Events I’m speaking at this month

November’s a good month if you’re interested in my opinion on sundry topics. If you’re not then, well… fine, but you’re not going to like the rest of this website.

Before I get into the list, here I am on Lanyrd. I like Lanyrd a lot. I’ll also be writing up notes and putting up any slides from these events as and when I get the chance.

Guardian Culture Professionals Network

11 Nov – Guardian Culture Professionals livechat
midday to 2pm, online

The subject is ‘Creative collaboration in a time of cuts’ and I’ll be one of a “panel of arts and culture experts” (I’m not sure who the other participants will be yet) discussing:

how organisations in the sector can handle the cuts through collaborative projects. We’ll be looking at all disciplines across the sector, from museums to art galleries, and new methods of co-operation, such as online collective hubs, venue sharing and resource and data swapping.

I’ve not taken part in an online discussion of this sort before, so that’ll be fun. The topic is very close to the guest post of mine that they featured recently, so I’ll have to think of something new to say on the subject.

Hello Culture 2011

17 Nov – Hello Culture 
1.30-2.30pm, Custard Factory, Birmingham

I’ll be on a panel alongside Rosie Kay, Steffan Aquarone and Alison Smith with Gino Bellavia from the University of Birmingham on chairing duties. We’ll be talking about:

Distribution – using digital technologies to deliver artistic and cultural experiences and content in new ways

There’s some good variety in the line-up in this one, so I suspect I’ll be an interested listener as much as a participant. And yes, that’s me holding up a sign on the website. Please go ahead and Photoshop it if you like – I did.

Twespians

21 Nov – TwespiansPR
7pm, Old Crown Pub, London

A follow-up to the event I blogged about back in September, the topic will be:

pushing what we do in arts marketing and PR to its limits. With the digital world being so important, do we need to rethink the tried and tested methods that so many still rely on today? Can we learn from what people are doing in other disciplines? Is a fundamental shift required in how we perceive audience, community and promotion?

Of course, the answer to all of the above questions is ‘yes, always’ but I’ll think of something more illuminating and specific for the actual event.

Arts Marketing Association

23 Nov – AMA Tweet Meet, #tweetAMA
4-6pm, Hippodrome, Birmingham

The Arts Marketing Association are scheduling events around the country and I’ve been kindly asked to do the talk at the West Midlands meet-up:

In this Tweet meet Chris Unitt, Head of Social Media at Made Media will talk about search engine optimisation for arts marketers. Having recently blogged about how SEO and why it should be important for arts and cultural organisations (http://bit.ly/pKVi26), Chris will be sharing the potential benefits and the essential things to bear in mind when it comes to SEO.

I’ve got an idea about tweeting my slides from this one but I make no guarantees. Generally though, I’m planning to make this talk as practical and useful as possible – a mini training session, as much as anything.

Creative Times

30 Nov – Creative Times: The Beauty of Digital
6.30-8pm, Custard Factory, Birmingham

The topic for this one is:

The Beauty of Digital: New technologies, old aesthetics and where the two meet

Which is a topic that could skew in any number of directions and throw up any number of issues: skeumorphism – the popularity of Instagram and Hipstamatic filters – media companies and artists’ studios taking up residence next to the mechanics and industrial workshops of Digbeth – established arts organisations struggling to shift to an online-first mentality… We’ll see where it goes.

Published by Chris Unitt

I work at One Further, doing digital projects with cultural organisations. Follow @ChrisUnitt or find me on LinkedIn.