2am again, and trying to save the world…

Again I find myself staring at the screen trying not to be distracted by Foxtel, msn, myspace, food… it’s 2am.

Well my mind is full of thoughts not knowing which way to go…. This past week has spurred my brain into overdrive.

I just feel I can’t ignore everything around me that is pointing to how we need to stand up and take notice about our responsibilities and take a stand for our planet.

I think a few things may have spurred these thoughts… Such as… reading some of the countless articles that are everywhere on the subject. From the lift out from the weekend newspaper to Ad news, B&T, Adbusters and more. Everywhere you look. I feel totally over whelmed to do something…. The least we can do be conscious of not making things worse.

If we all only put in a little effort we can a make a large impact!
There are so many ways we can help or at least try to offset our contributions to polluting our struggling environment before we totally destroy it.
Obscene things are happening. For the first time ever, polar bears have actually been spotted eating each other. They are running out of food as their habitats become increasingly smaller. Animals migrating further towards the poles and the earth gets warmer. The seas are heating up which is contributing to factors leading to more intense storms, hurricanes and drought!

There are so many things each of us can do that will help. Reducing our carbon emissions is a crucial part of what we must begin to do, we can do this in so many ways. By using our cars less, flying less, not wasting electricity, building energy efficient offices and houses, the list goes on. If we must travel by plane lets at least off set our emissions by contributing to planting trees to absorb some carbon dioxide.

Anyway as we are starting up a business what can we do to make ourselves environmentally neutral or what can we do to give back to the environment and or community?

This is also something that people in regional areas are concerned about, I think this must be integrated into our business values and stance.

It’s about time we all took some responsibility for what we do.

Hmmm it’s 4:05am.

Just remembered something… I washed my sheets this afternoon and forgot to put them in the dryer…. What to do…

Well good morning! It’s Monday

names and myspace

We had to decide on a name and after much deliberation and research we decided on lantern creative. At first I thought it was perfect but now I’m not 100% sure of it. I think that it may not pack enough punch. It was a very difficult task, we kept in mind the fact that we really don’t want prospective customers to look us up on the internet and find another agency called lantern creative/design or advertising we wouldn’t want people to confuse us with another business. Overcoming the issue of finding a name that wasn’t taken was much more difficult than we expected!

I have started up a myspace page
http://www.myspace.com/lanterncreative

The purpose of this page will be to look into the kinds of people/youth in the Albury area and its surrounds. This will provide some excellent insight to one of our key markets. It will also be a way to be in contact with local media such as street press and local creatives and industry people. It will help us overcome the issue of distance.

the business plan comp.

Finally I can long in to my word press account without Safari closing down! Don’t know what was going on.
Well it has been an insane week, I’ve been working like crazy, Nat is down from Sydney again and mum put the pressure on to finish the house. It was so good to hand in the comm. Rev. essay. I feel I almost went insane last week! In terms of ‘The business’ I have been analysing naming and thinking about the design and visual aspects of our identity. It needs to identify us, look professional, unique and modern and needs appeal to our audience.

I entered the RMIT business plan competition, the entry took no less than nine hours to complete. Hopefully we get back some good feedback and get to the next stage, it would be amazing to get a head start with some cash flow and advice.

Following are the questions and answers that I submitted.

RMIT BUSINESS COMPETITION – Questions & Answers

What is your business opportunity?

Describe the business opportunity in terms of the product or service, and what need or desire will be met. What specific market(s) is your venture seeking to penetrate? Is there a specific time frame or window of opportunity in which to act?

A shortage of advertising services in rural Australian areas means that business owners in country areas such as Albury/Wodonga are posed with the inconvenience of having to source advertising work from agencies in other cities such as Melbourne and Sydney which is highly inconvenient and as is the case for all but the largest businesses, is not likely to happen. Almost all creative heads which live in these areas move to larger cities find work where there are more jobs and money. Our team will start up an agency to service these clients who are lacking.

Why have you been attracted to this opportunity?

How and why was the opportunity identified? How does your idea or venture address this opportunity? Is the opportunity a result of market failure, consumer dissatisfaction, technology breakthrough or any other reason?

