A week of Creative Sydney is a beautiful, inspiring, mind-stretching, eye-opening, information-absorbing thing indeed! I'll admit - it's taken me the better part of a fortnight to really digest it all and follow up with some intensive online research.
So my plan is for this blog post to round up all the gems that I scribbled down into my Moleskine notebook, the best of the tips + leads I gleaned from the panel discussions, and hyperlinks to any of the associated info + podcasts of the Creative Sydney events themselves (which is great if you missed any or all of them).
I'm going to keep this short, sweet and as succint as possible... bullet points, and lots of pics...
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P.S. You can download podcasts of all of Saturday's Creative Futures talks over here:
http://www.box.net/saturday5june
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Session One // Saturday 5 June // Technology + Behaviour
Speaker One: Mike Walsh (futurist)
http://www.mike-walsh.com/
http://blog.mike-walsh.com/\
Mike Walsh authored Futuretainment, a book about the future of media. Designed by Frost* it's a spectacular book to behold (particularly if you love sexy vector infographics and full-spread photography as I do).
One of his most intriguing comments: Mike Walsh names 1994 as 'year zero', a world turning point for networked and connected behaviours - kids born post-1994 have never experienced a world without the world wide web.
Read more in this fascinating article: A world transformed by consumer connectedness
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Speaker Two: Chris Ying - McSweeneys
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/
http://iphone.mcsweeneys.net/
McSweeneys have always done interesting things with their independent publications, and it seems they're also doing some really interesting things with technology, like the Clock Without A Face book/website/treasure hunt combo.
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/clock/
And check out the new McSweeneys iPhone app: each week for 6 months you receive exclusive multimedia content — stories, films, readings, interviews, art — plus new humour pieces from the website everyday, with Push Notifications to let you know each time a new piece is ready.
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Speaker Three: Rachel Botsman - The rise of Collaborative Consumption
http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/
Rachel's presentation about Collaborative Consumption was truly exciting to witness. Her broadsweeping talk identified and explored the social successes of:
GoGet (a carsharing service in Sydney/Melbourne)
ZipCar (a carsharing service in USA & Canada)
Landshare (a UK scheme connecting growers with land to share)
Shelfari (a social media site focused on books)
Bookmooch (trading books with other people)
del.ic.ious (a social bookmarking service)
AirBnb (a global network of accommodations offered by locals)
CouchSurfing (a volunteer-based worldwide network connecting travelers with members of local communities, who offer free accommodation)
Zopa (loans from people not banks)
Freecycle (a grassroots and nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns)
Rachel's book, What's Mine is Yours, covers the rise of “Collaborative Consumption” — a cultural and economic force transforming business, consumerism, and the way we live.
The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon: an explosion in sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist, to emerging sectors such as peer-to-peer lending (Zopa), ‘swap trading’ (Swaptree) and car sharing (Zipcar), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not only what we consume but how we consume.
Read more here: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/the-book/
And here: http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/the-movement/
Rachel's blog post following/about her talk: "Now that we can do anything, what will we do?"
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Recent update
Creative Sydney has just released five fast-paced 2-minute summaries of each of the 'Creative Futures' Saturday sessions: view them at http://www.youtube.com/user/creativesydney.
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Session Two // Saturday 5 June // Agents + Managers
Speaker One: Dominic Thurbon
Dominic Thurbon regaled us with the story of Ivanna and her stolen SideKick mobile phone, and how she (and her friend Evan) utilised the collaborative power of the internet to seek revenge on the teenage thief, Sasha. While it did come across as some sort of urban legend, this is indeed a true story, and yes, Ivanna did eventually get her stolen phone back. Hoorah to the internet.
http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/
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Speaker Two: Matt Jackson (The Drawing Book Studio)
http://www.drawingbook.com.au/
The passion with which Matt Jackson speaks of his amazing studio of illustrators is nothing short of dazzling. I was deeply impressed by his agency's unique approach: representing the individuality of each illustrator and their work (even to the extent that each has their own personalised/illustrated logo within the overall Drawing Book Studio brand); providing a deeper experience/connection by telling the story behind each illustrator; and finally by crafting a single descriptive sentence for each, i.e. "because he celebrates the verve in everything".
