Arts Festival publicity

Homecoming year for Scotland based on Robert Burns and the number 250 means that publicity for events in Dumfries and Galloway region will be tied into this initiative to some extent.

I guess the pound is weak so Scotland is as attractive a place as any for non-UK visitors, especially ex-pat Scots looking for a reason to return to the homeland.

That aside, the site has had some updates and now validates properly. The big Christmas pagerank bonus also saw the dgartsfestival blog site get a cheeky 2.

Running concurrently

Ah, the long winter nights.

Recently Callisti has been updating the experimental Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival wordpress blog site with the provisional festival diary.

Some of the events are tentatively booked so dates and venues may still need to be firmed up.

Updating wordpress blogs can take an age - I hope it's not as slow as that when you have a local server installation.

Anyhow, good to see the search results for "dumfries and galloway arts festival".

Now what was that about PageRank?

Log Cabin Holidays

Callisti is now managing lochanview.com, a self catering log cabin provider in Dumfries and Galloway. Log cabins, Lodges and Chalets - these are all fairly synonymous to some but when you get in the outdoor hottub at lochanview such definitions become unimportant.

Check out the booking calendars for the lodge and log cabin.

Bat Surveys

This is a whole new world of activity for a desk jockey like me.

Stuart Spray Wildlife consultancy have recently launched their new website informing of their bat surveys, tree surveys and habitat surveys - all part of the range of wildlife consultancy services they offer.

They cover the UK but most of their work is in Southern Scotland (Dumfries and Galloway) and the North of England (Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Cumbria)

Meeting of minds

Callisti is now in talks with ICT Advisor to develop new working relationships for international ecommerce SEO.

After attending a Business Gateway event in Gretna (Dumfries and Galloway) it was clear that more investment in building knowledge and skills would be the true path to illumination.

There are upcoming opportunities for tenders and Callisti says put best foot forward.

Enterprise agencies

Cycling about town today in a green sort of way. We had a constructive meeting earlier with the local Scottish Enterprise agency for Dumfries and Galloway where Callisti will be suggested for tenders for new work in the region.

This work will be for clients requiring a suite of services, from search engine optimisation, website design and development, and video editing for the web.

There are other opportunities in conjunction with the creative arts and art events groups in the region which will be followed up in this next quarter.

Another journey by train

I'm visiting a client in Bristol today where extensive media processing and testing goes on for a music video and film download site. The train journey is a bit horrendous: 5 and a half hours from Dumfries and Galloway with 3 changes.

The first train carriage had plug sockets but no power and a dodgy tannoy. Helpfully the assistant informed me that I could try another carriage as sometimes the power didn't work all the way through the train. Virgin trains keeping standards high!

Crewe is somewhere I only know because of journey transfers; what happens there apart from travelers crossing paths?

Anyway more SEO article writing for gift wishlists this morning as part of the ongoing campaign for mywishwand - the trend of the google analytics should gradually show an increase in traffic but with the proportion on free search engine traffic growing from the current 3%. There are some referrals at the moment but most of the traffic has been as a result of the offline marketing at the launch of the site, e.g. press and media coverage in related magazines and programmes.

The internet connection from the XDA has been fine but the network for o2 is somewhat lacking in the lake district - I guess network coverage is as concentrated as the population for any given region.

The laptop keeps picking up 'Free Public WiFi' on the train and I can connect to it without additional security measures. However it doesn't give me internet access so it may be a feature of the rail service - CrossCountry now.

Players on a stage

We are but players on a stage it has been said. It's strange how the word 'but' is used here. Lesson: remember that a lot of the language we used is expression-based and falls under the evil spell of cliche very easily.

There is a need in Dumfries and Galloway, and Dumfries in particular, for the development of a quality theatre.

A venue that can reach out to the local community and encourage participation with the performing arts as a way point for the talented children of the area, and a theatre performance area that can attract shows to the region during the Arts Festival and throughout the year.

The current venue is that closest fits this bill is the ageing Theatre Royal. We are now in a period of consultation on how best to deliver this, whether by building a new venue or by overhauling the existing theatre. Either way funding will have to be secured.

Callisti supports the performing arts and original artists.

DGCC Annual Lunch

Well that was the first annual lunch Callisti has attended and well attended it was too. Organised mainly by the Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of Commerce and featuring Charan Gill MBE as guest speaker, it was all very entertaining and relaxed.

We got the random tables and discussed the inner workings of the post office and royal mail delivery software - database driven route planning for mail delivery - the post code database is the family jewel.

Also juxtaposed were representatives from the Care Training Consortium so we had a pleasant chat over the creme brulee...

Mountain biking

2009 will herald the World Mountain Bike Conference in Dumfries and Galloway so there will be a strong influence on the activities and visitors to the region in the coming year. This is the first time the event has been held outwith USA so it has significance.

We were in contact with Trailbrakes, a mountain biking holiday provider in the region who are now extending the range of their biking trips to Morocco as well as within the region (and of course the famous 7 stanes course at various points in Southern Scotland.)

I'm sure mountain biking awareness will increase tenfold and we welcome this positive influx to Scotland.

Time is a face on the water

What does that mean?

If you want space and peace in a beautiful place check out Elm Cottage in Kippford, and I'm not just saying that!

The Solway coast in Dumfries and Galloway is quite magical to travel along and looking beyond the normal tourist traps you can find your own places of activity and comfort. Otherworldly.

SEO and Google Adwords

Hi pop-pickers. Another busy day in and out of the office. One random event of note was my dilapidated car reach a milestone...

Or 150,000 of them to be precise. This was en-route to Barncleuch, Irongray in Dumfries and Galloway to consult with Chairman of the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival about a number of issues.

On my return I found that a swarm of SEO jobs had come into my mailbox along with some hosting requests. I do love administration!

Aberdeen Media Website Development

What a strange day at the office. The morning entailed a rainy trip to the 'Making it Happen' discussion on the alternative futures for theatre provision in Dumfries (and by extension Dumfries and Galloway).

There were many representatives from local authority, theatre trust (involved with the intimate but delapidated Theatre Royal), community organisations, schools, etc. and a few from the Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival membership. This is a part time interest for me as I am keen to find a practical way of joining up the provision of creative arts and events information for the region and have somehow been co-opted on to the festival board.

Subsequently a London client of Callisti required some research to find an alternative quote for a large scale development (masquerading as another nominal company for NDA reasons) and I was fortunate enough to find AVC Media Enterprises based in Aberdeen.

After a good chat with their project interface character I was well impressed, and he was able to be helpful and informative in a way that I'd like to revisit. Their website is professional and exemplifies some of the clever applications they have put to use. More media oriented than most and, by the way, it was surprisingly hard to find a company (that was accessible) based in Scotland who could come close to providing what was being asked for.