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The Republic Of Lean

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Lean has me hooked. Lean thinking is beginning to appear everywhere. In the top echelons of the US government, in healthcare and in education, far from its roots in manufacturing.

There are lots of tools in the lean toolbox to help us get there, like Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas, Brant Cooper’s The Lean Entrepreneur and Eric Ries’ The Lean Startup.

Why do I like lean? It’s because of the huge untapped opportunity of it, the games changing scope of it, the fundamental, no way back disruptive power of it.

I wanted to reach back into all the places I have come from and fundamentally reenergise them, make them better, more responsible for you their user/customer/client/visitor/ student or patient. This thought made me beyond excited. This notion has changed my life in every way. Flipped the funnel of consciousness right back where it should always have been, not about me or my company or just how cool I am; but about YOU. Why you need me, why you are the centre of what I do, what I say and what I want you to do next. Delighted customers are the centre of the universe and that’s it. Once this motion gets engrained in your consciousness it changes everything and the game becomes faster, smarter, more cost effective and you get things DONE.

Think of the next generation of creatives, doctors, teachers, inventors, politicians even, yes them too. What if lean was the centre of their world. What if they adopted lean in the same way the software folks have. Think of the implications. No more blame. No more waste. Way more accountability. User centered practices based on KNOWING their customers. The revolution is not far away, it’s happening right now and this bus is not going to stop. We all deserve better. We can do a whole lot better.

So let’s make it happen together. Make lean startup and customer development your bible. Trash “this is how things are always done around here” and STEP UP. Now is the time. God knows our country needs it.

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Moderating Transmedia Day Nordic Game

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Over the past year, I have been very privledged to meet many creative, passionate and visionary thinkers, so I am thrilled to be moderating Transmedia Day at Nordic Game on May 23rd. In its 9th year, Nordic Game has a stellar history and I am honoured to be part of it.

I am looking forward to working with Doug Richard, entrepreneur, Dragon, and School for Startups founder. Doug is quite literally changing the world through his education programmes. I completly agree, that entrepreneurship can be taught and can be learned.

There is no reason why creatives cannot be successful in business and reap the rewards of their talents. The romantic notion that the starving artist is more creative, is a myth and it’s time we put it to bed for good. Business is not a bad word!

On Transmedia Day, we will be talking about financing, co-production and emerging trends. We have a group of 70+ passionate, transmedia producers, partners and speakers joining us and I know it is going to be an amazing experience.

Here’s what we will be doing:

12:30 Registration starts

13:00 Entrepreneur and investor Doug Richard (School of Startups / BBCs “Dragons’ Den”) will give a workshop on investment, coaching three entrepreneurs on stage

15:00 We hold an open space networking event, leaving participants plenty of opportunity to connect and talk about your projects

18:30 We gather for an informal dinner before joining the other conference participants at Slagthuset for Nordic Game’s Indie Night

Transmedia Day is produced by Nordic Game in co-operation with Nordisk Film & TV Fond, Norsk filminstitutt, Det danske filminstitut, Svenska filminstitutet, Kulturkraft Syd, Canadian Embassy in Sweden and The Nordic MEDIA Desks. Big thanks to Cecilie for the invitation and for organising such a fantastic event.

If you would like to bring Transmedia Day with you for the rest of the year; why not sign up to our Meetup. Let’s bring this conversation to as many as we can, share our learning and our experience.

See you in Malmo soon!

Image (c) Media Evolution

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How do we measure culture?

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Yesterday, I went along to the Culture and the Economy to help me answer this very perplexing question; how do you measure arts and culture. Organised by Temple Bar Cultural Trust with economists David Throsby, John O’Hagan and Finbarr Bradley, the discussion centred around value and measurement. What metrics can be used and how do you measure the intangible benefits like social cohesion, wellness, happiness, place making and identity formation that comes from artistic and cultural endeavours.

Professor David Throsby has a very valuable methodology of looking at the creative industries as part of the wider economic context. He believes we should view the creative industries as a series of concentric circles, with artists and arts organisations at the center. From here, processes of innovation that originate in the core, move out by knowledge transfer into the wider economy.

