Slowing down, reflecting on the current landscape and previous events plus being bold in saying no.
Have decided to press pause on this years Creative Leadership NZ conference. The three-time-sold-out experience for visionary humans looking to connect into a creative community to solve contemporary challenges will take a break for 2020 (check out 2019 / 2018 / 2017 event reviews).
The venue was lined up along with speakers and audio visual (AV) services. The idea was to drop the costs to $350 per person to make it accessible as well. Although, as you know I take an unusual approach of paying the speakers well for their contribution, and the ‘hard costs’ remain at whatever price I set it at. Therefore, 140 spots would have to be sold just to break even.
There’s a definite appetite out there for it again although in this current climate of restrictive professional development budgets, not the resources.
As I say: saying ‘no’ is a powerful ‘yes’ to something else.
Ergo, my energies will be devoted elsewhere which will be announced next week… oooh!
Flag displayed at the departure dinner held for Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his officers in the Royal Hotel in Cardiff on 13 June 1910, two days before the expedition sailed for Antarctica. It was flown on the mainmast of the Terra Nova when the ship returned to Cardiff at the end of the expedition on 14 June 1913 (ref).
A jumble of superb digital content and links to spend your good time on.
Caffeine & Aspirin is Wellington’s weekly arts and culture fix. From 10am-1pm each Saturday tune in and hang out with one of our hosts – Jay Hollows, Mark Westerby, Janan Jedrzejewski, Meredith Robershawe, Brigid Connor and more – as they present a show filled with interviews with makers and shakers from the Wellington arts world, news and views on the culture scene, and a playlist of their personal music faves.
Always fun to react to good questions and we mainly focused on my current side project, Creative Welly.
Sorry about the audio quality as was interviewed via the phone and should’ve used different headphones for sure (lesson noted) plus move away from the windows as it was windy and you can hear the whistles.
Thanks again to Janan and Mark for featuring me and allowing me to share my stories.
For the past few months I’ve been honoured to be MC’ing the online Teulo Talks events which average 400 humans attending globally. We’re now into double figures of these full day online experiences and the platform which curates them all is now live:
On this platform, industry thought leaders and knowledge-seekers can create and find CPD-accredited videos, webinars, podcasts and presentations to share expertise and upskill on their own terms.
This is a result of one impressive human and her effort to manifest something which doesn’t already exist:
Big props to Janelle (above, middle) and her superb vision, heart-intentioned-actions and wonderful energy in making all this happen, truly believe this is just the start of something big (read her origin story here)!
As the MC it’s been amazing to learn and be inspired by so many international leaders in this space whilst also taking my online and public speaking practice wherever I happen to be: whether from a friends house in Queenstown or at another pals place overlooking the Wainuiomata Coast:
Thank you again Jay for this incredible opportunity to collaborate!
If you’re an architect, designer, construction industry human, check out Teulo now.
This is what happens when you allow a digital artist and a cocoa bean hunter to share their stories and insights (full bios here).
Another two episode have already been recorded and will be out in the coming weeks so subscribe and catch the other episodes via Creative Welly plus learn more about the background in this ‘Creative Welly Launched | Learning Out Loud‘ post.
Another two good souls exploring all manner of wonderful topics, ideas, stories, experiences etc.
We curate and collide intrepid talent from the coolest most creative little capital in the world (with a few out-of-city friends as well from time-to-time).
Subscribe and catch the first episode via Creative Welly.
Again, this project is totally self-funded and wouldn’t be possible without these amazing collaborators:
All episodes are shot and edited by the wonderfully talented Jono Tucker, Empire Films. An extremely diligent and personable soul who has added a polish to the resulting video which I never could’ve achieved, thank you Jono.
Hosted at Xequals, a centrally based web development agency who provide us with a kick-ass office which totally gets kitted out for the shoot. Thank you Alex Matthews for being so gracious with your space.
A new long-form video podcast for curious and creative humans.
Creative Welly is a new project from an old idea repurposed and reborn during the isolation of lockdown:
We curate and collide intrepid talent from the coolest most creative little capital in the world (with a few out-of-city friends as well from time-to-time).
This project is totally self-funded and wouldn’t be possible without these amazing collaborators:
All episodes are shot and edited by the wonderfully talented Jono Tucker, Empire Films. An extremely diligent and personable soul who has added a polish to the resulting video which I never could’ve achieved, thank you Jono.