We came across the opportunity as my partner Verity had moved to Albury temporarily. She was present at the filming of a commercial for a local business and began talking to a member of the film crew. In conversation the member from the film crew was complaining about the lack of advertising and media services in the area. We carried out some investigation and discovered that there were no significant ‘advertising agencies’ doing creative or interesting work in the area.
A trend has arisen which has seen the move of creatives from the country to larger cities. This has created a gap in the advertising sector, consumers are not identifying with the advertising currently being done.
We would like to take this opportunity to do something inventive.

Provide a profile of a typical customer for your product/service? Is your customer and the end user the same entity? If not then explain the distinction.

He has a family and works hard to keep his business afloat and everything together. He worries about what the future holds for Albury and the surrounding areas but is proud of where he is from. He worries about things such as water shortages and the trends he sees occurring as youth move from the area. He is quite conservative in his thinking and does not feel too comfortable taking risks. He still believes that Albury has a lot to offer but that residents must work together to progress. Our customer is the business needing the communicative work but our end users are the population of Albury/Wodonga and surrounding towns. We have already created a website for an Albury client it has been a great success!

Why would customers purchase your product / service and not the product / service of your competitors
What are the needs of your prospective customers, and how will you meet them? Who are your potential competitors, and what does your venture offer that they do, or cannot offer to the market? What are the points of differentiation between your venture and existing and potential competitors? How are/can these points of differentiation be made apparent to your market?

Our customers need communicative work that the end users will identify with. We have the ability to create imaginative concepts and inventive ways of reaching these end users. Our customers will be likely to use our service as the services currently available to them are not up to scratch and can not offer them a complete service. For example those in the area who do web creation do not have any design background or our competitors offering marketing services do not offer any unique or creative branding. We will launch a campaign around these areas to gain awareness of these issues and ensure that business owners are aware of the possibilities they are currently don’t have. The campaign will take the form of ambient media, direct mail and print.

What is the Vision for your business? How are you going to achieve your vision? How much time do you believe you need to achieve your vision?

Given access to adequate resources, what will your business look like in the future? What form and in which markets will the business be trading? What is the scale, scope and status of your venture? What resources (from investors – which include yourselves) do you need to achieve your vision and how will you use them? When do you expect to achieve your vision?

In the near future we envision that our business will consist a base office located in Albury. This will only be open to the public on certain particular days. We will also have a virtual office running continuously and have the capacity to travel to clients when they can not come to us. Future projections and expansion will also include an office in Melbourne. We will be trading in various markets as we will have clients from numerous different areas. We will be operating in the communication field and will be involved in print, radio, television, the ambient market and online.

As we will be outsourcing most of the production we will need limited resources to begin our venture. We will need two Mac laptops, the programs to carry out our production and management, a car, a location for our office, a camera and two phones. We will need to cover the costs of our initial launch campaign, our website hosting and the printing of our business cards

Have you considered Intellectual Property protection?

Please provide details, if any, of Intellectual Property ownership and structure.

We have considered trade marking our business logo, name and tagline. We will also have to consider copywriting our ideas and the work we produce. As we are not releasing any forms of new technology I don’t believe we have to worry about patents at this stage.

What (if any) are the significant achievements of the venture to date? What is the significance and implications of these achievements?

We have brainstormed and created various visual ideas for our business’ identity. We have developed some of these designs to a standard worthy of production. We have also created an initial website front page.

We have successfully created and put into practice a website for a client in Albury, BF panels. It is currently running and doing the job it set out to. This signifies that we are competent in carrying out real projects from conceptual stage through the production stages and following the process through on to ongoing management.

What resources do you need to take your product/service to market in order to generate revenue?

What is required and what is the strategy to achieve a regular revenue stream? When can this be achieved?

Initially we will gain interest through our launch campaign which will incorporate direct mail, print, ambient and possibly viral advertising. Our campaign will involve mass saturation to get people talking and generate some hype. We hope they will then contact us via phone or our website.

We will also personally pitch what we can offer to prospective clients who we believe can benefit greatly from our service. We will pitch to them gradually rather that all at once as this will give us a manageable amount of work. I forecast that to begin with we would take on one job a fortnight depending on the size of the job. This would gradually increase as we establish a more efficient smooth running production, we would not want to try to take on too much too soon. We would be able to begin this process as soon as our website is up and running and we have organized the logistics of our office and setup.

