Following the success of my Creative Momentum workshops last summer, I’m pleased to announce two more public workshops in central London this July:

Time Management for Creative People — 7 July

Manage the mundane – create the extraordinary. Essential skills to maximise your creativity and minimise your stress levels at work!

From people who attended last year:

“Clear, intelligent and genuinely useful material.”
Thomas Heath, thomasheath.tv

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

“The content was clear and can be easily applied.”
Jacob Sam-La Rose, jacobsamlarose.com

Full details + booking here: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/time-management-creativity

How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself) — 14 July

Motivate yourself to overcome obstacles and create amazing work – and a sustainable career.

From people who came last year:

“This was nothing like I expected and much better than I expected. Made me look at how I work and why I work, in a completely different way. Mark has a very laid back style which is great.”
Sarah Turner, turnerink.co.uk

“The group size was just right. The distinctions worked well, and gave me a different way of thinking about motivation. The material is interesting and well presented. An enjoyable and worth-while workshop!”
David Stevens, musicforspecialneeds.com

“I really liked the way you related the issues of the talk with stories which you almost acted out! It was interesting relating problems which you experience yourself to other people who have succeeded – it made it seem more achievable! I really enjoyed it, a really comfortable atmosphere was created and the group seemed to get on well. Thank you!”
Candida Bradley, candipops.com

“I liked your presentation style. I think it was the first time in a long while when I actually was captured by a presentation and the content and listened to what you had to say.”
Kim Robertson

Details and booking here: http://www.wishfulthinking.co.uk/motivate-create/

The workshops are designed for creative people of all descriptions — artists, creatives, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and anyone else who takes their creativity seriously.

As before, I’ll be tailoring the workshops to the specific needs of each group – when you book your place, I’ll send you some questions about what you want to get out of it, which will help me target the issues that are most important to you.

The workshops are designed to work equally well as standalone sessions, or to complement each other if you take both. There’s also a special offer if you book both workshops together.

Places will be strictly limited to 25 per workshop and allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Last year they sold out well in advance, so early booking is a good idea if you want to be sure of your place.

Here’s the booking page (with secure payment via credit card or Paypal):

We had a lot of fun last year and I’m looking forward to more of the same this time round. I hope you can join us!

PS — I may be running some more workshops later in the summer — you can join my mailing list if you want to be first to know when they are announced.

Image by Hugh MacLeod

UPDATE: We’ve now sold out. Thank you and welcome to all our charter members!

We’ll be running a second progamme early in 2010 – if you’d like to hear about it when we open up again, you can sign up on this page to join the e-mail notification list.

We’ve now started taking enrolments for the Lateral Action Creative Entrepreneur Course.

The course is designed for:

• Artists and creative freelancers
• People looking to set up a home-based business
• Bloggers looking to build a business around their blog

(If that doesn’t include you, you may want to skip this post — there are plenty more articles about creativity and related topics coming up on Wishful Thinking, plus the free e-book I’m working on …)

If you’d like to be one of our charter members, with lifetime access to the course (including all future updates) at a 50% discount, you can head over to Lateral Action and sign up.

The course gives you a detailed roadmap for succeeding as a creative entrepreneur – a small, creative business consisting of one person or a very small team. It will show you how to research and develop products that people actually want to buy, market yourself on the internet, and build a business without spending a fortune on advertising or employees.

The sign-up page on Lateral Action outlines the course content and format, and we’ve also published a free report about it, so I won’t go into that here. I’ll just say a few words about why I’m launching an e-learning course, and introduce my fellow teachers.

Why I’m Providing an E-Learning Course

The great thing about blogging is that it has connected me with a wonderful network of people around the world. It’s created the opportunity for me to work with inspiring creative people who I’d never have met otherwise. At the same time, I’ve discovered there are certain limits to the coaching, workshop training and blogging that are my core activities.

In some ways there’s no substitute for a live, face-to-face learning experience, either one-to-one in coaching sessions, or in groups for workshops. The logistics can be a bit challenging though — it was great that my Creative Momentum workshops sold out over the summer, and I’ll definitely be doing some more of them before long. It was also a bit frustrating to hear from many of you who said you’d love to come, but couldn’t fly all the way to London for a two-hour workshop. And even when I run a full day workshop, I often wish it could be longer, as it feels as though there’s so much more to teach.

