Workshop Production Assistant

General information

As a workshop intern, your role is to help the workshop manager make sure that workshops are run smoothly. Your tasks go from answering emails to set up workshop spaces or contributing to the creation of a new workshop. 

This article contains a few important links for you to navigate workshops. Of course, the workshop manager will guide you through it!

First, add the workshop Chrome account to have access to everything you might need (email, Google drive, Stager...). Here, you will find out how to add multiple Google accounts in Chrome. You can find the password in the password page.

 

 

Useful knowledge pages and website links

Here is the workshop knowledge pages collection.

 

 

Daily tasks

Meetings with the manager

You will have a weekly check-in with the workshop manager. In this meeting, they will give you updates about workshops and give you tasks for the week. It is also a good time for you to ask any questions/suggestions or to bring up any concerns, relating to workshops or your internship in general.

The tasks you will be given vary: you might be answering emails, setting up workshop spaces, updating the website...

Emails

Check emails and reply to the ones you can. Typically, these are the everyday rebooking, refunds or simple inquiries emails.

If you don't know how to answer an email or if you are not sure, let the manager answer to this one. If you see an email that needs an urgent answer but you cannot answer to it (whether because you don't know the answer or it has to be answered by the manager), let the manager know. You can also add a star and let it unread, to make things easier for them. 

 

Communication

Every time something changes with the workshop (cancelled, rescheduled...), you need to notify/email the communication team.

Stager

You can learn all about using Stager for workshops here.

Facebook

You can learn all about using Facebook for workshops here.

Google calendar

If you add a new workshop, don't forget to add it to the Google calendar! You can learn all about using Google calendar here.

Dedico

You can learn all about using Dedico here.

 

 Workshop assistant overview

Mediamatic interns are asked to assist during workshops. On the website, you will find a workshop assistant overview with information about assisting workshops, as well as a checklist per workshop.

If a new workshop is created, you will have to make a new checklist for the workshop assistant:

1. In the workshop assistant overview collection, click on the template article.
2. In 'admin', duplicate the page.
3. Add the new title.
4. Fill in all the needed information. If you haven't assisted this particular workshop, ask the intern who did to complete the document.
5. When you upload workshops from templates on the website always make sure to also add them to the collection (you can go over this one time a week or just do it right after you uploaded new dates).

 

Producing a new workshop

You might be part of the creation process of a new workshop. I (Marguerite) was part of the team creating a new workshop called Radical Embroidery. Here are a few things that I did for Radical Embroidery, that might be useful to you if you produce a new workshop.

 

Concept

For Radical Embroidery, I teamed up with Iliana (research assistant), who came up with the concept along with Willem. She did most of the research and talked about it with Elise (the workshop manager), who then put me on the team.

Iliana and I talked about the concept in order to make it into a feasible workshop, production-wise. In that case, it was great to discuss things together, as she knows more about the theoretical aspect and I, about the practical side of this workshop. We had a meeting with Willem and Jans to present our ideas, both on the concept and the production aspect.

 

Communication with the tutor(s)

After meeting with Elise about our ideas, we emailed Desirée, who had done an embroidery workshop at Mediamatic previously, to present to her our ideas and see if she could be interested in running it.

She was, so Iliana (along with Willem and Jans) met with Desirée to discuss the concept. We later had two other meetings (one with Elise) to discuss the concept and the practical aspects of the workshop (material, timeline, finances).

We were the main point of contact with the tutor. This also means that we were often checking the inbox to see if she had answered, and would let Elise know if there were any updates. 

Note: always email from the workshop email account! You can cc yourself.

 

Checking in with the workshop manager

When you are producing a new workshop, you have some independence (and therefore responsibility), but you can rely on the workshop manager. In our case, we would have check-ins with Elise from time to time and asked her questions if we weren't sure about something, i.e. finances.

The tutor is also directly in contact with the manager, especially for finances. In our case, Elise told us how finances worked but discussed it personally with Desirée.

 

What to think about production-wise

• Workshop initial document

In the workshop's Google Drive, go to 'Workshop Production', then 'WO - Folders'. There, you will find a folder per workshop. Create a folder for the new workshop! Each folder should contain a 'Workshop initial document' (if there isn't any yet, you can find a template in 'WO - Templates').

Use this document to guide you through the necessary steps of creating and producing a new workshop (deciding on a name, making a bio for the tutor on the website, make a timeline...).

• Material checklist: what do we need? What does the tutor want to bring? What do we already have at Mediamatic?
• Room set-up: which location in the Biotoop is the best to have this workshop? What set-up? What 'lives' in this room (tables, chairs...), what has to go and what can stay?
• Workshop assistant checklist: see above.
• Dates: no clash with other events? Balance between the tutor's availability and the workshop/events calendar of Mediamatic.

 

Communication

Once you have the concept ready, and dates and finances are sorted out, you can go ahead and start communicating the workshop. This part involves the communication team.

1. For each date, create an event on Stager. It's easier to create an event template if this workshop is going to happen regularly. Once you filled in everything (including ticket prices), don't forget to check if the ticket link is working!
2. Create a workshop event page for each date on the website. Here's how to do so. If there isn't any template for this workshop yet, create one. Duplicate another template, change the information and add it to the collection 'Workshop Website Templates'.
3. Add the events on Facebook. 
4. Plan a meeting with the communication assistant: explain the concept to them and provide them with pictures for social media. They might ask you to draft social media posts.
5. Don't forget to let the communication team know of any changes!