Over the next 12 to 18 months how will you be involved in the running of the business?

Over the next 12-18 months we will be sourcing and pitching to new clients, we will be coming up with creative briefs, concepts and strategy. We will also be involved in the creative process and production. There is the possibility that we could outsource some of the art work and production. We will be the directors of the business. We will handle the organization and the production ourselves although some we will source through some our contacts and network.

What sort of professional assistance do you believe you need (if any) over the next 12-18 months

Professional assistance will usually relate to technical expertise, financial and legal advice (including Intellectual Property protection) and marketing and public relations campaigns.

We will need professional legal advice as we will be dealing with contracts and it will be necessary as we protect ourselves to avoid possible misunderstandings and problems. We will be dealing with intellectual property in terms of our ideas, copyright and trade marking. We will need an accountant and assistance for putting in place our financial systems. We will also need advice on dealing with the companies that sell the media space we need. Professionals will need to be contracted out as we need them for particular jobs. For example, we will need to have work professionally printed, recorded and or filmed.

Who are the current management team and other key people associated with your business?

Is the management team also the owner/s of the venture? Is there an advisory board or mentor to the business? What are the academic, commercial and technical backgrounds of key personnel? Who is the primary driver of the venture?

Myself and Verity Kowal are the management team and joint owners of the venture. One of our advisors is Shelley Kirby. She is a lecturer at RMIT and holds in depth experience in all of the areas which we are intending to enter. She specializes in web design and online advertising. Myself and Verity are the primary drivers and have had the support of lecturers at the university in terms of them believing that our idea will be achievable and relevant. We also have a network which we can call on if we need to, this network involves people such as photographers another creative team consisting of an art director and copywriter, makeup artist and event manager. Verity’s specialization is Copywriting and mine is Art Direction. We form a strong team who have proven over our years at RMIT that together we work well and efficiently. Over our time at RMIT we have learnt to put into practice all of the things involved in our business from conceptual stages to final outcome.

What is the individual and collective commercial and technical skill and experience of these key people? What is their degree of industry knowledge, and is anyone familiar or experienced in the commercialization process, including fund raising and dealing with external investors?

In 5.1 I touched on the key technical skills that we posses. My mentor Shelley has in depth industry knowledge and experience, although I am not certain to what extent she has dealt with investors. I have a close personal associate who was a previous partner of Sydney advertising agency Brand House. He will be able to assist in providing us with key industry knowledge.

What gaps exist in the skills of the management team and how are these skill requirements going to be resolved in the near future?

The skills required to grow the venture will vary, but will generally be management skills rather than technical skills.

As we have not managed a business before we will need some assistance in terms of business models that will work and the logistics of how to work things efficiently. We will need to put systems into place for many things so that we can get things done on time and in a precise and professional manner.

What, if any, are the core values and guiding principles of your organization?

What core values determine the way in which you will conduct this business? For example is strategy and risk exposure determined by collective agreement or by one person? Is the business based on environmentally sound or socially aware practices?

We will have a code of ethics that we will adhere to in terms of the ways in which we deal with clients and also the manner we approach our work. We have a responsibility to society to keep the work we do in a morally correct stance. We will avoid things that are detrimental to society for example glamorizing drugs. People already have a negative attitude towards advertising and will be skeptical if not resentful of our industry. We hope to change people’s attitudes towards advertising and discover that it can be something moving, exciting and fun.
We will collaborate on all of our strategic approaches and be in close communication with our clients. Our strategy will be based on one key thing. Research. Research will form the basis for work that is on target and will be the fundamental before undertaking any task.

How will you ensure focus and commitment from your team?

We will maintain close communication and meet regularly to discuss where we are, and where we are headed. We will ensure that we remain focused by sticking to our planning and keeping things in line with our briefs. Of which will be based on thorough research.

What is your core product/service?

What is the base product/service that your venture sells or will sell? What are the benefits to the customer? ? Do you have/ need repeat sales to the same customer group, or are new customers required for every sale?

