Full Future Skills Festival Press Release

Download the official, full Future Skills Festival Press Release (pdf) from the University of Portsmouth website

Future Skills: ‘Question Time’

With: John Newbigin (Creative England), Mark Eyles (TIGA), Jon Pratty (Arts Council England), Tom Perkins (Custom Studio)

Date: Monday 20 June 2011
Time: 6.30pm-9pm
Venue: University of Portsmouth Business School (PO1 3DE)
Tickets: £25

What does the future really look like for the creative and cultural industries?

The Future Skills Festival will launch with a live panel discussion and Q&A featuring creative industries experts, led by keynote speaker John Newbigin, Chair of Creative England.

John Newbigin is a freelance cultural entrepreneur and writer. He is currently the Chair of Creative England and of the cultural online publisher Culture24. As Special Advisor to the Minister for Culture, the Rt Hon Chris Smith MP, he was closely involved in developing the UK government’s first policies for the creative industries. He was Head of Corporate Relations for Channel 4 Television and executive assistant to Lord Puttnam as the Chair of the film company, Enigma Productions. Wired magazine lists John as one the UK’s hundred top ‘digital power-brokers’.

The panel will be chaired by Tom Perkins designer, developer and Director of Custom Studio and will include Mark Eyles, Educational Advisor to TIGA, the trade association for the UK games industry and Principle Lecturer in Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth; and Jon Pratty, journalist, digital publishing consultant and Digital and Creative Economy Relationship Manager at Arts Council England South East.

Further panelists to be announced.

The highly subsidised fee for this special event is just £25 per person. Advance booking is essential as numbers are strictly limited. Tickets can be booked and paid for via the University of Portsmouth Online Store.

The event will take place in a modern, fully equipped and accessible lecture theatre at the University of Portsmouth Business School on Portland Street in Portsmouth. Map and directions

For further information email cibas@port.ac.uk or call 023 9284 6232

This event is supported by the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Portsmouth and is part of the Future Skills Festival which takes place in Portsmouth through June and July 2011. The Festival is presented by Cibas, the creative industries business and skills development agency based at the University of Portsmouth.

The Art of Blogging and Social Media

With: Alison Baverstock and Yemisi Blake

Date: Thursday 23 June 2011
Time: 6.30pm-9pm
Venue: University of Portsmouth School of Art, Design and Media (PO1 2DJ)
Tickets: £15

Would you like to use blogging and social media as a platform for presenting new work or for marketing and promoting yourself?

Following the 2009 sell-out Art of Blogging event which was organised by Cibas as part of Havant Literature Festival, Alison Baverstock and Yemisi Blake return to talk about their experience of promoting their work and projects online and offer ideas and suggestions that you can use to develop yours.

Alison Baverstock is the author of Marketing Your Book: an Author’s Guide and Is There a Book in You? She is the resident blogger for the Artists’ and Writers’ Yearbook and leads the MA in Publishing course at Kingston University. Yemisi Blake is a photographer, blogger, Creative Mentor at the Southbank Centre and Associate Artist with All Change.

This event is designed to offer advice and support to any professional (or aspiring professional) creative people with an interest in writing, publishing and creating dynamic and engaging online content that will drive traffic to your site and new audiences to your work.

“Yemisi Blake’s talk illustrated the rich diversity possible in blogging” - Previous Art of Blogging participant

“Both spoke with honesty, and gave both sides of the topic, meaning that we can make an informed and realistic choice.” - Previous Art of Blogging paticipant

“Fantastically enthusiastic speakers!” - Previous Art of Blogging participant

The highly subsidised fee for this special event is just £15 per person which includes all course materials and refreshments. Advance booking is essential as numbers are strictly limited. Tickets can be booked and paid for via the University of Portsmouth Online Store.

The event will take place in a modern, fully equipped and accessible lecture theatre at the University of Portsmouth School of Art, Design and Media on Winston Churchill Avenue in Portsmouth. Map and directions

For further information email cibas@port.ac.uk or call 023 9284 6232

This event is part of the Future Skills Festival which takes place in Portsmouth through June and July 2011. The Festival is presented by Cibas, the creative industries business and skills development agency based at the University of Portsmouth.

Time Management for Creative People

With: Mark McGuinness

Date: Tuesday 28 June 2011
Time: 1pm-4.30pm
Venue: University of Portsmouth Library (PO1 2ST)
Tickets: £20

Manage the mundane, create the extraordinary

Time management may not sound like a sexy topic, but it could make or break your business - not to mention your inspiration.

Many creative people would like nothing better than to shut themselves in a room and get on with their creative work. This isn’t just self-indulgence - creativity requires focus and dedication, which is hard to achieve when the phone doesn’t stop ringing and the email keeps pinging.

As a creative professional, you constantly have to balance your focus on your work with responding to the demands of colleagues, customers and clients. This practical workshop will help you resolve this tension, by finding the time and mental space for focused creative work - whilst still meeting all of your professional commitments.

The topics covered in this workshop will include:

• Finding the method in your creative madness
• Identifying and prioritising your most important work
• Getting in the right state of mind for focused creative work
• How to minimise interruptions and distractions
• How to remember - and fulfil - all your important commitments

Mark McGuinness has been coaching and training creative people for over a decade, and has worked with organisations including the BBC, Channel 4, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, Arts & Business and Cockpit Arts. As well as having authored several highly successful e-books, Mark is a poet and writes two popular blogs about creativity and business: Wishful Thinking and Lateral Action.

This workshop is based in part on Mark’s e-book Time Management for Creative People, which has been downloaded over 100,000 times, and features new material developed since the e-book was published. The workshop is for creative people of all kinds - artists, freelancers, entrepreneurs and anyone else who takes their creativity seriously.

