HAPPENING!!!

So after a tough start DIAL-A-DIVA is in full flow! We have been through Australasia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and now having leaped the Atlantic we are in the Americas.... WOW. The picture is from our half way celebration here in Stavanger. Cat and Chris from the DIAL-A-DIVA team took to the stage, as did Camilla & Elsebeth and the wonderful Helga. ONWARDS. happy listening.

Illinois is my Bermuda

Painting two layers of bright shiney colour onto the unit and making calls to some of the performers have been todays activities for me. Illinois has turned into my timezone Bermuda triangle... why is it so hard? amazing... thankfully Sid and one of his bandmates who are performing from Evanston, has spotted the mixups and sorted us out with politic use of an online meeting planner. phew.

Thanks to all those patient souls today who put up with my attempts at French communication... Frenchifying English and Spanish words, pretty dire. Thankfully on Saturday we are being joined by both French and Russian speakers.

Today Cat, Chris and Greg all arrived in Stavanger. Tomorrow Bert arrives and the crew is complete. Tomorrow is a very busy day for us. Greg will be up at the crack of dawn to get this show technically on the road - telecoms, streaming and webcam all up and running. The rest of us will be working on the installation of the unit in the venue and more performer liaison.

Here are two message boards I spotted today (a rainy day indeed). One at the bus station and the other at the airport. They are advertising the DIAL-A-DIVA freephone number here in Norway.

progress

Two images from the day... a wonderful flyer from Sé Que No (Argentina) who are on at 4am CEST on Saturday (11pm local time) and the office unit as it looks today - that's the undercoat... colour begins tomorrow.

Arriving in Stavanger

Javel (as they say here in Norway)
I have arrived in Stavanger and as the bus stop poster below shows the Nu-Music Festival (which DIAL-A-DIVA is part of) is about to get underway.

The performer schedule is now closed. It is looking amazing I have to say. An incredible range. Diverse and wonderful talent from literally every corner of the globe. YAY!
Although most of my time & remaining mind power is still focused on the changes and additions to the performer schedule and the wonders of spreadsheet management, being here is a refreshing step into the physical. The picture below shows the office unit which is currently under construction. Petite and perfect. Tomorrow will see us applying undercoat and Wednesday will be painting day - shiny diva green, diva yellow and diva pink of course.



Yes, things seem to be going pretty smoothly. The Stavanger2008 team seem to be really on the case. No major stresses or problems thus far (I am firmly touching the wooden desk as I write that!). Today I have seen Greg's wonder computer for the first time which Trond picked up from London last week. It is now in the hands of Lars from the Stavanger City Council, who is setting it up to work with council network. Greg will arrive on Wednesday and tech testing will happen on Thursday.

International Preparation

So it's certainly not just the behind the scenes DIAL-A-DIVA team that is hard at work preparing... here is a shot of Joe (Joe Bludge) and Andrew (Fall Electric) warming up. Joe Budge and Fall Electric are two of the acts that will take part from Perth Australia. DIAL-A-DIVA will be with them from 10:40 CEST on the 8th.

Time Elastic

Time is melting, and yet, it is not quite pliable enough yet.
I have been going through the schedule - with lots of help from Bert and picking up on errors, overlaps other breaks in the time/space continuum of Saturday 8th September. Although there is nothing impossible as yet, there are still many artists who we'd like to give time to (that isn't in the middle of the night for them) and not much space in the schedule to play with. I am currently taking a crow bar to the 24 hour clock.

