PhD: a child's eye view

In typical style my daughter was styling out going to bed this evening. This used to involve asking her most tricky questions at bedtime, classics being 'how do you make skateboards?' or 'how was the earth made?'. This has become more sophisticated as we've got older and she has become very good at engaging me in conversation at this bedtime time.

Anyway this evening, for the first time, she showed a real interest in my PhD (oh I know she's smart - obviously seen me waffling about it to some poor soul, cornered at a family gathering, and thought 'that'll buy me 10 more mins' and the rest). Anyway as someone who is big into narrative and the benefits of storytelling, I always value the opportunity to reflect on my own story. What was also good was that her questions are so left-field I could use this for Viva experience.

So here is something like how our conversation went:

Q.Did they always have a PhD or did it only start when you started working there?
A. No the university already did PhDs. Everyone does a PhD on their own subject - sort of something they want to figure out and get expert in. I'm a student, it's a bit like doing a course.

Q.What is your subject?
A.Gender and entrepreneurship in the creative industries

Q.What does that mean?
A.Well Gender is sort of you know whether someone is a male or female, entrepreneurship is about running a business and creative industries are you know art, film making, design and stuff.

Q.Oh - why are you doing that?
A.Well I did some research and it seems women are less likely to run businesses doing that stuff than men

Her: Mum - you know it's just because in the olden days women didn't even work

Me: I guess, I mean I know that's sort of why

Q.Well you don't really need to bother doing the PhD now do you? I mean that's the answer

A.Yeah but. the whole thing is I can't just say that I have to do the research to evidence it.

Q.Why don't you just be an artist instead?

A.Well I was when I left college. You know uncle XX and I had our studio in the Custard Factory and we tried, but you know, I guess I just didn't know how to run a business.

Bingo I was off...

You see as an artist you need to know how to run a business, you know sell your paintings, promote yourself, get commissions, deliver on time, do your tax returns...

(Well that was the entrepreneurship and the creative industries bit covered...)

Creative Enterprise 2008 Presentations and speaker info all online

Had all the stuff from the Creative Enterprise 2008 conference through yesterday, which has been neatly packaged into a press release and a section on our Media Depts - website with all the speaker presentations and biog details. According to the press release here's what I said at the time with regard to the relationship between schools of Art and Design and Business schools in terms of delevering enterprise education:

"We had some interesting comments about collaborations between Art, Media and Design faculties and business schools which suggested some tensions, however the conference highlighted how, at least two institutions had navigated this and benefited. What is clear however is that the pros and cons of such collaborations are somewhat uncharted."

The full press release can be found here and all the speaker details, presnetations and wotnot can be found here

Teaching new media marketing with Twitter....

I am sitting at my desk it is 5.38 so officially outside of work time now. Wondering what to do next? I have head spinning issues. You know? when you are sort of over tired, too much to think about, too much to do and ideas and general stuff keeping you from actually doing anything? So I figured I'll blog - get some of it down.

The last few days I've been doing some pretty solid lecturing here at the university. 6 hours Tuesday, 7 yesterday - this is extreme hard work! To retain concentration, enthusiasm and energy for those sort of stretches is kind of exhausting. However the thing I find about lecturing is that you get to reiterate your ideas and thoughts about stuff, if you're lucky you also get the input of some keen minds and whole bunch of new ideas emerge.

I've been teaching New Media marketing. This week I was mainly focussed on online social networking sites, creating community around your product and keeping an eye on the ever changing/evolving online world. Twitter became one of the focuses for these sessions and by day two I was encouraging my Twitter buddies to participate in the lecture (imagine Twitter projected to class).

My final cohort of students were Msc Business creation students they are all 'entrepreneurs'in the making. Twitter offered the opportunity for my class to interact with, some of the freelance and SME community who are my Twitter buddies, one offered themselves as a 'Live' case study, others offered pointers in online marketing.

All of this was unplanned and could potentially be a much bigger session with all of them sat at computers, laptops, pdas or with their mobile phones participating in a more formal way, with my 'followers' chipping in as and when. Another real benefit of the exercise was it was a direct demonstration of how the users help the evolution of the product (Twitter)by reconfiguring its application (teaching aid) on the fly.

Anyway big thanks to Podnosh, Livebrum (URL to come) and Robert Sharl for their input yesterday - much appreciated.

