Euro Cash: Is It Where The Money’s At for SMEs?

With money scarce on the ground at home, many see involvement in European projects as the way forward. In 2007 the European Union launched €975 billion in funding programmes for the 2007 – 2013 period. That’s 975 billion good reasons for getting involved in European projects. But is EU funding viable when you’re a private Irish SME?

Looking to break in to European projects as a private micro-enterprise or SME can be an initially daunting and labyrinthine task. There’s no such thing as “I’ll take a quick look and see what’s available”. Between FP7s, ERDFs, NPPs, Convergence and Cohesion – it’s hard to know where to begin.

When Newmarket Consulting made the decision to get involved in European programmes – a decision primarily spurred on by an business acquaintance bemoaning the lack of high quality management support available for European funded projects in Ireland – research was (as ever) our first port of call.

Half a day of online research into European funding mechanisms and we were only marginally wiser. From our online marketing research we developed a schedule of calls for proposals for the three programmes that best suited us; the North West Europe Programme, the Northern Periphery Programme and the Atlantic Area Programme. The calls for proposals outlined key areas that were to be funded (for example rural development, green energy, transport etc.) Again, we earmarked areas where we thought we could make a significant impact. Next, once the deadlines for calls for proposals for specific programmes were approaching, we scanned tenders being published on both the Irish e-tenders website and the European tenders website. And then the hard work began … we started replying to tenders.

I won’t expound on the pros and cons of writing tenders – Clodagh has already done an excellent piece on that below – in this case they were a means to an end. And finally our gateway to Europe opened – we successfully responded to a tender for a European project in the creative industries field, and got our first breakthrough.

Involvement in European projects is a bit chicken-and-egg-ish. It’s hard to get a European gig unless you have European project experience, but how do you get that in the first place? Happily for us, we got lucky, and it has really stood to us as we have subsequently been involved in two further projects with European funding – again in the creative sector and also in the exciting field of renewable energy. Our initial European project experience made subsequent proposals stronger, as we were able to display our knowledge of European projects, such as governance and financial structures and trans-national co-operation and triple helix partnerships.

We started our involvement in European projects as external experts – i.e. we responded to a tender to perform a function of the project being led by a project partner. However, increased involvement in European projects results in increased understanding and confidence. We are now at the stage where we have developed a strong network of international partners, and as such we are now being approached to become full partners in responses to calls for proposals. It feels good, and has opened up a whole new avenue of potential business for us.

So, where to start your European odyssey? To save you from hours of bamboozling European funding research, here are some easy links to your European future:  

There is a simple(ish) introduction to European Funding that can be downloaded from here: http://ec.europa.eu/budget/library/biblio/publications/funds_rules/pack_rules_funds_en.pdf

Companies and SMEs are encouraged to contact their local Enterprise Europe Network to seek more information on European Funding. In Ireland they are run through the Chambers. Contact information in Ireland is available here: http://www.een-ireland.ie/eei/

Information on available EU Grants is available here: http://ec.europa.eu/grants/index_en.htm

 

The Commission’s portal on Public Contracts is available here: http://ec.europa.eu/public_contracts/index_en.htm

 

The majority of EU Funding is managed by regional managing authorities in Ireland. Those managing authorities are the Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly and Southern and Eastern Regional Assembly. You can find their contact information here: http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/manage/authority/authority_en.cfm?pay=109&list=no

Good luck with it, and if you ever need some advice, don’t be afraid to give us a shout on +353 1 4293600 or mitchell@newmarket.ie

 

Where IS Wally? World Record Breaking – Not as Easy as it Looks

We’ve done project management before. And we’ve done event management before. But blending both skills, and multiplying the magnitude of the event x 1,000, proved to be quite the challenge!

Newmarket Consulting were over the moon to have been asked to project manage the Where’s Wally World Records 2011 by the legends at the Street Performance World Championships (SPWC). Brilliant, we thought, nothing ahead but weeks of ideas generation, laughing and general nonsense. Little did we know that what in fact lay ahead was weeks of, well laughing and nonsense I suppose, but also loads of hard bloody work!