Creative workers who get their training in the core, very often move into other industries and these skills are used throughout the economy. Throsby stressed the importance of this benefit to the wider community and economy, one that is not measured or acknowledged widely enough.

Public value of arts and culture can be measured by economic value and others for cultural value. However, the predominant yard stick used to measure economic value is a cost-benefit analysis. Cultural industries create economic value via the market value from the output of their cultural goods and the demand for cultural products. While the cultural value is aesthetic, spiritual, social, historical and symbolic.

At all times we must take into account who’s value is being measured; the individual, the community, or society. Measurement of cultural value can be achieved by cultural indicators, expert appraisal and attitudinal analysis of public preferences. Throsby suggests that economists should use models developed by environmental economists in their valuing of beauty, air, materials etc. for the benefit of arts and culture. I found this rather useful in the discussion on measuring intangible cultural benefits.

Throsby also suggests a broadening of value measurements towards indicators of social well-being and happiness for example. In broadening out what we are trying to measure though it is obvious that these intangible benefits are difficult to measure and even to define.

The benefits gained by utilising new technologies for cultural organisations was discussed briefly. Throsby referred to a 2009 NESTA study with the Tate and the National Theatre, London. In both cases, audience reach was dramatically increased and more people engaged with the art forms. New audience members were brought in by engaging with both institutions via new technology.

The second part of the day saw a presentation by Professor John O’Hagan of Trinity College Dublin. John echoed much of Throsby’s points and also added an important element; the value of culture as the “social glue” of social cohesion.

My favourite presentation of the day had to go to the dynamic Finbarr Bradley. Finbarr spoke about passion and inquiry. He discussed the new paradigm of the new economy, the art of discovery and the “spirit” of the arts. Drawing from mythology, history, sociology and technology; he pointed out that the value of the arts “is in the intangible, it’s not the technology, it’s in the trust, the subtle things”. New thinking is based on spirit, meaning and experience, from the inside out and by discovering things for ourselves. Bradley encouraged us to create environments for discovery saying “the challenge for policy makers is to bring this new thinking out. To create environments where people become, to be”.

According to Bradley, the learning economy is made up of three types of knowledge, scientific, symbolic and synaptic. In the future he believes, we all must co-create shared value by inspiring, innovating and integrating our thinking, to create meaningful experiences. For Bradley “meaning equals the new money”.

As an example, Bradley described the music series Other Voices, an annual celebration of music in St. James’ Church, in Dingle, Co. Kerry. The venue is tiny only holding seventy people yet the reputation and quality of the musicians who take part each year is staggering. Such a phenomenon would not happen in Dublin, Bradley believes. There is something compelling, unique and beautiful about Dingle, the church, the atmosphere, the people and the tradition that draws musicians and audience alike to St. James’ and defines “Other Voices” as a cultural phenomenon. Other Voices then, is “meaning, rooted in place”. Pretty amazing and a wonderful way to approach the value of artistic contribution.

To conclude a wonderful morning; I took away these lessons:

– Create a powerful sense of place to find solutions, look inward as well as outward to include everyone (Bradley)

– In the modern economy the consumer and the producer constantly dance together (Bradley)

– In relation to inclusion; the arts give expression to identity, new expressions and the evolution of a new national myth (Participant from the floor)

– Create communities with different perspectives. Make value the guiding theme, then allow the community to measure their own value (Bradley)

And as to the opening question; how do we measure culture? Unfortunately there are no easy answers. As Professor Throsby says, it is a slow process but we are making steady progress. All in all, lots to think about and a very interesting morning.

Any comments and ideas coming from these discussions are very welcome. Do you have anything to add? Have you got/found a way to talk about/define the intangible value of culture? If you do, let me know and we can help shape this discussion further.

Images by the author (CC)

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Why Social Media For Craft

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BitchBuzz @ Origin: the London Craft Fair

Teaching craft professionals about social media as a development and sales platform with the Craft Council of Ireland, was a great experience over the past few weeks.