Cat is catching up with those still lost in myspace.
Jill is letting potential listeners know about DIAL-A-DIVA.
Trond (Stavanger2008) is travelling from Stavanger to London to collect the computer that will be the streaming server from Greg.
Greg is finalising the webcam details which he'll send out any minute now and has got the DIAL-A-DIVA message up on our phone number. He is also corresponding with Aasmund (numusic) about any remaining tech rider issues...
I believe that there is also a most wonderful office unit being constructed, which I'm looking forward to seeing next week.
Anne Dorthe (Stavanger2008) has co-ordinated a team of 17 volunteers for the event. Some of whom will have the ability to communicate in Russian and French as well as Norwegian and English which will increase our teams ability to understand the performers.
The various mail outs to press and interested parties has happened, much to the surprise of my local Post Office who had to deal with over 400 envelopes of posters and flyers going all over the world.
Audhild and Bente (Stavanger2008) are working on the publicity for Norway.

There is still a pretty long 'to-do' list but it looks like things are coming together :-)

22 days feels like 22 minutes

The run up to any deadline always puts a pressure on time, but this has a special feeling with DIAL-A-DIVA. Right now my main activity is thinking about time, minutes, performance slots, and time zones. TIMEZONES, 1/2 hour ones, daylight saving ones, summer time ones, highly populated ones, like Western South America and Eastern North America... sparse ones like Alaska, French Polynesia and Kiribati. Time on our hands and time slipping past. 22 days to go until we're listening to 24 hours worth of performed telecommunication time.

33 days to go and performance schedule is filling up

We have done a calculation:

total number of minutes in 24hours: 1440
total number of minutes we aim to allocate in advance: 1380
total mins allocated to date: 1069
conservative estimate of minutes to be allocated to artists we are currently corresponding with: 210
meaning we may effectively only have 70 - 80 mins left to allocate

So if you have been thinking about signing up DO IT NOW >> sign up

myspace profile RESOLUTION

Finally it is resolved - we are back, logged in to our original account.
Thanks to everyone who has been patient, and Myspace who sorted it out.

We will gradually migrate all friends together in the original account.

Now that we have access to our community again we'll turn our focus to the Russian Federation and China.

myspace profile - continuing saga

Just a note to say we are still unable to connect to our myspace profile (www.myspace.com/dialadiva2007) and continue to operate the temporary one (www.myspace.com/dialadivarescued) - hopefully this situation will be resolved soon and we will be able to pick up correspondence. In the meantime apologies to those who we continue not to respond to!

myspace profile restoration

It seems that Cat's correspondence with Myspace admin is yielding results. Our original profile is now reinstated - visible. Although we are not yet able to log in to pick up any messages. Hopefully this will come :-) WHAT A RELIEF!!

DIAL A DIVA RESCUED!

Our new URL is

www.myspace.com/dialadivarescued

We still hope to retrieve some of our original account info, but it's completely unknown how likely this is going to be. Fingers Crossed! We are still waiting to here from myspace.

In the mean time please add our new myspace profile to your friends and use your own personal networks to get in touch with folk you think might be interested.

We were making encouraging progress, and really felt the whole thing coming together this week. With nearly 1700 friends and, I'm sure, nearly 2000 pending requests we were generating a huge network of great performers, but now back to zero on the myspace front we've lost 2000 potential performers and friends.


Please spread the word. I'll be back on myspace full throttle tomorrow.

Good Luck folks all is not lost!

MYSPACE DISASTER

Well little did I think yesterday that I'd be writing this update.
For some reason our Myspace account has been deleted. We have no experience of this, but the current situation is that ALL of the contacts and communications that have been developing through Myspace are lost. We apologise to all who are effected by this. Please contact us by email: dialadiva [at] gmail.com or via the website: www.dialadiva.net

We will set up a temporary myspace account shortly and post the URL here.

