 other talks, 2 workshops, 4 roundtables, 2 facilitations (totalling 6 days), 18 mentor sessions, 2 consults, and 2 MC gigs (R9 Accelerator and AnimFX).

Many of the above you can read about here and here—heartfelt thanks to all the clients for the opportunity to continue to learn and hone my craft.

There were some mammoth highlights professionally in terms of my own personal development and achievements, however, the challenge was always sustaining regular gigs from my base in Wellington, NZ.

As for my online efforts, a modest offering compared to previous years:

• The Reason Within | A Guide For All Creatives
• VARK | How Others Learn To Better Teach / Inspire
• Narrative Podcasting | Learning Out Loud
• Five Canvases To Create Businesses | Tools To Explore
• Scared Is Scared | Inspirational Video Model
• Analog Blogging | Capturing Legacy
• Jad Abumrad | Gut Churn Of Creativity
• TEDAche | Stretching, Compassion & Rebounding
• Twitter Roundup #1 | Curating The Curated
• TEDx NZ Community | Open Sourcing Improvement
• TEDxWellington 2015 | Daring Acts Of Trust
• Twitter Roundup #2 | Curating The Curated
• AirBnB Verified Human | Retaining Personal Information / User Bias
• Email Gating | Blocking Versus Trusting
• Twitter Roundup #3 | Curating The Curated
• Inventing Worlds In A Changing One | Creativity, Faith And Curiousity
• Twitter Roundup #4 | Curating The Curated
• Activating An Ecosystem | Collisions, Connections, Collaborations

The last in the list is a post indicating where the majority of my days will now be focussed in 2016 (the rest of my time being split amongst TEDxWellington plus a personal pledge to recommit myself to punching again).

The new job takes me away from the specific social media sector and into a broader ‘smart cities’ and ecosystem development space. The long-term goal of which is threefold:

1. have the City Council (who provide the funds both for the role plus operational budget), widen it’s commitment beyond the three years;
2. for Wellington to start to attract global interest in terms of the work we’re doing, evidenced by web traffic, enquiries and invitations to share;
3. make people smile and / or think.

Obviously, all of the above relies on demonstrating a causal link between the activities of the Collider programme and the more connected and effective creative, digital and tech city ecosystem. An audacious challenge, but then again, if we aren’t being audacious then what’s the point in turning up‽

Come at me 2016!