I (Mitchell O’Gorman, being of sound mind) took the lead as project manager, guided and inspired as ever by Clodagh O’Brien; and from the first planning meeting with Conor McCarthy and Mark Duckenfield from SPWC, I knew this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. What I had optimistically imagined would be 2 months of sitting around SPWC Towers wearing a Wally suit and coming up with zany ideas, was suddenly transformed into 2 months of sourcing buyers, quality control, sponsor engagement, media engagement, cross-promotions, guerrilla marketing, event management, sales and merchandising, acting, singing and dancing! If you don’t believe me about the singing check this out!

Having never managed an event of this magnitude, and facing into a learning curve that more resembled a brick wall, I had to learn pretty fast to climb. With the expert guidance of Conor and Mark, as well as tonnes of help from the talented SPWC team, we managed to pull off one of the most widely publicised events of the Summer, making the front pages of the national newspapers three times, and the RTE News four times. In total, we managed to get over 10,000 people dressed up as Where’s Wally for events in Dublin, Cork and Portlaoise over 2 weekends in June – the photos and videos of which were broadcast around the world in countries such as Singapore, Japan, Brazil and even a spot on CBS News in the US!

But there were challenging times along the way, and many lessons to be learnt. Events of this magnitude do not just happen; it takes months of very careful planning, monitoring, reviewing, re-planning and re-monitoring to give the event the best chance of succeeding. We used the Basecamp HQ online project management tool to great effect here, but learned that there’s no such thing as too much planning! And, in event management, it is probably better to err on the side of pessimism, which I found very hard to adapt to. And when things go wrong, you’d better have a contingency plan in place – as we learned to our chagrin when it looked like the rain might wash out the Cork Where’s Wally World Record attempt! Thankfully the sun and the Rebel spirit shone through at the end of the day – but not after some panicky phone calls to anyone with a roof and a capacity of over 2,000 people in Cork City.

Thankfully, for every stressful moment, there were at least twenty fun and inspiring moments to ease the pressure. I did get a chance to flex my creative muscle and help develop some crafty ideas – particularly for the event launch on the Luas and the entertainment provided on the day of the World Record attempts – but it was working with the SPWC team that most inspired me. Everybody there was so passionate about the festival, and so effervescent. Energy levels were helped that by the fact that they are all very young (I was, in fact, the oldest in an office of 10 people at a mere 32 years old!) but the great success of the Where’s Wally World Records was down to their ability to mix excitement with excellent task execution. Having an open plan office really helped maintain good lines of communication between everyone working on their individual but inter-related jobs. My enjoyment of the project was also helped along in that I attended half a dozen meetings dressed up as Where’s Wally, including a TV interview with City Channel’s Evening Show. It’s rewarding to throw yourself with abandon into an environment that you are not entirely comfortable with, and it was a lot more fun than wearing a suit and tie!

In addition to our internal collusion, there was a whole world of collaborating with other creative businesses to get excited about. In addition to working with SPWCs regular contributors, and in particular the brilliant Catapult team, we also collaborated with a hi-res photographer (Con O’Donohue – member of the CreativeD network that we run), software developers, video crews, editing studio (Windmill Lane – also CreativeD members), actors, dancers and of course we worked with the street performers themselves – this whirlwind of creative collaboration amongst talented Irish people is a wonder to behold in full flight.

On Sunday 19th June, looking down from a 12-metre crane on 3,872 record breakers dressed in red and white stripes, dancing happily to Queen’s “We Are The Champions”, I couldn’t help but think “job well done”. Hard work – yes. Lessons learned – definitely. But, as one Facebook fan wrote to us, “it was excellent-super-duper-feel-good”, and not something I’ll be forgetting in a hurry.

From cornflakes to chalkboards: Newmarket Consulting 3.0

This blog is about the experience of non-designers (i.e. Newmarket Consulting) working on the redesign of our website, the approach we took, what we learned about digital media and what we achieved.  We hope it is of interest to others facing the same daunting but exciting task.

The evolution of Newmarket Consulting’s contribution to the world of websites is about to enter its third stage.  In 2004, we very proudly launched our first site and very much regretted that there were no Golden Spiders at the time.  Our use of stock images and business language surely combined in a way stood out from the many, many, many other sites for business consultants that were exactly the same.  The realisation that perhaps we hadn’t changed the face of the world wide web forever came when a friend in digital media described our site as looking like it had been “designed with a ‘Create Your Own website’ CD that came free with a box of cornflakes” (I still remember that Liam but understand/respect the cruel to be kind intentions).