Our main product/service is providing our clients with a memorable and relevant identity and or campaign. Most of out clients do not have any strong branding or visual identity, we aim to develop this for them along with creative marketing concepts that will work to enable their positive recognition in the marketplace. This may involve all of or some of these things: business name, logo, tagline, brand identity, website, signage, print ads, brochures, direct mail, radio, TVC, ambient media and or e marketing.

We hope to establish successful relationships with our clients and have them come back to us whenever the need arises for them to develop or rethink their strategies.

Do you have a strategy to enter the market and to generate sustainable revenue?

It is imperative that a strategy of speed to market be employed. Sustained revenue generation is the primary milestone of any early stage venture.

Our strategy to enable the generation of sustainable revenue will focus on organization and timing. We will need to have reliable and professional production contacts to ensure things are completed on schedule. We will also have to have strict deadlines and be consistently looking ahead to prepare for the next incoming project. We will manage our flow of work so we do not find ourselves with too little work or too much at any one given time. We have experienced the task of having to pace ourselves throughout our course and I believe that we have successfully developed the ability to multitask which will be vital in sustaining our business.

How reliant is the development, production and delivery of your product or service on others within your industry supply chain? Can any strategy be developed to minimize this reliance on the supply chain?

The success of our business does not rely greatly on a chain of supply. We do however need to rely on our imaginations and creative outlets. There will be substantial pressure to ensure we have a continuous stream of ideas.

Explain the market environment including size, maturity, level of competitive intensity and barriers to entry.

What is the scale and scope of your market? What are the dynamics and influences in your market?

The market we are looking at is relatively small at the present time although it does cover a very large physical area. Currently it is not very mature creatively. There is potential although from what we have observed there is a great lack in direction. I think we are in a fantastic position as people seem to be eager for something new. I think that we may encounter some cultural barriers and will have to make a conscious effort not to alienate our audience or seem as though we feel to be superior.

Identify your key competitors, outlining points of differentiation. What, if anything, makes your competitors successful?

What is the competitive environment of your market? Do you understand who your competitors are, and in what context you compete?

Competitors of ours in would include marketing, web creation, and graphic design businesses mainly within the cities and towns in the areas we are looking at. We would also have some competition from advertising and design agencies from Melbourne and Sydney

Marketing mechanics is a Sydney business which advertises through Albury’s yellow pages. It offers an online service. One of the key advantages we will have over them is that we will have direct contact with clients as will be actually based in Albury. We will also be able to offer competitive pricing and a personal approach. John Jewell Design is a graphic design agency. It offers brand identity services and specializes in web design work. It is not a key competitor though as they specialize in the wine industry exclusively doing communication design and identity for wineries. Marketing mechanics based in Sydney and John Jewell Design were the only business we discovered doing work that we considered of high standard. Other supposed advertising agencies such as Albury Design Group don’t have websites and are doing work but not of the caliber which we are setting out to achieve.

What are the market distribution channels for your product/service? How are you going to access these?

How will customers purchase your product/service, and how will you reach them? What strategic linkages have to be achieved to ensure adequate distribution of your product/service to market?

Customers/ Clients will purchase our advertising services directly through us. We will reach them through a launch campaign and ongoing marketing. We will also be featured in the yellow pages so that they can find us should they search. We will have a network in place to distribute our campaign to offer a broad reach.

How much working capital do you have and how much do you need? What will you use these funds for?

How much capital do you believe you will need to source over the next 18 months in order to develop and launch your product/service to achieve a profitable and sustainable market presence? How much cash does the company currently have, and how much cash is readily accessible from alternate sources?

Over the next 18 months we will need capital for the following.
Advertising in the yellow pages, approx $2300
The purchase of two Mac laptops $5000
Adobe creative suite $500
A car $5000
Website hosting $260
The purchasing of our domain names $100
Our initial launch campaign $1000
Business cards $250

What do you believe are the primary obstacles to achieving success in your business?

What obstacles are due to a lack of internal resources and to the market environment? What are the broad strategies to overcome these?

I think that the key obstacle that we will have to overcome will have be to gain the trust and respect of our customers. Our audience is quite skeptical and may initially think that we do not understand them. Verity’s background will greatly assist in shifting this trend as she was born and grew up in Albury, she is very familiar with the people and the place. We will also face an obstacle in terms of distance. We will need to be very organized as we live in Melbourne and it will take planning to travel to Albury, we will need to make our trips there as productive as possible.