The Drawing Book Studio launches its brand-spanking-new logo and website on the 1st July 2010 (we had a sneak peek during Matt's talk, but you can catch a glimpse of it in the video here: http://www.drawingbook.com.au/illustration_new_logo.php)
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Speaker Three: Andrew Dowe (AusInvent)
http://www.ausinvent.com/
Andrew Dowe introduced us to the concept of The Lone Nut (something which kept cropping up throughout the festival), and the crucial point that it's the first follower who transforms the lone nut into a leader, and it's the second and third followers who continue to catalyse the new movement. This video aptly illustrates:
This was Andrew's segway into the art of innovation/leadership, and the practical support and assistance provided by AusInvent, the NSW Innovation Advisory Service, for any potential 'lone nuts' lurking in the audience. So, if you happen to be one of those in the field of innovation, product design, inventions, and the like, and you're looking for some assistance with commercialisation of your ideas, there's a swag of good resources and services you should check out over at the AusInvent website.
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Session Three // Saturday 5 June // Crowds + Collaboration
Speaker One: Matt Fayle and Pip Jamieson (The Loop)
www.theloop.com.au
The Loop is a beta-version networking site for people in the creative industries (designers, animators, illustrators, photographers, editors, directors, producers, cameraman, VFX artists, etc). There are two utterly amazing and passionate people behind The Loop - Matt and Pip - who totally wowed the crowd at Creative Sydney, and I'm sure there were plenty who felt the same and went home that evening and signed up as Loop members to start setting up their online portfolios and CVs - I know I did...
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Speaker Two: Ross Dawson (futurist)
Ross Dawson spoke on the topic The Future is Crowdsourcing, largely demonstrated by his elaborate and densely informative Crowdsourcing Landscape diagram.
Ross breezed through this marvellous resource faster than I could write, but these were the ones that I made a note to research more on later:
Competition platforms and crowdsourcing sites for design: 99 Designs, DesignCrowd, CrowdSpring, Guerra Creativa, Naming Force, Name This
Idea platforms: IdeaScale, Spig It, IdeaStorm, Qmarkets
Crowdsourced innovation: Innovation Exchange, IdeaKen, Innocentive, Idea Connection
Innovation prizes: X Prize, DARPA Grand Challenge
Content markets: Red Bubble, iStockPhoto, Threadless, I Vote For Art
Crowdfunding sites: KickStarter, IndieGoGo, Buyacredit.com, Kiva, Chip In, Profounder
Service marketplaces: Freelancer, Elance, ODesk.
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Speaker Three: TJ Eckleberg (Shopfront) and Rebecca Wyles (Sydney Opera House)
Detours & Destinations project
http://detoursanddestinations.com.au/
Detours & Destinations was a joint project between HEAPS DECENT, SHOPFRONT, the SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE and the Department of Juvenile Justice - an integrated multi-media arts project framing the stories and experience of young people from the Blacktown and Campbelltown areas (incorporating video and film, remix technologies, beat mixing and DJ culture, podcasts, blogging, performance, stencil art and installation).
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Session Four // Saturday 5 June // Creation + Curation
Speaker One: Ute Noll (Hijacked, Germany)
Ute Noll, book editor and exhibition curator, worked with Mark McPherson and Markus Schaden on Hijacked Vol. 2, an exhibition/book showcasing 16 German and 16 Australian photographers. Hijacked Vol.2 is showing at the Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington until 17 July 2010.
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Speaker Two: Clare Stewart (Sydney Film Festival)
Clare Stewart spoke about the Festival's use of 6 'pathways' to help audiences navigate a festival program of 100+ movies (a technique which I personally just love and found wonderfully useful when choosing our movie selection) and also this year’s continuation of the canine theme: Unleashed ("Truly I think that Sydneysiders are very much a dog loving city, so it definitely seems to tap into the imagination" - Clare Stewart)
The 6 pathways: Love me, Fire me up, Creative drive, Take me to the edge, Take me on a journey, Freak me out.
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Speaker Three: Joseph Allen Shea
http://www.izrock.com/
http://www.monsterchildren.com/
Joseph Allen Shea is the man behind 'mixed business' Izrock, curator of Monster Children Gallery in Darlinghurst, and writer for The Blackmail.
My favourite quote that spilled from Joseph's talk when he was talking about his creative process: "Stumble, fail, build, build, build".
Pure gold.
...to be continued
(The reality of fitting blogging in around the usual workload and daily activity means I'll have to piece this post together a day at a time. Check back soon, I'll be adding more over the next week or so...)
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