Message and Medium

Well I've been kind of quiet here since the female bloggers thing. It sparked some interesting discussions and thought processes for me. As my PhD research is very much focussed around gender and entrepreneurship in the creative industries sector I am always sensitive to what are the drivers and barriers to women (and men) within these sectors (Incidentally I am using the DCMS definition of the creative industries which is broad and includes software design, computer games design and publishing - blogging must have a fit there). So the discussion that arose from the Birmingham Bloggers meeting has been a useful one for me, as it highlights some of the opportunities and challenges for the sector in terms of inclusion.

Perhaps some early indications are that women are, potentially, more pre-occupied with the message (content) than the medium (technology)- Of course both are serious drivers of innovation and change, but perhaps here and among the Birmingham Blogging community (ok not all of you I know) the emphasis is sometimes on the latter. Now this is all anecdotal and not even remotely scientific, but as I am currently developing, and deploying, my various surveys (online and face to face narrative interviews). It will be interesting to see if this is an area which emerges.

Incidentally I am keen to develop more research projects in this area if anyone would be interested in collaborating then do drop me an email. charlotte dot carey at gmail dot com

Women, the creative industries, digital technologies, blogging and inclusion

I want to keep this brief because it's supper time, but a little explanation around this blog, my research topic and how a little event on Monday suddenly put all that stuff into sharp relief.

A story: About 10 years ago I was immersed in all online stuff in the local area (was even regaling the whole 'Charlotte Carey Online' debacle (a rather low budget BBC Radio WM weekly tech radio show) the other day) this all carried on for a few more years and then in 2000 I had my daughter. I took 6 months maternity leave. What happened in that time was a bit weird. I kind of lost my tech mojo or perhaps my confidence to keep on top of the fast changes in technology.

Another thing I noticed was a whole bunch of women that I'd previously met at private views and the like, who had mysteriously disappeared, were now in this other world. The mummy world. It is a day time world where there aren't many private views or networking events, def no impromptu after work schmoozing and networking happens but accompanied by nappy changing and other baby related stuff.

Now this is all quite a while a go for me, mojo was recovered, although slightly altered, private views became once more an option - occassionally. But the whole impromptu thing now has to be planned for.

(and I should add a little disclaimer here: In my experience having a baby and looking after ones small child is one of the most awesome and wonderful experiences - I am not trying to diminish that in anyway. I also know that this is not unique to women and that increasingly men stay at home and take care of childcare)

Now why do I mention this all? well it was this experience and some early research I was involved in that lead me to the work I am immersed in at the moment around gender and entrepreneurship in the creative industries. I got to thinking: if so much about the sector is characterised by sort of night-time living, networking, friendships and 'who you know' then how do folks with caring responsibilities and baby sitting issues get involved? how are their careers affected by this potential exclusion?

This was highlighted recently at the Bham Bloggers (see below) meeting where a bunch of women couldn't make it due to childcare. Now this is not to say that this is the only reason women weren't there (but that is for another posting). But a point that was raised, was that potentially women’s voices are missing and this is pretty serious to the development of these areas. Discussion (see comments related to this blog posting by Stef) led to how women could potentially organise themselves into some daytime blogger meetups, child friendly ones at that. That perhaps these could be a stepping stone to the wider group.

What interests me is that by having a voice, women interested in technology and how it could shape their businesses and the sectors they work within might really add value and a different perspective to the overall mix.

Later: Re-reading my final paragraph and having thought about it some more I realise this sounds a little patronising. What I sort of mean is that they should be shaping/influencing this stuff as much as any one else and in some quarters probably are, but here in the WM it still feels very male dominated - am Imaking sense?

Anyway I'll get in touch with those women and see if we can fix something up?

Social media cafe and blogging and men and stuff

Last night I went to the 3rd Birmingham bloggers meet. Organised by Nick Booth, Podnosh. Overall I have to say it was kind of fun, and interesting too. First of all I thought I would share the rather mischievous notes/observations I made (verbatim) at the event and if I have time I'll expand on them sensibly.

• SXSW(M) bit- tech savvy scale?


• Birmingham Bloggers appox 30


• Women 2


• Dubber - very smooth camera holding/beer reaching action


• Digital media passé - apparently


• Applying what was learnt at SXSW to other areas beyond creative inds - (Re: Michael Wolf)


• Strikes me - I must invite my single girlfriends next time (1/15) "Girls I found where all the men are!"


