Onemedia unconference Nov 13-14, London
Onemedia logo
This week I headed down to innovation quango NESTA’s space age HQ (resplete with break-out rooms with circular board tables) to join in the first Onemedia ‘unconference‘. This was basically an open space workshop where the 50 or so participants from a range of media industries - including web, digital, music, film, education and TV - gathered together to set our own agenda and form break-out groups to discuss the hot topics of the day and form our own solutions. The attendees were a jolly nice bunch, mainly indie producers and consultants with a few biggers orgs like ITV represented.
I’ve been to several open space conferences, particularly during my days in Bristol developing projects with Watershed Media Centre. Although you don’t always feel like you get the ‘top down’ knowledge you would from a speaker-led symposium conference, it really allows you to contribute and benefit from the wealth of knowledge of others - paticularly those working in parallel or complimentary fields, and it’s a cheaper and more accessible ways of organising an industry event - particularly in a smaller town or city.
And the best thing about open space is that it works on the ‘law of two feet’: it’s OK to walk away from a session if you’ve said enough or just want to move on. It’s a great way to get live feedback to test the waters with radical ideas. But I forgot how tiring it is - so much talking and even more listening!
We self-secretariat-ed all our session - Mel @ Media Sauce has the un-enviably task of gathering and sorting through all our disparate notes - but some of the key thoughts and ideas I heard in the sessions I attended:
Branded and advertiser-funded content
There was much discussion from the indie production community on the return, 1950s soap-style, to the advertiser leading the production of quality content, from interactive drama through to James Bond heavy rotation product placement. Many discussed the difficult of getting air-time with the major brands; without the gatekeepers that were broadcasting commissioners, the environment to get commissioned direct is impossible to navigate for the micro-indie, and in the case of the telecos, we need them more than they need us. Another example of the ‘flatter’ media landscape being easier to cross the terrain for big players than the many small, yet Magic Lantern played upon the creative vanity and budget crunches of brand managers to deliver interactive content direct to online audiences, cutting out the perplexing range of ‘middle men’ in the current advertising market including buyers, ad agencies and producers. Those established in the ‘old media world’, like Buffy creator Joss Wheedon’s Doctor Horrible or Radiohead’s In Rainbows, mean reaching existing fans with the benefit of years of TV or major record label investment is that much easier to profit from digital-only distribution and to acquire the investment in the first place.
Taste makers
Conversely, there is a key role for ‘taste makers’ like Last.fm and Hype Machine to help users connect with the influencers - be it Nike bribing cool kids to wear their trainers in the playground, or user recommendation and aggreation technologies.
Narrative
Understanding narrative was a key theme in several sessions - web producers need to understand narrative in the user experience journey as much as the many types of narrative forms which can be applicable to everything from a traditional storytellers to a console game. The digital world has much it can learn from those from the film and TV industries - be it how to tell compelling stories on a budget or lighting design.
Universities may be churning out graduates with interactive productions skills ten-to-the-dozen, but those with the intelligence to be trained in the ‘art’ of media production, or the work training to do it, are lacking, yet a lot of the old training from the film schools isn’t needed in the YouTube and digi-camera age where accessibility and story are more important than framing each shot. Budding film-makers can just learn by doing, and start to engage with an audience from day 1.
New skills
Training and skills are paramount to allow people to compete in this shifting landscape - but the significant majority of freelancers in the industry don’t have access to professional development - or even know the question to ask they need the answers for. The project I am working on with White Room for North West Vision is an interesting take - getting ‘traditional media’ freelancers and getting them placed into digital companies in a unique cross-industry experiment.
Writers, producers and directors still largely ‘don’t get it’ when it comes to creating the cross-platform worlds where audience expectations, aggregated by social media, are either enhanced or dumfounded by writers and the opportunities and limitations of each medium are best exploited.
Collaboration
Collaboration between different writers, producers and technical geeks is a necessity in the cross-platform world - and we just aren’t used to getting stuck in together or finding shared languages and commonalities.
Digital distribution
Overall, getting paid and finding the right business models from digital distribution is the crucial hurdle which inhibit development with the professional media community - although there is a necessity for new talent to ‘just f***ing do it’ - prototype your idea, get in online and start to build an audiences rather than chasing the golden commission.
I facilitated an interesting session on digital music distribution and what lessons other industries could learn from the bit-torrented collapse of the conventional music business. Some key findings were that bands and artists have been successful when engaging with their audiences through making it very personal - using social media - like video, blogs and giving a bit of it away for free - were seen as winning tactics for musicians to build direct relationships and acquiring the data of fans which everyone from film-makers to indie games developer could benefit from.
We concluded the old structures - major labels, distributors and retailers - were largely redundant, but have been replaced with other corporate funded spaces like MySpace and Last.fm who act as gatekeepers and curators between content creators and audiences.
Overall, it was an enjoyable event if not a tad long - an intensive, bigger one-day event would I think have worked better. It was a great way to meet people from different disciplines with granularity, but the wealth of indies/consultants compared to brand owners and major media players probably limited the impact of change the conference set out to make. Sponsors NESTA and Pact are interested in the findings so let’s see what next.