Stage Two was a much better site which was much more in line with our identity and brand.  We worked hard on translating the business language into language that made sense to people.  We tried to make it more personal by including photos of ourselves rather than anonymous strangers with bright white teeth.  We were happy and it looked professional because it was created by a professional.

The process of changing it this time was mainly motivated by having Gary our digital media intern working with us.  We were still relatively happy with the old site but when Gary did his analysis of the site, we very quickly realised how little the site reflected the changes in websites over the last few years and how dated it had become.

It is much easier now to create sites on platforms that are really user-friendly.  Content management systems have progressed so much in the last few years and the glitches in the last system we used don’t seem to be an issue anymore.  Before simple things like font size would look perfect on the back-end of our old system and then appear as varying font sizes and formats on the front-end.  Photos were much harder to upload.  Moving imagery was way too much to ask and if we had tried to upload a video, we probably would have broken the Internet forever.

The other really interesting realisation is that if you haven’t updated your site in a while, you are probably communicating an outdated impression of who you are and what you do.  In the few years since we created our last site, we have ended up working in some new sectors, with new clients and in lots of new countries.

There are lots more tools available to us to get our message across that hopefully will show what is different about how we do what we do, our personality, specialities and quirks.

We said No to stock images.  We got out chalk and a chalkboard and Gary got sketching.  We used lots of photos to paint the thousand words rather than write the five thousand.  We got professional photos done (but forgot to smile and have our teeth airbrushed afterwards – missed opportunity).  Most of all I think we had fun coming up with ideas and lots of excitement seeing Gary make them happen.

For me the biggest lesson is that if you don’t update your site you are telling a story and presenting an image that reflects what you were before rather than what you have become.  So, if you are dynamic, you are making a big mistake if the impression your site gives is that you have been standing still for a long time.

This site feels like us, it looks like us (except for the airbrushed bits!) and we spent time thinking about what we wanted it to say, how we wanted it to look and how we could get a short but clear message across about what it’s like to work with Newmarket Consulting.  Hopefully we have done that.  Comments and suggestions and nominations to the Golden Spiders welcome.

Does intern really mean imprison?

There has been a lot of commentary in the media recently about interns given the government’s plans for intern programmes.  The inspiration for this blog is the interpretation that all that is involved in having an intern is a cynical ploy on the part of greedy business to exploit free labour. 

I believe that this is only true if the only gain is for the company.  At the moment, Newmarket Consulting is lucky enough to have a digital media intern, Gary Burke, from the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown’s (ITB) Creative Digital Media degree.  No question, we have benefited hugely from having Gary with us.  He is revamping our website at the moment, he is working on a client website, the Not for Profit Business Association (NFPBA) and he is updating content on the Newmarket Partnership website.  (Don’t look yet, they’re not finished but we will do another blog when they are).  He has worked on graphics included in our proposal to Street Performance World championships Where’s Wally World Record and for a consortium submitting a bid to the EU Northern Periphery Programme.  He has created a new brochure for Newmarket Consulting and created a suite of stationery templates that mean we can print our stationery in-house.  He is also going to create videos for use on various websites and for promotional purposes. (more in Gary’s own blog: https://garyburke.wordpress.com/)

So has he worked really hard?  He definitely has.  Is he being exploited?  He definitely would be if he wasn’t getting anything back in return.  The return on his time investment is, in my opinion, quite significant.  In his time with us he has:

• Learned new skills directly relevant to his course/qualification e.g. he is using WordPress to build the Newmarket Consulting and NFPBA websites so he has learned to use a completely new programme
• Attended meetings with members of CreativeD (a network specifically for those working in the creative industries in Dublin), he has presented to the Board of the NFPBA, he has been involved in meetings with professionals from the accounting, branding and web design fields
• Experienced how client briefs are translated into real projects and how briefs are interpreted differently depending on the way of thinking of the professions involved
• Discovered that when you present clients with a number of options, they don’t always choose the one you feel they should and they sometimes ignore your advice because they don’t want to change
• Realised that deadlines cannot always be met due to waiting for people to pass on the information needed, which then involves juggling priorities, focus etc. and this while this can cause frustration it cannot reduce the quality of the end product
• Used research skills to find solutions to roadblocks encountered e.g. working from a Mac for use of visuals on a PC
• Taken criticism – sadly, all one-sided as all criticism has been positive as nothing has gone wrong!
• Gotten out from behind the desk and seen the world from a few angles including being part of the Where’s Wally World record flashmob
• And importantly, he has been able to laugh; both at our lack of digital media prowess and when he dressed up as a Wally, sang in public and did star jumps on Grafton Street.

