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.
A new long-form, conversational project to tickle your neural pathways.
Revealed only in retrospect these past couple of years, is a thematic thread through my past projects / experiences of ‘giving people voice’ (which has become my spoken purpose plus evidenced in both my producing and coaching roles).
Creative Welly is a mash-up-manifestation of this and my hunger for curating good people:
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).
A few years ago I bought up a bunch of domains relating to ‘creativity’ and ‘Wellington’ with the intention of bringing together groups of people to explore the future of the city. After pitching it to a few educational plus civic institutions looking for collaboration and hosts there was no appetite.
A recent retainer contract with a client to see me through till the end of the year, has freed up the head-and-energy-space to revisit and reboot the concept.
A combination of devouring hours long-form and conversational content on the web (whether that’s podcasts, interviews and / or debates) these past few months during lockdown catalysed a seed of an idea for what to do.
Within a space of a week a superb collaborative team was formed. After seeking video advice from pal, Jono Tucker, founder of Empire Films and producer of many review videos for TEDxWellington and Creative Leadership, he offered to collaborate. The shooting location is kindly donated by Xequals through Alex Matthews, another pal who is on the TEDxWellington leadership team.
Last week we ran a few shooting, lighting and audio tests:
Enabling us to play with variations on editing looks from the footage which will give the episodes a unique look. The aim is to share the first episode at the end of this month with a target of releasing two a month in the first year.
Oh and the business model, well:
Sponsorship
Membership
Donations
Affiliate links
Paid content
Selling branded merchandise
Selling tickets to live shows
Our own time and money.
Truly humbled to be in a position not to care as what’s important for me is offering something which enlightens, connects and excites, so it’s another pro-bono project and experiment in celebrating humanity through conversation.
