Anonymity- we can all use the safety cushion that technology and the internet provides us with if we so choose. Ample opportunities abound on many fora to simply register some meaningless email address, sign-up with a bogus identity, load bullets of text onto an open platform as a troll, and then watch your enemies fire warning shots across your bow or score direct hits on target.
My personal opinion about this practice is one predominantly of cowardice by the anonymous user.
Of course there are exceptions in extreme cases, where freedom of speech invokes a fatwa, or daring to express one’s opinions leads to disciplinary action from one’s employer, but in the western culture (with the exception of inciting racial hatred or contravening the UK Terrorism Act 2006 by disseminating terrorist publications) generally the freedom to express one’s views and opinions in public, whether that be written or spoken, is a human right and forms part of standard daily discourse.
This however does not remove the ‘fear factor’ when dealing with subject matter that is known to be opposed by colleagues, evoking argument with those that hold opposing views. Conflict is never easy to manage or engage with in any circumstance, but imagine this situation: the stage is yours, the podium is your battleground and you have an audience that have attended specifically to hear your speech. But, on the stage alongside you are the representatives of the very organisations you are about to criticise. Then, add into the mix the subject matter you are about to discuss is the Catholic faith itself, globally the second largest religious practice.
Homophobia, contraception, child abuse. The content is sensitive material. The approach is one entirely of attack and criticism, born from issues that directly oppose the speakers views, simply because they affect the very essence of his daily life. The motion under consideration is “The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world”
The presentation style is helped greatly by the fact that the speaker is a respected celebrity, an educated man, an eloquent speaker. The words spoken use passion as a weapon, and personal experience as a shield.
I give up – throw the towel in – resign – chicken out. Call it what you will.
I was thinking about investigating how computer generated graphics work in a video context, in order to try to enhance some very basic animation, so ran a search to see what sort of examples were available, just so I could see some good case studies that pushed the imagination. And no, I’m not talking about flash bang explosions, or men turning into robots for an all-out death race in outer space shoot-em up either.
I’m talking about the artistic interpretation of ideas- the creative realisation of thoughts and images inside one’s head.
I really wish I hadn’t bothered.
This piece, The Third and Seventh, by Alex Roman is an absolutely stunning demonstration of where the pinnacle of cgi currently stands for me. Produced using 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere, remarkably, there are only 5 segments that are not cgi: the photographer (shot on greenscreen), pigeons, timelapsed growing flowers, flying airplane and sky backgrounds. All the rest is pure cgi, rendered on an i7 920 and a QX6850.
Fantastic work Alex.
Beautiful. Poetic. Sublime. Cutting edge – most definitely.
Now, please do Alex’s piece justice- turn up the volume, and watch full screen in HD.
As part of the usual European Tour when promoting singles, artists will go from national TV station, to national TV station, performing the same song time after time.
My involvement in this year 2000 tour was stage design coordinator, technical specification & set up consultant, camera jimmy jib, and crew management.
The brief was for a 7 minute turn-around in between sets, to enable very fast scene changes between artists, which involved coordinating a crew of 30 technical stage hands.
The turn-around involved complete set up of all equipment, including pa, instruments, mics, foldback, plus all the TV equipment.
The total time we had to rehearse the schedule with the artist was 4 hours, so a huge amount of pre-production and planning was involved.
It was events such as these that proved to be my grounding and learning for the future.
Amazing what you can do with a bit of applied knowledge.
This short video shows the stage of the Lowry Arts Centre in Manchester- the screen and corporate stage set is a temporary 1-day installation, for an event I produced and coordinated for the British Council of Shopping Centres, back in 1999. The video itself shows just a small part of the event- this piece is just the opening introduction that was captured in an empty conference hall during technical rehearsal checks.
Using powerpoint and photoshop images as the background, the embedding and overlaying of live video, afterfx, graphics, text and moving images are produced from a system called Suite P. The system incorporated all the above, and also allowed for live camera relay and incomming satellite video links to be placed anywhere on the screen, on-demand, during the event.
Owned by Blitz Communications (the production company I was working for at the time), the system is based around 3, soft-edge masked large screen digital video projectors, with images hitting the screen to produce a 20×8m image, from a distance of approximately 100metres, front projected.