We need to acknowledge that the initial stages will probably be relatively slow as people get to know us. We will be able to overcome these obstacles. We know we will have to work hard and are prepared to put in as much effort as it takes to make our business a success.

It’s been a while

Well it’s been a while since I last posted a blog on wordpress. Now that the communications revolutions essay has been submitted I feel I can breathe a slight sigh of relief. I feel I worked so hard on it but got almost nowhere although I did understand the concepts. It was a very unusual feeling as I feel I did a lot of research.

Lantern creative is slowly moving ahead, one step at a time of course. I am in the process of creating a myspace page for us to help with the establishing of some personal and creative networks in the areas we are focusing on. We want to gain an understanding of people on a personal level and hope that we can begin to network in some form. Although everything is still in its early days we need to begin work on these connections. When I look at our timeline, I see time moving way too fast! It’s scary. Myspace is a new social platform which I feel we can use to our advantage. This is the case especially as we have an enormous obstacle to overcome in terms of distance between ourselves and our audience. I have discovered some connections which I didn’t know existed within old friends and aquaintences. I am still to find out whether these people can actually do what they say they can.

I have had various conversations with Verity over msn, mostly at about 3am while she’s house hunting in Dublin and I am doing homework or procrastinating. We have talked at length about our business and where it’s heading. I’ve discovered that un-knowingly we both feel the urge to continue our nomadic existance and at some stage soon possibly migrate to London. We shall see where things go.

Well here comes another week, easter is gone and we are now four months into 2007!

don’t try this at home…

Well first it was my finger and now Sandy is injured… I was at the station on Thursday on my way to work, when someone left a message on my voicemail. A cry for help! I called back as quickly as my fingers could dial hoping I wasn’t too late! My mum had fallen off a ladder.

The crazy little woman thinks she is invincible. She was alone at ‘the house’ on top of a ladder painting when she tumbled and became tangled under a giant mass of aluminium. The paint tin of went flying she lay in agony with white paint in her hair until I arrived thirty minutes later. No matter how many times we warned her of the dangers, she stubbornly went about getting things done no matter how risky what she was doing became.

Off to the hospital we went where they told us she would have to stay admitted and receive surgery. After many x-rays and a few boring days waiting we were told that she if she had surgery she would be unable to travel for up to ten weeks. Thus there was no surgery.

She’s recovering after arriving home today and will hopefully be taking it easy and letting that bone heal, after all it did break in two places.

Time to leave it to the professionals. 

Although I hear she is getting some sort of electric wheelchair to go and supervise the project.

Note: Should start up a DVD rental facility at Cabrini… or they should get Foxtel

4 sentence , thoughts

Nico – I think it’s fantastic that youre looking at merging this’old school’ form with something new age like the Internet. I think it will breathe new life into it, especially as today’s youth are so computer driven and most likely havn’t really experienced comic books as we have. This seem like it will be a very creative and fun project. The only kind of issue I see, is that I can’t really identify the problem you’re trying to solve or if there is an issue at hand.

Arnie – This has the potential to be something really amazing! It’s a very ambitious project and will be excellent if its done properly. I can see you making something really unusual and entering it in tropfest! It’s a really practical project and may get you some great work. I see a small problem in the sense that you appear to want to appeal to too many audiences. I don’t think you can truly be both Australian and universal. I think your movie will be a lot stronger if you stick to one audience.

Sarah - Radio has been one of the most important media in history and it will be really interesting to see what you’ll be working on! I think its one medium that in a sense seems to have been left behind creatively in the television and Internet rush. I suppose it’s been seen as less glamorous. I think there’s a lot of potential to do something unusual and unexpected.

Michaela – This is a topic that will appeal to a lot of today’s public. People have become increasingly sceptical especially these days with all the talk of ‘terrorism’. The focus of your topic is very strong and what you are debating is very clear which is fantastic. You seem very certain but what if it’s not all black and white?