44 days to go

A quick update: Cat, Jill (my mum) and I have been hard at work in myspace primarily. It is really an amazing experience finding so many inspiring and adventurous artists. All the positive and encouraging responses certainly keep us going as we jump the time consuming hurdles of myspace security checks and periods of painfully slow load times.
Jill has been exploring, Western Australia & French speaking Africa, I have been in South America and Cat has been traversing the Near and Far East. I think it is safe to say that my mum is more of a fan of folk music than hip hop, but we are both excited about some of the urban artists in the Ivory Coast - a thriving scene it seems. Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay have given us some fantastic musicians of all sorts - powerful songwriting and melody making.
Having written last time that artists from the Middle East were hard to find I tapped a rich seam in Egypt and Palestine - such strength and positivity.
We still don't have a Russian translation of the invitation text and it is very hard to make intelligible contact with Russians, Ukrainians, Siberians, Belorussians et al with out it. However we are making new headway in finding a translator and hopefully will be able to concentrate on the region before long.
This morning I have had the chance to stop and consolidate all the registered performers details and there are over 50 and at least 20 more in the myspace pipeline. A great international spread and it goes without saying I suppose but an amazing diversity of style.
Working with myspace mail does have it's issues - it is not searchable or indeed possible to order and it deletes after two weeks, so it is a jungle once the flow of correspondence is going - and it really is. We are trying to encourage those who want to take part to divert to the gmail account and/or register online. Apologies to anyone who is currently buried under a few days mail who we haven't got back to yet. We will!

60 days to go

So Gill's new site design is up (www.dialadiva.net), and the print is on its way with the new numbers. The invitations to perform are going out into the world and the responses, especially from those who took part last time, are very heartening.
Cat continues concentrating on myspace and is doing a fantastic job finding interesting performers all over the place. I have just joined her in myspace land.... so many amazing performers out there. Myspace has grown a lot since the last Dial-a-Diva and is so much more international than before, when it really was the domain of North America, Western Europe and Australia - great to be able to connect with African, Russian, Asian, South American performers... it is still not really a hotbed of middle eastern musicians who are harder to reach as yet.
My Mum (Jill) who was the backbone of the last Dial-a-Diva research operation, is back in action scoping for Oceanic, Samoan and Alaskan acts at the moment.
We now have information translated into 15 different languages that will be downloadable from the website soon.
It certainly is all hands on deck with the good ship Diva in preparation for the grand round the world voyage.

Supplier changes

Hmmmmmm..... well, where do I start.

As sometimes happens on a project, everything starts of well with negotiations, and you decide who the best vendors are. At some point after many discussions you even go so far as to agreeing contracts etc.
Then the fun starts!
The first Dial a Diva had a very successful run barring one part of the project, recording, so the vendor managed it well.
For Dial a Diva 2007, it was down to two vendors, who on cost were very similar, however one communicate well, and this is usually a good sign.

Upon asking for some of the extra bells and whistles, and some fairly basic things that are easy or commonplace, the communication stuttered a bit, and yep, extra costs were charged.

Communication slowing down is a big issue on the project, as the nearer and nearer we get to September the 8th, the more rapid things get, recordings, operator scripts, etc etc.

Micromanaging the vendor, or spending a massive amount of time holding their hand is not an option, so the vendor previously chosen is on hold.

Yes, we will have to change the numbers on the website and posters, but what is important is that the technical solution works, and works well.

Updates soon

Worldly Travels From The Hot Seat!!

I have been in Russia, and Indian with a couple of quick stops in Japan and Papua New Guinea, all without leaving my studio in Carnoustie, Scotland. The lists of singers, poets,story tellers and comedians grows longer and longer, while my knowledge of world music also increases.

I have now moved into the world of myspace, for a short break, and have posted on almost every poetry group bulletin board I can find...I will finish that off tomorrow.

I have also begun the search for singers and comedians country by country through myspace, which seems to be productive...at the beginning of last week we had 13 friends we now have 251 !! I've requested nearly 700 folk, so hopefully they'll keep rolling in as I keep getting in touch with more people.

I'll keep alternating between web trawling and myspace searching until we are confident we've searched the entire earth for willing performers. If you are a willing performer please get in touch it could save me some cyber-miles! :-)

I will also be revamping the myspace once I have all the necessary files which should give it a boost......and I also believe tomorrow is the first official day of emailing folk from our new lists.....so it really is lift off tomorrow morning with only 61 days until the performance... I can't wait!!!

