Watching a Shirky talk always means leaving with a huge amount of pearls, but check out the above plus the quote below and tell me it doesn’t resonate with any creative endeavours you have been involved with:
“…they don’t care that they saw it in practice because they already knew it couldn’t work in theory.”
If you work with a client or in a corporation / organisation which doesn’t get what you’re trying to do even though you have showed them the solution, forget changing minds, time to change the company you keep!
Then surround yourself with people who take care plus improve each others output.
A set of icons which ignite kiwi-centric interest and conversation.
A few months ago I came across a set of icons and a wonderful offering to the world:
EXPERIENCE JAPAN PICTOGRAMS were developed with the mission to help as many tourists as possible by providing functionally and aesthetically well-designed pictograms as part of the basic infrastructure for tourism in Japan. For this reason, all the materials are made available for free use, whether that be personal, business, commercial, or non-profit use, so long as the user complies with the Terms of Use. The PICTOGRAMS were designed as minimum tools to convey basic information about Japan, as well as its diverse aspects. Despite the deceivingly simple design, each symbol, for the most part, is provided with a text–a story that gives you a glimpse into the everyday life and history of Japan.
Imagine a similar available set of visual icons which provide pictoral micro-stories of Aotearoa; as the world is still going in and out of varying degrees of lockdown, this ‘graphical tourism’ is a way for these tales to permeate across borders (both digital and real).
Here’s what fell out of my brain regarding what could be included in the set for starters:
Places: The Beehive, Hobbiton, Mount Taranaki, Milford Sounds, Huka Falls, Moeraki Boulders, Milford Sound, Rotorua Hot Springs, Franz Josef Glacier, The Remarkables etc
People: Gandalph, Golem, Jacinda Ardern, Sir Peter Jackson, Sir Edmund Hillary, Lorde etc
So if you’re a designer or agency who wants to offer the world something distinct, feel free to take this idea, give it a home and action with the agreement that the set of iconograms created will be gifted to the global community for use under Creative Commons 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license.
Will share on with the many other agencies and organisations I know once making this live. In the meantime, throwing it out to the cyber-world to see if it ignites some creative souls who want to take a crack. Let me know if you do take it on please.
In 2004’ish we connected through a comment I left on your blog. You called and we chatted. You had a lot to say and I was hungry to learn. You shared stories, highlighted people and ideas I should be aware, plus taught me to explore ‘better questions.’
At the time I had just come out of working in the public sector and failing at my first business in the youth work and corporate social responsibility space.
In 2005 during one of our long phone conversations, we were discussing the intersection of my youth work and growing interest in the new media landscape. I referenced young people as ‘media snackers’ and on the call you purchased the domain and challenged me to do something with it.
It took another 6-9 months but in June 2006 mediasnackers.com was launched focussed on ‘how young people create and consume new media.’
Five years later it would have a supporting staff of seven, over a hundred podcasts, dozens of video podcasts, authored a book, have worked with a vast array of clients from local /national government, UNICEF, executive leadership bodies, Ubisoft, marketing agencies, charities etc. plus have delivered on multiple countries on five continents… all because you bought a domain!
Throughout the years since, you have continued to champion and challenge, commend and berate—our long discussions about tepid and sigh-worthy institutions plus traditional business models / thinking always igniting my creativity and amplifying my intentions—and I delighted in how you uncover insights utilising superb lyrics to make a point:
There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in
Leonard Cohen, Anthem
Thank you g for all that you have revealed and amplified for me.
For being my mentor.
For being a friend.
Mentors matter.
Good ones listen then uncover. Help you move forward or pause to think through a tough decision. They highlight pathways based on experience and intuition, revealing pitfalls and dangers along the way which more untested souls wouldn’t have understood existed.
I’ve been lucky enough to both have wonderful mentors in my life as well as also being mentor for 3 years on the Culture Hive Digital Marketing Academy plus on many occasions with new TEDx license holders in New Zealand.
Mentors can be friends, bosses, colleagues, family. Sessions can be structured or not. Often or little. What matters is that they add value. Reveal and compliment.
For nearly a decade, a huge part of my life has been devoted to a pro-bono endeavour of producing the community TEDx events here in the capital.
The decision to cancel this years event really hurt—read the full announcement here—as the 2021 event was going to be my last and boy I was aiming to go out on a high (with a 2,000 person event plus some wicked delegate experience ideas to boot as well).
Then explore new paid opportunities which align to my skill set and serves my individual purpose regarding enabling people to find and have voice through delicious learning experiences.
Am looking to work with kind humans who reach beyond their grasp and have complex problems to solve—I like intersecting disciplines, leading on collaborations and crafting outcome-based connections through content creation.
Big words for basically saying making cool and complicated stuff with nice people!
Let me know if you are in need of a DK-shaped human to assist in any creative project directing / producing.
And I will continue to offer and deliver speaker coaching (one-to-ones and group masterclasses) for select clients as well as developing out the fourth Creative Leadership NZ 2021 conference for the end of the year.
A conversation on growing robust businesses in the creative sector.
Had the esteemed honour to host the above panel for the good people at SPADA. It’s always a joy connecting with humans doing wonderful things and from a very selfish reason was very much needed that afternoon.
So if you’re interested what a few producers here in Aotearoa are up to press play and have a watch / listen.
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…
