As a creative producer, I craft delicious learning experiences…
…this cute line is my attempt to describe the intended impact beyond the generic title, and last week I truly got to manifest this goal.
Teulo has been a fantastic client: inviting me to MC their twice monthly global online talks (which garner on average about 350 souls), record and edit down their podcast series, as well as produce the above.
The brief was to develop an ‘in-studio’ recorded interview experience with a a specific topic-expert which would become the fifth module of a five part in-depth online series for architects and designers.
The process of developing the idea from brief to concept and then to product is a wonderful journey—with my propensity for details (have been told by more than a few how ‘particular’ I am), it amplifies the potential of achieving an output of the highest quality.
“Love how DK can hear my creative ideas and vision, then bring them to life. I have huge trust and respect for DK and really enjoy working with him, as he completely understands what I want to achieve with Teulo. Thank you!”
It all starts with client who trusts, then collaborators who embellish your plans with their own mastery (thanks FlashDog Studios and Mike Potton), on top of trusting in ones own ability to convert a shared vision into actuality knowing that iteration and deviation are oftentimes positives.
Am now hungry for more experiences and opportunities like this…
After 11 episodes with 22 impressive humans covering nearly 18 hours of conversations, has it been worth it?
The calibre of guests and their subsequent discussions has been impressive (see below). It’s been such a joy to bring together interesting souls who don’t know each other to explore connections and insights. It certainly celebrating the talent we have in the capital and have learned so much from the discussions.
As an a side, very aware of the positive relationships formed as well as the community being built up through the alums.
Creative Welly is an advertising / sponsor free project and the biggest cost is the time for all involved. It takes a whole day to set up then record two episodes. Then there’s the video editing, reviewing, blog post creation, audio production, uploading all content, distribution etc. I pay for the Vimeo Plus account and a few episodes in switched from the paid audio podcast hosting of Libsyn to the free Anchor platform.
In terms of how many views and / or listens, don’t know. Haven’t looked. This is the deficit in the plan as don’t have the time to promote and upload across multiple platforms, although, to be very honest, this is both not the reason to start this (but totally appreciate for many this is the validating factor).
From a production perspective, there is nothing like this out there. It’s exhilarating to see the result of my vision to craft something unique in the long-form video podcast format space come to fruition.
That being said, the focus next year will be:
hone the format: amplify the ‘courageous’ bit of the conversations;
promotional collateral: before posting live and during review create some shorter form content for cross-platform promotion (Linkedin / Twitter / blog content etc.);
2021 list: continue to curate and focus on revealing the wonderful talent the city (and those passing through) has to offer.
So if you’re not subscribed here’s a quick run down on who you’re missing out on:
A cacophony of thanks, not only to the guests for sharing their generous times, stories and insights, but also deep appreciation to Alex at Xequals for hosting us, plus Jono from Empire Films for producing the superb and unique final videos.
If you’re a viewer / listener please feel free to drop me a line or comment below with any ideas / suggestions for improvement I’m missing out on here, and please subscribe via Creative Welly if you haven’t already.
In June my friend Trent Yeo calls me with an audacious idea to go some way in addressing the tourism deficit of Queenstown. His pitch was simple: in March 2020 this year, if you had a job you suddenly became part of a global tribe called ‘remote and flexible workers’, lets build out a learning experience around this, attract different humans to the area to explore working from here in the future.
So after some early scoping, tweaks and iterations plus LOTS of conversations, RemoteTogetherNZ was born:
Join us for RemoteTogetherNZ, a festival of professional development, networking opportunities, and wellbeing activities which explore the themes of flexible and remote working in one of the most beautiful places in the world.
The remote world is here to stay and New Zealand has a great opportunity to be a global leader. We are in a privileged position to be able to reflect back on lockdown and despite the challenges it brought, it also revealed humanity, kindness and focus on what was important. If Aotearoa is to lead the world as a global citizen and a regionally progressive nation, then what are we doing with the largest single effort humans spend their waking hours doing – work?
We’re trying to do something which can’t and / or shouldn’t be possible: pull together a world-class, vibrant and compelling, two-week festival, in about 3 months, with over forty different learning opportunities exploring the following themes:
Have been working my fingers off curating the current offer and it’s been a wonderful journey of collaboration with such open and good humans:
Trent – the visionary, energetic catalyst for the whole endeavour.
Scott – on-the-ground logistics ace making sure what we plan is doable,
Jess – leading on MarComms and the weaver of complex narratives.
Cuillin – utility superstar, covering off so many other things the rest don’t have time to do.
So if you’re interested in these topics, work in an organisation or business which is still exploring how to react accordingly to this new epoch, someone in charge of redoing policies and strategies, a leader still getting to grips with this different approach to leading etc., register now and snap up the ‘cheap-as-chips-early-bird’ options!
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.
Where does the liability lie when employers stipulate the use of certain platforms / programmes / devices which could become a future privacy issue?
