Arts Audiences is happy to announce that 8 mentoring relationships are now underway on the New Media Mentoring Scheme. In this scheme, individuals from a range of arts organisations from across the county will receive expert mentoring in the area of new media and audience development. On completion of mentoring, these individuals will produce reports for online publishing and discussion, in order to share their learnings with the wider arts community.


The mentoring relationships

With the most welcome late addition of a team of mentors from Google Ireland, the mentoring relationships are as follows;

• Anne O’Gorman and Emmet Sheerin of The National Youth Council of Ireland are being mentored by a team from RTÉ Publishing
• Conor Malone of Balor Arts Centre is being mentored by David McCadden of the Abbey Theatre
• Derek Kelly of the Gate Theatre is being mentored by a team from Google Ireland
• Marcella Bannon of Droichead Arts Centre is being mentored by Aoife Flynn of asquared
• Michelle Dillon of The Dock in Carrick on Shannon is being mentored by a team from Google Ireland
• Louise Walsh of Music Network is being mentored by a team from RTÉ Publishing
• Rayne Booth of Temple Bar Gallery and Studios is being mentored by Aoife Flynn of asquared
• Tara Connaghan of Éigse Carlow Arts Festival is being mentored by a team from Google Ireland

Sharing the learning
Each mentoring relationship is structured around a specific piece of work in the area of new media, and each mentee will produce a short report on completion of their mentoring. This report will be published on this website, and on the Arts Ireland group on LinkedIn, where members of the arts community will be able to address questions to the mentees specific to what they have learnt during their mentoring.


Areas covered in mentoring
Over the coming couple of weeks, a description of the areas being covered by each mentoring relationship will be published here. For the moment, suffice to say that there will be a wide range of areas covered, from the use of Facebook and twitter, to website optimisation, the use of Google analytics and Google ads, to website design and the development of a digital marketing strategy.

timeframe
Publication of mentoring reports will begin in early April, with the final reports being published by the end of May.


Finally to say…
Many applications were submitted from across the country last December, and it is regrettable that we were unable to provide mentors for all applicants. Fully aware of the widespread appetite for arts-specific knowledge in this area, the evaluation panel endeavored to assemble a shortlist of organisations from a wide range of sectors and backgrounds, so that the learnings, when published, would be of value to the broadest range of readers from across the spectrum of the arts in Ireland.