1st Contract signed for teleconferencing

It is done!!!

Premiere Global will be providing the teleconferencing part of the DAD2007 solution this year.

With several global offices, contract with several Tier 1 telecomms suppliers and multiple bridge sites, we are confident that they will deliver what we require for the project.

Zoe and I are going to meet Farrukh Nasiri, Lyndsay Cook and one other on the 27th July in London.

If you have any questions re teleconferencing, then do not hesitate to contact me on 0845 174 6060.

What have I contracted for:

30,000 minutes of inbound calls on a Norwegian Freephone number 800 13458
10,000 minutes of inbound calls to UK/International DDI on +44 (0) 208 602 0835
5,000 minutes of inbound calls from the project team
3,000 minutes of dial out calls to performers
Recording of the event
Multiple operators for the project team and listener queries
Marketing materials
(free umbrella if I can get one!)

The inbound and outbound calls are linked via a 'bridge', hardware which allows multiple telephone lines from multiple locations to be connected together in one virtual room.

Subconferences are where the bridge is used to connect two or more people outside the main conference and then allows them to be transferred seamlessly into the main conference.

For example:
Prior to each performance, one of the project team and their operator go into a sub-conference. Looking at the schedule, the project team member asks the operator to dial out to the next performer. Once connected, the three of us have a chat about the performance, how it will be introduced, and the wrap up. When the current performer finishes in the main 'auditorium/concert' to which the listeners are connected, the operator transfers the performer into the main auditorium/concert, introductions are made and the performance begins.

From a concert/performance point of view, think of the main teleconference as the auditorum, and the sub-conference as the backstage dressing room where performer get ready. Audio streaming is the equivalent of a live radio broadcast.

Until next time

What computer!

This is where I encourage the green eyed monster or PC envy.

Seriously, when we started the project I figured that I was going to run Skype and the overhead projector from my laptop, and recording and audio from the Small Form Factor (SFF) Asus unit I built in December.

Reality is that as a tech wallah, and with prices going down on pc components I had already decided to upgrade after 6 months.

Why?

DAD2007 needs a stable platform which can guarantee:

High bandwith delivery through the Kommune LAN infrastructure
Simultaneous processing of incoming audio and conversion to multiple streams for audio streaming via the web.
Backup recording of the whole event
Possible IP Webcam support
Updates to the presentation being projected
Monitoring of the webstream users

As a total anorak, and like the boy in the sweet shop, I figured I might as well make the pc look sexy as it will be in plain view, so expect lots of modding, UV, flashing lights, glowing bits and so forth.

In spite of all this it will not be able to make a decent cup of coffee!!!!

Initially I was hoping to take the base unit onto the aircraft, however....................................SAS seems to be the only major airline that imposes a cabin baggage limit. 8kg, how useless is that!!
Nearly all other airlines including EasyJet allow unlimited weight as long as the size is legal.

This is very useful if you are transporting gold bullion as the size to weight ratio is very low.

Anyway not only do SAS not have a decent hand luggage weight, but also seem incapable of carrying anything fragile or providing stickers. Thought this was the 21st century.

So if I cannot carry the unit onboard as hand luggage it will either need to be shipped or go in the hold. Both of these options will be expensive and carry an element of risk.

At the moment I am thinking about taking the hard drives etc in my hand luggage and putting the rest in the hold.

BACK to the spec.

There is only one case on the market that a) fits where I need it to fit in my office, b) is the right height to have a cup of coffee sitting next to you, and c) has the ability to hold two separate computers in one case. It is the Thermaltake Mozart TX case.

The Mozart TX holds the main computer with ATX motherboard in one section, and the second computer in another section based on a micro-ATX board.

I have ordered an alternative pc at a cracking price with a view to cannibalisation into the TX, but haven't decided in full.