Add comment November 17, 2008
This is Playful - London Games Week, Conway Hall, Oct 31
“To thine own self be true” read the inscription above the stage of the humanist community venue of Conway Hall in Holborn – an appropriate epitaph for an era where user-generated content and the collaborative nature of web 2.0 is pervading computer game technologies, and new forms of playfulness emerge from the fusion of game play with toys, theatre, web and movement – as explored at this one day event as part of London Games Festival games fringe week.
Organised by my fellow conspirators Pixel-Lab from Derby, This is Playful was a very chilled out laid back event full of interesting talking and stuff followed by a few light ales, and generally a good sense of community. A lot of the technicalities went over my bear-like-brain-when-it-comes-to-games, but a few talks stood out:
Chris Delay from Introversion talked about building high production values in graphics from a micro-indie’s budget using procedural generation – that is using patterns of nature in a generative progam to produce patterns – like tree branches spreading outwards, or even city scapes spawning more and more detailed roads. This can be split into everything – even building floors and windows on buildings, producing exterior textures, or internal building scapes to produce desks, computers and objects. This cuts out the handmade time of game artists, and would seem to be the future of much CGI and games generation in the increasingly expensive era when users demand higher-level graphics.
Kars Alfink from Leapfrog in Utrecht – the Netherlands’ epicentre of game design – talked about playing with form using the example of the Z-Boys from the film Lords of Dogtown, who formed what became now skateboarding technique from experimenting with their surroundings of disused swimming-pools. Now skate parks take the form of extreme hollowed-out bowls that were originally just the functional spaces available.
We consume media but we use tools – so game media is about creating tools for functional uses. Habbo Hotel, the virtual world for children, has very ‘underspecified’ tools – like rooms where children play at ‘horses’ – despite the fact that it’s not a stable and there are no horse-specific objects there – rather like kids will play at anything with a few limited props in the ‘sandbox’ of a garden or playroom.
Tom Armitage from Headshift talked about the Obama 08 campaign manager software for iPhone, and how you could rate your performance as a campaigner against others - a multiplayer game (of sorts). Everything is now a multiplayer environment – enabled by web 2.0 thinking and technologies. We all have ‘rings’ between us, our closest allies, friends of friends then everyone else; social media platforms ape this – e.g. email/SMS/IM for close contact, Facebook next, MySpace for the semi-unwashed and open spaces for everyone else. Yet social networks are not merely spaces, they consist of people who are connected by a shared object or interest - like World of Warcraft for gamers or Flickr for photo lovers.
Armitage believes multi-player can take the form of differing contexts - not just MMO or simultaneous multi-player forms but a “super context” - shared information and shared fun asyncronously, in close but not necessarily simultaneous timespans - like sending links and sharing comments on Facebook or by email. This also gives you more to talk about AFTER the event.
Eric Zimmerman from GameLab spoke about games being about rules and maths. The play is the free movement within rigid structures - be that skateboarders in swimming pools or playing within the mathematical rules of the game. Gamestar Mechanic is his new venture allowing users to create their own user-generated online game to share and play with others, an interesting combination of web 2.0 and game technologies.
Lots of other interesting bits and bobs including a very interesting presentation on realism and expression in high-end games design from Jolyon Webb from Blitz Games using the example of how getting it right with teeth affects how you feel and interactive with the characters, and a very silly Singing Sock Puppet linking up Last.fm with, er, a sock puppet. A fun end to the week.
1 comment November 4, 2008
Going Apprentice at High Growth Coaching weekend
Last weekend I had an intensive time on a training course. I’m doing a Chartered Management Institute High Growth Coaching Diploma, which is being run by Exponential as part of a programme sponsored by the East Midlands Development Agency’s High Growth Programme to support regional businesses with potential. I was hoping for a bit of a jolly in a nice hotel in Northamptonshire, but of course our public-funded sponsors duly put us to our paces in a 48-hour workathon not unlike an episode of “The Apprentice”.
Placed in a five-person team, we had a series of challenging business modelling exercises to grow a telecoms company, competing with three other teams for market domination. That in itself was a spreadsheet-from-hell exercise, but as the Board of Directors we had to set our code of conduct and strategy. Sesssions were fast-placed and taxing, but half-way through John the course leader announced that as this was a coaching programme, we’d be tested on how true we were to our strategy and conduct – not solely on the bottom-line. The challenge was keeping our nerve and balancing strategic and human relationships with operational ‘get it out the door’ delivery.
Fortunately, my team got on very well – we were blessed with a wealth of experience in marketing, operations and technology from Diane, Mike, John and Adrian – quite literally, as one of the team was a Reverend. As the least skilled member of the team, I was duly elected MD and it put me through my paces (as the youngest coach on the course by the best part of a decade), and tested my mettle in establishing collaborative leadership and focusing on our goals.