Real life experience and having a professional reference are invaluable and make someone more employable.  Gary now has rich material for a job interview when asked to “tell me about a time when you…..” or “can you give us an example of a project you have worked on….?”  His first hundred days in the workplace will lead to a successful career path in the future and he’s evening looking forward to it.  In Gary’s words:

 “I didn’t really know what to expect in the beginning but the experience in general has shown me what it’s like to work in a real business environment and now makes me look forward to getting my degree and starting working.”

 Maybe that’s why he has resisted the temptation to make like Andy Dufrane and dig a tunnel under G9 Calmount Park and crawl to his freedom.  We’ve even stopped locking away the teaspoons.  And best of all we’re going to stop handcuffing him to the desk from next week on due to good behaviour.

Too tender to tender?

Presumably you have all at some stage been battered and bruised by the tendering process.  Recently, Newmarket Consulting was shortlisted and included on an invitation to tender for a project in a sector that we are really passionate about.  At the same time, we also got a call to ask us to put in for another tender that involved international research in a sector we love and in which we also aspire to do more work. 

Those of you that have read our homepage will no doubt have been struck by the sentence “We believe that client relationships work best when their advisors share the passion and interest they have in their field.  Our passions are art and culture, the creative sector, health and social care, renewable energy and tourism”.

Therefore, it’s hard not to get excited about two possibilities of two exciting new projects in our favourite sectors and it’s hard not to be flattered to have come to mind as respondents by people you respect.  It’s hard not to think that this is a great start to the year.  It is very easy to get carried away and imagine the vision of world domination edging ever closer.

So, we calmed ourselves down, put off the call to Enterprise Ireland to let them know they have another high potential start-up on their hands and got reading the briefs and writing the responses.  Quite rapidly, the international research tender became undoable.  While we are very lucky to have networks of contacts that span Ireland, Europe and the US, the countries specified in the tender spanned most continents.  The realisation that the tender was one for a multinational with offices all over the world wasn’t long dawning.  While we’d love to consider Dublin 12 the centre of the universe, in the context of this tender, it just wasn’t so.

For the other business planning tender, we put together a process that combined innovation and practicality in terms of being able to plan and review.  I am still debating whether being told that we came second and only by one point is worse than coming last by a mile? 

So what makes the bruises heal?  I realised it is better to come a very close second than a second who didn’t even run the race.  I see that the time invested in designing the process outlined in the tender can be used in other contexts so is not a lost investment.  I make a new contact when I call to get feedback on the tender, and after the opportunity to talk in detail, I find that there are other opportunities to work together.  I remind myself that it is very easy to take one unsuccessful tender and vow never to tender again and that a significant amount of the work we are doing now came through tenders.  And I amaze myself when you calculate that, in fact, 48% of our income in 2010 came through successful tenders. 

So, I tell myself, I love you tender, love you true, and I always will.

Who Resurrected the Electric Car?

So I won the opportunity to test drive an electric car in December, courtesy of the lovely people over at ESB. The competition that I won asked the question, “Why do you want to test drive an electric car?” “For the craic” didn’t seem like a winning answer, so my response alluded to the very excellent 2006 documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, which explores the brief rise and fall of the battery-powered automobile in California in the 1990s. I wanted to know if the electric car could be resurrected.

 I went to the ESB offices on Fitzwilliam Street, where I was given details on how the eCar will be rolled out across Ireland in 2011. I have to say, their commitment to the process is really encouraging. Having installed the first on-street charge points in March 2010, the plan is to have 1,500 public charge points around the country by the end of 2011. One of the great criticisms of electric cars is that the battery won’t get you very far the Mitsubishi I drove has a range of 150km – 180km on a full charge), so the plan to have 30 fast charge points around the country, including along motorways is encouraging – with the potential to make the M1 the world’s first transnational electric car highway. Fast charge points provide an 80% top-up in 20-25 minutes, compared to the 6-8 hours need for full battery recharge at normal charging points.

However, the real deal stealer for those with an interest in owning an electric car (apart from the no emissions stuff) is the very low cost of running eCars. Driving an eCar costs just 1-2 cent per kilometre, compared to 10-12 cent per kilometre for conventional cars. Also, eCars don’t have the moving parts that you would usually find in the motor of a conventional car, therefore the replacement car parts you would need to get are mostly limited to brake pads and tyres.

