As I mentioned, I thought it might make more sense that we blogged our ideas, we can keep all the relevant research and links as we go along. Why did I call it ramshacklemedia?
1. I really like the word ‘ramshackle’, and I’ve always thought I’d like to use it somwhere
2. It kind of expresses partly what I think we can offer i.e. the ability for people to create in whatever media they want, using whatever is at hand, and not to be afraid of experimenting
But really it’s not that important, just what came into my head after the 3rd coffee this morning.
What we discussed on Thursday can be boiled down to the following, based on the rather grand premise that society in general is becoming more audiovisually literate, that we’re moving more into a visual culture which created by ‘us’ not just ‘professionals’:
– there’s a gap in the market here in the Third Sector for people wanting to create audiovisual material either internally or for their external media presence (or for team building activities)
– this material is usually in the form of short films which illustrate case studies about what the organisations do, how they interact with service users of all sorts etc or news items from events
– increasingly, this is seen as part of the role of all press and pr departments, who currently receive training usually in other places, not Cardiff
-though being confident with technology of all sorts is important, being able to craft and edit a story is equally important, be that using a mobile phone, flip camera or professional kit
– being able to offer a cheap, open source alternative is always good news, and will increasingly become better news as more money is cut from the sector (in my book, it’s also morally good use of software which should be free, but we can talk about that some other day…..)
– increasingly, organisation use such material as qualitative proof for funders of what they do, and for some organisations, getting service users to use such techologies is a way to teach broader IT skills – there are a lot of funding schemes here in Wales trying to get people to do this…..
What I propose is that we do some research, find out if there’s a viable business for us to build. Start small, see what happens. If you’ve got a spec that you can put together in terms of what you offer in your one day training course, all the better. I’ve got to write a piece for the WCVA newsletter soon, and I’d like to be able to offer/promote a service . As an organisation Pawb (not-for-profit, been going for roughly 9 years – clients include a spectrum from broadcasters to local authorities , even HM prison service – website currently being redeveloped, so current one is a bit old unfortunately), and as director I span both telly and the third sector, with social research being my main thing (when there’s work…..) – one of my current main projects is S4C Support, offering helplines etc as well as the site, which we’ve developed over the years. Over 300 organsiations in the backend database, and we control this bit of the S4C site – we’re offering organsiations space in this bit to show off more about what they do (for free), and will encourage them to give us any audiovisual material they might have…..
I’m also chair of Inroads, a succesful drug and alcohol agency based in Cardiff and the Vale (again developing a new website).
We can talk about costs etc after a bit of research, but I can definitely see there might be a business here. There’s probably quite a few people doing it already – I know some in Cardiff (so do you I guess), but not many.