Help us to develop a blog for Nottingham's creative community

More about Nottingham’s new creative communities blog

We want to create a blog that celebrates great products, services, performances and people from across Nottingham’s creative community.

Inspired by the success of Created in Birmingham, the blog will highlight the latest creative ideas, activities and thinking from Nottingham – all with re-usable content and listings.

The aim is to create an independent, inclusive online resource that helps to grow and give a voice to Nottingham’s creative community.  Here’s more about the how, who and why of the project.

Nottingham’s creative scene

Image: Luminarium Orange at Lakeside Arts Centre, Notingham University by D-Kav, from the Nottingham Flickr Group

Nottingham’s creative scene is going through a renaissance. Under the surface a thriving creative community is beating the recession and doing idiosyncratic, interesting stuff.  Whether it’s the high-tech digerati gathering en masse at Nott Tuesday, the artisans proudly showing their wares at Delicate Treats, big league seminars and panels at Nottingham Trent University or Broadway, or individual success stories like award-winning film producers or globally iconic fashion brands.

Increasingly, social media, and online media in general, is playing a crucial role in how we hear about the great things going on down the road – or across the city.  Whether it’s hearing about a great job or exhibition on Twitter or Facebook, or e-newsletters and RSS feeds to keep up with everything that’s going on.

Created in Birmingham

In May, MediaCampNottingham got people together from across the Midlands (and further) who are interested in culture, social networking and digital connections. The free event grew from the use of entirely free, online tools including a wiki to organise speakers and attendees and Twitter to publicise the key announcements.  The seminars included a talk by Chris Unitt about Created In Birmingham, the website that links up Birmingham creative communities. This was the site that caused a furore by pipping Daily Mail journo Melanie Phillips to win Best UK Blog 2008, and The Guardian Blog of the Year in 2007.

Created In Birmingham had a critical impact on growing Birmingham and the West Midlands county’s creative community, letting people know what’s happening, celebrating their success and positively increasing both demand and competition as more and more businesses, individuals and organisations in the city began to get online.  They started blogs and news feeds to connect directly with audiences and customers, who suddenly knew what was going on a whole lot easier.  Essential reading in one place.  Tidy.  It even inspired other people to set up their own sector or community specific blogs like Nicky Getgood‘s wonderful Digbeth is Good or West Midlands comedy blog Who’s Laughing Now?

So at MediaCamp, the assembled creatives began to discuss what it is we need in Nottingham.  Nottingham suffers more than other big cities – there isn’t the funding for ‘creative industries’ stuff from the Regional Development Agency or European Union that have helped cities like Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield to thrive.  There are plenty of networks and sites, but many are either ‘broadcasting’ specialists messages about their own work, or connecting people one-to-one.  That day, myself (Susi O’Neill from Digital Consultant creative and digital consultancy) and Camilla Zajac from Green Light Copywriting formulated an idea for a new type of blog for Nottingham.

The idea

How about a blog for Nottingham which sits in the middle of that web, not duplicating any of that great stuff but joining the dots, and giving a central space to grow and give a voice to Nottingham’s creative community, through discussion around content or ‘objects of interest’ – which is what social media – and the web in general – should be all about.  Not aping Creative In Birmingham but adapting their best practice for what works for Nottingham in our own unique style.

We’ve got the talent, ideas and people and now more than ever we need to showcase what we do to each other – and the wider world.

The plan

Here’s the plan.  Let’s set up an independent blog for and about Nottingham’s creative community – in the widest sense. We’re talking from creative cake-making, to digital types, to cultural organisations – so we can find out what we are doing and learn from each other.

It’s not about:

• Creating more insular back-patting ‘scenes’ or clubs at the exclusion of many
• ‘What’s On’ in town at the Theatre Royal, or official ‘media speak’ press releases by public bodies
• Yet another social networking Ning or site for Nottingham

It is about:

• Celebrating great products, services, performances and people from and within Nottingham creative community
• Using carefully curated editorial to highlighting the latest ideas, activities and thinking that creatives can connect with and learn from
• Creating re-usable contents and listings using Creative Commons licensing that you can easily subscribe to by email or RSS to find out exactly what’s going on, and use the content yourself if you like.

But we need the right team to make it work.

The team

Do you have a passion for growing Nottingham’s creative community?  Is there stuff going on you hear about and think more people should know about, or are you new to the scene and curious to find out what’s going on?  Then join the Creative Nottingham blog team.

We’re looking for:

A team of (4) bloggers – with prior experience of blogging from a diverse background or interest in cultural, business and media in Nottingham, whether you’re a recent arts graduate or experienced business professional.

A web design wizard – a WordPress modder who can help us install all the necessary widgets to get going and grown.

An Advertising superstar – someone to get on the case with essential business development getting advertising, sponsorship and reporting back on ad-program results.

A PR guru – to get us networked and spread the word, particularly through traditional media.

A social media maven – to spread the word regularly on all the major networks.

If anyone can offer us free web hosting in exchange for logo and link that would also be rather fantastic.

The project will initially be run co-operatively, with contributors equally benefiting from any profits made by the service or incomes received, although these are likely to be limited while we get up and running.  Based on the experiences of the Created In Birmingham team, it’s a project with the potential to win you plenty of kudos and work from your involvement.

I’d like to establish a team by the start of July, with the aim of mutually shaping the project development and launching the blog in September 2009. If you’re interested and want to chat drop me a line:

Susi O’Neill: 07981 222799, email: susi@digitalconsultant.co.uk or I’m on Twitter too

We want your ideas

And I’d like you to help out too.  I’d like to blog some of the early development and help get you involved pre-launch with our design and development using this temporary blog.  To work, the blogs needs to be owned by the community, not just about the community.  So to kick off – names.  What shall we call it? It needs to reflect Nottingham’s creativity and what we do here.  ‘Made In Nottingham’ is an interesting tag which seems to be a project title put onto various things over years, though not sure of its origin or association (although the .com and .co.uk are being cybersquatted).  What are you ideas?  Please add comments below or drop me an email susi@digitalconsultant.co.uk

Look forward to hearing from you and getting the blog up-and-running – please help to spread the word!