We actually had a lot of fun. And we came back with the booty – we won the greatest market share, greatest profit (*grins smugly*). And we were voted the top team who stuck to our conduct and strategy. Woop! I think the key to our success was having shared goals – and I learnt a lot from the course as to how clients need to have a shraed focus, values and to continual evaluate what they are trying to achieve and measuring performance. Having a good sense of humour and fun, being amendable and flexible in attitude, also helped a lot. We benefited from diversity in experiences within our team and it made me recognise that in this context, very much away from the creative industries bubble I work in, my approach was actual quite innovative, risk-taking and radical compared to my peers from more steady-state industries. The yin-yang combination in this kind of bootstrapping environment is a lot stronger than mono-cultures many businesses (especially creative ones) envelope themselves in.
I enjoyed our winning bottle of wine at home, after two crashed wedding parties, a muddy walk thorugh the country and sauna later. Shame to let those lovely facilities go to waste…
2 comments November 4, 2008
4Talent Interactive Drama Inspiration Session, Oct 23 @ Hello Digital
I am the 1 in 10, declared Birmingham’s UB40 to describe the hollow emptiness of Thatcher’s long queue of the unemployed. History may be repeating itself as the long dark shadow of recession bites, but in happier news I was in Birmingham today investigating a brighter future as part of Hello Digital, the curiously schizophrenic festival/media conference mash-up, to attend a 4Talent Inspiration Session on Interactive Drama, where I was lucky enough to be selected from the 10 to 1 applicants ratio to 20 places.
The Inspiration Session format is basically a small seminar with the opportunity to listen to and have a chat with leading experts in the field at close quarters. This session on interactive drama pushed my buttons as I’ve previously blogged on the subject and I’m intrigued about how online brand-sponsored content, factual and fiction, can be used as a model to counteract the two entwining death curves of declining TV advertising revenues, and the shifts to audiences from broadcast to online viewing.
The experts of the day were Dan’l Hewitt [what is that apostrophe hiding?] (Bebo), Luke Hyams (writer of Dubplate Drama and Kate Modern), David Bausola (AG8, producers of ‘Where are the Joneses?’ for Ford), and Robert Wulffe-Cochrane (Channel 4 Drama) Those nice folks at 4Talent have podcasted the best bits online so go hear for yourself. My general thoughts on the day:
Interactive drama is still a bit about the gizmos, the product placement and dumming down to the micro-attention spans of the teen and youth audiences, who for now are the only viable market for commercial sponsorship in this new found revival of brand-sponsored content. Along with music branding deals, like Groove Armada’s partnership with Barcardi (though I was sad to hear that my musical pals The Red Stripes, a White Stripes tribute band in a reggae style, got a cease-and-desist order for a proposed sponsorship deal with Red Stripe beer), interactive drama is seeing a return to the 1950s days of soap suds sponsored domestic dramas, which came to be known as soap operas. Of course, brand placement is nothing new, particularly in cinema, but the de-regulated nature of online drama provides more scope for new forms of business models in addition to formats and production methods.
Luke Hyams, a seminal legend in interactive drama, showed that the vision of writer/director is not diminished by the micro-screen: he referenced Francis Ford Coppola’s immersive journey in “Heart of Darkness” (the making of “Apocalypse Now”), as similar to the process of adaption and iteration which makes the spontaneous nature of online drama truly work – perhaps making it the potential to be a deeper and more emotionally connected drama through the levels of engagement between audience and character – the believability of getting a private message in your Bebo Inbox from your favourite hero or heroine can surely only increase the engagement.
Interactive drama spawns from breaking the ‘rules’ of television. Early protagonist Miles Beckett, the creator of ‘is it real, is it fake?’ YouTube hit LonelyGirl17 used to be a plastic surgeon – deep pockets but with no preconceived idea of what makes a film or production, so created his own rules.
Dan’l from Bebo talked about the social network’s vision for drama. With 1 billion video streams per month, there was a lot of engagement but little storytelling – over 90% of page views were for self-generated content. The Bebo Open Media platform allows a current tranche of 500 content producers to create content, with deals in place for Bebo to promote and attract sponsors in an egalitarian revenue-share deal.
In addition, 9 online shows will be commissioned for 2009 in drama, comedy and music with healthy budgets of around £250K each. The big players are already moving in, with Gap Year, an Endemol production heavily sponsored by outdoor brands, yielding viewers. A Message From Earth, where Bebo users uploaded content for a time capsule blasted into space from the Ukraine really starts to exploit UGC and interactivity with the format for a magazine show. The funding model here is far more like a feature – Bebo won’t go into production until the production costs are covered, making it more profitable that Channel 4’s ‘serious’ dramas.
David Bausola from AG8 was easily my most inspiring speaker of the day. His company AG8 interface between brands and content production, cutting out the middle-man of television. With Henry Normal’s comedy production company Baby Cow he conceived “Where Are The Joneses?” an online drama series commissioned by Ford to rather than overtly product place, associate humorous content with the brand to start revamping the conservative image of the company. It’s all about making it more viral – no one shares TV ads (though I would contest this, Cillit Bang Man’s ad and associated mash-up has racked millions of views on YouTube) but people will share witty, shocking, funny or cute content.