Following up on my ‘Working From Home Privacy Check‘ post last week, I tweeted out the above query as conversations with some of my peers raised the challenge they were facing. It doesn’t take much to come up with some other scenarios where issues could arise:
SCENARIO 1 : An educational organisation is transitioning to virtual classes and is using an online platform to deliver to the students. Teachers are working hard to digitise the content and subsequent workflow for all involved. During some of the online lessons, a couple of students innocently post images of the classes with all the faces plus full names of their fellow students publicly on social media.
SCENARIO 2 : A small company wants to ensure its employees are staying connected and has started using a messaging system which the teams are asked to download on their devices. This creates the opportunity for work discussions along with more personal communications, just like a work environment. The platform they use gets infiltrated with a spambot and it starts sending phishing messages to all the employees personal contacts in their phones contact book.
SCENARIO 3 : A large governmental department is starting to utilise a new video conferencing platform as everyone is working from home. Its operations and the information shared are highly confidential as they deal with issues of national security. Due to a flaw in the video system, some of the discussions are accessible to other parties who use it for nefarious means.
The question about liability bounced around for about a week until I got the following response via this tweet from John Edwards, Privacy Commissioner of New Zealand:
Employees are obliged to follow any reasonable instruction from an employer. If an employee conveyed reservations about using a particular tool and the employer said please proceed, they would likely be obliged to follow that instruction. The employer assumes the risk.
Agree. I would put it in writing to have a record of the concerns being raised. Employer should record the direction in writing too.
So if you are working from home and you have concerns regarding your privacy please do detail them via email with your employer. You might want to also ask for some risk assessment and scenario planning from the leadership also.
Stay safe and sane out there, plus wash your hands!
With citizen lockdown now spanning half the globe, don’t forget about privacy during these times.
Most work environments are now private homes. Collaborating and staying in touch with colleagues has changed rapidly, so lets have a quick look at the main areas through a privacy lens:
CONFERENCE CALLS
As we replace normal face-to-face meetings with video conferencing platforms, Zoom has exploded due to it’s simple interface and scalability. However, there are historical and current issues to be aware of when considering using this service:
One option if you can’t get away from using the platform is to not download the app but log in via a ‘secure’ browser to a meeting using a something like Brave or Epic (just don’t have the app downloaded and click the link from the invite which takes you online).
Zoom though is not the only option out there. Other alternatives include:
If you can use a browser based video conference option (along with a proxy-based privacy-centric browser) then the only thing to allow is access to camera and microphone, which can be turned off again in the browser settings once the call has finished.
CHAT
To replace the casual opportunities for quick chats and interactions the office offers, think about setting up a group channel utilising chat functionality to stay in touch.
Explore something like Signal or Telegram which have end-to-end encryption. Also, both have desktop versions so your phone can be kept for personal use and you’ll only be ‘at work’ when on your computer.
PERSONAL vs WORK
You might be using personal technology devices for the first time for work such as laptops and / or phones plus other tablets.
For laptops / home computers / tablets, set up a separate user account so that all work activities plus programmes / apps are set up there. For phones there’s also an iOS and Android option (hat tip Mike Riversdale)
This will aid the psychological perspective of ‘going to work’ in the morning when you log on to these accounts.
If you’re adding any apps to your personal phone during this time ensure you’re not giving access to all your contacts and access fully to your phone.
Also, if you have any smart speakers running Alexa or Google Assistant, consider that they also now are privy to your calls and any verbal interactions you have. For some professions unplug the devices completely as they could become a potential security risk for information leakage.
Truly appreciate there are bigger things going on for many at this time plus many will be mandated by ‘HQ’ on preferred systems / platforms / apps (which again why setting up alternative user accounts and separating personal devices from work is important).
Remember to read the privacy and data policies of any websites, platforms and technology being utilised and make informed choices from that basis.
Very much open to other alternatives explored above so add them in the comments below and will check them out plus add to the blog post.
Mashing up my analogue speaker coaching for digital mediums.
Was asked by the wonderful humans at Teulo to put together some insights for presenting online for their leaders, members and partners, as they (and many others) move to online presentation formats for their events.
The above is a snappy and concise look at the main aspects of effective communication when using digital means which I’ve noted during the past fifteen years of delivering, devouring and learning from stuff online, covering:
Lighting
Camera
Audio
Engagement
Presentation
The content side and story narrative is a whole other (series) of video(s) and depends on the person, audience and intended outcome, hence, why the tips solely focus on more functional elements.
Had permission to share with the wider (global) community during this troubling time, so thank you Teulo for allowing, means a lot for my anxious brain and heart at the moment.
At the end of last year, the third sold out Creative Leadership NZ conference brought together nearly 200 leaders (read full event review here) plus created another wonderful challenge to curate nine impressive humans to inspire the delegates.
Curating voices is one of the best aspects of being a creative producer and my process focusses on finding folks who are doing and / or have done great stuff plus have the ability to share that in a compelling way. It’s less about the titles and more about the personal traits these individuals can offer a madly curious audience.
CLNZ19 was the first time I took financial sponsorship which enabled me to up the production options to include recording and editing of the nine keynote talks (for legacy and showing others what they missed):