The technical knowledge behind the design of the software system and soft-edge masking controller was completed by Alan Cox, and the widescreen display programmer was Richard Turner. I’ve got to give a huge hat-tip to those guys- they were (and still are) so far ahead of the game (remember this is 1999 we’re talking about here).
The system was installed overnight after the orchestra had vacated the stage, and was up and running for 8am the following morning. If memory serves me correct, there were 8 technical staff on the crew for this event.
It just goes to show just how forward thinking the appliance of technical skills and expertise can push the boundaries. I feel privileged to be able to work with such technical experts from time to time. It’s guys like these that shape the future of technology, so standards such as this become commonplace in the hi-tech world we live in today.
If this type of presentation is something you are interested in for your events, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
So, it’s 3.19am, I’ve just saved 3000 words as a draft, and I spot a tweet from Hannah: “A watched Posterous never autoposts.”
So, now I’m stuck for creativity and inspiration, it’s time for some fresh air.
The heavens have gently, silently delivered another 2 inches of beautiful virgin snow outside. “Ah what the hell, it won’t hurt” thinks I. So, with my iphone in hand, out I go to the garden, and grab this:
Snow Tree
So, now inspired (and cold), I search for “snow, trees and video” on Google, and it comes up with this:
Inspiration and platform found in one go. Thank you Ommwriter- you look delightful…tomorrow I’ll have a play.
Now it’s time for a quick Balvenie- hell I’m going to go get all natural with it- usually I’d add a little water, but there’s snow outside, and it’s wonderful.
This time I’ll put a coat on, and add a small scoop of snow into the glass.
Who says I don’t think about the environment.
Filmed in early December 2009, I manage to catch up with Clare at home, immediately before a performance with Notorious Choir in Birmingham city centre, and straight off the back of a trip to India.
I ask about what drives her, where her passion comes from, and what sort of things in her work make her happy with what she achieves.
Featuring exclusive rehearsal footage, we see a short insight behind Clare’s daily life…
Some of the photographs within the above video were kindly supplied by Andrew Dubber and Jez Collins. You can find more about their India project at http://dubberandjez.posterous.com/, part of the Un-Convention series
Following a recent presentation I gave to BCU lecturers last week, the question of “What is Gov 2.0?” was raised, and by pulling aggregated information from various sources, I set about explaining. Then on Thursday, I gave a short presentation to the Solihull’s Councillors that are kicking around ideas based on developing their own social media strategies to help them engage further with their constituencies (well done to them all for embracing this idea- it’s good to see them all having a go, supported by local volunteers of course).
Drawing from Pete Ashton’s blog post, explaining his interpretation of “What is Web 2.0?” – “… is about online services talking to each other using standardised data. The reason Flickr is a Web 2.0 service isn’t because it hosts people’s photos. It’s because you can take photos of your city, mix them with Wikipedia pages about your city, add in some Twitter messages from your city and plot them on a Google Map of your city. Automatically. That’s Web 2.0.”
Today, Dominic Campbell posted this link, to a video compiled by O’Reilly Media, and hopefully this offers a few more interpretations, to help you draw your own opinions:
The adoption of Gov 2.0 and Web 2.0 practices are going to continue to grow and develop here, and I dare say that some key points will be used as carefully selected election campaign principles over the coming 12 months by all parties.
There’s certainly a lot of movement in this area happening right now, and it will be interesting for me to see how this all turns out in the long run.
Here’s Tim Berners-Lee’s recent interview, purely for a little background info.
UPDATE (7th December 2009)- Peter Alexander has posted some developments today; “Here is the draft Government 2.0 Taskforce report Engage: Getting on with Government 2.0. The Taskforce is seeking your comments and input before finalising the report to go to Government.” http://gov2.net.au/blog/2009/12/07/draftreport/
Publisher, agent, social entrepreneur, company director, serious networker and a busy busy busy lady.
Justice tells me what sort of things really drive her forward, and how she feels about the current plans and programmes that are offered to young entrepreneurs like her, and the people she works with.
A few home truths within, this comes straight from the heart- deliberately unedited.