Coaching is a bit different. It’s about facilitating someone’s learning in a way that is highly focused and tailored to the individual. So it’s not the best use of a coaching session for me to spend a lot of time explaining things and conveying information. But with many issues, such as web marketing and entrepreneurship, there is often a lot that the client needs to know before we can get started.

In the past three or four years, I’ve found I can use the Wishful Thinking website to add a lot of value to my coaching and training. I often give clients e-books and blog articles to read before for coaching sessions, so that they have the essential information when they arrive, and we have a much more productive session as a result. And for my recent workshops on Web Marketing for Creative People and Creative Presentation Skills, I created an online version of the workshops, which attendees access in the Members area of Wishful Thinking. The feedback I’ve received about this has been terrific — people have told me it really helps them to learn at their own pace, and they can keep referring to the materials as they put their plans into action.

I’m now taking this a stage further by launching a full-blown e-learning course, featuring audio lessons (handy for listening on an iPod, iPhone or other MP3 player), transcripts of all the lessons, and practical worksheets. Later on there will be a members forum and Q&A calls, all included in the charter membership package. It means we can cover the topics in much greater depth than a normal training workshop — and you’re free to learn at your own pace, repeating lessons and referring to the training materials whenever you need them.

It also means you get the benefit of an extended training at a significantly lower price than you would pay for live training or coaching. We’re talking around 18 hours of audio lessons (plus the transcripts, worksheets etc) for less than the price of a couple of coaching sessions.

And you may have noticed that a couple of paragraphs back I said “we can cover the topics…”. That’s because I’m not teaching the course on my own. I’m delighted to be working with Brian Clark and Tony Clark — two highly successful creative entrepreneurs — so you’ll be getting the benefit of not one but three teachers on this programme.

It’s a good deal for me too, of course. As well as the satisfaction of creating a programme that I’m proud of, it means I’m practising what I preach about entrepreneurship, creating my own product and adding an extra revenue stream to my business.

Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

OK, But Why Entrepreneurship?

If you’re like me a few years back, you probably don’t readily associate entrepreneurship with creativity. But I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that they are not only highly compatible, but creative entrepreneurship is the path that offers creative people the greatest amount of financial independence and personal freedom to pursue their dreams.

Over the past 13 or so years of coaching artists and creatives, I’ve noticed that earning a living from your creative passion is one of the most cherished dreams – and often one of the most difficult to realise. That’s the core challenge we’re going to address with the Lateral Action programme.

So what is a creative entrepreneur? It’s someone who takes a slightly unconventional approach to entrepreneurship — we’re not trying to emulate empire builders like Richard Branson and Bill Gates. Good luck to them, if that’s what they want to do, but it’s not my cup of tea.

The Lateral Action definition of a creative entrepreneur is someone who builds a thriving small business around their creative talent — but without hiring any employees or investing large sums of capital. He or she could be an artist with a studio, a freelancer with a laptop, or a micro-entrepreneur operating from a home office.

For a fuller description, read my article The 3 Critical Characteristics of the Creative Entrepreneur. And for an inspiring vision of what it’s like to be a creative entrepreneur, watch the Lateral Action videos Everybody Loves Marla and Marla Mentors Jack.

And if you’d like to hear about my own journey towards creative entrepreneurship, read my recent article The Story of a Reluctant Entrepreneur.

Who Will Teach the Course — and How Do We Know What We’re Talking about?

This next bit is slightly awkward, because Brian and Tony are much better known than I am, so it feels a bit odd introducing them. But I know that some of you are new to the world of Internet marketing and entrepreneurship, so I’ll do my best to do them justice with a brief introduction.

Brian Clark

Brian is best known as the founder of Copyblogger, a hugely successful blog about copywriting and web marketing. I’ve been telling my clients for years that Copyblogger is absolutely indispensable reading for anyone who wants to sell things on the Internet. Brian gives away an enormous amount of free advice on Copyblogger, but unlike most bloggers, he has used his blog as a platform to build a multimillion-dollar online business, releasing e-learning programmes such as Teaching Sells, Partnering Profits and Freelance X-Factor, and the popular website design theme Thesis (which I use on Wishful Thinking).