 As for the drive itself – I was very impressed! I got into my Mitsubishi MiEV, got the low down on the controls (most eCars have automatic transmission, which is nice for city driving) and what I was seeing on the dashboard.  It’s such a strange sensation turning the ignition for the first time – nothing happens. Like turning the key in a car with a flat battery – except a little green light comes on to tell you you’re ready to drive! The drive is smooth and the car has plenty of acceleration (dispelling another common misconception about electric cars).

But – and for me it was a big but – the silence of the car in unnerving. Whatever the positive impacts of electric cars might be on noise pollution, as a cyclist I’m aware of how much people use their sense of hearing to navigate their way around town – particularly cyclists with hoods up on a rainy day. Furthermore, our work with the Nation al Council for the Blind has alerted me to the grave concerns they have for their members, who rely on hearing alone to detect oncoming traffic. Many eCar manufacturers have installed simulated motor noises in the vehicles, and I for one think it should be mandatory. Particularly as my co-driver and Mitsubishi rep regaled me with tales of near death incidents for American cyclists having close encounters with the eCars that the postal service on the Aran Islands is using.

So all in all, brilliant cars to drive, a wonderful concept, and ESB are fully committed to the resurrection of the eCar, but a couple of minor tweaks are needed to stop them becoming environmentally-friendly death machines. And at €30,000 a pop (including government grant of €5,000) I think I’ll wait until the price comes down before snapping one up!

What’s so innovative about Dublin’s creative industries?

CreativeD took part in the annual Innovation Dublin festival through the CreativeD member showcase – which offered visitors the chance to engage with some of Dublin’s most innovative and creative people; to learn about leading edge technologies and processes and explore how they can contribute to making Dublin a more vibrant creative and cultural place.

The showcase was attended by some of the key decision makers within Dublin’s creative and cultural industries.

The following CreativeD members were on-hand to present their latest innovations, in an engaging and interactive manner:

 TwelveHorses

Gabrielle Stafford presented their new technological development VIZI, which is a unique data visualisation platform designed to be used by non technical users. It integrates quickly and seamlessly with existing systems to show what really matters, by presenting data in a fast, dynamic and intuitive visual interface.

 3^rd Dimension

With the recession forcing many retailers to pull down their shutters, high streets in many cities and towns around the country are beginning to resemble ghost towns. With this in mind, Nick Polley from 3rd Dimension have arrived at an innovative solution that counteracts all the negatives ensuring that the remaining businesses and retailers continue to survive and that means making sure our high streets and town-centres look as attractive as possible to shoppers, tourists & potential business investors.

 The Virtual Shopfronts give the impression that the vacant shop unit is actually occupied. Apart from being visually attractive and very realistic, they are an ideal way to show the potential of empty retail units. They even have the capability to inspire new businesses to setup throughout our cities and towns.

 Ethical Sector Communications

Rory Sturdy from Ethical Sector Communications developed a visual presentation of how mathematics plays a key role in design, art and nature – and how he has applied this to the development of his latest online communications project – Mary Robinson Foundation Climate Justice  http://www.mrfcj.org/. You can check out Rory’s fascinating video here http://vimeo.com/16907457

Act4Business

Celine Mullins and her team of actors presented a unique workshop where attendees learned how subtle changes in their communication can make all the difference in business and life!

Joris Vreeke

Joris worked with attendees to help them communicate their message online. He offered expert advice on how this can be done by designing engaging and effective websites or by developing high-end intelligent web services and everything in between.

 Precious

Precious’s display showcased how innovations in rapid prototyping are both accessible and can be applied by many small Irish businesses.

 They exhibited the journey of RP design innovation, raw models, partly built models, finished models, with a short video showing the stages in design and finished designs – a process for most industries that can go from unique sketch to completed design within a working week!

 HelixID

Martin Moylan from HelixID engaged with the attendees by demonstrating the advantage he has over others, in that no other small company can provide such a vast range of quality marketing skills tailored for individual customers. Martin provides a centralized source for business marketing, through the following media:

 Logo Design

• Publishing
• Web Design
• Social Networking
• Corporate Marketing
• Video Production
• Animated Logos & Idents

 RiseCreatives

Nina Lyons from RiseCreatives demonstrated how they have adopted emerging technology to assist their members in promoting their work and themselves. Mobile phones have taken on a greater emphasis in people’s lives in recent years. With the launch of the iphone and the android equivalents, people are using their phones differently. RiseCreatives see this advancement in the use of mobile phones, particularly augmented reality, as a very valuable tool for their members. The ability to use the camera of the mobile phone to see real time digital information, displayed in a real world context, allows users to locate and access work by their members in galleries and shops immediately around them.

