XpoNorth's autumn/winter online programme offers free advice for north creatives

Highlands creative economy support organisation, XpoNorth, is to launching its autumn/winter programme next month as part of the year-round support it offers creative businesses in the Highlands and Islands.

The new programme focusses on three key areas: developing a sustainable business, story and design and digital heritage and will see a range of leading industry experts offer practical advice to the local creative industry free of charge.

The sustainability series will kick off at the beginning of October.

Over a sequence of three webinar workshops, participants will investigate what it means to be a sustainable business, how this will transfer into the future of modern business, and the kind of support that is available for innovative initiatives in a challenging marketplace.

The first session will be hosted with a number of key guest speakers including Dr Abigail Hird of KTN, and circular economy expert, Lynn Wilson. The webinars will also hear from those who have successfully designed and launched sustainable products including Izzie Erickson from Apparel Exchange, Glasgow, Scott Dickson from Phoxx Water and Clare Campbell from Prickly Thistle.

Running through October and November, the story and design series draws wisdom from speakers including Patrick Moser, publisher and curator of Villa (Le Lac) Le Corbusier; Billy Langsworthy, founder of Mojo Nation and co-founder of Brands Untapped; and commercial partnership specialist Ken Pratt as they discuss valuable stories on topics relevant to the world of business and design.

Sessions include an insightful look at brands licensing, the benefits of designing the perfect strategic partnership and advice on presenting design and architecture to the public.

Those with an interest in heritage will have the opportunity to work with museum educator and media technologist, Wouter van der Horst, who will host two workshops looking at The Story-First Museum. Wouter, founder of We Share Culture, head of content and learning at Smartify and research associate at MediaCollege Amsterdam, will look at how to design meaningful online experiences, building a robust and workable content strategy to turning that strategy into formats based on the audiences and platforms that work.

The programme concludes with a series of Heritage Hangouts, led by XpoNorth’s heritage specialist Nicola Henderson and digital specialists Dougal Perman and Tim Wright. These sessions invite organisations across the Highlands and Islands to learn about how technology can be used most effectively with new and existing audiences. The sessions focus on offering practical advice on developing and creating digital content with the aim of improving working practices and developing new and immersive online interaction to better engage with online audiences.

Slots will be allocated on an individual basis, allowing XpoNorth’s specialists to offer tailored advice built around specific business needs.

For more information on the autumn/winter programme and to register for individual session, visit www.xponorth.co.uk

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