Following a post on Facebook by Zoe Cairns looking for a Project Management tool, I spent a couple of hours looking through a variety of them online. I really do need to find one myself, and it hasn’t been as quick and easy as I thought. WHat I found is either to basic (to do lists only) or too complex.
My ideal project management tool would offer the following:

• a nice, easy and friendly interface.
• management of projects, sub-projects and tasks, all having a start date and an end date.
• multi users for team work
• a sort facility by date, project, task, priority etc… whether it is for a specific project or for all projects. The idea being to see what has to be done first, looking at the whole list of the current tasks, the most urgent first.
• a search facility for each field (date, priority, project, task etc… ) so you can search for example what needs to be done during the current week for a specific project, or any task involving a specific team member.
• a visual presentation of your tasks next to eachother, whether it’s a calendar or a Gantt chart, so you get a good visual comparison.
• very ideally, it would be both online (for team work) and offline (when you don’t have access to the internet, which does happen when moving around)

Well, I haven’t been able to find it. Here are my thoughts about those that I tested. I have only spent a few minutes on each of these, having decided that I would like it or not within 5 minutes of using it. It you still can’t find your way through after that, it’s not good enough. Your feedback would be great!

Zoho
Fairly easy to use and understand. One of the closest to what I am looking for, although the interface is not the most elegant. There is a free version for one project that is very good value. Zoho does pretty much every thing but one big feature missing is the inability to sort the tasks per date. You can sort them manually, which is very unpractical when you deal with dozens of them.

Basecamp
Apparently a very popular one. It’s quite simple but it’s more for putting together to do lists than to manage projects. The classic Basecamp seems to be still available and I believe it has a free version. But you can’t sort out your tasks per date either. And your to do items are not included in the calendar. There is the new Basecamp too, where the calendar looks very good (although it’s pretty much the same as the Google Calendar). There is no free version for the new Basecamp; it starts at $20 per month.

Attask
I don’t find it easy to browse through. It is not visually simple, even though there is a Gantt Chart. And I can’t see any price.

Redmine
I just couldn’t find my way through that one…

Fogbugz
It looks good but I didn’t try it. Looks too complex for my needs. There is a 45 day trial. Then it’s $25/month, but if you buy it and are not happy after 90 days, they send a refund. That’s good marketing that…

Team Box
I quite liked that one, although it is also too complex for my needs. You can manage projects, task lists and tasks. You can add comment to each tasks, and everything you do in it is automatically logged. It has calendar and gantt chart for task lists. Not the most beautifully design platform but it works. A great feature (for paid version only) is to link your account with Dropbox. Free version can integrate with Facebook, Twitter and Google. And you can sync your calendar with Outlook and others. A criticism though as the management of users and team members is really confusing.
There is a free version up to 5 users, for 5 projects. Then it’s $5 per user per month for unlimited users, projects and storage. I will try this one harder…

Todoist
A very simple one to manage to do lists, but it could be perfect for those who don’t manage many projects. It’s free. There is a more advanced version for $19 a year. But I can’t see Gantt chart or calendar, so nothing visual.

Freedcamp
Very similar to Basecamp, not as friendly and easy, but nearly and it’s free.

Teamlab
Milestones, tasks, calendar. Similar to Basecamp but i doesn’t have such an easy navigation. Dates don’t always appear and I couldn’t find how to sort the tasks per date.

Google
If anyone understands what they are saying there, let me know…

VersionOne
Not very attractive and, again, too complex for my needs. They have a free edition and then the first paid one with more features is $29 per month.

Rally
After 2 minutes in there I still couldn’t understand how it works, so I gave up. They have free community edition that may be worth some more investigation and perseverance.

Clockingit
That one looks really good when you read what it does but once in it it takes far too long to understand how it works. Another one that does too much for me.

I am sure there are even more (on this page for example), but I’ll stop for the time being

I will finish today with an interesting suggestion by a user on http://stackoverflow.com who would recommend using gmail and google docs. The combination provides:
• communication – email and chat (and video)
• project document management – with share/view only
• task and bug tracking (low level) via google doc spreadsheet
• google calendar for meeting planning
• you can create a project site and use as a blog or wiki

What are your thoughts?

