The ArtKlick Blog

Day 17
Got to work to find a reply to the email I sent to the organisers of Rhythm and Vines saying they were pretty keen to do The Free Art Project. 

The Free Art Project Concept:
Get a huge canvas eg 2×5 metres and get as many people as possible to do one brush stroke each, take a photo of them pointing to their brush stroke, get their email and postal address, email them the photo, exhibit it for a month, then cut it into 5,000? (or how many people contribute to it) pieces and post them a piece.

Research on art buyers
Found some interesting stats from the 2006 and 2007 Affordable Art Show and am looking at approaching them as a partner. We could take care of the sales side and we could work together to create an active emerging artists online community. Will try approach them when I get down to Wellington at the end of next week.

Also found a good report by Creative NZ - Portrait of an artist. although its getting a bit old.

The Wellington Fringe Festival
Thinking about doing another Free Art Project at The Fringe Festival in 6 Feb - 1 March 2009 - Should be living there by then so will be good fun I think that’s just going to be my thing for events - that way we build a good database and everyone gets a souviner from their event.

Donate NZ
At 4pm I met Claire Sawyers the owner from DonateNZ to find out more about what she does and her plan for the future.

What does Donate NZ do?
It is a (very well designed and recently launched) website that helps people and companies give things (items, discounts and time) to charities. Apparently there are over 60,000 charities in New Zealand which is insane and most people can only name the top 20 most well known. 

Claire had the idea when she was going to throw out some of her appliances and other things and thought “it would be way cooler if I could give this to someone who needed it” and so began the start of DonateNZ. After getting basically ripped off from her first development company her family got a second mortgauge on their house to fund the new design which cost $90,000!! 

Her mother was running a successful flower delivery website which was funding most of the development but at the same time someone hacked her site and destroyed it - ruining cashflow which is not nice when you have no incoming.

They have decided to make the company a not profit organisation so they can get the tax breaks to subsidise the high start up cost. They have also decided to change the revenue model from getting orgaisations to pay a small fee to recieve the goods to getting big corporates such as banks and insurance companies to fund the costs and brand each area as their own.

This is a good idea and gives companies a great opportunity to show corporate responsibility which I believe should be a given for any company turning a decent profit. After talkin to Andrew Hamilton the CEO of The Icehouse breifly he said that a lot of companies are beginning to donate 1% of their profit to charity and 1% of their company resources/time which is great and I think DonateNZ is the ideal platform to do this the most effectively.

As soon as we can afford to I want to be donating 1-2% of company profit to DonateNZ and sponsor an arts charity section and possibly a mental health oganisaton also (having suffered from depression most of my life until the beginning of 2008).

I also introduced her to Pat MacFie from Start-UP Media and he was really impressed whith the conept and design and is going to help Claire meet the right people to get things moving. With Pat’s contacts and credibility and the awesome service DonateNZ provides I think it won’t be long until they get some decent media coverage - which they deserve

Doom and Gloom Media
I personally think there should be a mandatory 5 minute slot on the 6pm news on positive things that New Zealanders are doing for their country instead of the doom and gloom we are always hearing about. The governernment wonders why we have 30,000 people moving to Australia every year - a lof of it is obviously because of the money, but perhaps if there was more coverage of the good things that are being done in NZ people would be more inspired to stay and instil more pride and loyalty? 

It kind of feels like the news is like school - The bad kids get all the attention while the kids actually trying to do something with their lives get neglected. 

If there was a show on after Campbell Live profiling companies and organisations that are all in different levels of growth it would not only be interesting and educational but would help grow those companies. With the 100’s of million’s of dollars that is being invested into our economy through organisations like New Zealand Trade and Enterprise you would think that a show like this would be a smart move to help grow and encourage NZ business.

It has taken people like Pat, Nigel and Tim to put their money on the line to create Start-Up TV for something along these lines.

Don’t get me wrong - I know there is some good news and some great media such as Start-Up, Idealog, Good, Unlimited, Silicon Welly, Looksy and many others but I am talking mainly about prime time news and to an extent, main stream radio. 

I would like to know what you think about some of these questions:
1. Do we the viewers demand the news we get or is it controlled by the media and why?
2. Why do you think so many people are leaving NZ?
3. What needs to be done to encourage and grow NZ business?
4. What other media do you know that cover positive things?
5. Would you like to see a 5 min slot profiling NZ business and a 30-60 min slot weekly at prime time?

***Please note - This is just what I have been thinking for a while but is obviously by no means comprehensive. If anyone can point me to blog posts talking about a similar thing please drop the link on the comments and let me know what you think.