A change in direction?!?

Hi all!

Since our last post, our project has progressed a lot... where to begin?!?

Firstly, we created an online questionnaire which is up and running. We are getting some very positive feedback so far and some interesting comments for us to consider.

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=vpcuc5mju70wi91663181

After this stage, Jen and myself met to research funding opportunities and decide which would be most appropriate for us to apply for. We also emailed some contacts we have in the PR industry to ask for their advice on funding. (We are still waiting to hear back from anyone)

Alongside this, we also emailed lecturers we felt would be beneficial to speak to about our project in terms of their expertise; this included Jon Hickman, a social media and web specialist. We wanted to hear his thoughts on the online network feature of the website and Alex (our web designer) in particular was interested in the feasibility of building the website and its features we propose in the time given for us to complete the project.

Jon was very helpful and told us about a similar website; Media Talent Bank. It is an online website with very similar features to ours and is funded by the university and created by Screen Media Lab. With none of us having heard of this website, Jon suggested we get in contact with the producers of it to discuss how the website was created and the challenges they came up against to educate our own project.

We took on Jon’s advice and got in touch with Screen Media Lab to arrange a meeting. We got a very prompt reply saying they were more than happy to meet and discuss Media Talent Bank. They also proposed a very interesting and exciting opportunity that may result in a change of direction for a project... the opportunity to manage Media Talent Bank for the duration of our project.

However, nothing is set in stone yet! We are meeting with Screen Media Lab tomorrow at 2pm so we shall see what comes of that and kick a few ideas around!

Will keep you updated on that...

With this potential change in the project, we have put the funding research on hold for the moment until we are clearer about the direction we are heading in. But we have started to put together a critical path analysis which will help us to determine what it is that our project involves and the stages in which it occurs.

Hello!!

Hello, and welcome to our blog - Creative Cluster!!

We are a collective of third year students at Birmingham City University, we are all studying Media and Communications BA Hons and as part of our final year work we need to produce a production project. This is where our blog comes in.. we have decided to blog about our journey and the highs and lows that come with it!!

THE IDEA....

We propose to create an online hub where students and graduates can connect with one another on a professional basis but also be part of a scheme to showcase their work, which will run in Birmingham giving creative students the opportunity to keep updating their portfolios.

We want the site to be like a social networking site for the Creative Industries in the Midlands, where students, graduates and professionals can network freely together. We eventually want to hub to become a space where students and graduates from all specialisms pro-actively produce work together, keeping their CVs and portfolios up to date. We will then hold quarterly events to showcase this work, however this is the future of the scheme. Our first major product from the website will be the launch.. but there will be more information on this as we go on.

So what have we been doing so far? We have been setting out our agenda from now and up to Christmas, and held several informal meetings where we have managed to distribute jobs between ourselves.

Our first formal meeting was held on Monday 2nd November: We sectioned out our market research and who was going to be looking at each area...

Alex would look at similar websites, how they function and the visual design and I am going to look at these websites also but look more into what organisations run them, who they target and how they are funded etc..

Sarah and Jenny are both looking at the potential income, costs, code of conduct and funding opportunities and sponsorship.

We also met with our tutor Julia O'Hare on 11th November to discuss the idea and make sure we were working in the right direction.

So, this is the beginning and hopefully whoever reads this will enjoy our journey and look forward to joining us when we are up and running!... as part of our audience research we are putting together questionnaires which we will post up here and if you could fill one out that would be great!

Thanks,

Jaime

(Managing Director)

welcome.

This is OUR creative cluster :)