New Media at the Digital Arts Expo

This week I had the pleasure of presenting a seminar about 'New Media' at the first ever Digital Arts Expo locally (MIDA 2008). The seminar explored successful new media initiatives taking place globally within Vodafone companies and why digital media players such as MySpace and Yahoo are teaming with Vodafone.

Apart from the Vodafone seminar there were a number of very good seminars / workshops:
Allied Newspapers shared their redesign of their daily and weekly newspapers;
A number of seminars / workshops related to Apple's range of products (Final Cut, iLife, etc.)
A selection of practical seminars related to the printing industry (Metal FX, Canon)

Other highlights at the expo were the Digital Artist Gallery Zone and the Advertising Agencies Gallery Section. A Mac Lab was also set for attendees to get their hands dirty on one of the 25 iMac on show.

In one of my future posts I plan to draw up a wish list of what BLAB wishes to see at next year's expo.

Business in Art [2]

From email invite:

Artistswantit will be organising the second in its series of seminars. As always, it shall be held in a very informal approach where the participants will be able to stop and question the speaker at any time.

This week's seminar will be addressed by Prof. Richard England, an architect by profession, but also an artist and owner of an art gallery. His expertise on the topic should really give the attendees an deeper insight into how to tackle their art entrepreneurially.

Creativity is just the beginning

IBM has recently launched this commercial. The statement IBM is trying to make sends out a tough message to the creative community, clearly distinguishing creativity from innovation. As Tom Peters puts it: "Creativity is the thinking, Innovation is the doing".

Around 2 weeks ago, I blogged about the first session of ArtistWantit, A student project which aims to empower artists to make a living out of their art. The first session tackled Business in Art. Allow me to play with words and turn the title round so as to read "Art in Business".

If the business community is in great need of innovation, and the artist is full of ideas (or rather 'ideating'), isn't the bridge clear?! Artists and Entrepreneurs should join forces on the doing and there you have it...innovation!

Tomorrow: Business in Art [1]

In my University days I had dreamt about a project which would empower artists to make a living out of their art. SIFE, which stands for 'Students in Free Enterprise' had adopted this project and following the good feedback it received from other SIFE members world-wide, decided to take it forward (even now that I am totally out of it). I am glad to blog about the first of a series of sessions related to Artist Want it. From the press release:

Artists Want It is an initiative that tries to bring closer the often conflicting worlds of art and business. Through a series of seminars we seek to instill in artists, hailing from all the creative fields, a sense of entrepreneurship. Your passion for art can be sustainably transformed into a real money making business, and as surreal and platonic as they may sound, we truly believe that all forms of arts offer such an opportunity.

The first of these seminars will be held this Thursday 13th March, starting at 7:00pm sharp at Q Bar (Valletta Waterfront) and to show you how nice we are, its even FREE!

Bookings are open as from today, so now all that's left for you to do is decide who of your friends you're going to take with you and give us a call on either 79065256 or 99274674 or if its easier for you just drop us an email on sifeumt@gmail.com Otherwise should you need more details you could visit our website www.artistswantit.com