Brian isn’t just a very successful internet marketer. He’s also a highly talented writer who really understands creativity and creative people. He turned to entrepreneurship when he became disillusioned with his prospects as an aspiring Hollywood screenwriter – and the screenwriting bug hasn’t quite let go, as you can see in the Lateral Action animated videos, all scripted by Brian.

This is what artist and creative entrepreneur John T. Unger has to say about Brian’s gifts as a teacher:

My first career was poetry, and for fifteen years all I did was read, write, perform live and study with luminaries like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. I learned more from Brian in the first year of Copyblogger.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Brian will be taking the lead on the marketing modules on the Lateral Action course, and showing you how to approach web marketing, not as a ‘necessary evil’, but as a highly creative extension of your core work.

Tony Clark

I think of Tony as a kind of Swiss Army Knife for creative entrepreneurs. For one thing, he’s got an incredible range of talents – illustrator, animator, programmer, blogger, teacher, entrepreneur. And for another, he’s got an encyclopaedic knowledge of creativity, business, software and productivity systems. I first ‘met’ Tony online a few years ago, when he was dispensing advice for home-based entrepreneurs on his blog Success from the Nest. More recently he’s partnered with Brian on Teaching Sells.

Tony likes to keep himself in the background, but his fingerprints are all over Lateral Action. He does all our design and website development. He drew the cartoon characters Lou, Jack and Marla – and brought them to life in the aforementioned animated videos. And he also serves as a one-man IT suppport department for Brian and me, when (as frequently happens) we reach the limits of our technical capacity.

Whenever I encounter a technical problem at Lateral Action — I ask Tony.

When I’m stuck for an example to use in an article — I ask Tony.

When I want a recommendation for software to perform a particular task — I ask Tony.

You get the picture.

Tony will be teaching the module on business systems, a.k.a. how to automate or delegate the ‘boring bits’ of running a business, and stay focused on the interesting creative work which is the reason most of us got into a creative profession in the first place.

Tony would like to point out that he’s not Brian’s brother.

Mark McGuinness

Well, if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll have a reasonable idea of who I am! As you know, I provide coaching and training for creative people and innovative companies.

But you may not be so familiar with another side of my work, as I don’t write about it much online. I’m a psychotherapist, registered with the UK Council for Psychotherapy, and in practice since 1996. In that time I’ve worked with all kinds of people facing challenging problems and situations, including anxiety, depression, fears and phobias, addictions, trauma, work-related stress, relationship break-ups, bereavement, homelessness and stress-related illness.

In my coaching work, I’ve also helped a lot of freelancers and small business owners deal with the stresses and strains of self-employment — which can be a very lonely place at times. And having been self-employed myself for almost the whole of my career, I know exactly what a rollercoaster ride it can be!

So it’s fair to say I’ve seen a lot of stressful situations up close, at first and second hand. I’ve also seen what works — and what doesn’t — when it comes to handling pressure and staying motivated and effective. On the Lateral Action course, I’m taking the lead on a module called Succeed (Don’t Stress) which is a distillation of everything I’ve learned about emotional intelligence and stress management for self-employed people. We’ve included it in the course because we want to give people a holistic toolkit for dealing with all aspects of running a small business — the personal as well as professional.

Most of the other modules of the course will consist of interviews/discussions between Brian and me. I’ll be asking Brian lots of questions to draw out the most relevant advice from his vast store of knowledge, and complementing this with my own perspective on creative entrepreneurship. And I’ll be asking Brian many of the most common and urgent questions I hear from coachees and workshop delegates, about how to apply the principles of creative entrepreneurship to their own career and business.

I Know This Stuff Works

Those of you who have attended my workshop Web Marketing for Creative People know that my websites are my main source of new business. When people ask me how I manage to get my sites so high up the search engine rankings, and actually convert visitors into clients, I tell them “by following Brian and Tony’s advice”. As well as reading Copyblogger for the last four years, I’ve taken several of their e-learning courses and devoured every lesson (many of them two or three times). And since we launched Lateral Action together, I’ve had the benefit of a hands-on education in how to create and promote a successful web venture.

In a nutshell: I’ve tested Brian and Tony’s advice first-hand, and I know it works.

(I drew the line at changing my surname to Clark though! )

If you’d like the benefit of our combined experience, and to apply it to your own creative business, you’d be well advised to sign up sooner rather than later. UPDATE: Enrolment for the first programme is now closed. We’ll be running a second progamme early in 2010 – if you’d like to hear about it when we open up again, you can sign up on this page to join the e-mail notification list.