• Co-working movement - Re: San fran


• Man from London – ‘wanted folks to know how 'cool' this stuff was.... ‘


• Refreshing to know, that at least in this area London doesn't appear any cooler


• Social Media cafe and co-working space (sounds kind of familiar~)


• Bert and Ernie

I'm humming YMCA while I type - wierd....

• CUBIT....back in da day, 90's and custard factory - also thing in Wolverhampton


• def recalling research around co-working spaces etc empty spaces


• Increasing chance of serendipity


• Appreciating canteen at work in a whole new way


• Thinking how great in some ways working in a University can be - constant opportunities to network cross faculty/collaboration/serendipity ago go


• 'Evangelist' totally soo 90's - no?

I couldn't help pointing out that the group was seriously lacking in diversity. All but, I think, three were white, male and around the late 20's early 30's mark. In the pub afterwards it occurred to me however, that as a community it was as much my responsibility to help diversify the group as it is anyone else’s. But I do have some confusion about the purpose of the group.

Is it a group for folks that happen to blog and live in Birmingham?

Is it a group for folks that blog about technology and live in Birmingham?

Is it a group for folks who blog, have an interest in new media/social networking/digitally stuff and live in Birmingham?

Is it a group for freelancers working within new media sector to come together?

It was interesting for me to see how this is developing. From the Creative Enterprise perspective there was a definite focus on how small businesses, sole traders and freelancers can make use of social media both on and off line and I could sense a business plan or proposal to an RDA percolating from some of the group. One thing I would say is a lot of this stuff had been tried before. It is not new that there are a lot of freelancers (particularly in the creative inds) about, who seek out space to network, work, share space and collaborate, even the internet as a conduit to this collaboration isn't all that new, the tools may have changed a bit (was email, newsgroup, discussion lists etc - now blogging, facebook, twitter etc) but not necessarily the application.

I'll expand on some of my bullets at some point.

Homework done 517 words ok Pete?

Oh and just noticed Stef Lewandowski has some pics up

Friday afternoon blues

Today I am a bit stuck. I am having one of those days where I am utterly overwhelmed with all that is around me and all that there is to do and I can’t figure out where to start. So what to do?

Blog about it!

I know it might be boring for you (if you are even there) but you know I need to get some stuff out of my head and ordered in some way and this could be the place to start.

Here are a list of the things I am thinking:

1. I heard this and now I know it is true: A PhD is a long and lonely journey. So few other people have sufficient interest or knowledge about the topic, meaning that they don't get why I am ranting about its importance or about one journal article or another blah blah blah....it is a lonely place and apparently never bloody ending.

2. What to teach students?
I have an issue with the expectations of a group of students over what I feel they need or should be taught over their sense of what they need or should be learning. I am looking for a middle ground. I want to equip them with some principles but they want to know how to know how to use particular bits of software - with just 4 hours and 160 students (in groups of 20) what will really be useful for them?

3. Yesterday I went to an LSC/AWM creative inds event. It was an annual forum where regional (West Midlands, UK) 'key stake holders' feedback on what they've been up to and what they are going to do. All reasonably interesting with some new research about to be published on the regional ‘balance sheet’ (I’ll link to this when I’ve had a proper look) this describes the actual ‘supply and demand’ of our regional creative inds sector.

With regards to some of the other stuff discussed I did have a couple of concerns otherwise:

- 'Same old same old' a lot of the same issues covered again and again year on year and somehow never resolved and statistics being used inconsistently by the various stakeholders (I am aware that this is always an issue and about different interpretations of data - something I also am guilty of).

- Richard Florida is still cited widely and seems to be highly influential in regional public policy - this is a little scary, not that Florida doesn't have an interesting and useful hypothesis, more that his writings appear to be followed unquestioningly.

Okay can feel a rant brewing so will be quiet for now............
C

Creative Enterprise 2008: Part 2

I am astonished to find a whole week has passed and I haven't managed to complete this feedback from the conference! Here is what I said I'd cover:

- Some of the great student presentations
- My own presentation
- The dynamic duo (otherwise known as Kath and Andy Penaluna)
- Other longitudinal research
and the final panel discussion

So following Linda Ball's outline of research, past and present. Some very engaging students and beneficiaries presented their businesses within the context of the support they received. I was reminded about how hearing some authentic stories from ‘the front’ can really put some meat on the bones of this type of , otherwise relatively academic, conference. The students were two from the MA Media Enterprise, run by Birmingham City University and two from the NESTA Insight Out programme. What was nice was to get to hear some brief comparison between the two styles of provision.