 Ingenious Guides

 Mary Mulvihill brought along audio samples of her revolutionary new Audio Guides, which offer people the chance to stroke volcanic ash or Jurassic creatures on the streets of Dublin, and explore the Hill of Tara, to walk in the footsteps of high kings and heroes.

Innovation Dublin and The Meaning of Innovation

Innovation Dublin 2010

Innovation Dublin 2010 was launched yesterday at the Wood Quay Venue on the boards oft trod by Newmarket Consulting in their role as Innovation Coaches with CreativeD (along with Karan Thompson, of course).  At the launch Lord Mayor Gerry Breen opened by saying that the meaning of innovation is often questioned.  If only Monty Python were still around to solve it for us….

He also said innovation is in danger of becoming a cliché, so we need to great real about innovation.  There is no doubt that innovation is a term that has become overused (look how many times I’ve used it already!) and, as such, can suffer from misunderstanding, misuse and often mistrust.  It has also become lauded as the solution to all economic and social ills.  So can innovation rise to the challenge of “divining a path out of where we are today?”.

Surely that is what Innovation Week is about? i.e. to show real examples of something that is new or reconfigured that adds value whether in a technological, organisational or social context.

One of the things about CreativeD that excites us the most, besides the contagious passion of the creative industries for what they do, is that we get to work with people who continuously create newness, who see things differently and translate their thoughts into products, services and technologies.  They represent the opposite of what the Lord Mayor called the “habitual mode” of doing things in the same way because we’re used to it.  The only habit we have seen in CreativeD is to continually strive to change and to develop solutions to problems or needs we may not even know we have yet.  That has to be what innovation is all about.

Like many things, innovation is best understood by way of example.  Whether you are an innovation fanatic or sceptic, you should come and see real examples of innovation designed and developed in Dublin at the CreativeD showcase on November 18^th in the Mansion House from 11.00 a.m. to 2.00pm.  Innovations ranging from rapid prototyping processes, data visualisation tools, augmented reality, new apps and web design methodologies, or how acting can improve your business, will delight the fanatics, convince the sceptics and educate the confused.

Other great examples mentioned at the launch were the Innovation Studio (their exhibition on the 2nd Floor of the Civic Offices is well worth a visit), the live streaming of Tosca on www.platformireland.ie and George Boyle’s Fumbally Exchange.  There are many more and details can be found on http://www.innovationdublin.ie.  See all you can and celebrate our achievements – we must be doing something right if we are as Minister Conor Lenihan pointed out the 2^nd most entrepreneurial country in the EU and the 4^th most entrepreneurial in the OECD.

Long may innovation and entrepreneurship continue and pave the path to positive social and economic change.

Anything The Monkeys Don’t – Culture and the City 4

“Culture is roughly anything we do and the monkeys don’t” – Lord Raglan

Definitely my favourite quote from the rather excellent fourth instalment of “Culture and the City” held in Dublin City Council’s Wood Quay Venue on Thursday 21^st October. Surrounded by remnants of the ancient Dublin City walls, and some of the most influential people in Dublin’s creative and cultural circles, it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement of it all. Paul Hayes, who forms part of the Steering Committee for the International Content Industry Association, enthused, “Dublin Rocks”!, and with excellent events such as Culture Night and my ongoing education with the CreativeD network, I’d have to agree.

However, as excellent an event as this was, we still face the same looming issue. Dublin does rock, but it can certainly be improved to create a more collaborative and supportive environment for those with a passion for the development of the arts, cultural and creative sectors in Dublin. And, based on attendance at a number of similar-ish events this year, passion is not hard to come by. And it’s very much the same group of people that you meet at these events – tireless Grainne Millar from the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, Willie White from the Project Arts Centre whose questions I always wish I’d asked, the wise Gerry Godley. With such talented people on board, you would imagine that it wouldn’t be difficult to foment decisive action from the passion and debate. It seems the time for talk is coming to an end, I really hope so.