The baseline spec is as follows:

Intel core2duo processor E6700 running dual channels of 2667MHz
Asus P5W wi/fi motherboard
4GB RAM either Pc-6400 running at 800MHz or 4GB PC-8500 RAM running at 1066MHZ. (The latter is Kingston HyperX)
1 x 400GB HDD for operating system and software SATA II 300 8 or 16MB buffer
2 x 750GB or 1TB HDD for recording of the concert and RAID backup SATA II 300 8 or 16MB buffer
Nvidia GTX 7900 Graphics card (I am not a great gaming enthusiast) 512MB RAM
550W power supply for main ATX board
Zalman cooling
Integrated heatpipe
8.1 multichannel audio (designed for mutiple audio streams input and output)
2 x Gigabit LAN connection for direct connection and LAN creation
Various modding including cold cathode lighting, UV sensitive cables, fans, HDD coolers etc.

For the secondary system if I install it for Projection, stats etc

Micro ATX board
Athlon x2 5200+ dual core processor running at 2667MHz
2GB PC-6400 RAM running at 800MHz
1 x 400GB 7,200 rpm HDD with 8MB buffer
256MB Graphics card probably Nvidia
400W power supply
7" built in LCD touch screen (I want one but haven't decided yet if I can reconcile it)

It is highly likely in view of the RAM requirements that the main unit will be using Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit. The secondary unit will be on Windows XP Pro SP2.

The laptop spec is fixed at:

Intel core2duo running at 1.83GHz
2GB RAM PC-5300 running at 667MHz
Nvidia 7900 GTX graphics with 512MB RAM
100GB 7,200rpm HDD
Windows XP Pro SP2

It should be pointed out that building a system is so much cheaper than buying one. I reckon the top spec PC in PC World retailing at about £2,000 can be built for about £700-£1000 with better components each carrying 3-5 year warranties.

Anyway the debate about carry on, shipping or hold luggage continues on for the moment.

Make sure you come and see 'the beast' if you come to the venue, and I will don my anorak for a few minutes.

To webcam or not to webcam - that is the question?

Hi

One of the thoughts we had was that if we are audio streaming, why not look at streaming video of the venue.

Being able to see the Stavanger venue whilst listening to the audio stream may be fun, and also give depth to the online experience.

You will also be able to see the project team running around like looneys, and place bets on who wants to go for a break first, or how many cups of coffee I drink.

In theory there are many IP Webcams on the market, ranging from £30 to £3,000, and it really is hard to figure out what we would require.

Having researched this a bit, I figured we need a pan and tilt (Myself or the viewer can move the camera) without sound (because I can use the audio feed) and the ability for up to 30 simultaneous viewers.

A good quality range such as the Panasonic BC models will do the job, so why are we still debating?

Its about servers and cost.

Transmitting a videostream is a highly intensive process. The higher the frame rate, the better quality, the better the quality the higher the bandwidth needed, the more users allowed, the more bandwidth needed and so on and so forth.

For example transmitting at 30fps (30 frames per second) on an average resolution which means the picture is smooth requires a lot of processor power and hard disk space.

I looked at 6 simutaneous users at 16fps for 24 hours and the spec was as follows:

1TB hard disk space with a processor capable of delivering 3.6MHz speed.

It can be done, but I do have to think about the fact that the processor/server also needs to support audio streaming, recording of the audio stream, and the output to the overhead projector.

See the proposed server spec and be amazed, however we remain unsold on the IP webcam at this present time.

Audio Streaming - The technical side

Wilkommen, Bienvenue and Wotcha.......

Given that audio streaming is a far cry from a simple teleconference type project, I thought I would explain a bit about how we need to approach the streaming of the concert to the web.

The main concert runs through the teleconferencing bridge, which links callers, listeners, inbound and outbound calls and the project teams with countries and technology to put everything in one place.

You wish to listen, you dial one of our numbers, 800 13458 for Norway or +44 (0) 208 602 0835 for anyone else, and you listen to the concert via your normal telephone handset, bluetooth, mobile or using Voip.

