So I gave Sideshow's Research section its first, small update. There's not too much there at the moment, but it represents the direction I eventually want to take it in.
The first addition is a section on Funding Sources. I put this in because I thought it didn't make sense to put up a news item every time there was an application round for a rolling programme, so anything that's either recurring or open all year is going in here. I'm only putting up project funding / travel grants, and only sources that are open to companies that aren't necessarily charities, and only schemes open/relevant to UK-based artists — but with those caveats let me know if I've missed anything out (other than G4A and other national arts council project funding, which I'll add soon).
The deadlines for funding rounds are mixed in with the deadlines for jobs/opportunities in the list on the front page. Next year I'll look at putting in an RSS feed for these + maybe a calendar export + super double maybe personalised e-mail notifications / alerts.
Then the second addition to the Research section is I did a State of the Circus article that visualises the data from Sideshow's 2012 event listings. This is kind of a first stab for me at data journalism / information design, and there's a lot to learn w/r/t how to present information clearly/cleanly, so bear with me — I can see there's a lot of things to improve.
In the absence of a large store of data to practice on though, I'm going to follow up the article in two ways:
1. By interviewing a couple companies about their experiences touring / making work, concentrating on some of the key points which seem to characterise activity in 2012. This will go in a Case Studies / Advice sub-section, which I'm envisaging as like the circus edition of Arts Professional. Maybe slightly more interesting though? We'll see.
2. By running some surveys on the site. I want to do one every two months (unless no one bothers to answer the first one). The idea will be to keep them short and to construct them thematically around a specific issue / question / topic. The first of these, which I'll do in the NY, will cover training and technology with the hope of informing thinking on how new and not-so-new technologies can enhance existing training methodology. Assuming it meets some minimum threshold of response I'll publish the results on the site.