After my workshop in Cork; I observed two elderly ladies drinking coffee and having a chat. They both took out their mobile phones and had a detailed discussion about Twitter and Facebook; keeping up with the kids and the grandkids and how great this new technology is.They swapped their favourite pictures and sent status updates.

It was fantastic to see such confidence and engagement with these new communication platforms. And the thing I learned from watching this conversation taking place, is just how much mobile devices have changed the landscape of sharing our lives and our interests online; older people as well as younger folk.

Many of the participants in my workshop sold their work to people over 50 and here is the case in point demonstrated! If your target market is moving online then you better get online quick smart. If your market is embracing these new platforms, like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you better too. Why loose a valuable opportunity to talk to your customers, help them solve their problems and communicate with them regularly.

On the train back to Dublin, I noted the three people sitting right beside me were connected to the web via wifi and all had smart phones.

Lesson Learned:

– Time to get on the online train. If you are not there your competitors are.

– If you have been in business for a long time and you’re doing great, good for you. Your future customers are very web savvy.They know what they like and they know how to find it online.

– Think of engaging with your customer over the long-term and the lifetime value of that customer.

– Be a hero for your customers, help them find you where ever they hang out online.

– After all, the future sustainability of your business depends on your engagement with your current and future customers.

No more time for procrastination, do it now!

Many thanks to Emer from the Craft Council of Ireland for organising the workshop series and for the invitation to present.

Image thanks to BitchBuzz

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Community Not Cash is King

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Open Tonight

A few weeks back I attended a wonderful opening by a very talented artist. The gallery was full. There were lots of children running around and the whole community were there. The atmosphere was infectious and a palpable joy could be felt in every corner and around every piece of art. You see the community helped the artist make this exhibition possible. They gave their time, energy and support to make the artist’s vision come to pass. And boy were they so proud! I was both moved and inspired by it.

The artist in due course thanked her community, lauding their selfless commitment, friendship and belief in her dream. It was an amazing experience to be there, to witness this outpouring of joy, pride and gratitutde. How lucky, I thought, is this organisation to have such a committed, supporting community around it; built from the ground up, over many years. A community of people proud of the arts and avid supporters too. What a fantastic boon.

But all was not well behind the scenes. Unfortunately, neither the director nor the staff understood or gave credit to their community. By the end of the afternoon all these amazing patrons, sponsors of the arts, arts evangelists all; left the building without so much as leaving an email address. The comment book was placed in an obscure location where the crowd was busy negotiating the stairs to the second floor. No information was gathered and the opportunity for learning and future benefit was lost. How short-sighted and sad.

Invigilators walked around reminding people not to touch or take pictures. That’s perfectly fine but they could also have gathered email addresses and other useful information form the attendees at the same time. For example, “why did you come?”, “where did you come from?”, “why did you help out at this show?”, “would you be willing to help out at other shows?” and “can we keep in contact with you?”. Think about how much this information could inform the future direction of the gallery?

Time and time again I see this same mistake replicated by institutions all over the world. It is so disappointing and it shows that organisations have not learned one fundamental fact. YOUR COMMUNITY IS KING. At a time when there is so much talk about audience development and lack of funding; here is a case where the audience was there, willing and able and they were quite simply ignored.

Community cannot be ignored, especially if you are looking for funding to keep institutions open and for that same funding to build your programme from the public purse. No business can afford to ignore their community. It does not make sense.

What can I do differently?

(1) Right now make a promise to look after the COMMUNITY YOU HAVE. These people are fully paid up members, they support you and what you do. You don’t have to spend any more money to get them in the door. These people want to be part of what you do. Look after this community and be their eyes and ears. Support them and honour them. Be grateful to them and ask for their feedback, often.

(2) Look at your programme and ask yourself this question honestly; WHO AM I PROGRAMMING FOR? Are you programming for yourself and your peers? This is a legitimate and honest question and it is not asked often enough. Let’s face it, it’s natural to programme things you like, it’s a human instinct. But if you are basing your programme around yourself and your peers, you are not thinking about your community, their diversity, their needs and their wants.

