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Coronavirus, Wired Sussex and Our Sector

By Phil

Posted on 16 Mar 2020

Last updated on 25/03/2020 | For a further update from our MD Phil Jones, read this blog post.

The Coronavirus pandemic means that we are all faced with a very significant and immediate set of challenges.

We recognise that for many of our members and the thousands of people who depend on them for their livelihood, this will be a very difficult time. To get through it, we all need to support each other.

In this blog post, you will find regular updates about how we’re supporting our sector, our revised event plans, how we’re operating as a business, and ways you can help the community too.
 

Amplifying Your Voice

We want to ensure we use whatever resources we have to deliver the right support to our members in these difficult times. 

To help us best communicate the needs and challenges of those in our sector to the Government, we conducted a rapid response survey on how COVID-19 is impacting freelancers and businesses.

You can read our key findings so far in this blog post.
 

A New Open Slack Group

We have set up an open Slack group for those in the digital, media and tech sector (members and non-members) across Sussex to help us all share relevant advice and expertise, and offer ways to support each other.

It currently includes channels on…

  • Government support and advice: Information and emergency resources from the Government and other public bodies.
  • Contingency planning: Shared thinking to help support your long-term contingency planning.
  • Delivering work remotely: Discussion around how to deliver customer value in new and remote ways.
  • Offers: Free and discounted offers and services from those in our community. 
  • Remote working: Advice to help your business adapt to working remotely. 
  • Wellbeing: A place to share your tips and guidance on helping stay positive.

You can join the group here.
 

Supporting our Freelance Community

Our community needs its freelancers, and we urge you to help us, help them through this. If you have a short-term digital, media and tech paid work opportunity for a freelancer, you can share it for free on our Commissions & Briefs board.
 

Changes to our Events & Community Events

Our events

For the safety of our attendees and contributors, we have radically revised plans for all our current events. They are either postponed, cancelled or we are delivering them virtually. We will be taking a similar, virtual approach to all the other planned Wired Sussex events.

You can find the status of our current events on our Events page.

Community events

Our Events page is a great resource for finding digital, media and tech-related events taking place in Sussex. You will not be surprised that most of these events have now also been cancelled, postponed or taken to an online platform. Where possible, we have added a status to these events too.

We will continue to update the page with new virtual events taking place to support those in our community.
 

What’s Happening with Talent Fest 2020?

We recognise the importance of our digital skills festival, Talent Fest 2020, to our members looking for advice to train and retain the talent they need and lead their teams through these tough times. Thanks to the continued backing of our Talent Fest sponsors and supporters, we are currently looking to deliver as much content as possible online.

You can find out about our new approach to the festival here.
 

How We’re Operating at Wired Sussex (and The FuseBox)

Our team will be working remotely for the foreseeable future. We are having daily company meetings so we can best communicate to you, our members, our position and actions we’re taking to support you.

We have also taken the decision to close our home and innovation hub, The FuseBox, for the safety of our residents and visitors.

If you would like to contact us directly with any questions you have or any barriers you're facing, feel free to get in touch, and we will do everything we can to help.

About the author

Phil Jones

Hi, I'm the Director of Innovation and Projects at Wired Sussex, I deliver our portfolio of regional creative technology projects and support our innovation hub, the FuseBox.

View more posts by Phil