Back in 2006 (Creative Enterprise 2006) Gaynor Richards reported on the DCMS findings, which identified 5 unique styles of enterprise provision for creative disciplines these were:

- Curriculum Embedded Assimilated /Bolt-on
- Extra-curricular activities
- Post-Graduate Courses
- Continuing Professional Development
- External Agency Provision

Here we got to hear some of the ways in which students benefited from these different styles. They also highlighted some key aspects of the provision which have been most useful, namely, the application of the course work to their actual business and career development 'I used my own company as the case study'. Other key things were the access to networks and networking and the increase in confidence they all felt.

After a really very good lunch we broke into workshops. I was in a strand looking at the research side and pedagogical considerations. Here I presented some early findings from a piece of research I have been involved in since 2006. I work in a business school and since 2006 (just before the last conference) I have been seconded (just a day a week) to our school of art and design. Here I have had a research role and have been capturing the entrepreneurial learning and the journey of the first cohort of students on the afore mentioned MA in Media Enterprise. I presented some of the early indicators again highlighting all the things the students had mentioned plus some issues around success criteria (i.e. if a students leaves to start a business - that's a success right? unless you are a big institution teaching that student maybe?) this raised a bunch of issues around whether universities are the best place to teach enterprise and was picked apart in more detail in the Big Debate later on.

After me were Kath and Andy Penaluna. I've seen this pair present before and generally speaking they are a breath of fresh air in the big academic conferences, where one frequently sits through seemingly endless papers and PowerPoint presentations. They describe themselves as a left and right brain couple and stood each in their respective sides of the room. Andy the left, the creative and Kath, the right and ex-bank manager. What was great was how their own story, which they regaled, highlighted some significant differences in approach from a traditional business school approach to an art and design approach to teaching and learning generally and teaching enterprise specifically. Again this simulated a lot of questions about the role of the business school in all of this.

Finally Antonia Walker gave an interim view on some research she has been carrying out at Bath Spa University. This is a longitudinal study capturing the perceptions and aspirations of students, tracked through their lifetime within the university. Here she is capturing a more real picture of what students’ imagine they will be doing once they graduate. This will certainly prove to be a telling and important part of the overall picture as this field of research matures.

In the late afternoon I was joined by Andy Penaluna and Sian Prime (now a freelance consultant but previously she headed up the NESTA Academy), between us we responded to questions from the audience and from Dr Paul Long who chaired this more open, panel debate. The discussion ranged from what constitutes an entrepreneurial university? to how creativity, education and enterprise can meet. If anyone has any further comments or feedback on this or the other parallel session please do 'comment'.

That's it for now.

A paper about the last conference abstract here.
A paper about characteristics of art and design education and implicit enterprise education

Creative Enterprise and SXSW

This is a little aside to the conference proceedings. A couple of thoughts have been coming together which I just wanted to try to get straight in my head. At the conference the final question to the audience was something like 'have we missed anything?' and of course inevitably a bunch of issues get missed because, well it was only one day. Still even though I piped up something along the lines of 'needing to consider social inclusion ' because ultimately the sector with all its networking is extremely exclusive (just do a quickie demographic audit next time you're out at a launch/conference/private view). Importantly I should say that in my own research experience what gets termed the 'creative industries' is often coming from a very white, middle class and western perspective - okay I am now off on a tangent and need to reign myself back in.

What I want to talk about is technology. Because what occurred to me (while swimming - always a good thinking place)was that when I am talking to students here (business school) about their business ideas what is imperative is how they engage with/adopt/ keep abreast of new technologies. I mean it is hard to imagine a business were some sort of web presence/capability or in fact the whole nature of the business wasn't just online (okay - I’ll give you sole trader window cleaner).

... and we didn't emphasise that much on Wednesday (apart form one student flagging up that the relevance of a module on the MA Media Enterprise which looks at new technologies and new media - apolos I can't remember the exact module name off the top of my head). Anyway it occurred to me that Dave Harte (yes him again) was simultaneously also part of a network of local folks out in Austin Texas at the interactive conference (although his was more of a virtual presence - obviously).