For this programme we’re offering a charter membership deal of 50% discount on the 2010 price, to include all future updates and features. On the sign-up page Brian says the price will never be this low again, and I know he’s true to his word about this. Whenever Brian and Tony have launched a new course, I’ve signed up for the charter member deal — and a few months later, I’ve seen people happily paying several times the fee I paid. It’s great to see people are satisfied with a course at the full price, but it’s even nicer to know I got the whole thing a lot cheaper!

We also offer a 30-day guarantee on the programme, so if for any reason you decide not to continue, we’ll happily refund your fee, no questions asked (but feedback welcome).

OK, that’s enough about Lateral Action from me. I’m excited about the programme as it’s on a bigger scale than any of the trainings I’ve delivered before, in terms of both the content and the number of people we’ll be able to help. If you’re interested in joining us on the journey, head over to the sign-up page, where Brian outlines the roadmap.

Next up on Wishful Thinking, we’re back to our usual programme of articles about the business of creativity and the creativity of business. (Including that free e-book I mentioned earlier …)

Photo by JeffBelmonte

On 24 April I’m running a half day seminar for members of The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, about How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself).

Here are the details:

How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself)

A practical seminar to help you get inside the heads of creative workers and bring out their best work.

Objectives / Benefits

• Understand how motivation affects performance – especially creativity
• Use non-monetary motivations to get the best out of people on a limited budget
• Turn problems into inspiring challenges
• Get better work out of creative people
• Avoid (inadvertently) crushing people’s motivation and harming performance
• Use rewards effectively
• Understand and influence many different types of people
• Facilitate better team collaboration
• Adjust your approach according to how the recession affects your agency

Content

• What makes creative people tick
• Why motivation is crucial to performance
• Why offering rewards can sometimes harm performance
• The 4 most powerful types of motivation
• Practical ways to use each type of motivation
• Which motivations to use in the best/worst case recession scenarios
• What Iggy Pop can teach you about management
• How to write 47 novels before breakfast
• Why some people seem so weird – and how to deal with them
• The positive side of peer pressure

Who should attend

Managers, creative directors, account managers – and anyone else charged with facilitating outstanding performance.

What People Say About the E-book – How to Motivate Creative People (Including Yourself)

“If you’re a creative director like me, it’s a must-read.”
Tim Siedell, Fusebox

“The kind of reading that should be required for new supervisors as well as those in the creative professions.”
Steve Roesler, Roesler Consulting Group

Mark McGuinness is a coach and trainer specialising in work with creative professionals and creative industries companies. He writes two popular blogs about creative business: www.wishfulthinking.co.uk and www.lateralaction.com.

Please note — the seminar is open to IPA members only.

To book your place(s): Login to the IPA CPD Zone. Once logged in, click on ‘Training Courses’, then ‘Friday Morning Energisers’ – my session is on 24 April.

Non-IPA members — if you are interested in booking a seminar on this topic for your organisation, please e-mail me or call me on 020 8691 2475 for a confidential discussion about your needs.

Today sees the publication of The Age of Conversation 2, a book written by 237 authors from 15 countries, in aid of the children’s charity Variety.

The brainchild of Drew McLellan and Gavin Heaton, AOC2 is a virtual collaboration resulting in a real book that will have an impact on the real life problems faced by thousands of children worldwide. Looking at the author list, it also promises to be a great read.

The central question of the book is ‘Why don’t they get it?’ — as one of the authors I’ve chosen to answer this under the heading ‘The New Breed of Creative’. My 400 word chapter is called ‘Peripheral Creative Vision’, and looks at the skills you need to succeed as a creative professional, over and above artistic/creative talent. What are these skills and why they important? Well, you’ll just have to buy the book to find out — remember, all the money from sales goes towards Variety’s work to improve children’s lives.

Age of Conversation 2 is a massive collaborative effort — here’s what you can do to help:

• Buy the book
• Follow AOC2 on Twitter
• Get the podcast feed
• Get the author bio feed
• Join our Facebook group

A big thank you to Drew and Gavin for the enormous amount of work they put into this, shepherding 237 bloggers must make their day jobs seem like a piece of cake!

