Help wanted – Apprentice Social Artist – apply within

January 27, 2010 Lloyd Davis 2 Comments

I’m looking for a part-time helper, assistant, apprentice social artist, to start as soon as possible.

What I need

An articulate and energetic intern to provide 3 days per week assistance for 3 months, working with me on my portfolio of social art projects including:

The Tuttle Club
tuttle2texas
Centre for Creative Collaboration
Tuttle Consulting

I need help with research, administrative and project management tasks.

Whoever works with me will need to be comfortable writing for the web, expressing themselves in their own voice on blogs and social networking sites but also speaking to people face to face and on the phone.

What I can offer

An opportunity to expand your thinking about the social applications of the web, social enterprise and the use of social technologies in organisations.

Exposure to my network of social media professionals, entrepreneurs, writers, musicians, artists, academics, etc.

Experience of organising without an organisation, exploring the boundaries of how organisations need to function in a networked world.

This is an unpaid position, although a zone 1-2 oystercard will be provided and I’ll buy you lunch. There’ll also be the occasional beer if you like that sort of thing…

You should also know that I don’t work out of a single office, though I expect to be spending quite a lot of my time around the Centre for Creative Collaboration during this period.

What to do next
Write to me by e-mail – see if you can find the address oh, somewhere hereabouts and tell me why you’d like to work with me and what in particular you think you can offer to the projects listed above.

london, What I've Seen

Winter

January 13, 2010 Lloyd Davis 2 Comments

Woke this morning to another sprinkling of snow in London. Probably more outside of town, but haven’t checked yet. Not much but clearly it came down through the early morning when there were fewest people about so it’s thicker than it would have been if it had come down at 4pm.

But my first reaction was “Blimey, this is going on for a long time.” (the current weather pattern of cold and snow)

And then I thought “Hang on, isn’t this what winter’s *supposed* to be like?” We’ve become so accustomed to having only a few individual days of snow that having a prolonged cold snap with associated precipitation feels out of the ordinary. It’s the corollary of “Oh, we had a sunny day, that’ll be our summer then!”.

But didn’t it used to be like this all the time? Why shouldn’t winter have a fortnight or so of snow and ice? Has anything actually changed here? Why is this so important? And so, yet again, I’m left wondering whether it’s the world that changed or that my dislocation is a result of warped perception. Is it them or is it me? Usually the answer to that question is… errrr… yes it’s me so forget it, ignore what I just said and let’s get on.

What I think, What I've Been Doing

The Social Artist I

January 7, 2010 Lloyd Davis 1 Comment

This came out of a conversation with Mike Radcliffe at the BFI this morning – part of my Human Scale Conversations. There were a few points and it was going to be one mega post, but I think I’ll break it up a bit.

We got talking about being artists (go back and click on that link to Mike’s site if you don’t know his work – go back and preferably buy something from his gallery!) and being blocked and what we need to do to keep relatively sane and solvent and working and happy and stuff and it seemed worth exploring them a bit – especially how they relate to my experience as a nascent Social Artist.

First of all we talked about the need for artists to be with other artists.

Artists need to spend time with other artists.

The rider to this is that we need to spend time with people who are in their flow, who are looking after themselves and doing their work. If we are blocked, it’s these people who will feed us and help us through – it’s far too easy to find other blocked artists to hang out with, who reinforce and rationalise our own blocks – then we just all get depressed together!

And even if we’re not blocked, it’s great to spend time with people who understand the creative process, who get what it’s like so we can all remember that this is normal and it’s the people who don’t do it who are weird…

Signs that you’re with the right people are: they’re encouraging you; you and they are smiling and laughing together, preferably at yourselves rather than others; you’re both talking more about the work that you’re doing now, rather than the work you used to do once or the work you’d really really like to do one day if only someone else would give you a chance.

Signs that you need to find some new friends are: the person talking to you is only talking about reasons why it’s hard; you’re feeling low and so are they; you hear yourself whining; you find yourself thinking about that project, you know the one, and how it’s never, just never going to get done.

So get out, and find some shiny friends instead!

That’s why I keep going back to Tuttle. It’s a place that attracts all sorts of creative people in large numbers. Creativity and different ways of thinking thrive among these people. It’s where I get my fix every week. I know you all think I’m doing it for you, and that’s true, but I’m doing it for me too.