My understanding was that this group of creatives’, all I believe from slightly different disciplines (journalist, web developer, designer, blogger... anyway look at their site) were out there on a major fact finding mission on behalf of the West Midlands creative industries sector - all disseminated as it went along - they also asked folks from back home to suggest tracks/panels that they should attend on our behalf. I with my new media marketing lecturer hat on asked them to go to some of the marketing focused things but what occurs to me now. Now it is too late. Is it is the enterprise panels that may have been really useful. How small creative businesses and new nascent entrepreneurs in the sector can leverage technology? Although I guess that was probably the gist of a lot of the whole conference.

But here's the thing: when we teach students to be enterprising, we really need to be making sure that they are in a competitive position to be able to understand and exploit the continuous change and development of technology and have them really get how folks (customers/suppliers/promoters/distributors) engage in it.

Yeah and Dave? SXSW09? Room for any lecturers?;-)

CE08 update

A quick update - had this link through from Jemima Gibbons, from Interactive Know How who facilitated one of the workshops - 'Teaching practical entrepreneurial skills' - I didn't get to this one so it's good to get a flavour from her notes of the day: Intereactive Know How

Also Dave Harte of Digital central has linked to everyone who spoke!

Oh yeah and another thing - the whole thing was recorded - so should be a podcast and some rather dubious pics of speakers coming soon!

The first insallment! CE08

Yesterday was the 2008 Creative Enterprise conference, hosted by
the Media departmentof Birmingham City University and situated in the historic School of Jewellery.

This was a day long conference exploring issues of what's working in terms of teaching enterprise to creative discipline students. The day went in a usualish format i.e. organisational address, keynote speaker and then if took a bit of a detour some refreshing perspectives from students and beneficiaries from various courses followed by the most amazing lunch courtesy of Lassan restaurant in the jewellery quarter.

The afternoon consisted of two sets of break out sessions one of which I presented some early findings from the research I am doing with the MA Media Enterprise (will talk about this later) - I also got asked to sit on a panel discussion.

So here are some highlights (incidentally if you came along then please do feel free to comment with your own highlights):

Following a very smooth introduction from Dave Harte: marathon runner, who'd of thought it funny man and project leader of Digital Central , Linda Ball from the University of the Arts London, gave a keynote address and picked out a whole host of issues which were continually referred back to throughout the day by the various speakers. These included:

- The importance of critical both self and peer evaluation - This is a key attribute of an art and design education and it's interesting that Ball has picked this up as I understand it a sort of success criteris in entrepreneurial life.

- She also really emphasised the importance of continued development of creative practice 'Critical for success', something, I feel, sometimes gets lost in all the discussions around developing enterprise in these sectors.

- Other issues around the nature and characteristics of the sectors, all now well documented the networking, motivation, portfolio working were themes picked up again and again throughout the day. Mainly in terms of how education can try to stimulate these and provide a rehearsal space for some of these later entrepreneurial behaviours.

- Another key theme again picked up by many (myself included) was the importance of experiential learning, Linda described a 'Progressive experiential learning cycle' model to describe this.

- Confidence again was a key theme, and a bit of a no-brainer you might think, but the implications relating to confidence are wide in terms of social inclusion and diversity issues.

Linda also spoke about the business skills required and the nature of business support that would be beneficial. I'll get onto all this in more detail in a later posting. So far I am upto about 10.45a.m yesterday morning so I'll leave it at that for now and post a little bit more later about:

- Some of the great student presentations
- My own presentation
- The dynamic duo (otherwise known as Kath and Andy Penaluna)
- Other longitudinal research
and the final panel discussion.............but right now I need to do some work work!

Oh I nearly forgot and must remember to blog in detail the buzz word of the day 'risk' who takes it and when?

Creative Enterprise 2008

Briefly, just back from Creative Enterprise 2008 - I know Dave Harte (Digital Central) gave out this address so I will endeavour to do a proper blog posting with, what I saw as, some of the highlights of the day - but for now I am on my way out to another event - so it will most likely be tomorrow!

