Yesterday saw the delivery of the first audio and video podcasting course for ArtLinks, presented by myself (Ken), along with Alan Slattery and John Morton of Mycrofilms. While Event Media have delivered courses for ArtLinks over the past two years or so, this was the first time (and hopefully not the last) that we’ve combined with Mycrofilms to deliver course content for the arts.

The day itself saw a gathering of techie, non-techie, practicing and non-practicing artists gather to find out about all aspects of podcast, from preparing content, to file formats, examples of software, basic audio and video editing, camera theory, online distribution and lots more. Over the course of six hours it can be hard to cram *everything* you need to know about podcasting in, particularly given the varied audience, but we had a great day out of it, produced a very short podcast by the end of the day and left people with plenty of food for thought on how they could be using podcasts to promote or enhance their activity online.

The slides above are some notes that were used during the day but the real benefit is reaped by those who joined us at No 76 (Kilkenny County Council Arts Office) for demos of various microphones, cameras, online resources and of course the conversations that were sparked as a result throughout the day.

Our thanks to Mary & co. at the Arts Office, Cathy at ArtLinks for organising the day and giving us another opportunity to link up with artists in the South East and to all those who attended the course.

As a result, we’ve decided to press ahead and publish a new blog resource for podcasting which will contain tips and tricks from ourselves, additional notes from our course material and plenty of information to get to you started in the world of podcasting. LovePodcasting.com will be going live by Friday of this week and we’ll be notifying everyone who was on the course when the resources become available.

Based on the feedback returned on from the first running of the course, we hope to shape the podcasting day into a regular feature. Keep an eye on the Event Media blog for more when that happens.

Around two months ago off the back of one of the blogging courses delivered for Artlinks, I was approached by the Kilkenny Arts Festival to consider getting involved in the social media promotion of the festival. Two years on, we’ve worked out a good plan for the festival, we’re currently four days in and there’s all sorts of activity taking place across the festival blog, Twitter, YouTube and beyond.

As part of the coverage of the festival we’re packaging short videos for their YouTube channel, shot handheld in HD on a Sony HR10, covering a wide variety of gigs and events. Currently available online are clips from Julie Feeney, Le Concert Spirituel, Jim & Dr. Nick and Aka Moon, with footage from Amiina, Xi and Si, Katie Kim and RSAG transferring in the office this morning.

The festival started on Friday night and runs through to Sunday August 16th. Many of the childrens, literature and theatre events are already sold out but if you’re looking for tickets and more information on the festival, check out KilkennyArts.ie or visit the festival blog here where you’ll find me contributing over the course of the week.

The next outing of Kilkenny Open Coffee takes place tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at 11:30am in the Kilkenny Cafe at Market Cross Shopping Centre.

Barring one outing, the cafe has played hosted to the OCC meetups since the beginning of the year. Parking is available in the adjacent Market Cross car park while free wifi is available in the rear of the cafe.

I (Ken) have been attending since we started off with Kilkenny Open Coffee and thoroughly enjoy the conversation each month. The morning gives a chance for those in business, those working for themselves, those involved in startups or those looking to do some light networking the chance to get out of the office, meet new people, enjoy a tea or coffee, introduce what it is you’re doing and sit around a table with likeminded individuals.

If you’re in the Kilkenny area, or interested in traveling, please do come along. You can find a map here. If you can’t make this week’s one, we meet on the first Wednesday of every month, at 11:30am in the same venue (rear of Kilkenny Cafe).

If you’re interested in attending, you can RSVP via the Open Coffee Ning group here, or by visiting IGOpeople.com.

I’ve prepared a few slides for this morning which will be used as notes / handouts and will be available online from this afternoon on Slideshare. I will have met some people on the course before, but for those of you I’ll be meeting this morning, welcome along, and don’t be afraid to ask any questions.

You can access the slides from the beginners course here – Blogging For Beginners (presentation).

If you’re a theatre company looking to make use of social media tools to reach your audience, or if you’re heading along to the awards on the day and want to grab me for a chat, don’t be afraid to introduce yourself!