Vivid Ideas: Georgia Frances King and Nick Shelton

By Niall Roeder.

Vivid Sydney, the festival of light, music and ideas, and florescent jewel in this city’s crown, is currently lighting this place up. Each time it rolls around the lights shining on the city and the gigs taking place are consistently worth a gander, but what about the Ideas portion? Vivid Ideas swan dives into a pool of innovation and creativity, and prides itself on bigging-up creative industries.

We caught up with two of the many switched-on kids involved with Creating Cut-Through Content: Media Minds Share Their Strategies; Georgia Frances King, the editor of Kinfolk Magazine, and Nick Shelton, the director and publisher of Broadsheet Media.

A photo posted by Broadsheet Sydney (@broadsheet_syd) on May 31, 2016 at 12:29am PDT

In this Internet age, it’s easy for anyone and everyone to put out content. Has this saturation meant a dip or rise in quality material out there?

Georgia Frances King (Kinfolk Magazine) – I think that the internet has been wonderful in terms of empowerment: We should always encourage people to feel that they have a voice and can use it (regardless of what you think of what they’re saying or how they’re saying it) as a lot of people in less fortunate locales sadly still don’t have this opportunity. So instead of limiting the content that’s out there based on its quality, I think it’s more on us to learn how to sift through it better to find what we want. That might take a little longer on our end, but it’s horses for courses, as far as I’m concerned. And there’s nothing better than stumbling across a gem of a blog or social media feed that you feel is somehow created just for you—when you find that special something that resonates with you, it’s made all the sweeter by the fact that you had to work for it.

Nick Shelton (Broadsheet) – With everyone now able to easily create and distribute content, there is certainly more being published than ever before. In my mind it has led to an increase of both terrible content and outstanding content. There are many reasons to create and publish content and, sadly, not all of them require that content to be good.

However, I think the Internet has brought everyone more access to a lot of truly remarkable content.

A photo posted by Kinfolk Magazine (@kinfolk) on May 26, 2016 at 10:16am PDT

How do you spot BS in a space where everyone is ‘influential’?

GF – We’re now all trained to sniff out BS from a mile away. The best way to avoid it is to create content that is true to you and your mission and try to worry a little less about who the end readers or users are going to be—your take on things is what makes it unique. I think our obsession with consciously curating our lives is beginning to change now though: Social medias such as Snapchat and Periscope are starting to encourage us to take the glean and glisten off our lives and present them in a much more transparent way, which I think is wonderful. Though I think we all need to remember that different publications and brands have different target markets, and we shouldn’t hold each of them to an arbitrary set of rules that we’ve set based on our values. What you might think is disingenuous or try-hard might actually be content presented in the correct tone to a different market, so we shouldn’t always be so quick to judge.

NS – Influence is a word that is being thrown around a lot at them moment – everyone is an influencer these days. But that doesn’t mean that everyone is actually influential.

Influence is something that is built over time with an audience through credibility and trust. It’s not just about having a few thousand followers on an Instagram account – having said that, a lot of Instagramers and Youtubers do actually have legitimate influence – the Internet is obviously a great place to connect with people.

Broadsheet works hard to build trust with its audience through credible and insightful content and interactions. So that when Broadsheet says something the audience listens and trusts its perspective and advice. That’s real influence – it’s borne out of connection, credibility and trust.

If you could convince your 18-year-old self to get stuck into a food, hobby and instrument, what would you recommend?

GF – Food: I was really late to the whole soft cheese game—if only someone had given me some Humboldt Fog earlier in my life, I could have righted this wrong earlier. Hobby: I would love to be one of those people who can casually clear a pool table after a couple of pints. My mum, dad and brother are all brilliant at it but I didn’t stick at it long enough to learn, because every time I tried, I’d have my butt delivered to me by my family. We’re a competitive bunch. Instrument: The piano, for sure; I love instruments that you play with your whole body instead of just your fingers. Why my parents let me learn recorder for 8 years instead of encouraging me to put that time into something that sounded less cat-strangely still baffles me.

NS – Well, food was something that really clicked with me when I was younger. But I don’t think it particularly matters what you click with, as long as it’s something you’re properly engaged with and inspired by. I think everyone should pursue something that makes them feel like that. I’m lucky that I’m inspired and engaged with what I do for a living.

A photo posted by Broadsheet Sydney (@broadsheet_syd) on May 25, 2016 at 6:22pm PDT

Do you feel the Bern, represent the Donald, big up Hillary or don’t give a sh*t? And why?

GF – It’s been an interesting start to the year, that’s for sure! I’m not going to weigh in on who I would have voted for in the Oregon primaries if I had the chance—though I promise you it’s not Trump—but I will comment on how few people here who do have the chance to cast a ballot actually do. A lot of the population feels disenfranchised with the political system and believe the way to shirk it is by not involving themselves with it. This doesn’t effect any meaningful change, and it means that voting numbers are shockingly low. In New York, for an example, only 2 million people out of 20 million apparently voted in the primary. We may have our own governmental issues in Australia, but compulsory voting is a huge plus, in my eyes. (And not just for the free snags outside the polling stations.)