The event’s speakers were from a range of backgrounds, and all of them were very enthusiastic, and often very funny. No more so than Stephen McGowan, Head of Creative Industries and Innovation at the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure in Northern Ireland (first of all, why don’t we have a similar body, specifically established for the Creative and Cultural Industries here?). Stephen spoke about two key elements with regards to developing the CCIs in Ireland. Firstly, people in the sector need to work in partnership with each other. He’s mad about partnership and collaboration, and so am I. He says it’s because he wants people to like him. Maybe so do I. It seems obvious that collaboration is a pre-requirement for the sector to develop, but it’s not being done enough. Maybe we need a formal structure, a go-to place, where people can collaborate and bring their ideas. More about that towards the end of this Blog. The second element of his argument is that the CCIs should not be seen as a separate sector of themselves, creative and cultural input should be seen as a catalyst for progress across all government departments.

I could talk about all of the other speakers, and their argument for the importance of the CCIs, all day long, but I fear I’m one of the few readers who have made it to paragraph 4, so I’ll synopsise.

Michael Stubbs, Assistant City Manager, talked about some new creative and cultural developments currently underway in the city, most prominently our very own CreativeD. And also, “The Studio”, an ideation office for Dublin City Council employees which is very exciting. I’d love to see a “The Studio” for whole city, but one step at a time I guess.

Denis Roche from Vivartas showed a Nationwide video about his brilliant Open Windows project, where he projects family pictures and artistic images on the walls of hospital isolation for people who have spent too long looking at the four walls of their hospital rooms during their long-term hospital stays.

Paul Hayes gave an insight into the International Content Services Centre, which was one of the overall winners of Your Country Your Call for Neil Leyden. The ISCS will initially operate as a clearing house for international content, but will hopefully grow into something a lot more interesting and exciting.  Paul also gave a fascinating insight into how Ireland is at the forefront of the computer gaming industry, with such big hitters as Havok, Demonware, Zinga, Jolt and Blizzard operating here. Although the fact that we are so closely tied to the horrific Farmville, Facebook’s biggest app, made me a little embarrassed.

Finishing the event off was Cr. Pete Lunn, an economist from ESRI. But not any old economist, he spoke about how we value culture in the context of behavioural economics. It wasn’t boring. In fact, it was brilliantly engaging to see how economics is beginning to move away from the idea of markets valuing things, and taking into account that people have emotions, thoughts, opinions that all impact on their behavioural decisions.

In closing the event, Grainne Millar asked that something tangible come of the event. “Yes please Grainne” I thought. She suggested that we all go away and think about the formation of a creative space in Dublin where the evolution of the cultural and creative industries can be discussed on a more continuous basis. Watch this space for more on that….

One Who Teaches With Experience – part2

Everywhere we went in the Camara van we were greeted with waves and smiles. It’s clear that awareness of Camara’s is growing. Our driver Joshua, another remarkable man who volunteers as a driver for Camara, works as a preacher, and wants to become a computer technician through the training and experience he receives with Camara, told me about his burning ambition to “spread the light of Camara”. He believes that Camara should eventually be able to reach even the most rural areas of Kenya over the coming years, and he spoke with passion about the great difference it would make for the rural people of Kenya to have easy access to the volumes of educational information Camara computers provide.

 

Camara’s growing popularity cannot be attributed solely to the beneficence of the Irish people in providing computers to Africa. The computer provision model is not a unique one in Kenya, indeed computers are available to schools through other NGOs and public bodies. Camara’s achievements, however, have been driven by the unrivalled support they provide to the schools and community-based initiatives they supply with computers. Another volunteer, Jay, who has been tasked with the responsibility of opening up and staffing Camara’s newest hub in the World Heritage Site of Lamu Island, explained to me that when computers become faulty, it is just as expensive to repair them as it is to buy a whole new computer. Camara however, provide computer skills training to two teachers from every school they provide computers to, and also provide free maintenance for 6 months for the computers they supply. Schools then have the choice of extending that warranty by a further 6 months for the sum of roughly €1 per computer. “That” he explains, “is why Camara is the only project that is very successful”.

It is clear to me that education really is the best way to help Africa reach its great potential, and that Camara are providing African nations with invaluable tools and skills with this goal in mind. To the old maxim “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” can be added “Give him a computer and he can do a correspondence programme in best-practice fishery management, and blog about it to his Tweeps.” Or something like that.