But telephone signals are of low output and quality, and as the performances are from all over the world, DAD2007 is unable to have a high quality desk and system as you would in a concert, so what do you do?

Firstly you need a way of capturing the audio signal from the concert, and for this you need a Telephone Balancing Unit (TBU). This is the type of equipment used by radio stations and TV stations for calls.

The TBU takes the signal from a telephone connection using a standard RJ11 connection, and cleans it up whilst simultaneously boosting the signal strength so that it is compatible with a mixing desk or PA system. FYI output is normally through an XLR connector

There are two types of basic TBU and two ways of handling the signal.

A basic TBU will only receive incoming signals, the hybrid version will allow you to convert incoming AND outgoing telephone calls.

Secondly as with speakers, there are two ways of powering the unit, active and passive.

Passive units draw power from the telephone signal, and convert the audio. They are massively cheaper than active units, but the signal output is low, and probably only suited for small operations.

Active units use an integrated amplifier to manage the signal and produce a higher quality and higher strength output.

As we need to provide sound for the mixing desk in the venue (so we can broadcast the sound via speakers at the venue), and then feed sound back to the audio streaming server, DAD 2007 will be using an active TBU.

Because Zoe is 'nice' and this is a new piece of technology with potential for the future for some of her projects, I am intent on trying to find an active hybrid unit within the budget so that we futureproof for other DAD events etc.

If you have any questions please add to the blog or give me a bell on 0845 174 6060

Summer is here, and my eyes arent the only thing streaming!

Apologies for anyone waiting for more tech blogs, strangely I feel more comfortable with 360 page technical manual or public speaking than with blogging, however it is time to make amends.

For those of you with hayfever like myself I sympathise, but DAD 2007 is hoping that we will be providing a positive streaming experience rather than the rhinitis type.

The first Dial a Diva (DAD) project was quite rightly telephone based, and required a 'one stop shop' solution for the technical delivery using a global teleconferencing platform. In DAD 2007, we have agreed that it will be more fun, and more in keeping with modern times to offer greater accessibility to the concert using a range of platforms.

It was decided that audio streaming of the concert was a positive step, and on the surface seems quite simple. In reality it can be quite simple as long as you make sure that all the technical equipment can a) handle the processor demands of streaming for 24 hours, b) the technical architecture allows for high quality data transfer rates, and c) the web server has enough bandwidth to allow as many people as possible to log-on and listen.

Then Zoe threw me that perennial curveball! Can we do Ogg...................................................'Ugg' I replied as my brain froze, what the h**l is Ogg.

A bit of research, and another week of discussions with streaming companies appears to have provided a quite sexy solution that I hope to trial and put through UAT (User Acceptance Testing).

So here goes..............................what am I thinking we can do?

Simultaneous live streaming of the concert to the Stavanger and DAD2007 website.
3 or 4 types of stream including MP3 pro, MP3. WMA9 and Ogg.
Streaming can be sent to Shoutcast, Live 365, Windows Media, Icecast1 or 2 and P2P streamer.

If I have enough time, I will also be able to caption the stream, so everyone out there will know who is performing if they miss the introduction.

So welcome to streaming for DAD2007

99 Days and Counting!

So the countdown is into double figures.
Greg is working on the telecoms deal, this has taken longer than expected, but soon that negotiation will be complete and we'll know who the tech provider for the event it. This will in turn give us the freephone Norway number and perhaps a UK number too and having that means the printing presses will role with the poster and flyers and the new look diva website will go live. Gill has done a wonderful, exhuberant design and James has built the site - just need that number...

In the meantime as Cat says she has been busy traversing the Northern Hemisphere - Russia is huge and finding contacts outside of the main cities, indeed anywhere to the east of the country, is not easy. There are some pretty exciting leads though including a canary singing competition (men only)... more details to follow on that one I hope.

One thing is for sure these next 99 days will be action packed and pass quickly!

It's been quiet on the Eastern Side

Good Morning,

I've emerged from the depths of internet research to give you a quick update. The research is going well, I currently have over 120 potential contacts.