A Selection of photographs from the last judging session

Some of the pictures that were selected by the judges during their last meeting:
Canterbury

Faversham

Sheppey

…and comments from some of the judges:

Bill Croydon, CBE and patron of Kent Creative Arts.
It has been quite an experience working through your collected photographs.  With digital photography people manage to capture the most surprising moments and we have probably had a lot more pictures to look at. On some days there were ten or twelve photos taken and it was really difficult to select one or two from a very good selection. On other days there was simply one taken and then the job was easy. It was also difficult to get the balance right, to reflect the season, the festivities, the people and the great views of our ancient town. Hopefully, we have presented a remarkable album of pictures that capture a cross-section of life in Faversham in 2011.

Emma Grove, Senior reporter, Sheerness Times Guardian
I thoroughly enjoyed being a judge on the Year in the Life of Sheppey project and it was an honour to be asked. The opportunity to look through such a large selection of pictures taken by Islanders was brilliant. It was great to see the different ways Sheppey is perceived and how people chose to illustrate that using photography.
I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Dr K.J.Shepherdson, Art & Design Canterbury Christ Church University
As a judge for A Year in the Life of Canterbury it has been a delight to see how the community (re)presents itself photographically. The creative responses and the often making strange of the everyday has frequently led to me looking at Canterbury afresh. So often a town or city is photographed by the outsider – the visitor or the professional photographer brought in to promote a location. A Year in the Life of Canterbury, underpinned by its democratic philosophy, thankfully counters this.

Laurence Young, Faversham Enterprise Partnership:
Many of the Faversham images were of an extraordinarily high technical and composition standard. As a long-standing Faversham resident I saw familiar scenes presented via striking perspectives I had never noticed before.

Great news from sponsors and funders!

We are really pleased with the support the 365 projects have received recently. We would like to say a big big thank you to all funders and sponsors… without any specific order:
Canterbury City Council / The Beaney have confirmed that the wonderful and recently refurbished Beaney will be made available to A Year in the Life of Canterbury for a month from 13th October to 11th November 2012. They are also very kindly putting £1,500 towards the exhibition and a couple of workshops to take place then.

Faversham Town Council have decided to support A Year in the Life of Faversham, with a further £1,000. Thank you to all Councillors who voted for that.

Kent County Council Cllr Allan Willicombe is helping with £250 with his KCC local community grant.

Platinum Sponsors

We are delighted to welcome new Platinum Sponsors Kent’s Creative Coast and Achieving Clarity.
Kent’s Creative Coast is a campaign that encourages people to escape to the Kent coast for a short while to enjoy a creative activity, including arts and crafts, creative writing and cookery. Visitors not only learn a new skill with like minded people, they’ll work with a local person in distinctive and unusual settings, find out the secrets about the place and take home a unique souvenir. Creative activities can be enjoyed whatever the weather and help extend the tourism season.
The campaign has been developed by Catriona Campbell who’s passionate about encouraging more people to discover the creative people and places in Kent’s coastal towns and villages from Gravesend in the north to Dungeness in the south east. Read more about Catriona Campbell

Achieving Clarity Business Management Solutions. Achieving Clarity provide specialist support to businesses, whether they are looking for Accountancy or Book Keeping, Human Resource Management, developing top team through training, coaching or managing a project. The founder, Wendy Tetley, is both a qualified Management Accountant and a Human Resources professional, with many years experience in Organisational Development in the public, private and voluntary sectors. It is this unique combination of business skills and management experience that encouraged Wendy to set up Achieving Clarity as she saw how the organisations she worked for benefitted from this comprehensive approach and she wanted to offer this opportunity to other businesses who may not have the luxury of full time consultants on their team.

GOLD SPONSOR

We are also welcoming BRFM as a Gold Sponsor for Canterbury, Faversham and Sheppey.