“I liked the way the ideas for managing time were uncomplicated and realistic enough to start fitting them into your everyday life” - Previous participant, Candida Bradley, candipops.com

The highly subsidised fee for this special event is just £20 per person which includes all course materials and refreshments. Advance booking is essential as numbers are strictly limited. Tickets can be booked and paid for via the University of Portsmouth Online Store.

The event will take place in a modern, fully equipped and accessible seminar room at the University of Portsmouth Library on Cambridge Road (Ravelin Park) in Portsmouth. Map and directions

For further information email cibas@port.ac.uk or call 023 9284 6232

This event is part of the Future Skills Festival which takes place in Portsmouth through June and July 2011. The Festival is presented by Cibas, the creative industries business and skills development agency based at the University of Portsmouth.

Build your Digital Toolkit

With: Sinead Mac Manus

Date: Tuesday 5 July 2011
Time: 1pm-4.30pm
Venue: University of Portsmouth Library (PO1 2ST)
Tickets: £20

Social networks, mobile apps, cloud computing… Is the growing choice of digital technologies baffling you?

This practical workshop provides an excellent introduction to the best free and low-cost tools that you can use to productively manage and grow your business with an emphasis on functionality and integration.

You will take away from the workshop the building blocks of a digital toolkit to help you be more productive in your work including:

• Three simple and free ways to build an online presence for your business in under an hour
• The only tool you will ever need to manage all your social networks
• The ultimate tools for managing a stress-free inbox
• A tried and tested system for keeping track of new contacts and potential customers
• Tools for capturing and sharing information with your team
• The best way to manage your business and personal documents
• Three simple ways of never forgetting to do something again

Sinead Mac Manus is the founder of 8fold, a digital well-being company that helps busy people work better. She writes about mindful twenty-first century working at her blog From Apps to Zen and on her curated Facebook page Mindful at Work.

Sinead has written a free e-book, From Apps to Zen: 26+ Ideas for Building a Business with Balance and she is a Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs. A yoga fanatic, she tries to bring a Zen-like quality to her daily life but normally fails due to drinking too many double espressos.

“What a brilliant day that was!! It was great to have ‘real people’ deliver very practical pointers to the maze of web things, social network sites and I am a convert. The workshop was a revelation and delivered appropriate accessibility to the most effective way to make the web work for me” - Previous participant, Ruth Facey, the Travelling Jeweller, Hampshire

“I attended Sinead’s Digital Toolbox seminar in November and found it to be full of useful, practical tips, as well as inspiring. I’ve been to other digital workshops, but Sinead’s are the best of the bunch. Highly recommended” - Previous participant, Richard Brownsdon, ClearlySo, London

“An interesting, enlightening overview of some of the key digital tools to sell and promote yourself digitally as well as how to best manage yourself and your time virtually. Would highly recommend this presentation for all 21st century workers!” - Rob Khan, BBC Radio 1 and freelance producer, London

The highly subsidised fee for this special event is just £20 per person which includes all course materials and refreshments. Advance booking is essential as numbers are strictly limited. Tickets can be booked and paid for via the University of Portsmouth Online Store.

The event will take place in a modern, fully equipped and accessible seminar room at the University of Portsmouth Library on Cambridge Road (Ravelin Park) in Portsmouth. Map and directions

For further information email cibas@port.ac.uk or call 023 9284 6232

This event is part of the Future Skills Festival which takes place in Portsmouth through June and July 2011. The Festival is presented by Cibas, the creative industries business and skills development agency based at the University of Portsmouth.

The Art of Freeranging

With: James Byford

Date: Tuesday 12 July 2011
Time: 1pm-4.30pm
Venue: University of Portsmouth Library (PO1 2ST)
Tickets: £20

Would you like to build a dynamic and diverse career that is as rewarding creatively as it is professionally?
 
Do you ever feel that you’re being pulled in one direction, when you know you should be working in another? Or are you being pulled in too many directions all at once and wondering why you’re stuck in the same old rut?
 
If so, why not become a Freeranger?

But what is Freeranging?
 
Freeranging = portfolio existence = work + play + learning

This unique and engaging session will help you to make the most of your creative skills, how they can be transferred and applied to other sectors and  a truly diverse

James Byford is the Director of Free Range Ltd and has over 16 years experience working on innovative online projects, from launching and developing brands, to facilitating change in global, national and local organisations, and injecting creativity and inspiring people to find pleasure in what they do. 

James was Head of Innovation and Programme Director at iCrossing UK, an international digital marketing company, where he co-created industry-leading social media practice. He has launched national newspapers online with the Mirror Group, established AOL UK’s Travel Channel, created online gaming communities for AOL and Channel 4, co-founded and led a highly-respected, maverick creative boutique called Getfrank, helped launch and relaunch national brands in private and public sectors, helped grow various creative/technology and media businesses, served as a governor of a leading arts organisation and launched an open-source trade association.

“I help people work more effectively together and often achieve remarkable outcomes” - James Byford

The highly subsidised fee for this special event is just £20 per person which includes all course materials and refreshments. Advance booking is essential as numbers are strictly limited. Tickets can be booked and paid for via the University of Portsmouth Online Store

The event will take place in a modern, fully equipped and accessible seminar room at the University of Portsmouth Library on Cambridge Road (Ravelin Park) in Portsmouth. Map and directions

For further information email cibas@port.ac.uk or call 023 9284 6232

This event is part of the Future Skills Festival which takes place in Portsmouth in June and July 2011 and is supported by Creative Partnerships, the Government’s flagship creative learning programme, designed to develop the skills of young people across England, raising their aspirations and equipping them for their futures.