I'm still in Russia but have moved slightly westward into Latvia now and hope to be finished both by mid-week. I began with blogs and general internet searches, and have now moved into the world of forums and myspace; there are many groups that you can join, relating to a particular country, which may prove really helpful. I have posted into their forums in the hope to spark debate and hopefully some performers.

WE NEED YOUR VOICE!

I'll be updating the Dial-A-Diva myspace this week, which can be found at

www.myspace.com/dialadivaii

Stavanger Site Visit

Just back from Stavanger. The sun was shining and it was glorious.
The primary discussions were with Mary (director of Stavanger 2008), Trond (production coordinator of Stavanger 2008) and Stein (numusic). We focused on questions of venues and technical set up. We also met with Orjan from the kommune (Stavanger Council) who will be providing the hard wiring and telecommunications for the venue. Although Greg couldn't make it over this time, it seems like Orjan and he had a useful phone conversation and things are moving on tech-wise. The only remaining issue we need to resolve for the location tech is streaming support.

After considering a few venue options it has been decided that Dial-a-Diva will happen in Kult Kaffeen, a cafe in the Sølvberget (if you have very good eyesight you'll be able to pick out the red arrow in the pic of Stavanger I took from the plane, I think it marks the spot, but I can't be sure). This is a perfect location, in the centre of Stavanger, part of the kommune and at the hub of the Numusic which Dial-a-Diva will be associated with. It's right at the heart of where Stavangerites go out of a Saturday night and Kult Kaffeen is happy to stay open for the full 24 hour duration - so Greg won't have a problem keeping the coffee flow going. There is also space for team members to retreat for breaks. It is on a square where we will stage the midway celebration with a 1/2 hour of performances and open mic.

Discussions with the sound and lighting guys were also fruitful. Lighting and projections both in the venue and into the square seem to be fairly straight forward tasks.
It has been great to meet with so many positive people - nothing is a problem!

I also met with Audhild who is in charge of Stavanger2008's marketing. We talked about ideas on how to promote the project Norway wide. The world wide aspect is down to the Dial team.

On the way to the airport Trond took me to a treasure trove of a warehouse, packed to the gunnels with furniture of all sorts. We will keep an eye open here in case the perfect office unit appears for the installation. Not only do we have a plan B though, there is also a plan C - wow.


So all in all it was a really productive site visit.
See more pics >> click here
(to see any notes or comments on the pic, click on the central viewing pic and it tells you)

also here is a map of where we are >> click here

GO GO GO

The contract is complete, agreed and SIGNED. It's all systems go. Stavanger 2008 are now officially hosting the second DIAL-A-DIVA event.

Also, I have been looking into google documents - spreadsheets and calendar as a good way of syncronising our activities. I'll come back with more details, in the mean time excel is fine.

at the ready....

I've just set up a host of documents and folders in preparation for the DIAL-A-DIVA research I'm about to embark on. I will officially start researching mid-week once I've set-up all the communications and archiving essentials. I can't wait; I'm glad to be part of the team and welcome the opportunity to be part of such an exciting project.

Webcasting round the World

Maybe, just maybe, if we can get access to the right FTP site, I will be able to broadcast via web, not only our stream from the venue in Stavanger, but also any artists which want to allow access to their webcams.

Let me know if you may be interested in adding visual stimuli to the audio stream.

Technology ROCKS !!!!

contract almost signed...

We are so close to the starting line. Greg and I have been working over the last months to prepare and finesse the proposal for Stavanger 2008. There have been lots of ups and downs but it seems it's almost done with this phase.

Today sees the first tentative (virtual) meeting with the designer about the website redesign and print and first meeting with Cat Lee who will be the primary research assistant. While Cat was over we listened through some of the event recordings and the re-recordings from the last DIAL and suddenly it seemed like a reality, so good to be doing this again, making it better, more inclusive and more ambitious. Exciting months ahead!