Sue – It’s great that you’re looking at something that isn’t geared towards modern media!This will be a very interesting project, it does seem to be an enormous topic to look into though and I couln’t quite grasp which area you’ll be focusing on.

Pheona – This piece looks like it will have the potential to make you some $$! It’s a very original project in an area that definitely needs some sort of overhaul in its teaching process. How will you measure it’s effectiveness?

Kris – This is a fantastic idea,  it’s also great as your background will serve as an advantage in terms of being able accurately interpret the culture and being able to correctly explain. It’s such a broad topic, will you be focusing on a few specific films?

 Viv – I can see possible problems with my project if it’s not properly organised… I will be working together with Verity so I have to make sure we are both on the same page as to what we want out of it. We will need to define exactly what components will make up our project. We are looking to start a business but what will form the main parts of our project? The planning for the business? The actual work that we do for real clients? or the research we do into the rural sector? I think it will be comprised of all of these things. It is a substantial amount of work but I have to remember that it will be divided between two, so therefore needs to be structured as a larger project.

brainstorming qualities…

Hmmm, so what qualities may we want our advertising business to have?

… HUMOR – IMAGINATION – EXCITEMENT – REASON -BALANCE – FRANKNESS – DETERMINATION – WIT – STRENGTH – BODY – UNDERSTANDING – EMPATHY – CLASS – INTELLIGENCE – CREATIVITY – DRIVE – SPARK – FLAVOUR – SPICE – CHARM – FRESH – FUN – CURRENT – UNUSUAL – ENERGY – BOUNCE – SPIRIT – URBAN…

Ok, so how will our business be/show these qualities?

HUMOR
We don’t want to be too serious in the sense that we don’t want to be seen as uptight. Under the right circumstances we also want to make people laugh, I think that when an ad makes people laugh they get a good feeling about the product and also find it memorable.

IMAGINATION
We need to come up with ideas and strategies that will stand out. For this we will need to have imaginative thinking. Off the wall ideas will only come delving into our imagination. At times these ideas may be on the verge of ridiculous or possibly be just right. Ultimately we need to find different ideas that will work for our clients.

EXCITEMENT
We want to surprise people. Be doing things that they don’t necessarily expect. As we are starting out we also need/want to generate some hype.

REASON
We will need to have sound research and understanding of our products to be able to rationalise our ideas.

BALANCE
We don’t want to have too many of one type of client. We want to show that we are versatile.

FRANKNESS
We need to be upfront with our clients. We don’t want to be given the run around or be caught up with clients who are problematic. Therefore we need to be straight up about how we work, what goes on with the creative process, what outcomes they can hope for, our responsibilities and what we expect from them.

DETERMINATION
We will need determined to push though the most creative ideas possible and not allow clients to make them wishy washy if they think they are too different. We need to show them that we are determined to make great ads in Albury. We have to make sure the clients understand that the work we are doing won’t be the same as what is already being done. It will take courage on their part to be different but will be worth it. We are determined to change the face of advertising in this rural metropolis.

WIT
See humour… We want to create clever ideas that will make people think.

STRENGTH
We will have to be strong to be able to start up from scratch. There are many obstacles that we will have to overcome and we won’t get past them if we are a weak team.

BODY
Hmmm… We need to show a body of work that shows we are versatile and can actually do what we say we can.

UNDERSTANDING
We will need to understand that our prospective clients may not be comfortable in doing something that they believe to be risky. It’s most likely that they will be conservative and quite new to the advertising process. They will probably be quite wary of us so we will have to do our best to put them at ease and make them feel comfortable.

EMPATHY
See understanding…

CLASS
We will aim to bring some class to some products that people think they have to go elsewhere to find or that they don’t think they sell in places like Albury.

INTELLIGENCE
We need to make clients feel at ease and comfortable with us. To be able to get them to trust us we have to show them that we know what we are talking about.

CREATIVITY
Our business will revolve around creativity. We will need to think differently. If we don’t come up with creative concepts we will not be a success.

DRIVE
We will need drive to keep the ball rolling. We want to show that we are a dynamic business.

SPARK
We want to be lively… We want to be light in the dark…

FRESH
We want to do things differently, if possible breathe new life into businesses whose image in the public eye may have become a little stale over time.

