Mary Carty

If you are an artist based in Northern Ireland and want to learn more about socialising your arts practice, then this is for you.
On Saturday I am in Enniskillen in the Clinton Center delivering a workshop on promoting your work online.

What it is:

This coursse will teach you how to build an effective onlne marketing strategy that will grow your profile, build your network and promote your work. By using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Flickr effectively; you can grow your audience and position yourself as an expert in your field. I will use case studies and practical walk throughs to show best practice and how you can implement similar strategies to get noticed. I will help you focus on your business, your arts practice and your market.

What you will learn:

Overview of current social media trends
Blogs
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flickr
Devising a simple to use marketing plan

Hope to see uyou there. Thanks to Monica and Lisa @VisArtsIre for organising.

Sometimes you see presentations on TED that makes the tiny hairs at the back of your neck stand up. A physical feeling and a knowledge that the world is full of amazing, creative and inspiring people.

Spoken word poet Sarah Kay is just that. Have a look at her TED presentation “If I should have a daughter”. It’s a lesson in delivery and the power to move and teach others.

Happy Friday all.

Back home after such an inspiring trip to Sweden and Denmark. I will follow up next week about lessons learned from my Growing Pains workshop and Media Evolution talk.

Thanks to Cecilie who took the time to write about her experience at the workshsop in this post, Love Brand. I really like how she ties together the importance of the user experience, the customer journey and customer development with the end of traditional funding methods in the film industry. Growing and sustaining your own tribe of followers and users who LOVE your work will sustain your business over the long term.

This week I also got to hang out with the Running Lean guru, Ash Maurya, and took part in a full day Lean Startup workshop. It was an inspiring and challenging day. More about my experience on the workshop next week.

For now for your inspiration Friday fix, have a look at this beautiful animation by Yaniv Fridman, the To Do List. Thanks to @nancydurate for sharing.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

On the evening of February 20th I am working with Media Evolution Sweden, delivering a session called Exploring your business idea. It’s a practical look at starting out, tracing the problem you have identified, to exploring the solution and finding out if your service/product is actually wanted, or better yet, needed.

It’s going to be very interesting for me to see if the Scandinavian approach to starting up in the creative sector is any different from Ireland and the types of networks and supports producers use. Mobile and games developers from this region have been very successful, creators of Angry Birds just one fine example. I have already posted about my involvement in a really innovative programme in Sanne, Growing Pains and this lecture series is part of that programme.

After the Games Ireland Gathering yesterday, I am excited to know more about what producers are doing and what their work embodies right now.

I am looking forward to meeting everyone on the night and a big thanks to Cecilie and Heidi for organising the event.

This is what the event looks like:

The lecture focuses on business ideas with an emphasis on three issues:
– Do I have a problem to be solved?
– Is there a market for my services or products?
– How can I monetize my idea?

Too often businesses fail. This session will help you clarify:
– What your mission is?
– What you sell?
– How you can test your ideas before launch
– Do I go it alone or partner with others?

What: Power Lecture
Where: Form / Design Center, Lilla Torg 9, Malmö
When: 20 February at: 16.30 – 19.00.
The lecture starts at 17.00

The lecture is presented in collaboration with Growing pains, Form / Design Center and Media Evolution.

I really enjoyed the Games Ireland Gig yesterday. There was a great buzz in the Gibson with standing room only. Lots of people sharing stories and having conversations with some of the most interesting Games companies around like Big Fish Games and Pop Cap. I met some really creative, innovative people and learned what’s next for the Games Industry here. And it’s really hot right now.

The first session ‘The Business of Games – How Does Today’s Industry Click?’ was very useful and a great way to start off the day. It wil be interesting for me to see if there are similarities with Games producers in Scandinavia; as I’m presenting at Growing Pains and Media Evolution next Monday.

The showcase of new Irish Games really proved that we have a wealth of talented storytellers here. My favourite launch of the day was from Openemotion in Limerick who showed some great creative flair with a presentation that showed Paddy as the main character in a game. Humor, great style, engaging stories, featuring some famous Limerick boys will make their new game one very big hit! Here is how Paddy introduced his company. The works says way more than any speech could! Openemotion, one to watch.

Super Happy Magic Fun Time!

I was also impressed with the work done by Ideal binary on interactive eBooks for children. Again using effective storytelling and some lovely visuals, kids get to immerse themselves in the world of The Grimms’ Fairy tales and have some fun too. I liked the “read it myself” option for early readers.

There is so much opportunity in this space at the moment. But it comes with important lessons. Firstly, learning how to partner up with the larger Games companies earlier, particularly if you have a big hit early on in your career. Learning how to market your games properly is another lesson. Paddy Murphy had the crowd in stitches when asked by Dylan Collins why one particular game was such a hit, Paddy replied because they “tried at marketing!”

Keynotes from Game royalty like Phill Campbell; creative director on blockbuster interactive franchises James Bond, The Godfather and Tomb Raider; was a lesson in holding on to your creatice vision, looking at the hidden narratives within the story and finding inspiration in what you know.

Phil’s drawings were stunning and it was so impresive to see how he used his hand sketched drawings to bring his creative teams together and to scope out aspects of each game that gave the p more depth and substance. Everything from the route into a shop to the descriptions on how buildings worked and what people did in them were fascinating.

Phil’s talk also highlighted how his background as an architect informed his creative ision, his building of worlds within each story/Game he has worked on and the minute attention to detail.
The Games industry needs engineers, sure but as Apra mentioned so perceptively, it needs many other creative souls as well, from sound, to colourists to legal, marketing and finance. Phil’s presentation wes a lesson on how creatives or other professionals crossing over into this industry can bring skill sets, vision, innovation and creativity to benefit the whole industry.