Of course certain art forms are very niche. Think about how you present these art forms to your community and how they can help you bring this niche to them. That’s much more powerful. Give your community credit and reward them for being your advocate, for without them your organisation would not exist.


Lessons Learned:

– Do not let your community out the door without asking questions and getting feedback
– Gather email addresses at every turn
– Start an engaged, mutually beneficial conversation
– Communicate with your community regularly
– Be personable and friendly, they want to help you
– Support and give thanks to those who come out and support you
– Programme for your community not for yourself or your peers

How does your organisation thank and harness your communities potential?
Any lessons you can share with us?
Let me know if I can help you build an engaged, committed community around your organisation. As always comments and suggestions are welcome.

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iGap influence spreads across Europe

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Growing Pains

A few weeks back, I blogged about my iGap experience and my work with Growing Pains in Sweden for the Enterprise Ireland Best Connected Blog. I was very honoured to contribute. Here is my article, in case you missed it, I hope you enjoy it. Comments and feedback are welcome as always! Delighted to see another iGap programme will launch in the Autumn. This is an amazing opportunity for Irish Startups!

Participating in iGap 1 changed everything. From working with Sean Ellis, Oren Michels, Justin Knecht, Cathy Winston and Brian Caulfield many things become abundantly clear and you find yourself becoming an evangelist about lean startup, customer development and most of all, being passionate about your customers.

As well as applying what I have learned to my own company, I have been blogging about bringing this thinking to the arts and cultural sector. From this, I have been invited to mentor on Growing Pains, a business development programme for 12 Danish and Swedish female Transmedia producers. Held over six months, participants will engage in modules on developing new services, financing, media training, sales, presentation skills, business development and investment. In May, they will take part in Nordic Game, one of the largest game conferences in Europe.

Growing pains came from a report investigating the barriers facing Transmedia producers when seeking government support in Scandinavia. The researchers looked at funding, management and financing among others. Research found that male and female producers site similar needs for support access to funding, mentorship, investment, networking etc. It showed that more women than men apply for government funding from this sector, yet very few of them are successful.

When looking at risk taking for example, it observed that on average, men take bigger risks with significantly larger losses, should the enterprise not work out. Men also look for larger revenue deals than women. Whereas, females are less risk averse, with often a more sustainable company over the lifetime of that enterprise. Many female producers felt they needed more knowledge and training before making the leap into business, while men on the other hand, threw themselves into the enterprise.

While these findings are not new; proportionately more men successfully accessing support and being more open to risk taking; it does point to a specific need when developing enterprise development programmes for women. Why such a large proportion of women do not succeed in accessing public supports is worth examining. Putting mechanisms in place to deal with specific skills gaps is crucial to the future success and development of these entrepreneurs.

It is also important to look at risk, how women view risk when starting a business and to challenge these perceptions. Motivation and perception are very necessary ingredients when starting out, as these motivations may differ significantly from person to person and between males and females. In understanding, supporting and challenging these issues, skills gaps and perceptions, programmes like Growing Pains will help build pathways to success for female entrepreneurs everywhere.

Why is a programme like this so necessary for Transmedia right now? Digital production and distribution has made old value chains, distribution and business models obsolete. This is a great challenge for the public support system. At the same time, this new disruptive technology is the keystone for Transmedia producers’ success; to strengthen their entrepreneurial skills, to thinking beyond public project financing, in developing and exploiting brands and being innovative in finding alternate sources of funding.

The measure of success for any new programme is the traction and buzz it gains. And Growing Pains is no different, as applications to this first programme were well over subscribed. This shows there is a definite need for programmes like this and I know that it will prove to be a valuable contribution to these entrepreneurs’ success.

I am extremely fortunate to be working with two visionary leaders in this field; Cecilie Stranger-Thorsen who devised the programme and Angeli Sjöström process and implementation coach. Both Cecilie and Angeli bring the best thinking and an in-depth knowledge of this field together and I’m looking forward to learning lots from them. The Growing Pains programme is funded under the EU Regional Development Fund in partnership with Nordic Game Resources.

