The decision to nationalize our networks comes at the same time as exciting news: we’re doubling the AmbITion, and starting a new phase of AmbITion with colleagues in Scotland.
So welcome to you all.
(If you’re looking for information about AmbITion Scotland click here.)
I want to tell you why we’ve made the decision to unify all the regional AmbITion networks in to one nationwide network. We had 9 regional networks running across the UK.
In hindsight I think the regional networks helped to
– highlight regional activity
– reveal regional strengths and
– get those important sideways conversations going: the ones the team haven’t started, that means you’re sharing with and learning from each other!
What all the networks have successfully done is to connect together individual arts professionals who actively participate in sharing ideas, knowledge and opportunities. However, now, nationally, you can be an even bigger mass of people: collectively advancing digital development in the arts through your open source sharing, There is crowd wisdom here already emerging – the sort of stuff Seth Godin and Clay Shirky talk about.
We kicked off the merger process by asking all members to vote Yes or No to the idea of creating a national AmbITion network on August 16th. By September 17th, most of you had voted, with 90% agreeing with us that going national was the way ahead.
The 10% of you who voted no: please be assured that we have listened to your feedback, and set up regional groups on the national network so that you can still network with colleagues local to you.
Within the nationwide network each region will have its own group with:
– a regional forum
– a community notice board
– the regions’ Arts Council news feed
but you’ll still have the whole national network to engage in for development, ideas, promoting and networking.
Now that you’re here, please take a bit of time to set up your own profile – please do
– use a picture of you or an avatar that represents you.
– subscribe to the RSS feed – get the network to tell you when it has new content on it straight into your Google reader, or your email inbox
– adjust the system settings to control the amount of info you receive
– invite colleagues to join the network
– upload video and photos, and make blogs about interesting content
– join the regional group applicable to you, and
– look out for upcoming events: a lot more of these will be online during AmbITion Scotland.
Finally, don’t forget to check out getambition.com for new case studies on digital development, over the next few months How To… guides will be published, and Christian Payne is about to start being our resident digital doctor in the getambition forum. He’s gearing up to answer all your questions on social media, digital recording kit and other web 2.0 questions too!
Thanks for being a part of the AmbITion movement – I look forward to continuing the conversation and digital development journey with you. Feel free to leave a message for me here on the network or find me on Twitter @hannahrudman