FUN
See humour

CURRENT
We need to show that we are down with the times and therefore can portray the clients we are representing as modern, desirable and that they know what their customers need and want.

UNUSUAL
Coming up with unusual ideas will appeal to people, they will provide cut though and people will be more likely to remember them.

ENERGY
We don’t want to appear sluggish or lazy. We need to show our clients that we are motivated. That we will get the job done efficiently and they will see results.

research begins…

Well, I made my first trip to the library on Tuesday! The research has begun!

The bricklayer I met at the house on Sunday was very eager to proceed with getting a new business card designed. He was surprised by how quickly I got back to him. Some extra cash in the pocket… It didn’t take me long to design something much better than the dogs breakfast he had as an excuse for a business card… That reminds me, I have to get mine made too…

The reading for comm.rev. is moving along, every moment I can find I am looking for ‘The dossier’.

injury and a possible client

Well I almost had to get stitches to hold my finger together but the doc ended up using a special glue which bonded the skin back into place. Revolutionary stuff.

I got a bit excited at how fast those tiles were coming down as we ripped down the entire sheet of plasterboard. Much more effective than my tame effort with the chisel and mallet… they sure came down fast, right onto my finger. The edge was razor sharp and sliced to within millimetres of the bone. Mum thought her one single worker was now long gone but after a dose of panedine forte we went from the doctors straight back to the site… some painting and filling calling but the tiles I’ll leave for someone else, Abuelita?

Strangely, one small job possibility came up amongst all this. During the day one of the scarce tradesmen turned up to look over the specifics of a job out the back. It turns out he’s getting new business cards printed… After one look at his mess of a card I suggested he needs a new design, I would be happy to do it, for a fee of course. Will be emailing him an example of one I’ve done in the past. He also mentioned that he would need some advertising work done in the future as he’s planning on expanding his business, things like a website, logo design etc. I’m sure we at Lantern Creative will be able to work something out for him.

Although that does bring up another thought…. Being that we do want to target businesses in rural Victoria/NSW what should we do about work that pops up in Melbourne through people we meet? I think that it would be benefficial for our business to take on small projects in Melbourne as It will give our business credebility. Seeing as we are starting out we need as much work as possible to develop for our folio.

task 2

What makes a good project or topic?
-  I think a good project needs to show depth and understanding of a key issue.
-  It needs to be clear as to what it wants to say or what it intends to accomplish.
-  A good project will show that the topic has been thoroughly explored through
    research.
-  It will show both sides to an argument and debate them.
-  A good project will set out to find a solution to the issue at hand.
-  A good project will be organized and coherent, it will cover any key elements
    related to the issue and be presented in a way which can be understood by all  
    those who interact with the project without prior knowledge on the topic.

What and who is our project for?
-  Our project will serve two purposes. The business side of our project is useful to
    business owners in rural areas who need advertising done.
-  Our written aspect of the project will be for those in industry to gain a more
    thorough understanding of the issues faced for these people, this will help them  
    have more of a positive approach to working in this side of the industry and will
    make it easier to deal with these clients. I believe it may possibly also serve to
    encourage those creative heads in the area to look towards doing some work for
    the business around them rather than always moving to Melbourne or Sydney
    straight away to work.

The four sentence abstract:
 A shortage of advertising services in rural Australian areas means that business owners in country areas such as Albury/Wodonga are posed with the inconvenience of having to source advertising work from agencies in other cities such as Melbourne and Sydney. Almost all creative heads which live in their areas move to find work in larger cities where there is more work and money.  So, lets start an agency in the country and relieve some of the workload.

How my project will be presented:
I think my final project will be made up of a number of related and interconnected pieces. I will be working together with Verity so we will have to have a large body of work. As we are planning on starting up a business there will be various components that will make up the final project. The planning and research: this will include the business plan and our documented findings on the rural market and client base. The actual business will form the second part: our website, and real work for real clients. In a sense it will be a series of projects which join to form our major project. It will be a lot of work so I am worried that it may be a bit too ambitious, but I do believe that it is do able…

We want our finished work to display a number of these qualities:
Humor and wit, Reason, Balance, Frankness, Determination, Strength, Body, Understanding, Class, Intelligence