Overall, this was a fun, engaging and positive event. The bases were well covered from funding, to legal issues and the business of making and marketing games. Well done, Games Ireland, can’t wait for the next event!

This is what was covered yesterday:

2pm Welcome by Games Ireland CEO

Panel 1 ‘The Business of Games – How Does Today’s Industry Click? ’
Jeanne Kelly Mason Hayes and Curran, Anna Scally KPMG and David Sweeney Games Ireland/ISFE

2.30 pm Panel 2 “Games Development in Ireland and the Games Incentive Package”
Barry O’Neill Chairman Games Ireland, Hugh Mac Atamney Dublin Institute of Technology,
Aphra Kerr, NUIM, Game Developers Ireland, Jessica Sachs Director of Developer Relations, BigFish Games, Paschal Donohue T.D.

3pm Keynote 1 “The Fight My Monster Story & Why Kids Will Destroy You All”
Dylan Collins, Executive Chairman of Fight My Monster

3.30 Panel 3 ‘The Cloud – Whats the Forecast?’
Oracle Chair, Colin l’Anson, HP, Will O’Brien, VP Business Development BigFish Games,
Greg Ward, Microsoft, Jeanne Kelly, Partner, Mason Hayes and Curran,

4 pm Break

4.15 Panel ‘Going SOLOMO!- Opportunities in Social, Locational and Mobile’
Chair Ben Cranks HP, Paul Breslin, MD Europe, PopCap Games, Sean Clark, Executive Producer BigFish Games, Marc O’Morain, SWRVE

4.45 James Whelton – Coderdojo, Getting more kids to code games

4.50 Keynote 2 – ‘Game Design Lessons – From Croft to Corleone’
Phil Campbell, Creative Director on major licensed franchises ‘The Godfather’, ‘James Bond’ and ‘Tomb Raider’.

5.30pm ‘The Green Screen – Irish Games Showcase’
Bitmith
Redwind
Openemotion
Tribal city
Ideal binary

6-730pm Drinks Reception and Networking

Games Ireland Logo (C) Games Ireland with thanks

I am constantly asked how do I drive more traffic to my site, how do I get more hits and what do I do next , after they find me?

Working with Alan O’Rourke in Spoiltchild and Toddle.com over the past few years, I have been helping clients find new customers, keep their loyal customers engaged and focusing on creating the best user experience possible. So I thought we should share our learning and best thinking on how to achieve this goal, with some handy tips and advice.

Link building is a great way to get more links and to drive users to your site. Alan and I have compiled the very best 50 monster tips to help you get the most from your marketing activities, build your links and get new audience and customers. We are very excited that the final book has been sent to publishing. Watch out for it on Amazon and Kindle very soon.

Here is a post I wrote a little while back on how to drive traffic to your site while you wait for the book to come out. Let me know how you drive users to your site? What has worked best and any tips you might like to share.

As always your thoughts and comments are very much appreciated.

Last September I met a really talented Transmedia expert at the Etsy Conference in Berlin. Cecilie and I got talking about entrepreneurship, business models and moving away from State funding programmes. From these conversations; we realised we had lots in common, wanting to help creative people build sustainable businesses with the tools they need to succeed in this new economic and social landscape.

From my participation in iGap I have realised that the creative sector is missing out. Lean Startup (Eric Ries) and Customer Development (Steve Blank) is just as necessary to these types of industries as it is to the software or manufacturing sectors.

The cultural and creative sectors are limited by the types of funding they can seek and the zero budget system constrains in may negative ways; at the very least, not allowing organisations to show a surplus at the end of the year, least funding will be reduced the following year. Budgets are cut and State finance is reducing for these organisations year on year. This is happening across Europe and beyond.

I believe that the current economic situation may be the salvation of the creative sector by spearheading cooperation, partnerships and looking at innovative ways to finance and grow their services, products and audience.

From these discussions, Cecilie invited me to present on Growing Pains; a business development programme for 12 selected Transmedia producers from Denmark and Sweden. Over six months the participants will undertake training in key areas of business development, sales, new business models, financing and presentation skills.

My session on sales, new services and financing will help producers define their business idea and look at bringing it to market and finding customers.

Growing Pains is a really innovative programme at a time when there is so much opportunity to start a business and to get your work out there using social media. Here is what the participants will explore on the Programme:

Session 1: Defining growth and individual goals
Session 2: Sales, new services and financing
Session 3: Media training
Session 4: Dilemma scenarios
Session 5: Participation in Nordic Game Conference
Session 6: Summary of program and individual goals

Growing Pains is organised by Cecilie and funded under the EU Regional Development Fund in partnership with Nordic Game Resources.

Highly Strung from dave jones on Vimeo.

I have spent lots of time working with children and young people developing fun, engaging and high quality arts projects, first as an artist and later as a policy maker and arts manager. It’s an area I feel very passionate about. Lots of people call themselves educators, arts facilitators and the like but unfortunately, little of this work is top class, child focused, child oriented, by the children and for the children.

Thankfully there are talented artists and creatives who believe in the same ideals as me and create the most amazing work at every opportunity. We have many talented, committed people here in Ireland and the sector is growing. This afternoon I came across this magical piece from Australia. This is how work with children should be done. Enjoy.

Sir Ken Robinson gives an enlightening talk about changing our education norms. We really need to think long and hard about how we teach our children and why we continue to use out of date systems to “batch” teach our kids. Have a look for your inspiration Friday fix.

Happy Friday.

The Ireland Funds Grant Round is open. If you work in the not for profit sector you should consider applying. For more information about the grant round and how the Ireland Funds could help you, see here.

Best of luck.

Image (C) Ireland Funds with thanks.