Today I went to a Design Victoria mini-symposium, or what they called a Tools of the Export Trade Masterclass. I found out about it on the Australian Design Unit blog. Owing to the recent shenanigans that ensued when getting works to international exhibitions (thanks Eyjafjallajokull for making it even more stressful), I was (and am) keen to ‘skill-up’ in this area. The marketing insights and the tips from professionals managed to outweigh the the speakers who intoned some very irrelevant information for a small business such as mine. In fact, after today, I’m leaning towards using the term ‘micro business’ when referring to my art practice.
While the info on offer was all well intentioned, and possibly even some of it useful to me; like some of the nuances of the ‘dark arts’ of marketing, and more grants info available from the Victorian Government and Austrade, it’s not likely come in handy when my projected output won’t reach the marketing budget needed to trigger their minimum grant amount.
Ahh well, back to sweating over the details on Australia Post forms.