Here’s the full author list:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham,
Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay,
Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may been wondering why it’s been so quiet since the spring. And if you’ve joined us more recently, you may be wondering whether it ever gets much noisier than this. Sorry about that. It wasn’t my intention. As well as running my business, I’ve been preparing for the launch of Lateral Action, which I’m pleased to say is now well under way. But that wasn’t the main reason for the slowdown at Wishful Thinking…

Basically, I injured my hands and haven’t been able to type for the last six months. Which has obviously restricted my ability to write blog posts. And use the computer generally – even keeping up with reading other people’s posts has been a real challenge. Rather embarrassingly for someone who has written an e-book about time management — including whole sections about e-mail — I fell way behind on my e-mail. So for a writer, especially one whose blog is a major source of new business, to say it’s been a frustrating summer would be an understatement.

So what caused the injury? I changed my keyboard. Seriously. You would not believe how much damage you can do can do with such a simple change. Basically, I went from using my laptop — which kept my wrists straight as I typed — to a desktop keyboard. And stupidly didn’t get a wrist rest, which meant my wrists were bent back as I typed. And carried on typing for several hours a day. The analogy my physiotherapist used was that it was like someone who was really good at long-distance cycling suddenly deciding they could run a marathon with no extra training — not realising that they were using different muscles in the legs. With painful results.

So dear readers, be very careful about your typing posture. I don’t want to sound like that fussy person from the IT department, but take it from me it’s not worth making any sudden changes. I think it’s blatantly obvious that I’m not medically qualified, so if in doubt consult a qualified physiotherapist for advice – it could save you a lot of trouble.

Anyway here’s the good news — my hands are nearly back to normal and I’ve discovered some amazing speech recognition software. I’m a pretty fast typist but I’m dictating this blog post much faster than I could ever type it. It’s so good that I don’t think I’ll ever go back to typing for drafting articles, I’m having so much fun dictating them. It’s about 95% accurate — so if you see any funny looking words or typos in my blog posts, please let me know!

The software is called Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The only problem with it is that it’s Windows only, so very reluctantly I’ve installed Windows Vista on my Mac. It turns out that the one area in which Microsoft wipes the floor with Apple is speech recognition. (Mac devotees will however, be pleased to know that in every other respect Windows Vista is the usual garish Microsoft rubbish. Apart from a cool 3-D effect when you switch windows.)

More good news — there are further generous helpings of Wishful Thinking on the way very shortly. Tomorrow in fact, when I kick off a new series about motivating creative people — a hot topic for some of the managers and creative directors I work with.

In the meanwhile, if you haven’t subscribed to Lateral Action yet, please rush over there and subscribe immediately. If you like Wishful Thinking it should be right up your street. I’ve just finished writing a series about Creative Rock Stars — using rock stars as an analogy for exploring the ups and downs of the creative life. And Brian Clark has just written a terrific post explaining why Kurt Cobain was a top-class entrepreneur (yes, really).

So thank you for your patience and on with the show! See you tomorrow …

Photo by LittleMissSilly

I’m on a panel next Thursday 1st May, at All Together Now – Social Media and the Future of Community Sport, a joint Sport England and Channel 4 event at the Channel 4 building.

This is what it’s about:

Over the course of the past three years the emergence of blogging, social networking services and platforms which showcase and share user generated content have transformed the possibilities of how we connect, converse and collaborate with one another.

’In the 20th Century, we were defined by what we owned, in the 21st Century we will be defined by what share and give away’ Charles Leadbeater, author of We Think

The potential for organisations and brands to harness these technologies and tools to engage with users, customers and their communities in radically new ways is becoming clear.

How can all those organisations working to promote active participation in sports and the brands that wish to sponsor their activates and campaigns work together to make the most of the unrivalled viral power and network effects of the web in the run up to 2012?

Other speakers will include Thomas Godfrey, Commercial Director of Sport England, Jon Gisby, Director of Technology and New Media at Channel 4, Rebecca Caroe, Gi Fernando of Technlightenment, Antony Mayfield and Ed Mitchell.

I’ll be there as an ambassador for social media, to share my experience of blogging, social networking, Twitter, etc. and give the representatives of sports organisations some idea of the possibilities and pitfalls of engaging with people via the web.

