blog

Sweating Petty Things (But Not Petting Sweaty Things)

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:06:03 +0100

I'm STILL stuck! Here's the dilemma - I wanted to call the company ♭Sound - as in be sound but 'b Sound', if that makes sense. I had to decide whether to brand it beSound or bSound, as you can see the latter looks better. But...I can get a free .co.uk domain for a year and bsound.co.uk is taken, besound.co.uk was available - I can buy bsound.org but it means upgrading the web package which I'd have to do anyway if it was still going in a year. But is it bad business sense to buy stuff you may not need if it isn't a success?

I wanted ♭Sound because the musical 'flat' symbol looks good. Though someone said it may blur the boundary between sound art and music and confuse my client base on the kind of work I do. So I've been looking at phonetic symbols, here's a few choices: ♭e̝Sound ♭e̽ Sound ♭ëSound β̞e̝Sound β̞e̽Sound β̞ëSound β̞Sound. It looks better without the 'e' right? I'm not sure if my judgement is clouded by the fact I can have the 'e' but my choices are limited without it - therefore I want it more without? I'd have to delete and re set up accounts in flickr, twitter and audioboo if I got it wrong and decided later down the line that 'e' looks good after all.

I know what Sesame Street would say...

What next?

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:30:39 +0100

Ok, so most of the site and branding is done - I still haven't finished my business plan, I thought it would be easier to write with less information to go in it like; cash flow forecasts, etc.. but it turns out it's harder. All the stuff that needs to go in is the laborious, trivial information - like the SWOT analysis. I say that because I Hate doing SWOT analysis! There's no fancy colourful pie chart conversion at the end its just dull. And disheartening, picking through all the stuff that could potentially destroy your business before you've started it - bleurgh!

Also, I need to do a proper pricing structure. I don't want to be financially out of pocket doing workshops, but I do want them to be affordable. Trouble is the intensity of editing on a pc means that it's easy to loose interest and concentration, so day long workshops would not be viable - but the learning aspect is as much as in a day long workshop. Difficult balance.

The Beginning

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 22:06:45 +0100

The idea for this project came after a number of twists and turns that lead to encounters over the past 12 months. The last of which was a course on Business Planning - I had three idea's, of which this was one. The other two had nothing to do with art or sound at all, but seemed a lot more viable in terms of cashflow. But my heart wasn't in them.

Whilst arts organisations have shown interest in my developing sound art within Bradford, the niche market, the cuts to funding and the lack of knowledge about sound art regardless of the lack of interest in those who do know about it, makes for challenging work.

How do you engage people? Learning through participation.

When I report on young people's 'Positivity' about Bradford, they all seem to say 'more shops' and that's irrespective of gender, race, culture etc. Really? Why do young people think the only purpose/source of entertainment/pleasure in life is shopping! Consumerism is educating people towards that, and we live in a city that offers little else by way of entertainment or social engagement to families and under 18's. Because shopping isn't dependent on how much money you have, it's something you can share as a group or do as an individual as a spectator or participant. Aspirations become about cardigans and stuff!?

Shouldn't we teach the younger generations that there is more to life, that more opportunities are available to them - and then show them where to look? Shouldn't we encourage them to achieve more than a cardigan?

Currently I'm struggling with this website builder that goes 'Aww Snap' (losing all data, so I have to start again), and Audioboo - where the 'flash shock wave' (?) keeps crashing when I try and upload an image.