If you did attend please do email me with anything you'd like discussed here (or if you didn't for that matter)

charlotte dot carey at gmail dot com

New Zealand, enterprise and academia

Written last monday - posted sat

Well back from what felt like a flying visit to see my brother over in Auckland (NZ). Having woken up at 3a.m for the last couple of nights and having my morning 'smoko' (I don't know it's what my brother calls elevensies - he is totally gone Kiwi and lost is sarf London twang) by 8.45 in the morning, I thought I might as well put the time to reasonable use and report back on thoughts and observations from a city that appears to be extremely enterprising.

Observation one: Owning your job and intra-preneurship

I bought a wedding present for my brother and his new wife - it was a steam iron. Now on the face of things this is not the most exciting story, or gift for that matter, but here's the thing I came out of the store having bought the top of the range, most expensive iron that the store had. This was not my intention when I went in. But Thomas explained to me, in great detail, the differences between each of the irons, he really new his stuff and shared his knowledge with great enthusiasm - who knew that irons get dirty inside? he'd even come across a woman who'd had 'ants living inside her iron'- but not this beauty with special clean inside device, self-turning off switch and stainless steal face - well the coated ones peel apparently. Safe in the knowledge that I'd selected an iron that would last a lifetime, Thomas then offered me a 20% discount - just like that!

The thing that struck me about the whole thing was that Thomas was at most 17 years old, he refferred to the irons as 'his section' he knew everything about the irons, he was enthusiastic about irons, he SOLD me an iron, he sold me the most expensive iron on his section without me realising or begrudging parting with over 100 dollars (discount included) for the privilege. The store was a big old ware house style B an Q type place but the experience was very personal and professional. when I mentioned this all to my brother he explained this was common phenomena in NZ because individuals were really encouraged to 'own their jobs'. Now from an enterprise perespecitve and when, in my work, I have been thinking and discussing enterprising organisations and developing enterprising characteristics it struck me that giving ones staff the autonmomy to make descisions (e.g. give discounts), to have that level of responsibility and ownership makes such a difference to the consumer, customer and service users experience. It presumably empowers the staff member and makes them have more of a sense of loyalty to the company. Anyway I'll think more about this and its fit with enterprise but it occurred to me that Thomas had more scope to use his initiative and be enterprising than, perhaps his UK counterpart, he had the knowledge and power to offer me the discount when he recognised I was at the crucial 'tipping point'.


Observation two: is everyone in NZ self-employed?
Okay fast froward to the wedding day, a beautiful ceromony, at home, followed by a sit down lunch for the 20 or so guests prior to the big party. Around the table every person was or had been self-employed (apart from the kids). All of whom within the creative industries. In fact I was tempted to do a quick survey while at the table. I'd half planned to do a comparative (with Birmingham) study of female run creative industries run companies and do the interviews while out there but decided to have a holiday instead. But here, at the wedding breakfast, i had a t least five of the thirteen sub-sectors covered. On closer inspection it would seem that self-employment in NZ is rife and with their film industry growing rapidly it would seem the creative industries are also a major growth area.

Observation three: Academia is international - nah
Talking of the NZ film industry the monday after the wedding (wow not even a week ago) I had the great pleasure in zooming over to Massey university (the Auckalnd campus) where I met with an esteemed colleague, who has written extensively on entrepreneruship within New Zealand and specifically about its creative industries.

I was struck by how academia offers you this great framework with which to speak with colleagues from across the globe, in fact at the wedding I'd spoken to a lecturer/researcher from AUT University he and I are both struggling with balancing the whole PhD/life/job/when to publish/conflicting advice thing - all very bonding!

Hokey Pokey ice-cream!

Now I'm probably not the most frequent blogger so not posting for a few weeks will probably not be noticed, but just to say that unless I feel especially inspired to do so, things will be a little quiet around her for the next few weeks. I'm off to the drink 'flat whites', eat hokey pokey ice-cream, 'merge like a zip' and look and live on a volcano for a bit. Yes. I am off to New Zealand to see my big bro get married - will obviously check out the enterprise scene in Auckland and will report back on any findings on my return (1st wk March) when normal service will resume!!

Creative Enterprise 2008 Conference update

I Just, very briefly, wanted to mention the Creative Enteprise 2008 conference, happening March 12th here in Birmingham. Amongst other speakers, I will be feeding back some of the research findings from the work I have been doing in this area - with our School of Art and Design's MA Media Enterprise(I'll try and post more about this before I go off to NZ next week) but just thought I would flag the conference up as I believe it is nearly sold out!