BRFM 96.5 is a Community Radio station based in Minster-On-Sea, on the Isle of Sheppey, which provides a wide range of music, news and local information, traffic & travel. BRFM broadcasts 24 hours a day 7 days a week from it’s current premises situated in oak lane, Minster commonly known as “Windy Ridge”.

SILVER SPONSORS

…and two Silver Sponsors, Nigel Slater and Cherry Computers

Nigel Slater your local driving instructor, sponsoring Canterbury, Faversham and Sheppey. Nigel Slater is a friendly, confident Driving Instructor with a sense of humour (I can confirm that!) who will put you at ease the moment you get in the car for your first lesson. Based in Canterbury, Nigel has a wealth of experience teaching all ages to drive and getting people out on the road and enjoying their driving.

Cherry Computers, sponsoring Faversham, is a retail shop in the centre of Faversham, established in 2004. They provide on-site business support, home and business network solutions, custom built systems and computer repair service. At Cherry, they build their new systems by combining the best hardware on the market. These quality components provide their customers with long warranties and the best reliability.

If you know any business who would like raise their profile through the connection with such a positive and popular project, do let them know about our Corporate Sponsorship schemes. They are brilliant value for money. They really are.

Also, we have been receiving more sponsorship for our Sponsor a Page campaign. Howevever, we need more!

Faversham Mission Brass concert in support of 365

The Faversham Mission Brass has offered to put together a concert as a fundraiser for A Year in the Life of Faversham. Well, what can I say? It’s heartwarming. Thank you!
The date is Thursday 5th July at The Alexander Centre. Booking details coming soon…

365 on social media

I know September may feel like it’s a long way away, but I can tell you it’s not. It will be there very soon. We have always done our daily bits to raise awareness of the projects and promote the coming events, but there is a lot more to come!
To help out with this, we have set up a Twitter account @365_Projects and a Facebook Group. Do join, follow, share, like etc and help spread what we do!

Thank you!!!

Only a few days left before the end of this year 365 project

Well, that’s it, we are now in the last month of 2011, having covered every day of life in Canterbury, Faversham and Sheppey. About 240 photographers have registered to take part and we are delighted with the several thousands of submissions. The last jury session will take place in January, and we will know then what each set of 365 photographs will be for each area and we will make some of them available to you. However, the whole project will be revealed in its entirety during the exhibitions in September and October 2012.
Our work here continues with fundraising, a vital part of the project; without financial support, the 365 wouldn’t take place. Then, another part of the work will involve lots of editing and designing, putting the exhibitions and the books together.

Thank you to our sponsors and funders

We would like to warmly thank those who are helping us putting this ambitious project together.
Platinum sponsors:
Bygone Kent, EuroCanterbury, the KM Group, Ossie’s Fish Bar, Shepherd Neame.
We would like to wish Ossie’s Fish Bar all the best, following the fire that put them out of action earlier this week. Looking forward to seeing them back in business asap.
Gold Sponsors:
Macknade Fine Foods, Peel Ports, Robinsons Foundry Ltd, Sheerness Gateway, Tassells Solicitors
Silver Sponsors:
Doddington Place Gardens, Kent Profile, Lenleys, Sandhurst Farm Forge, Soul Solutions
Bronze Sponsors:
Brian Kelsey & Co Ltd, Canterbury Camera Centre, Heselden Hats, Victor Hire Ltd

And of course our funders:
Bensted’s Charity, Faversham Town Council, Queenborough Fishery Trust, Swale Borough Council

The Faversham website is helping promote the 365 project and its photographers.

Some photographs from 365 are now displayed on the town newly revamped website. We are pleased that the 365 photographs have been selected, promoting the 365 project at the same time as the town. The pictures are on the website only for display purposes; photographers will be contacted for any other use. Thank you to the FEP team for collaborating with 365 on this.

Keep in touch with the project

Of course, we will keep updating you all about the progress of the 365 with news every month of 2012.
Also, do connect with us via:
- the 365 Projects Facebook Page.
- Twitter: @kentcreativeart

In the meantime, we would like to wish you an excellent Christmas break…

We look forward to seeing you in the new year!

