Being Creative with Social Media - SAMAG talk

 6.00-8.00pm, Monday 26 July 2010
Australia Council: 372 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills

Facebook... MySpace... YouTube... blogs... Twitter... Social media is the topic of the moment. A recent Nielsen poll found that use of social media in Australia was the highest in the world, ahead of the US, the UK and Europe.

In terms of marketing and promotion, social media offers an inexpensive and potentially highly visible option for artists and arts organisations. As the use of digital technologies increases across society, it offers the opportunity to access and engage with audiences regardless of whether they are large or small, located in the next suburb or even across the world.

Social media also offers the possibility of producing and distributing arts content in new ways, that engage people in a more active and participatory manner… and allow audiences to become creators.

But should artists and arts organisations use social media just because it’s cheap and available? Alongside the opportunities there are also many associated challenges, such as understanding why it is being used, controlling content, tracking and measuring its effectiveness, and knowing when it isn’t relevant.

Join us for an informative seminar exploring the opportunities, realities and challenges of social media and find out how artists and arts organisations, regardless of their size, can use social media to their best advantage.

Speakers

Fee Plumley had no choice but to work in the creative industries from the moment her mother (an illustrator) advised her not to. Things started reasonably enough in the UK Theatre circuit as a Stage Manager/Prop Maker, but on graduating from a BA in Theatre Design & Technology (1995) she became curious about this new fangled thing called 'the internet'. An MA in Interactive Multimedia Production (1997) kick-started a transition into media arts which, rather than leaving any one artform behind, actually attempted to incorporate as many as possible.

Fee has since combined her love for performance and media arts, producing innovative interactive events for clients including Douglas Rushkoff (Ecstasy Club, Manchester 1997) and the Manchester Literature Festival (The Burgess Project, Manchester 2006). Described as a "Techno-Evangelist", she has curated public screen content (GMI, London, 1999 & BBC Bigger Picture, 2004), enabled community webcasting (Superchannel.org 1999-03) and has been a speaker and a juror at several international arts gatherings (ISEA, Banff New Media Institute, AIMIA & BAFTA) and educational establishments.

Best known for encouraging people to be creative with their mobile phones through the-phone-book Limited (UK), Fee continues to techno-evangelise as the new Digital Program Officer at the Australia Council for the Arts.

David Ryding has worked as writer, director, dramaturge and Arts worker and is currently the Director of the New South Wales Writers’ Centre. Prior to this he was the Director of the Emerging Writers’ Festival in Melbourne. He has also been the Artistic Director of South Australian Theatre Company Mainstreet Theatre Company, a company dedicated to new Australian writing about Regional Australia, Associate Director for Children’s Theatre Company Barking Gecko and Festival Director of MUDFEST for Melbourne University Student Union

David has conducted Community Cultural Development programmes across Australia, written and directed theatre in four states and sat on a variety of boards and committees where he could be opinionated. In a former life was a Youth Worker and ran camps for the YMCA.

Lachlan "Warlach" Hibbert-Wells has been involved with social media and digital communications for some time, originally through a thesis at the University of Technology, Sydney, focused on changing modes of interaction and technology, and later through a number of roles in companies and agencies. More recently Lachlan was head of social media for the global Earth Hour campaign followed by freelancing for a range of clients both independently and with a Sydney-based agency before finally joining Daemon Group as their Digital Planning Manager in July.

A lover of all things social and the Internet in general he can be found blogging, Twitter and posting all over the web under his moniker Warlach as well as actively running a number of sites and communities.

RSVP

Please register to Janelle Prescott at info@samag.org or (message only).
FREE ENTRY for 2010 SAMAG Members / $10 for non-members / $5 for students.
Please pay at the door - cash or cheque only.