Earlier this year, my good friend Michelle Sullivan invited me to give a presentation of ratsdeville at her Current Trends in Digital Communication course she was teaching to a group of foreign students from China, South Korea and Peru, at McGill University.

The subject matter for this particular class was content creation and community management. My presentation focused on leveraging social media to build the notoriety of ratsdeville, from personal blog to media, and as an early adopter of social media (2006), especially Facebook and the now ubiquitous email newsletter.

After my presentation and a break for lunch, I gave a tour of the Belgo, a quick overview of the ongoing art exhibitions. The students were given instructions to spot artworks, artists or galleries they particularly liked and report on that after the tour – as if they were journalists – with this idea of promoting the Belgo, inviting tourists to visit the multi-floor contemporary art building as a cultural activity worth the detour.

Here are some of the insights I shared with them:

  1. From amateur to connoisseur
  2. Artist not a profession (for me)
  3. Age of Access
  4. It takes some of you
  5. Writing about art
  6. Creating content
  7. Material vs Immaterial