Marc Reck

I had a great meeting with the ever inspirational Dubber today about our share to create proposal. What was great about the meeting was not only that we know have a beautifully expressed elevator pitch, and a better way of approaching the project, but also that Dubber advised that our project was much more like a £100, 000 project than a £10, 000, advising that seed fund should be  initially applied, with the development fund as part of the 2nd phase.

I have a lot of respect for Dubber, and find our meetings to move things forward in the way that you need them to, which in contrast to a few meetings that have happened over the last couple of months, is actually a pretty rare thing. Maybe i’m buzzing from the meeting, but after working for so long on this idea that we all believe in so much, and to know have the team in place to make it into a reality, to have a meeting like that was just what we needed.

There’s actually two more meetings that need to happen before we can move it forward into the 4ip realms, as we have a new member on board, which is exciting, but also frustrating in a way, as i anticipate that this has the potential to slow things down, just at the point of things happening. Building a team in this situation though requires everyone being up to speed and having their input at the base core planning stage, (as the roles are so integral and different for each person) so in the long term i think its going to be time well spen.

Sincerely hope to be reporting back on this project (with something less mysterious!) over the next few months, as i’ve just heard from our designer that the final designs are almost complete!

I went to check out some office space in the custard factory just before xmas, after recieving a flyer through the door offering free office space. I think the free space refers to a small workshop, so we looked at something more suitable, alongside a couple of interesting meetings with Dave Peebles and Jonathan Goodwin. I learnt a lot about what they are looking to do and seems that the Share to Create project could be a good potential partnership. There’s a fair bit that needs to happen before we’d need or even can afford these premises, but as there are potentially good mutual benefits, it looks like a good path to follow, funding allowing.

Here’s the office space at the custard, which this one was two offices into one, in their new 24 hours access block.

I’m currently on New Deal for Musicians, with the view to getting some support in my business plan/project proposals, and making all the elements create income amongst other things. Having no income in order to employ people is a common issue for people starting out, and on New Deal it’s great that people like the inspirational John Mostyn, (one of the hosts of the provision), can offer his support and advice through the role.

Until i hear back about the submitted proposal, i have just had a meeting with another provision called creative launchpad. They gave me some useful information and spreadsheets, which were aimed at new creative businesses, and they invited me to come back after i’d heard back about the proposals and business plans. I have a meeting booked with Dubber next week as part of the transfer of knowledge fellowship, (which is know will be useful), so fingers crossed things will move forward with the other two provisions, and not become tied up in this red tape that i keep hearing mentioned.

Last week, our Finished with the War piece seemed to go down real well at New Vibes 2008, and since then i’ve been continuing on my crusade to get all my open loops, ideas and projects into thinking rock… (for which there seem to be literally hundreds!)

Its a good feeling to know that most of the ideas and projects now have next their actions defined, and can now be taken forward without neglecting other projects, (and an equally good feeling to have stopped smoking again!) However some of the ideas and projects are often difficult, (and in some cases impossible), to move forward without the technical know how to make them happen, (or of course the money to pay someone who does!)

This week,  i’ve noticed 3 ideas i’ve been working on for Mr Elephant, spring up online in various almagamations, and while i don’t doubt that the similarities are coincidental, i did start getting a little worried that one of the bigger ideas i’ve been investing a lot of time in, and it kick started me into thinking how i can make it happen with my current resources.

Its a common challenge for anyone “starting up” for want of a better term, as obviously lack of money can often mean you have to do most things yourself, and that normally involves learning and developing new and sometimes quite technical skills to a decent level.

The more you learn, the more ideas, you have, the more ideas you have, the busier you become, the busier you become the less time you have to learn, and quite soon you can find yourself working for days on things that you never expected or even dreamed would be part of the plan, project, or big picture in the first place.

Obviously all that learning has great benefits too, and having many strings to your bow takes you in all sorts of directions, and can offer many opportunities.

Over the years, as a result of all the ideas and projects, I’ve learnt how to make and edit video’s, design and produce flyers, create and manage a variety of websites, organise and promote all manner of events at various levels, write, record, and produce music, evolve pretty much all aspects of djing, host and create workshops, teach and share various levels of knowledge, and have gained a pretty broad understanding of online technologies, (and the wealth of ideas they create!), with even some business and management knowledge along the way.

There are many things however, that you can’t do on your own, and its important to build a strong network, by creating mutually beneficial ideas and opportunities, and obviously good bonds. Thankfully through the events, projects, ideas, and courses, and often of course just life generally, i’m fortunate to have met, worked, learnt, taught and befriended some very talented and lovely people, and together have created stuff that wouldn’t have been possible on our own, and often has produced much better results and mutual benefits, than if it would be have been a “pay and display” type affair.