AG8’s tactic is to engage heavily with the “first 100 passionate users” (I guess these are your super-fans and super-connectors) and diffuse it from there – rather than seed it surreptitiously. This works on a new model – rather than produce the ‘content’ (i.e the advert) cheaply and spend the campaign money on broadcasting it frequently, now you spend all the money on the content – a whole series worth – and seed it in online places where people are. However, the tale wags the dog as the series has been licensed for broadcast on Sky.
Interactive drama is all about transmedia – delivering a story across a range of media where UGC creates an environment where “mess is lore” and in a reversal of the 1960s our pop culture is injected with visions from abstract art. Russell Davies, advertising guru, reminds us “forget big ideas, seek rich ideas.” Art and culture bleed back into commerce, like The Simpsons taking over a Kwik-e-Mart with Simpson’s cereal and beer to promote the film.
It’s also less about engagement with the narrative as in traditional television and film, but measuring what interactions and info is being requested. The semantic web is like an innuendo – tags and sharing create different contexts and multiple meanings.
The weakest link of the day, and a particularly depressing take on the brave new world of online drama, was Robert Wulffe-Cochrane from Channel4, who told us all drama lost the network buckets and there is no future in pureplay online commissioning – only for content which supports a landmark show – Skins, Hollyoaks etc. Their budget slashes and 15% headcount death toll may create a dark cloud other its outlook and staff, but I did think that as licensed-funded BBC and even ITV are branching into online-only or initial/primary online broadcasting (with Universal Music co-pro “Britannia High”), the self-proclaimed disruptive broadcaster is in danger here of missing the boat – if it hasn’t done so already.
It’s clear that to succeed online, quality is not king, which is where the complex and high budget interactive drama can fall foul of user-generated content like the YouTube eye make-up video girl who’s been asked to launch her own eye make-up range. Despite ‘competing’ with professional online videos, people preferred her down-to-earth approach. And online content is often as much about the ‘use’ as the ‘entertainment’ value. Yet brand owners’ dollars, to date, have flooded into online – Seth McFarlane scored a $50 million dealth with Burger King to make just 50 x 2 min clips – that’s expensive even for a feature film.
Interesting discussions took place around the production tchniques of the show: Dubplate Drama had two alternatives filmed for everything, with points to weave in and out, and ambigious dialogue to allow for alternatives – (like “after what happened at the club”, where it could have been either a fight or a shooting). Like Choose Your Own Adventure books, it all seems a bit complex and ‘over prodcued’ to be viable in a range of different productions, although highly experimental and relevant.
Interactive drama plots need to appear fast-paced, but actually evolve very slowly and deliberately, ‘less is more’, as users are not always consuming stories linearly, nor are they soaking it all in, as they’re likely to be twittering, IMing, SMSing or listening to music while viewing (the average 30 minutes of online video is viewed in just 20 minutes).
In conclusion, there are I believe great opportunities in interactive comedy and drama for independent producers, but equally for intermediaries and connectors who can join the dots between the big brands and the storytellers. Advertisers, online marketers who partner with film creatives are well-placed to grow with this genre – which is slowly creeping out of the brand-pockets of tweenies and to a more mature and dynamic genre.
3 comments November 4, 2008
DMEX Cross-media Exchange for North West Freelancers
I’m very pleased to announce I am working on a new project with The White Room, a progressive new creative and digital consultancy based in Manchester where we’ll be giving 20 North West TV and media freelancers a unique opportunity to work on a paid 20 day work placement, workshop and mentoring programme to help them working in digital production and cross-platform environments. Exciting stuff - the North West are definitely ahead of the pack here in skills for the digital age. Here’s the blurb:
The White Room have been commissioned by Northwest Vision & Media to run a cross-media exchange programme, commencing in October 2008. This is your chance to get involved.
Northwest Vision & Media, the regional screen agency, are committed to developing the skills of its digital and creative workforce to compete in the increasingly digital media age where cross-platform and 360 degree commissioning, digital marketing strategies and online video are blurring the lines between the skills needed to produce ‘old’ and ‘new’ media.
DMeX Cross Sector Exchange is a new pilot programme, which will lead the North West in a pioneering approach to work placement training, linking the wisdom and skills of traditional media producers and placing them in digital production environments, with the opportunity to get paid to work on live briefs for cutting edge projects, along with high level master classes and mentoring from leading digital industry pioneers.
If you’re intrigued by Twitter, Linked In with many social networks and have heard about and now want to experience Second Life, commercial blogging, vlogging, virals, digital distribution and production skills – DMeX will help you with the knowledge and real-world experience to go digital.
This programme is designed for broadcast or film media production professionals (TV, radio, film or corporate video) with at least 3 years production experience and the equivalent job title of assistant producer or producer, assistant director, script writer/editor, vision mixers, animators, camera or crew.
The programme takes place from November 2008 to March 2009 in a flexible delivery period, in response to opportunities to deliver live client projects and allowing for a range of types of learning to fit in around your other work commitments.