Echoing the words of Dermot Finch, Justice doesn’t sit on the fence here- “Birmingham doesn’t sing enough” “Give Back” “Get Creative” “Take Risks” “Less talk- More action” … you’ll see what she means just by clicking the Play button.
Walk into a bank or go see a business adviser, ask them for support, tell them that your business plan involves being a pirate, and I wonder what their reaction will be. Perhaps you will be welcomed as a ruthless profit-hungry captain of industry, or maybe your costume will lead to security guards removing you from the premises.
Marxist and Hippy “lets all share stuff and be creative friends” working practices may work well on communes, where there is no money exchanged, and vegetables flourish. This principal may work well for deploying a successful social media strategy, but the focus of the recent “Big Debate” event was about financial gain for the UK, not how well Birmingham can pat itself on the back and chat amongst each other. The strap line brief behind the event (hosted by Birmingham City University and supported by the Birmingham Post) was “Can the Midlands’ creative industries revolutionise the UK economy?”
Familiar faces from the digital industries attended, and an audience research exercise was completed during the day by the university. Charles Leadbeater gave a speech at the start of the day that seemed to inspire the attendees, the audio of which you can listen to here:
Interestingly, Mr. Leadbeater’s book, We Think, employed a wiki style writing and development process, involving 257 contributors, none of whom appear to have received any financial gain from their creative input to the book. At first glance, it seems that the financial winners from this have been the book publishers and Mr. Leadbeater himself. The volunteer contributors are perhaps happy with the gratification and knowledge that their creative work has been published and recognised, thus following the context of the book itself, and the wiki philosophy. However, gratification and pride do not put bread on the table, or a roof over one’s head. If We Think were to make significant profits for Mr Leadbeater, it would be an interesting exercise to see what the volunteer contributor’s reactions would be. Is Mr. Leadbeater following a business model based on principles historically employed by Bartholomew Roberts (1)?
At the event, there seemed to be an over-population of local professionals involved with the digital industries in attendance, as was expected. However, there appeared to be a distinct lack of business leaders, strategists, venture capitalists, manufacturers (of physical goods as opposed to online publishers and designers) and representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and the financial sector. This in itself was a significant realisation for me. Yet again, the focus appeared to be inwards; one of internal self congratulation and mutual support, as opposed to external market dominance and global sales success.
Revolutionise – a strong word indeed. The word revolution brings me thoughts of complete change, an extreme opposite direction, led by a strong figurehead, and ruthless practices, employing winning tactics where power is seized and used for maximum gain. This is what a pirate was throughout history- not some sort of cavalier, romantic character from a Hollywood block buster movie.
The historical success of a pirate involved entrepreneurial planning, direction, navigation, stealth, and above all, strong leadership that employed the ruthless practices of plunder, murder, theft and total destruction of the opposition. This was competition at its most extreme, where survival of the fittest was the ultimate goal. Pirates did not need a design committee, steering or focus group.
Translate this into business practice, and appear alongside a competitor with the fluffy communal sharing values as described above, deploy your cutlass, and victory will be yours.
Business is not a meal around a table where everybody makes a nice dish and shares amongst friends. It is a battle for market share and dominance- where shareholders are king, demanding more bounty for further greed and expansion, and failure to deliver the treasure leads to someone walking the plank, for sure.
Business success directly translates to profit. To achieve this, good case studies (of which there are many), have proven that planning and focus on the task in hand are of paramount importance. This means that a business model follows good leadership that is supported by a strong financial model for profit and gain. This does not involve a creative process- it is a simple rule of good business practice. Whatever creative process is involved in developing the product, there comes a time when profit must be gained to ensure continued sustainability and growth. This means manufacturing a product for one price, and selling this for a profit- a simple, straightforward and proven strategy. To deliver profit requires successful planning, definition, leadership and direction, not a creative experiment. The product can be developed via a creative process, but there comes a time in any business that the focus must switch to the importance of actually making profit.
“Can the Midlands’ creative industries revolutionise the UK economy?” If the Midlands continue to deploy the values discussed at The Big Debate, the real pirates will win the battle for sure.
To contact your nearest business-focused pirate, their headquarters are not located at a dock at the Gas Street Basin. To find them, I suggest you head to London. Some have already set sail.
(1) Charles Johnson (1724), A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, p. 250.
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