This said i’ve often been cautious about asking friends and “de network” to get involved, often thinking they might be too busy, that i should just learn/do it myself, and/or sometimes because i’ve been unsure or unclear about the end result, especially with the bigger ideas, and that i should work out the whole picture, and all its steps to completion before involving anyone else.

That waiting for feeling was however, often a product of having so much stuff going on, and not knowing the next action. Now that all is getting into thinking rock, or the Getting Things Done system i’ve been able to see where the projects were at, what i’ve got going on, and then took the plunge so to speak with inviting people i thought may be too busy to collaborate on the things i’d really like to make happen.

And i’m pleased to say that this week, i have found the dj partner i’ve been looking for, (who was also apparently looking for me), the workshop of the world idea is actually going to be built properly using Rails, together with a friend who recently built the livebrum site, and i’ve started three mutually beneficial business ideas to take forward the mr elephant workshops.

This week, i’ve also started training again, which i’ve really missed, i’ve been cooking up some innovative ideas with my favourite vj, and yesterday it was all crowned with receiving my 30th birthday Djembe, hand made, with a sound similar to the very best you can buy, (for a third of the price), and hand carved with the Mr Elephant Presents Logo!.. (And while writing this, i’ve just been offered a residency for the Night Times new event)

So if i could share anything useful from this week i guess my top tips would be, to get organised with the help of getting things done, share the ideas you believe in with people you trust , and who have skills you don’t, and when the time’s right, have a look at stopping smoking, cus it’s really made a difference to me.

I’m going to be blogging the process of my approach to the getting things done idea, as its been quite a long ride with it all, and the relevant or useful bits might help someone else in the same boat.

And on that note, I’m off to prepare some records, and go celebrate Anne-Maries leaving do. (We’re at the Lamp if you want to come down)

Today was another excellent day on the Educator Course. We are looking at rationales, and writing a scheme of work for our course, and tomorrow we get to host our first 10 minute lesson to the class on whatever we want. (I’m thinking of doing a 16 piece human sequencer!).

Either way, its inspired me to write about one of the composite parts of the Mr Elephant idea, that i have been thinking about for the last 6 months or so.

Basically we thought it would be interesting to try and facilitate the sharing of information, and interaction of local community through our website, (alongside the workshops at events, and a proposed workshop programme in 2008.)

People who are interested in something can offer knowledge and therefore inspiration to like minded people, simply by sharing a few tips that have helped them progress. Furthermore, i think that clustering these tips with similar “areas,” could hopefully benefit and network the community and the individual, thereby producing more opportunities for individuals, and collaborations in communities.

This could therefore lead towards happier and more integrated communities, which sounds idealistic, but also echoes back to the societies that we used to live in before the industrial revolution, and the tribes that exist around the world today… Now we have the internet, and I feel if people respond to the idea, this could have really positive social benefits.

So after a lot of thought, i figured a way of doing this would be to break it down into areas of knowledge. – Creative, Practical/Survival, Health, Wealth, and Environmental, and invite people to post their top 5 tips on whatever they like doing. This would hopefully have the knock on effect of promoting people locally, whilst sharing knowledge and inspiration. It also offers another way for people to interact with the site and our events.I reckon the areas are pretty fundamental to humans beings, so they seemed like good places to start, though i imagine if people respond well, they could probably be categorised even more. I wanted to try and keep it broad in order to encourage cross pollination of the information and contributors, whilst also making it easy for anyone to post.

I feel i need to have a meeting with Dubber again, and maybe some other creative talents in order to do this most effectively, but i’m hopeful about the idea. I plan to start adding to the categories next week, by using the various characters and avatars on my webcam, and hooking up with a few friends. A few people have already said they would like to offer regular tutorials, and i plan to go out and meet people who can’t record, whilst also recording people at our events.

Either way i’d love to see this work, and i guess its one of the 3 or 4 Mr Elephant ideas we have in light of the big city plan, in terms of helping to engage communities at least. If anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear from you.

To facilitate the video comments, i bought a decent webcam this week, and can highly recommend it. Its the Logitech Pro 9000, and you can get it for about £45 from P.C world online, (unless you have a nice built in one already of course . I bought it so as i can record directly to Viddler, using their fantastic video hosting site. I’ve been “testing” their wordpress video comment plug in, from a heads up on Stef’s blog last month, and figured this would be an easy way for people to leave their tips and videos in the various areas, without having to log in or register.

At the moment the page is just a basic write up, but i aim by March 15th, to have uploaded some of our own tips and tutorials, and then get busy meeting and recording people to help facilitate the “germination process”…..Then i guess we just wait and see who gets involved

If you would like to share your top 5 tips, please visit www.mrelephant.com, though please bear in mind while the site is being built live, it’s not finished until March 21 st (the 1st day of spring) …..(so you may be the first