…From all of us at Team Creative Federation…  we’re looking at an action-packed year with exciting features such as our service calendar coming over the next month or so as well as the opportunity to use even more useful agreements.

So how is the new year for you?  Any new year’s resolutions or goals for the year.  Could this be the year for shooting that film, making that killer tune, building the website, getting that creativity that’s inside you out there into the universe for all to enjoy…  hope so!  For me, I’m looking at starting a night in London called Tiny Room to play some new music in an intimate setting…  and a few more things but won’t bore you!

In terms of all the creative activity I’m aware of there’s some great new music coming out and 2009 is going to be the year of the youngsters.  Some of these guys can’t get served yet!  Plenty of dubstep: Rezzo and Joker around South London.  And Magic Magic and check out “Half Asleep” by School of Bells whichis just beautiful.  Chairlift the band off the Apple ad are wicked too…  so go and see them when they tour!  Coming to a place near you.

So whatever it is that gets you going, make some clear new year’s resolutions and we can provide the foundation to help you get them into orbit…  its going to be a great ride I’m sure!

So we’ll be updating you very soon on those new features!

Hi everyone!  First of all, our blog is back now having been down for a few months while our intrepid development team led by Taz has been busy developing key features…  which leads me on to the new features you’ll have seen on the site.

Now, not only can you add details of your services and where you are and make “associates” (friends!), you can also invite people to participate with your ideas.  Now there are two ways of doing this - either making them a “co-owner” in which case you want to share ownership of your your idea, or by adding them as a “collaborator” whereby you want to discuss it with them or secure their services…  Of course someone can be both.  Got it?  Well fear not we’re going to have some diagrams up soon!

The other thing to say is that there is also a facility to first complete a Non-Disclosure Agreement with anyone you want to collaborate with - we just refer to this as an “NDA” on the site.

Last thing to mention is that I’ve moved (it’s Duncan here by the way) back over to London and am meeting some interesting ideasy folk all over the place - two shout-outs:  one to Web Wednesdays (http://www.webwednesdays.com/) and one to Open Coffee which is a lovely informal meet up on a Thursday - go to www.meetup.com for more details.

Any feedback is gratefully received, please email feedback@creativefed.com.  We really appreciate your support!

UNITEC second year student with get-up-and-go Mark Buntzen put on this wonderful ideas-swapping session last night.  I gave a presentation on Creative Federation and how we are combining the “ideas age” with the maturity of the web in terms of social networking, online software and the freemium concepts.  Got a good reception…  although at times I stopped to make sure everyone was with me - our slides rolled every 20 seconds so we didn’t have much time to go off-deck!

So we also had a demo of how to make music using Live, an astonishing collection of fine art drawings of extinct birds lying dead, an overview of the Irish design scene, the Brooklyn photography scene, the latest Milan Design show, the story behind Mountain Buggy…  the list goes on.  Have a look at their site.

Well done Mark on a great event - look forward to the next one!

Attended the launch party of the fifth issue of the Design mag Threaded edited out of UNITEC, showcasing new talent and designed like a work of art.  In fact they had the pages of it spread out along the walls like they were works of art.  Nice touch.  Well worth getting a copy (all good bookshops blah blah) and every edition has sold out quickly.  Got chatting to Agnes Ang and the Elliot, Kate and Annette from design agency EndemicWorld.com about the up-and-coming Auckland scene.  Have a look at their site and peruse the range of stuff they have.  Everyone seemed to have it in for Wanganui (they’d all been there on design immersion courses) and we thought of a T shirt design “I hate Wanganui too”.  I guess you had to be there.  Thanks to Design professor/kingpin Roger Bateman for the invite.

Just reading this morning about Google’s jump in first quarter net income and revenue ($1.3BN and $5.2BN respectively)… reminded me of a good interview with Eric Schmidt on Bloomberg TV about a year ago. Its one of those interesting things to go back and hear someone talk about their strategy, which you know in retrospect worked!

The bit that resonated then was when he says Google’s main challenge is how to be big without being evil… in this open source, collaborative world it is so crucial that companies stay true to their values and I think Google are a good example of a company that have really “got this”. Having said that my brother calls them “the evil eye of Sauron”

At the end of the day you have to admit that Google is really an advertising company, with 99% of their revenues coming from AdSense and AdClick products.

Here’s the interview.

Had a good chat with Amy who is a writer, musician, singer and helping us with the copy on the Creative Federation site.  Its one of those things you don’t consider that much of a challenge…  until you have to do it.  Then you realise how rare and important it is as a skill.

She also had some great ideas for getting the site in front of the sort of theatrical, musical, filmy, TV, generally creative people who will be into it.  This was one of the ideas touted:  The up and coming Auckland Renaissance Choir called The Souls Of The Righteous are planning a performance in the mezzanine George Court on K Road… an apartment block full of aforementioned creativey types (I’ve got to think of an alternative to the C word!) so we could demo/flyer/promote the site there…  Thanks for that Amy + any more suggestions on marketing ideas let us know!

I had a good chat with my Mum about Creative Federation.  She is very modest and I won’t go on about her creative credentials etc, but one thing she mentioned is worth sharing.  She said, “OK templates and processes for making stuff happen.  Well that’s funny because I have just been putting together a set of templates for holidays that your father and I go on.  One for staying away one night, one for a week-long trip.  That way we can just pick up the template and it makes packing”.  “Mum”, I responded, “we are going to build you a holiday vertical”.  Of course then she said that she’d actually prefer it to be written on a bit of paper on the fridge…

Hi I’m Duncan and part of the gang here at Creative Federation.  Hope you like our site.  In terms of technology think of me as more conceptual than practical - e.g. I’ve just spent two hours trying to blog on our test site (thanks Chris).

I’m focussed on the design and content of the site, and working closely with our developer, Tarique.  Obviously this does involve some research so I’ll share anything I find that I think will interest you.  And this morning I stumbled upon this - a Map of the Socially Networked World.  There are a couple of caveats, they’ve got a few things muddled, e.g. no mention of StudiVZ in Germany and Austria, but overall it shows that the socially networked World is not just a couple of sites slugging it out.

One of the first areas of Creative Federation that will be rolled out is the Idea Refinement area.  We’ve developed an easy step-by-step program that helps you build on your idea.  For example if you had an idea for a TV show about kickboxers, this can help you turn it into a show about kickboxers competing to make the best lasagne.  In a boxing ring.  With Gordon Ramsey as the referee.  And the winner gets to kick the loser’s lasagne into the audience!

We’ve been working on the Idea Refinement processes with local Innovation Coach, Megan Hawthorne, and our beta for that will be ready in a matter of weeks for testing.  So get in touch if you’ve got a seed of an idea…  And don’t be put off by the cooking kickboxers, the results are only as silly you want to make them!

We are excited to announce that we’re now into the second phase of beta
development and our operation is growing; with offices in New Zealand, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

For the next few weeks we will be transitioning onto a new platform and so
the usual Member and Idea Registration services will be unavailable
temporarily. But rest assured, all data that has been entered into Creative Federation is safe and secure.

In the meantime we will be keeping you up to date with how development is
progressing on this site, and welcome your continued participation in
bringing Creative Federation to life.