sounddelivery

“Training with Sounddelivery not only covered everything I needed to know about social media, videos for the web and audio slideshows but it was also interesting, fun and informative and gave me the tools I needed to confidently walk away and go it alone.” 

Sophie Newland-Pratt, National Trust Sudbury Hall

Training continues to be a huge part of what we do and this year we’ve been privileged to work with a host of amazing organisations, including the Museum of London, Renaissance East Midlands, The Reading Agency, the Museums Associationand the National Museum of Scotland.

Our hands-on training workshops provide practical experience of digital and social media tools and techniques, building skills and confidence so that in-house teams can create digital meda content that stands out.

We’re always looking for new opportunities to create training programmes that meet the needs of our clients.  This year we’ve added two new social media courses to our wide-ranging digital portfolio - Developing a Digital and Social Media Strategy and Building Your Organisation’s Presence. These workshops are ideal for people and organisations that have mastered the basics and are looking to take their social media activity to the next level.

Working with young people

We’ve delivered an increasing number of training projects involving young people this year. One of the most exciting projects we worked on was providing training to teenagers as part of The Reading Agency’s MyVoice creative reading and writing programme. The results have been impressive and we look forward to seeing the young people develop in the new year.

We also found ourselves tweeting in the guise of Roman gladiators when we were commissioned by the Museum of London to run a social reporting project focusing on the Gladiator Games - an event which was part of the Festival of British Archaeology.

“sounddelivery’s enthusiastic and motivated team worked with Junction, our youth panel, to create a high quality film which documented the Gladiator Games re-enactment in modern 21st century journalistic style.

“They went above and beyond the brief by equipping Junction with not only filmmaking skills, but also a variety of social media skills such as live blogging and twitter which are valuable beyond the scope of the project.”

Lucie Fitton, Inclusion Programme Manager, Museum of London

Training partners to the cultural and heritage sector 

The Museums and Heritage Show decided to offer a Social Media Lab for the first time this year, and asked sounddelivery to run it. We gave practical one to one training and advice to more than 60 people, covering everything from setting up blogs and Facebook pages to how to increase traffic to websites.

We also handed out copies of a handy Social Media Guide, recorded delegate interviews, blogged the event, and gave a presentation on engaging new audiences.

We were also invited by the Museums Association to present at social media events in Manchester and Brighton.

Developing in-house skills

We’re proud to have helped some amazing organisations start producing their own digital content in 2011 and we’re always delighted when trainees send us the work they’ve produced following our courses, such as this audio slideshow from the National Museum of Scotland.

We continued our training work with Renaissance East Midlands this year, delivering workshops for staff working on digital projects in museums and archives in the region. The training focused on boosting multimedia skills, improving confidence in the use of social media and encouraging staff to market the work they do more effectively. The workshops were thoroughly enjoyable and it’s been fantastic to see the people we’ve trained go from strength to strength. We look forward to working in other regions in the New Year to further develop staff and community training.

“sounddelivery ran several outstanding training sessions in social media skills for museums in the East Midlands.

“Their trainers experience and knowledge of the sector was invaluable to both museum volunteers and professionals exploring the uses of digital media and the internet in the heritage sector. 

“As a result several of the museums now have their own successful social media profiles, websites and digital content.” 

Sam Smith, Interim Digital Access Development Officer, Renaissance East Midlands

Cultural and heritage organisations ask us to produce multimedia content for a variety of purposes – to publicise their work, engage new audiences, forge closer links with community groups and to inform supporters about particular projects.

Showcasing great work 

We have an ongoing relationship with the National Portrait Gallery and have worked on a series of projects for their outreach team. This year we produced three new podcasts to promote the monthly Visualising Portraits picture description events for blind and partially-sighted visitors. You can listen to all of the Visualising Portraits podcasts online.

The Heritage Alliance commissioned us to produce a slideshow documenting the great work that their members are doing around the country, to be used at their annual Heritage Event. Working to a very tight timescale, we used simple photography to create this short piece:

Heritage Alliance 2011 from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

Encouraging participation

Right now we’re involved in an exciting outreach project with the National Portrait Gallery, Taylor Wessing and St Mungo’s, London’s largest charity for homeless people. Taking inspiration from the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition, participants from St Mungo’s are working with professional photographers to develop their photography skills and create their own series of images.

sounddelivery are recording testimonies of the participants and we’ll highlight these stories in the New Year.

We also worked on an interesting intergenerational project in the Bowes Park area of North London, bringing local people together to create a snapshot of what it’s like to live in the area. We trained young people in interviewing techniques and audio production, and they went on to record local older people talking about their lives in Bowes Park.

The podcasts and audio slideshow formed the basis of a new website about the area.

My Bowes Park from sounddelivery on Vimeo.

To support our training and production work we run a programme of regular free talks and events focusing on exciting use of digital media. Feedback has been really positive this year, with attendees saying our free events are excellent for meeting new people, sharing knowledge and finding inspiration.

One of our standout events of the year was our #soundtalk with Brian Woods and Jezza Neumann of True Vision Productions, who spoke about how documentaries can create social change. Brian and Jezza have made a number of multi-award winning documentaries and their challenging film, Poor Kids, received a strong audience response when it was broadcast on BBC1.

They gave us their top tips on the best ways to work with production companies and how to find case studies that’ll make the most compelling stories.

Listen to the audioboo and visit the storify page to find out more.

Organised in partnership with the Third Sector PR and Communications Network Facebook group, other #soundtalk events this year have included:

• Digital Storytelling with Lasa
• The Media Needs You! with Clare Horton, online editor for Society Guardian
• Social Media Campaigning with Simon Berry founder of ColaLife
• The Power of Social Media with Kirsty Stephenson, who volunteers as a digital strategist with Child’s i Foundation.

We have lots more exciting events planned for 2012, including some specifically for people working in the cultural and heritage sectors. Follow us on Twitter and Facebookfor our latest news.

Living our values is incredibly important to us – we want to create social change and make a positive impact in tackling digital and social exclusion, reducing social isolation and giving a voice to marginalised groups.

Through our new not-for-profit arm,soundinnovation, we ran a pilot project, Give us a Break, supporting carers in Hampshire. Along with the charity Carers Together, we arranged for 22 carers to have a break from their caring responsibilities and come to London for a few days.

It was an incredibly rewarding experience to see what a difference this short break made to each of the carers. You can hear about the trip and watch more films here. Give Us a Break was featured on BBC South, BBC Radio Solent and in other local media.

We also donate our time and this year we’ve provided social media training for small and medium-sized businesses at the British Library and have spoken at various events.

I would also like to thank our own team. sounddelivery is a small organisation which relies on word of mouth recommendations from our clients. We simply wouldn’t be where we are today without our fantastic team of trainers, producers, associates and interns who ensure that we provide the very best service. These include Mark, Eric, Graeme, Andrea, Kate, Joanne, Mats, Mark, Tanya, Jo, Martin, Priya and Richelle. THANK YOU ALL!