Producer Blog – insides on the outside

After urging everyone else to start blogging, I thought I should take the plunge myself.  I had a Skype chat with Jen this morning, still a new experience for me, and she mentioned that we’re not blogging about the project itself yet in that transparent, showing the process on the outside way which we said we would.  I agree. There’s a lot of ‘behind the scenes’ project chat on email and phone on the mechanics of how this all works. Maybe the backroom team also need to get blogging, scary though that is. So I thought I’d take the plunge and encourage everyone else to as well.

How things are going in producer mode are like this – I’m seeing the blogs roll in now and creative work and comments starting to emerge and that’s brilliant as it’s the heart of the project.   More comments on them and chatter would be great as all the content that goes up helps the whole project evolve. Jen signposted me to other blogs I want to check out – it’s a fast track learning curve on using the blog creatively.  A designer is now working to customise the blog look – progress on that in January but maybe work in progress before then. Mentor conversations are starting to happen. We’re looking for a date in the New Year when the project can officially ‘go live’ and be networked to audiences and go broader in its reach.  That’s all in the ‘action’ zone. Behind the scenes, contracts and agreements on people’s roles are being developed, printed and posted as the roles kick into action.  Then catch up phonecalls to see how people are doing.  I’m trying to create a flexible timetable which reflects the key points in the residencies – when all the works in progress/feedbacks are going to come in so the mentors all know when they’ll be asked to look at new work and respond.  We’re thinking about what sort of marketing strategy will help us spread the word furthest about the project, making use of all the Web 2 resources as well as more familiar print and so on. And also always thinking of ways to bring in further funding so the live showcases of the new work can happen.    A project like this is always working on loads of different levels at once and shaping that as the producer, giving the support that’s needed and making sure everyone’s empowered to go forward with their contribution is a real challenge!  Project management in a web 2.0 world – where there’s an ever changing stream of information and ideas and resources to connect with . . .

The creative work out of the residencies will be the best bit out of this project and one which will keep us all connected into that heart of it – place, people’s responses to place, what place means to us today.  The blog, while showing all that off and helping develop it, also seems to me to explore people’s responses to virtual place.  One thing Mel said to me which has really stuck with me, ‘people go to the content, they don’t go to the platform’.  I think that’s absolutely true and excitement about the digital possibilities can sometimes forget that – content is all important!  Then I spent time at the weekend watching Survivors on my laptop through iplayer, and catching a bit of last night’s episode on TV felt like a completely different experience. Maybe I’m mad. I believed it more on the laptop. I felt more transported into the futuristic reality more because I was watching a downloaded webstream on a digital device…  The platform definitely influenced my viewing experience.  How short a step from there to influencing content?  And in comparison, going through the web to read about Jay’s experience on the allotment, and seeing snapshots, hand written text from a notepad is so much more interesting and direct in getting to the experience than this blog – type, type, words, words…  I’ll try and have a think about the best way to show what’s going on in producer land on the blog  -  happy to take any suggestions!

Naomi