After receiving the invitation I was struck by two thoughts: 1. How much time I spend on football messageboards when I should probably be doing something else, and following on from that, 2. that sport may be the ultimate social object [WARNING: cartoon with rude word] i.e. conversation starter and social catalyst. If I meet a stranger and they let slip they’re interested in football, I know we’ll have plenty to talk about and there will be no awkward silences (well not unless they turn out to be a Rangers fan).

So it looks to me as though sports organisations have an open goal in front of them – they have something that most people love to talk about and nearly anyone has an opinion on. But will they slot the ball calmly home or sky it over the bar? Or will they be fatally distracted by the animated advertising board behind the goal?

There are still a few free tickets left, so if you’re interested in any combination of social media, sport and marketing, then register for the event, ask me some easy questions during the debate, and come and say hello afterwards.

If you can’t make it on the day but you’ve got any thoughts on how sports or other organisations should engage with people via social marketing, please leave a comment below. I don’t think I’ll be able to link to you from the stage but I’ll certainly Twitter my thanks if I use any ideas from the comments.

Thanks to Steve Moore of Policy Unplugged for inviting me to join the panel and giving me an excuse to post a photo of Celtic.

EDIT: I’ve posted my presentation slides to Slideshare. You can probably tell I was trying to keep things as simple as possible.

Today’s the day to get your copy of The Age of Conversation.

What?

The Age of Conversation is a book co-authored by over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators. Each of them wrote 400 words on the theme of ‘conversation’. If the names David Armano, Roger von Oech, Tony D. Clark and Mark Earls ring any bells, you’ll have an idea of the standard of writing you can expect.

Why?

Not only is the book a cracking read, but all the profits go to help children’s charity Variety achieve its mission of improving the lives of children around the world.

Why today?

Because Today (Sat 29th March) is the day that Drew McLellan and Chris Wilson are orchestrating a campaign to drive sales and push The Age of Conversation up the Amazon bestseller charts. They’re doing this via blogs and social media services such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg and Stumbleupon.

What else can I do to help?

Very nice of you to ask. After you buy your copy of the book, go to Chris Wilson’s post and Digg it. Then have a read through his list of easy ways to help and do whichever ones you can.

What’s a bum rush?

I’ve no idea, but it’s for charity so let’s do it!

Kay Vasey of Meshminds has asked me to pass on an invitation to the Mesh Release Party at the Adam Street club in London on 25 January. The event is free, with an option to buy a £5 ticket for a draw to win a trip to Paris for you and your friends. Sign up here if you’d like to come.

Meshminds is a new creative network for London – I recently joined the Meshminds site and haven’t had much chance to explore it yet but it looks very nice. A kind of Facebook with better graphic design, for creative types. I’ve also been very impressed by the enthusiasm and imagination shown by Kay Vasey and Jonny Emmanuel in setting it up.

Here’s the basic idea, from the Meshminds site:

Mesh seeks to promote collaborative creativity by providing a unique forum where business and creative professionals can share ideas with like-minded people, invest in the arts, and showcase emerging talent.

Hope to see you at the party – let me know if you’re going and want to meet up.

Martin MALii-Karlsson has put together a great list of creative networking events in London. I met Martin at the CIDA Creative Business Club (link in his post) a few months ago and we’ve kept in touch. He’s a charming guy with a really interesting take on creative business and he’s really getting into his stride with his blog – you should have a look at it.

And check out his events list – ‘networking’ is an awful word, conjuring up images of people in shiny suits pushing business cards at you – but having been to several of the events on his list, I can assure you they are usually a lot of fun and you can make some good contacts. The fact I know Martin is proof that they work!

Tonight is the launch reading for Magma Poetry issue 39, at The Troubadour near Earls Court.

If you love poetry, you’ll love it – and if you’ve never been to a contemporary poetry reading, it’s a great place to start. We have excellent headline poets in George Szirtes and Anna Woodford, and the reading will feature lots of other poets from the magazine – so with a wide range of readers there should be something to appeal to you. And The Troubadour is a great venue, invariably packed for Magma readings.

Magma is one of the best poetry magazines in the UK, always featuring major contemporary poets alongside new and up-and-coming writers. We take it in turns to edit the magazine (I edited Magma 34) – David Morphet has done a terrific job with this issue, which you can sample on the Magma website for free.

Let me know if you’re coming tonight, I’ll wear a red carnation or something so we can say hello.