We are recruiting 20 media professionals for this pilot programme. They will undertake a paid (BECTU and PACT equivalent rates for a 37.5 hour week) placement within companies whose core business is producing digital content. The White Room are currently recruiting for this project which runs from November 08 to March 09.
If you are interested in getting a placement, please call or email Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.
For further information on the programme, email dmex@visionandmedia.co.uk
What do I get?
- A training diagnostic planning session to identify your development needs in working in digital environments Opportunity to learn skills vital to producing media in digital age
- A paid 4 week work placement at a NW digital business working on a live brief.
- Individual training and development plan.
- Attendance at 3 master class seminars with leading digital industry pioneers to offer handson experience and Q&A on topics including Digital Commissioning, Pitching, IP and Collaboration.
- Access to an individual mentor with senior experience in digital environments.
- Access to the on-line DMeX learning resource Access to all training and resources with encouragement and support to record your placement and training through blogging and video diaries.
- Opportunity to participate in a virtual worlds collaboration with Manchester Metropolitan University MA Creative Writing tutors to produce a digital short with Moviestorm or in Second Life.
- Become part of a network of Freelancers and leading Digital Companies in the NW The support of dedicated programme co-ordinators to ensure you have ongoing benefits from the programme.
How do I get it?
Call me - Susi O’Neill on 07981 222799 or send your C.V and covering letter to susi@thewhiteroomcec.com to register your interest.
About Northwest Vision and Media
Northwest Vision and Media works on behalf of the TV, film, radio, digital and games industries in the North-west to grow a world-class media economy within the region. We provide strategic leadership, help to build businesses, develop skills and talent, encourage and invest in production and inspire audiences. Find out more at www.visionandmedia.co.uk
Northwest Vision and Media is funded by the UK Film Council, the Northwest Regional Development Agency,
European Funds, Skillset, local, city and council authorities across the region.
Add comment October 14, 2008
Broadcast Learning & Development Conference 08, Oct 07, BAFTA
Had a more interesting time than expected at the Broadcast Learning & Development 08 conference in the swanky confines of BAFTA HQ (usual film types abound) on 195 Piccadilly yesterday.
Bit trepidation as Learning and Development (or L&D as those in the profession call it) is a bit outside of my knowledge zone - thus the trip to this conference - the first of it’s kind to discuss issues around skills and training in the broadcast (primarily TV and radio) industries.
It was jam-packered with HR and learning profs from places like BBC, ITV plus some indie people and a few freelancers. Generally they seem to be ‘nice ladies’ in their late 30s/40s who go into this line of work, and good on them because I believe in my own consultancy practice, and indeed my own professional development, you really can’t think enough about how you can keep improving and thinking about the impact of skills and the growth of people on your business practice.
Expertly faciliated by Radio 4’s Roger Bolton (of ‘Right to Reply‘ fame), my highlights of the day were:
Sell the value of L&D to your business - a balloon debate
This involved bailing out the dead weight of the least interesting speaker in a series of knock-out rounds. More Oxford Debating Society than Weakest Link. Frank Ash, Creative Consultant to the BBC discussed taking producers back to ’storytelling school’ fared second best, but Leah Harrison Singer of Bloomberg News scooped the prize by discussing measured journalism and training that ‘their man in Kazakhstan’ could access, use and make relevant - a huge challenge in training a global network of several thousand financial journalists. I tend to zone out when I hear a slick American presentation, so didn’t quite get it.
Workshop 2: Managing Talent
Jo Taylor of Channel 4’s 4Talent talked about the four pledges C4 have developed with their network of indie producers. Which were:
1. Book-end each production with a meeting discuss your personal development.
2. Establish mentoring relationships between senior professionals and less experienced staff.
3. Share experience and expertise through master classes.
4. ?
The handout they distributed was wrong so if anyone knows the answer to elusive pledge #4 please post in the comments.
These are all solid and good - cheap and easy to implement, whether you’re ITV or a micro-indie producer. However, the language still seems to frame L&D as something to implement in-house - the discussion across the day quickly zoned in on the favourable (nay jealous in present economy) position of the BBC and its responsibilities at training all of the increasingly freelance broadcast industries. Freelancers have the least access to training, and also to even know where appropriate training exists - or to even access a learning plan to know what their skills gaps they should be plugging are. A thorny issue, I felt not fully undertsood by the largely corporate broadcasting attendees. My own view is that spaces like Production Base website can become ‘watercoolers’ to connect people more effectively - all freelancers chat and learn from one another informally.
Brian Kelly of BECTU, I think sort of got it - saying we should empower individuals by collating learning resources under Creative Commons licences to distribute and share. David Knott from IBM talked about using platforms like Facebook to enable people to leverage existing technologies and structures - interesting take from the world’s leading supplier of IT services!
Many of the experienced faces in the room concluded that we’re very good at induction and starting to get better at diversity recruitment and bringing in talent. But after the early years, people get lost in the system and their actual personal plans and goals end up under the hamster wheel.