David Jones – Havas Worldwide CEO – was on BBC Radio 4 in the Today programme this morning, talking about his book “Who cares wins”. Very inspiring.
It simply confirmed my strong belief that businesses do benefit enormously from associating themselves to what is meaningful to their customers.
So, the idea is that one key to business success is caring. According to David Jones, businesses do get better if they do good things for the world. The best businesses are the most socially responsible. I can’t agree more.

Getting their name out there in advertising make businesses feel like they are raising awareness, as people read the name of their company, see their logo, their products etc… And it works to some extent. But it doesn’t say much about what that company is really about. It doesn’t transmit any message about whether they care for something or not.

Showing that they actually care for the community they are part of does change the perception consumers have of businesses and it definitely has an impact on their reputation. Developing an exposure by association to a group, an initiative or an event that is meaningful to the people they want to communicate with, can be extremely powerful. Being socially responsible shows that they care and consumers like businesses who care.
The other way round, if a business is not socially responsible and doesn’t get involved in what relates to concerns their community members have, it’s pretty much like saying “we don’t care”. And that does cause damages.

David Jones is mainly referring to large businesses with a worldwide impact, but the same principle applies on different scales. It is as important for small businesses to show care for their local communities.

There are many themes to get involved in, many causes to support, as long as it is genuine. Health, children, umemployed, etc… and the arts. We are not short of areas that needs care, and initiatives to support.
I am passionate about the importance of art because it is a fantastic medium for people to communicate about themselves and their concerns. It is also a medium that people who need help and support in their lives can benefit from, by simply practising it. And if used with some form of changes in mind, it allows the least powerful people of a society to help make these changes. Plus, it is a learning tool. Basically, it makes people feel better.

A community art event for example brings together people to practice a form of art which gives them satisfaction and pleasure (vital in difficult times), it communicates what they want to express and it allows them to share it with the rest of the community. Taken further, it increases a sense of belonging and pride within their community, and it can help make decisions for changes.

Surely, businesses part of the same communities need to be involved. They need to show that they care.

Watch David Jones at the Who Cares Wins Conference Day

Sponsorship is a very powerful and effective marketing tool because it increases impact on people beyond awareness and promotion.
Sponsorship, unlike advertising, creates connections with positive ideas and it offers significant marketing advantages as well as showing support.  While attracting a business’ audience, sponsorship creates opportunities to broaden its exposure, increasing its credibility, image and prestige.
To sponsor an event is to support it financially, with cash or in-kind, in return for benefits and commercial potential.  The event gets help with the expenses and the business gets exposure and low cost marketing.
Sponsorship helps increase awareness, brand building, willingness to purchase and loyalty, but it is different from advertising in the sense that it doesn’t communicate specific information about a product, and it doesn’t go on its own, without an event attached to it.
Event sponsorship triggers emotions and feelings precisely because it is connected to an event that means something to the people involved.  Sponsorship is better and more efficient for a business because of its ability to associate this business to a message, to a set of ideas and concepts that are about the event. These ideas can evoke community, sense of place, localism, creativity, civic pride, feel good factor etc…
As a result, businesses associated to positive ideas and quality, are looked at more favourably, with an enhanced image. The message works in the audience mind and builds loyalty.

Sponsorship helps get several benefits at once:

. With events designed for a variety of groups, sponsors can reach specific markets.
. Audiences perceive sponsorship in a positive way, seeing companies allowing activities to take place as a result of their support. Companies are viewed as supporting the community, contributing to its development.
. Sponsorship of a local event is a two-way exchange, providing sponsors with opportunities to connect live with their audience and customers.
. Sponsors staff can be directly involved with sponsorship, for example by attending sponsored event.
. Sponsorship at a local level is affordable to the smaller companies, unlike advertising that can be very expensive.
. Events are excellent for networking, with VIP receptions, event launches, private views, etc… creating opportunities to meet customers and business partners.
. A sponsor brand and products can be showcased in sponsored events, being used for increased awareness: food/drinks for a launch, T-shirts worn by volunteers, TV screens used for picture displays, etc… This type of promotion drives sales.
. Media covering an event may include sponsors names or photos.
. A sponsor name has the opportunity to stand out above its competitors, sometimes allowing smaller companies to put themselves forward, before bigger companies.

