The Tasks

Task One: session 2

Okay Tom. Got your update, which is fantastic. You’ve met with Deborah, and you’re going to do a, not quite a conference, it’s more of a drug awareness open day. Great! 7 October, I think you should have more than enough time to get it ready by then.

I agree, it’s just that some of the other people involved said that for something like that you’d need quite a lot of time to organise. But in my opinion that’s more than enough time to get something out.

I’m going to give you a contact that runs a very relevant company who may very well be worth talking to. Check out her website and see what you think. She might be another person you could get involved to help you in some way.

So you’ve got your location, you’ve got your time; obviously you’ve got your name. Fantastic; any questions on going ahead with this?

Just kind of where we all start really. I’ve got an idea of how it’ll all run. Part of the day will be myself and how it’ll all link in with local authorities and schools.

Who are the attendees?

Well this is one of the things we’re compiling at the moment really; who do we invite? We’re looking at either specific teachers for specific subjects of interest. Local authorities, people who deal with drug awareness in the community, the police, and those kinds of groups really.

Not teaching them about how drugs work, but more about what we can do to help them in their jobs.

Okay. I think that sounds very good, very interesting, very helpful. I’m trying to get the press angle on it. The press is dealing with the public isn’t it?

Yeah, but one of the things that’s come from this as well is that one of the charities that Deborah deals with is called Drug Plan, and their sponsor is River Island. One of the ideas which I’m working on as well at the moment is looking at contacting and talking to River Island to do a tour in the school holidays around stores in the UK. Taking Stan out with us and doing demonstrations around the UK. Getting the press involved.

That’s a brilliant idea. So that would be more your press angle, rather than the conference?

Yeah, raising people’s awareness of what we’re doing and then linking in the conference in with that and taking the conference out around the UK.

I think that’s really good. You’ve got the conference which is the credibility and the serious stuff, and the other stuff which is the serious stuff presented in a consumer fashion.

And I thought about the school holidays because I remember when I was that age...

Yeah, you’re bored aren’t you, you want something to do.

Yeah, the shopping centres, during the holidays, are just full of kids wandering around. It’s a good link for River Island because it’s drawing people into their stores as well. And it’s kind of helping them in their ethos of wanting to help with drugs charities, plus we think we can showcase what we can do right there in front of people.

It’s a great idea. Press wise, the first thing I would say is to get that firmed up, then you can roll with it really. And the potential is huge, depending on how many venues you go for. Do you remember Radio One used to do their Road Show? Because what about getting River Island and you guys together with them, or capital or Heart? If they’re going across the country doing road shows that could be a perfect fit.

They do the Big Weekend these days don’t they..?

Yeah, so that might be worth looking at. Or perhaps one of the festivals might give you some space or time or whatever, Glastonbury... something like that?

I’ll have a go at compiling a list of festivals.

There are loads of festivals and road shows all over the country. If you’re going to go for it, get River Island’s PR people involved in it as well. Otherwise you’ll find yourself doing a lot of work. And they’ll probably be able to help a lot.

That’s pretty much where I am at the moment. I heard you talking to the others about Twitter and social media... we were on there and I sort of stopped for a while what with our name change, so that’s sort of coming back to life a little bit now with our videos. I’m contemplating doing a weekly blog on general things about what we do and posting them up as well, and creating a following...

I think for you actually, the social media is going to be incredibly important. That’s where a lot of your target market communicate. Whether it’s forums or Facebook or, not sure so much about Twitter. It’ll be a bit, but possibly not so much as Facebook and the others. So I would say if you’re going to add a couple of elements, go in on the whole social media side, and of course you can use that to build up the anticipation for the event and the roadshow and stuff.

One of the things that I’m aware of is that a lot of the kids we see in schools, they all talk about twitter and Facebook, and the legal age to go on Facebook, although we’re targeting teachers, one of the things the kids say is that they do go on Facebook, and the do like putting their photos on there. They want to put the photos of their day on the sites and what have you... and I want to tread a very careful line of dealing with that really. With 13,14,15 year olds linking through to our site and posting pictures, I know I can disable those, but it’s one thing I’m a bit wary of.

I’m pretty sure it’s 14 that you’re okay, but double check that. But you’re right loads of younger ones go on there so you do have to be a bit careful. It might be worth talking top Facebook about as well. Actually get in touch with them.

I would say the social media stuff you need to get going on, but you’ve done it before so you know what you’re doing and how to go about it.

Anything else you’d like to talk about?

Not at the moment, I think I’ve got a pretty good plan at the moment in terms of organising the event with Deborah and using the contacts that she’s got.

Yeah, and again, what I was saying with Gordon, contact a university and get some students involved, and might want to work with you over the summer, and might know some things that I don’t know and you don’t know. They’re closer to the whole media thing, and apart from taking some work off your hands I think that could be the way to go...

Someone who’s doing a marketing degree or perhaps expressive arts, who’s into filming, something like that. And you could make it a little project for them.