Yet lest we not forget how hard it can be to win the battle for diversity in the still largely ‘mini me’ TV industry. At a college open day in Hammersmith, a BBC HR rep was asked by young students - ’so what is the BBC, I’ve heard of it but I don’t know what it is?’. Many see the BBC as something not ‘for them’. (Though us digitalists may argue that many in this generation don’t even see TV as something for them). But from my own experiences of highly nepotistic, inaccessible and exclusive BBC recruitment over the last decade(”Regional development? But don’t you know we’re a national organisation?!” I kid you not), I’m tempted to agree with the girls from Hammersmith.
Yet the C4 Diversity Programme attracted 5,000 applicants - and yielded a diverse trainee group which included a traveller, Chinese, second careers and young black males. The BBC’s programme attracted 3,000 - many of the 71,000 page views wisely put off by a ‘reality check’ quiz before the application (”do you want to give over your days, nights and LIFE to programme making’? etc). A big question is how can we support the thousands who are rejected at the ‘open door’ stage - give them opportunities to develop themselves and come back next year.
What can we learn from other industries?
In short - not a lot. Or at least not that much from this generic collection of guys from IBM, Cegos, PIXELearning (sorry Kevin!) and Master Training Institute.
But what we did learn from Jeremy Blain from Cegos , Europe’s largest training and development survey you’ve never heard of, was that Europe has the highest participation in training in business (61%) and the highest ROI, yet the lowest budgets for professional development. Exit interviews show the majority of people quit, not because of their relationship with the company, but with their line manager.
Using Henry Ford’s analogy, you wouldn’t let a factory run at 60% capacity, yet we allow our human capital often to work on auto-pilot. Look at improving 100 people by just 1%, and that’s 100% growth. I’m not sure I like or agree with this analogy of people as ‘performance’ machines, but I do agree that people need to be empowered to develop their own training and learning. In France this is acheived by a 1% “do it or get taxed” levvy on professional development, yet this was thought to succeed due to the power of unions and also the generic non-bespoke nature of much of the training provided.
Richard Bradly from the Master Training Istutitute believe the most important question in planning training is WHY? You should ask yourself this at least seven times before starting to do anything.
- What - analyse the need. Maybe we don’t need to do anything.
- How - can managers be used to deliver it.
- You - walk the talk in delivering and doing.
David Knott of IBM believes online learning is key to success. The enterprise of the future needs to tip the 70% classroom to 30% online on it’s head to 30% classroom with 70% online resources to succeed. (In a later talk, Daniel Wain believes e-learning is most effective when combined with other types of ‘blended’ learning). An interested lesson an academic experiment teaches us:
Half the students were given an iPod lecture and resources. The other half attended lectures in the normal way. The iPod students came to seminars better prepared - not because the i-lecture was better, but they had access to the resources in advance to prepare. It’s how we set up the learning as much as how we deliver it.
The future of learning
Vanessa Arden-Wood of Illumina, one of the biggest and most interesting producers of cross-platform content, gave us a damning vision of the producer of the future from a persona of characters. The old media producer is a Tarentino wannabee, enabled by a love of consumption and nepotistic real-world connections. The producers of the future is highly mobile, networked (working remotely from Germany was the example), connected to streams of content via mobile, a broad media education balanced with a specialist technical education and an active contributor of content. This character description, I think, genuinally scared the largely old media room. Perhaps the media producer of the future is less of the ‘master hustler’ of old and more an expert leader in the future?
The skills gaps between old and new media:
- Online v TV platforms - requires active consumption and production
- Understanding that audiences create their own content
- Multi-platform strategies need to be specific to the requirements and benefits of each platform
- Commissioning - less about a drink in the pub, more about ITT’s and technical compliance.
Illumina often find staff who are skilled in old media or other areas and train them in-house using cross-department skills (’i-schools’). As a company they aren’t big enough to outsource training, so everyone needs to contribute to the learning of the organisation. They provide breathing space for R&D activity for everyone - because again as a smallish producer, there is no seperate R&D function.
David Wain, consultant, believes training is the law of the jungle - stand still and be the gazelle that gets eaten first by the lion. But get the tools right - are we selling hearing aids by telephone? Consider the intent, the content, and finally the technology to judge the best way to deliver training.
Summing up
Mr Bolton summed up nicely - there are more plurality of channels, yet less diversity of voices. Broadcasting is not a democracy but needs to be elite in order to be outstanding. The BBC and others are just about broadcasting - the rest of what they do follows from that.
Myself, I learnt a lot. OD actually means Organisational Development, not the continual bleeting on about the economic situation. ‘Blended learning’ means doing different stuff - on and offline. And training in broadcasting is an area where technology and the changing nature of doing business online is having a great impact, but importantly training must deliver - organisations in these uncertain times need to fight to retain and develop their human and intellectual capital - and fight to survive.
Broadcast Training Awards
The post-event awards do presented by the new two-day old minister for skills (who he? exactly). It was a shame they were all big players nominated, but that probably says a lot about indie’s resources and abilities to implement dedicated training programmes in-house. And the nomiations were:
BBC - “Operation: Hamster Wheel” took Radio 1 producers of the treadmill and out and about to meet their audiences. In Scunthorpe.