An economic downturn may not seem to be a good time for sponsorship, but in fact it’s even more vital for businesses to get their names out and to sell their services and products.
Consumers like businesses who care. Businesses can show they do, helping an event by way of sponsorship.

Judges have selected photographs taken in July, August and September

The third judging session took place last week to select photographs taken during the third quarter of the year.

A Year in the Life of Canterbury
Area covered by 134 photographers, submitting 345 photographs.
You can see some of the chosen photographs here

A Year in the Life of Faversham
Area covered by 72 photographers, submitting 372 photographs.
You can see some of the chosen photographs here

A Year in the Life of Sheppey
Area covered by 51 photographers, submitting 296 photographs.
You can see some of the chosen photographs here

One more judging session in January, and we will know what the 365 images are for the three areas!

Promotion of the 365 project via www.faversham.org

The team at the Faversham website has offered to help with promoting A Year in the Life of Faversham, displaying some of the submitted pictures on their homepage. This is an opportunity for the us to raise awareness of the project; both 365 and the photographers will be credited. Typically, this is a positive partnership where all parties benefit.
The images will not be used in any other way.

The importance of Art

On last week Any Questions (BBC Radio 4), a question was: ‘Does the panel think that art and culture can lead to real economic development?’

Matthew Parris: Yes, absolutely, of course it can. The whole history of England – and of Scotland and Wales too – the whole history of England is a history of art and culture and literature and drama, and vigorous cultural life, and for that reason we have tourists, we have a wonderful publishing industry, we have the best newspapers in the world, we have people coming here, we have people coming all over the country, going to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit things… The culture of a country is the heart beat of a country, and if you lose the culture, if you lose the heart beat for some kind of cold economic conception of what you’re there for, you lose everything, including the economic.

David Davis: The Renaissance was a great economic explosion and was a great artistic explosion. And our industrial revolution; of course it was Stephenson, but it was also Wedgwood, it was Crystal Palace, it was the Tate Gallery, so they go absolutely hand in hand. The greatest time of creativity in all countries’ history is both industrial, both economic and artistic.

Rachel Reeves: I think it makes a huge difference, it has a huge economic benefit. (…) All of these things bring in tourists but also give opportunities to young people and older like in communities, particularly in a city area. I think this is so important for economic regeneration but also for people who live there.

And it is so true. For these reasons, we have already stressed how much we are trying to get all types of members of our community involved in the 365 projects.
There are various ways for both individuals and businesses to benefit from these projects when supporting them at the same time. Have a look here, there is something for everyone…

Kent Photo Library

We have contacted you before about the Kent Photo Library, an online resource for good quality images of Kent at affordable prices, that we are about to launch. We are in the process of including photographs in the collections, before launching it for all users, and we would like to thank all of you who had agreed to include photographs that were taken for the 365 projects. Added to the submissions made specifically to the Library, it now provides a very large number of images!

During the Hop Festival week-end, 365 will be having a stall at the Assembly Rooms (former Drill Hall). Do come and visit us. You will be able to:

• get your 2012 calendar for Faversham (Calendars for Canterbury and Sheppey will go on sale a few days later).
• purchase tickets for the coming events that we are organising in September and October:
  . Christine Tobin concert – Sat 10th September
  . Steve Bloom talk – Wed 5th October
  . Old photographs of Faversham with Peter Kennett – Sat 8th October
• learn about our support schemes for individuals and businesses to play their part in the 365 projects.

Christine Tobin interviewed by Nigel Ansell on Kmfm

Many many thanks to Nigel Ansell and Kmfm for the extremely nice interview of Christine Tobin last Thursday.
To hear Christine say: “I think this project is really really excellent. What a better way to show the area, the town and the environment that people live in; and get ordinary people to photograph it, is a wonderful idea” simply made my day!

You can listen to this interview on youtube:

There is few seconds break in the middle of the itw… Do keep listening, the itw will continue.