Image (c) http://www.stranger.no with thanks.

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New RTE Sport is live

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Delighted to see the launch of our newly designed RTE Sport website today. It was a fun project, working on a new look, new navigation and better search and interaction for sports fans. Check out the new site here. For the redesign we worked with a fantastic team over at the RTE Sports Department. It was a great experience and the end result speaks for itself.

Here is how Tom Grealis, RTÉ.ie Sports Editor describes the new site design.

Welcome to the new-look RTÉ Sport website.
As you can see, pretty much everything is new. And we’re hoping that you’ll think everything is better too.
This is the first major redesign of the entire RTÉ Sport site since 2007. Much has changed in the online realm since then – video streaming is now high-quality; media is now social – and we have made sure to factor all of those advancements into our new design. So, what have we done and why?

Navigation
The RTÉ Sport site is vast, and includes tonnes of content in text, photos, video and audio. So allowing you to access that content as easily as possible was one of our challenges. As with almost all modern websites, we’ve gone with a horizontal navigation. This is pretty much standard across the web nowadays, but if it’s new to you, the main thing to remember is that the new navigation should bring you back to where you want to be no matter where you are on the site.

Scores, fixtures and results
On our new site live scores, fixtures and results are front and centre. Scores for any live tournament that we’re covering will appear automatically when the game/event starts; at all other times you’ll have quick and easy access to a range of fixtures and results for multiple sports. We’ve introduced tabs on our homepage, and on the index pages of GAA, Soccer, Rugby and Racing. These tabs are ‘Latest News’, ‘Live’, ‘Watch & Listen’, and ‘Don’t Miss!’. They are designed to give you a quick flavour of the breadth and depth of content that we are offering our users every day.

Live and on-demand
Take, for example, the ‘Live’ tab. RTÉ broadcasts a lot of live sports – both on television and radio – and most of that content is also streamed live on our site. Now, you can see at a glance the huge number of programmes that you can watch or listen to live. Same with our on-demand content. You can now see our top on-demand clips with one click from our homepage, and if you want to delve further into our catch-up offering all you have to do is click the ‘Watch & Listen’ section from the main navigation.

Interaction
Another of our aims with this redesign was the need to give you, the user, a chance to interact with our content, and share stuff with your friends. You can now comment on stories and have your say, and share your favourite content via a range of social media tools. We won’t be opening comments on all stories and features – it’s not practical to open comments on everything – but you’ll certainly be able to share your views on our key content.

Feedback
We’d like to know what you think of the new site, so please give us your feedback in the comments section below. With the launch of any major new redesign, it’s very hard to spot everything before launch.
We reckon that most of the major sections of the site are working as they should, but please let us know if they’re not. Again, just leave a comment or email us at sportonline@rte.ie. We’ll be fixing things as they come to light, and in the next few weeks we’ll be continuing to make tweaks and improvements, so please bear with us.

There’s a monumental summer of sport coming – GAA Championships, Euro 2012, the Olympics in London – and we want to give you the best possible user experience during those events.
Step one starts here.

Image (c) inpho.ie

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iGAP Influence spreads across Europe

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My article on iGap and GrowingPains is featured over on the Enterprise Ireland’s Best Connected Blog today. Thanks to Anna Marie for the invitation to contribute. Go check it out here.

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Small Business Show Interview

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Radio General Electric

Very excited to be interviewed by By Conn Ó Muíneacháin for the Small Business Show earlier today. We talked about my work with creatives and content producers by bringing Lean thinking to the creative and cultural sectors.

The podcast is available next Monday the 19th or listen in to Clare FM on Saturday afternoon from 1.15. Thanks to Conn for the invitation and I hope you all enjoy it.

Image CC Fernando Candeias

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Inspiration Friday: Book Covers

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I came across this beautiful post this week showcasing Children’s Book covers from Korea. Visually stunning in their simplicity, colour and attention to detail.
Enjoy,

happy Friday everyone!



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