Bloomberg News - Sophisticated tools to analyse the rapidly shifting markets delivered to a global network to help stem the overall economic collapse of the western world. Apparently.
ITV - Get a bunch of trainees in black t-shirts and trainers and get them to make a film about what ITV’s vision and values are. Everyone gets it now.
GCap Radio - Stemming the outflow and retaining more of their news staff, by, err, well not quite sure but Helen starts her new job at RAM FM in Derby next week, so it must have worked.
QVC - Their staff had a lot of fun at ‘The Office’ style new age workshops trying to sell each other a bottle of water QVC-style. QVC’s CEO thinks all his people have the ability to become leaders of the future.
And the winner was…
Bloomberg. Well given then impending economic apocalypse, we’re putting a lot of faith in their hands from now on. So let’s hope they’ve got their training plans right…
Add comment October 8, 2008
Promoting your music as an independent artist using social media
I’m a musician by training - and occassional after-hours trade. So I often meet up with muso-types and they are often bemused when I hand them my ‘digital consultant’ business card. “So do you make websites?”. “Well”, I reply, “not exactly…”.
Lately a young chap called Yinka took me up on my strange business card and asked me for some advice on using social media to promote a new EP for his band Sabatta. I love this challenge as:
a) It makes you really think about how to apply theory to a real situation - how is this stuff all useful to someone on a low/zero budget? and
b) I think a great skill in life is just to ask and ask again until you get a bit of what you want - and I’m all in for people taking up on advice and giving back when they’re up the ladder.
So here’s an extract of my advice:
“The biggest problem you have as a self-managed and unsigned act is that, if you pardon the pun, there’s a lot of ‘noise’ out there in independent music - and it’s not just about guitars and singers, there’s just a thick cloud of information everywhere in the music space. All the ‘ear time’ at the major new media platforms (Bebo, Youtube, MySpace etc.) is taken over with the professional pluggers - so in this respect getting to the top of the channel and ‘recommended’ sections is still in the hands of the old-school music industry. This has to be done through the old fashioned plugging virtues of hard sweat, with the hope that you can create something that’s either so good, or so quirky (strange, weird, funny, dark) that people recommend and share. Short of becoming a serial killer notoriety is hard to achieve 
First up - just about all the best advice that can be give comes from Mr Andrew Dubber and the excellent New Music Strategies website - sign up to his blog and be sure to download the free e-book.
And of course read Kevin Kelley’s excellent article “1000 true fans” about using the ‘long tail’ to be sustainable as an independent artist.
Take it with a pinch of salt though, some people think you can’t make any money of the ‘long tail’ in music - and all of us scraping about to make any money at all probably suggests this is true.
There’s just so much stuff out there that you can create some great content (a song, a video, animation, photo shoot, podcast) and it just sort of goes ‘out there’ into the ‘deja you’ land (not ‘deja vu’ in that you’ve seen it in a past life but you’ve seen it all before!). So the crucial thing is what marketers call “stickiness” - why you would stick around, come back - it’s the repeat visitors that become fans, then they buy - and there’s no shortcut round stickiness. Stickiness is about creating the right ambiance and the right space - like creating a great cafe or bar where people are happy to hang out and chat or just check out the vibe. That’s the philosophy behind a lot of the social networks like Bebo anyway.
Looking at what’s big…
I noticed recently that novelty videos on YouTube were getting frightening high viewing - like Ninja cat, the whole Kersal Massive phenomena of loads of remixes from one naive teenager attempting to rap or the Cillit Bang techno remix.
This probably doesn’t help if you’re not into novelty and comedy music, but gives you an idea of how important humour is to make something viral - so maybe a collaboration with an upcoming comedian to make a video/viral could be an interesting idea.
Another lateral idea:
Seth Godin says go buy CDs wholesale of artists you sound like, then post them a CD of yours in the package. A low-cost way of putting yourself in the centre of potential fans.
You’ve already identified what artists you think you sound like, and who likes your music - you say: “Jimi Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz, Thin Lizzy, fans of the quirky often like us also – someone told me the other day one of my songs sounds like Elvis Costello meets Metallica – which was cool.”
So this is interesting - but would EITHER Elvis Costello or Metallica fans like you? Some will, some will not. This is a kind of crazy idea in itself of two quite different kinds of music - I could see you translating this into some kind of animation if you’re able to do this, or even something simple like a mash-up of Costello and metallica videos with your latest single as the soundtrack - coudl be big on YouTube and will show you’ve got a good sense of humour too!
You’ve got a great professional looking website - well done, you’re up on 90% of artists who struggle with an out of date site or just use MySpace. It suits your image - which is strong. Of course you’re a band who value your authenticity highly and have already established your musical style, so it’s not a case of jumping on the band wagon! But there’s something here I think which connects with social media - it’s more about engaging with people directly, so they get an insight into your world and see things from your angle.