Hosted at Xequals, a centrally based web development agency who provide us with a kick-ass office which totally gets kitted out for the shoot. Thank you Alex Matthews for being so gracious with your space.
This first episode represents about four to five day or pre-production experiments with lighting and seating scenarios plus editing options. The result of which is something quite different and unique.
Two further episodes are already ‘in the can’ with another two lined up for this month plus a very long list of possibles from my network here in the capital.
Each episode takes about two hours to set up (one hour to pack down), another two hours to shoot then there’s the editing time of both the video and audio. After that there’s posting the curated bios and relevant content online plus sharing out across channels.
There are also ‘hard’ and recurring costs:
WHAT
COSTS (NZD)
Table (round table from thrift store)
$55
Chairs (x3, comfortable and supportive)
$379
Backdrop photographic paper (for style)
$105
Libsyn (audio podcast hosting & distribution)
$275pa
Vimeo (video hosting)
$130pa
Domain + hosting
$25pa
TOTAL
$969
I find myself feeling so privileged to be able to start this journey and explore a new format during these challenging global times. It truly serves my purpose of ‘giving people voice’ whilst also my skill base of ‘curating’ as well.
Oh and why not YouTube? Have no intention of monetising the content and don’t like their forced adverts plus the time it takes to figure out the algorithms with the hope they choose my content over others. Vimeo is a wonderful creative community which aligns with the brand values of the intention behind the initiative.
Please let me know what you think and triple please subscribe to receive the bi-monthly episodes via Creative Welly.
We need to get ideas into action and we are keen to work collaboratively with you and other creative minds who are lucky to call Wellington home. We’d like to invite you to an ideas hui to brainstorm creative solutions to some of the city’s challenges following the economic impact of the Covid19 pandemic. We will take some of the best ideas generated at the hui, develop these further into tangible solutions and work to secure funding to turn them into reality.
Was great to see so many souls respond to the call of collaboration and the energetically run afternoon session certainly generated an array of ideas based on the challenges laid down.
It was shared early on that the ideas from the session would be directed towards the City Recovery Fund (a new amount of money made available and administered through the city council which TEDxWellington recently applied for). The criteria was displayed to the participants as part of the intro:
contribute to the immediate recovery of the City economy;
enhance or protect Wellington’s position as a leader in innovation and creativity;
seek to use innovation and creativity to support recovery, revitalisation and job protection or creation;
contribute to sustainable economic outcomes; and
align to the WellingtonNZ promotional campaigns.
The session however missed some crucial and foundational elements to catalyse appropriate ideas (and totally appreciate the challenge of managing any group of humans coming together for the first time within the 2.5hours allocated).
What follows is a list of those elements which needed more attention and which can also assist anyone else reading when approaching creative facilitation:
Framework: Outlining the language set and definitions to ensure clarity (for example, what do we mean by creativity? What scale of economic impact is expected from the ideas to aim for? What collaborative examples would illustrate success? etc.). Always good to share any of this before attending as well (in this instance, detailing that all ideas were to remain in the focus of the City Recovery Fund would’ve managed expectations).
Resources: This could be the things in the room (which was evident), also the expertise (who had talent in what areas to be activated), the budgets (if applicable beyond any one session), the time (how is it to be used) etc.
Constraints: Equally as important to what is available are the boundaries. The thresholds and hard deadlines (for applications), the range of grant amounts available, types of things not to explore (all which wasn’t discussed bar one which was at the end when an idea was dismissed as it was part of another plan).
Timescales: Having a simple timeline of expectations from ideation to formulation, to invite to hone ideas and collaborate right through to application and then expected decisions and delivery plus impact. Having a visible agenda helps here along with a shared example of how any work is to blossom into action.
Success / Metrics: There are several ways to answer this one from amount of ideas crafted, the quality, the potential of ideas which fit the framework / resources / constraints as laid out above. This can also be a broad as an invitation to explore based on the brief or a chance to connect with other passionate souls on the same issue. Who is going to measure this and again by what framework?
Intellectual Property: Crucial for trust building is setting clear and tangible creative control. In terms of internal workshops this matters less although named ownership or departmental association is welcomed for celebration. For cross-sector collaborations this is key along with is these ideas are going to be shared elsewhere and to whom with what attribution (it was mentioned towards the end of the session to add individual names onto the sheets of paper we were working on and would imagine that’s the strategy for identification of ideas in this instance).
Looking forward to receiving and seeing all the ideas from the sessions which was discussed as an action at the end of the session plus hearing how some of the ideas will be progressed.