Social media let’s you engage manageably with literally thousands if not tens of thousands of people - but what people want today is a ‘piece of the action’ - I don’t just want to hear about the artist or know when they’re playing in my town, I want to understand what they are writing about, their motivations - even what they had for dinner is interesting to the real trainspotters! So a micro-blogging platform like Twitter is really great for updates, particularly when you’re on the road, or to announce what you’re doing with the band. what are you listening to? What other gigs have you seen? Fashion, even hair tips (?). Social media is all about conversations.
I notice you have a blog too - well done on this front. BUT it’s rarely updated and seem to focus on what your’e releasing and is, if I may say, a rather ‘hard sell’ approach focused on what releases you want people to buy rather than a sustained relationship, i.e. getting people to know what you’re doing and to want to commetn on it and feel a part of it, and feel part of a conversation with you. That doesn’t mean you have to spend your life posting stuff, but a once a week update is nice - or even a bit of a ‘tour diary’ - There’s plenty of tools to make it really easy to upload photos or video from your phone etc. It shouldn’t just be about text!
Play around with stuff too - like you could do a series of short posts on a different theme or set yourself a mission - do reviews of all your favourite record shops, talk about what happened when you got in there, who you met, what you bought. Them a shameless plug for your new EP…then people may find your post who are into the same music and bingo…the association of your ideas with your music starts to set. But it takes a long time for these things to work! So you have to enjoy the process.
Some artists use the whole idea of ‘crowd sourcing‘ to get people to buy into (literally and metaphorically) what they’re doing. Elbow did it years ago when they got the names of everyone at their show to put on the sleeve of their concert DVD. Of course, a lot of people who weren’t even at the show put their name on the list for the craic (me included ) but it was a way of getting more people to pre-order the DVD - and Elbow seem to have been doing OK lately…
It’s basically an extension of the ‘fan club’ idea - people like Richard Cheese go heavy on it as it’s the primary way by creating ‘exclusive’ content (even getting Richard to sing your voicemail message) he can make money, particularly as an artist doing exclusively cover versions.
It’s so easy to set up polls, forums etc to start getting the ‘fans’ to contribute and help you filter your ideas a bit - maybe do your A&R for you - after all, they are the people who are going to be buying it, so give them what they want! MySpace is a great way to start out.
I notice you’re on all the big platforms - facebook, Last Fm, Myspace, Youtube etc. which is all good - you’re doing all the right things. You may want to think a little strategically about how these spaces interact rather than duplicate one another - it can be a lot of work doing the ‘copy and paste’ from one to another. Maybe each space may have a specific objective (like one is the ‘green room’ for lateral stuff to do with band, YouTube obviously for videos, MySpace may be exclusively focused on recordings and music) - but cross promotion is good too - like linking to your ‘proper blog’ from the MySpace blog.
In short, I don’t think there’s any real shortcuts - and it would take someone far more creative and imaginative than I to tell you what would work - and even then it’s still a bit of a lottery. The crucial thing is to be hanging out in the places where your online users are - that’s probably email, Facebook and MySpace primarily. Anywhere else is a plus, but that’s where your focus should be.
You need to engage and create a volume of ’stuff’ and content that reflects what Sabatta are about, but remember : ‘no one shits a masterpiece’. In today’s environment, people have voracious appetites and want a lot of new ’stuff’ and you need to feed them with it - titbits and hors d’oevre - remixes, exclusvie tracks, blog posts, videos, photos - not necessarily always the highest quality but the mass of it will give you presence - after a while people will be aware of you from a link here or there and that’s how you start building notoriety!
The offline stuff, flyers, flyposting, press reviews all works in pretty much the same way. But importantly - dont spend your life being an administrator of MySpace/Facebook - spend more of your time on the art than the message - decide how much time it is worth spending on social media to meet your creative and business goals, and stick to a rigid timetable otherwise it can get too time-consuming and demoralising.
The live video on your MySpace looks good, you’re a great live band - so more of this! If you can get the gear together to film all your shows or get a film-maker in your entourage, you’d be suprised how much great content fodder you can produce from just one camera and a few cut-aways.
Good luck!”
I’d be interested in any more worldly advice you have for Yinka and Sabatta, and if you want some advice yourself why not drop me a line.
Add comment October 3, 2008
Technical notice: please update the RSS address for this blog
As it says on the tin - I’m now using Feedburner to combine my collection of Del.icio.us bookmarks with this blog to provide you with a more regular update on essential reading and a few quirky things I find.
So please DELETE:
http://digitalconsultant.wordpress.com/feed
And resubscribe with this address:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalConsultant
I thank you.
Add comment October 3, 2008
I’m looking for disruptive innovators in creative businesses
I’m currently working on a fascinating project with Inspiral for inward-investment agency Creative Sheffield to look at disruptive business models and how creative and digital businesses in Sheffield, who are growing faster than any other industry sector there, can benefit from thinking around disruptive innovation.
So what the hell are disruptive business models?
Defined by Harvard Professor Clayton Chistensen in his 1995 in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma, ‘disruptive technology‘ was a term used to describe how new technology can radically affect the market of existing business. Think how much the iPod has changed the CD industry through popularising MP3s, or mobile storage USB sticks has changed the hard drive and disc industry. Disruptive innovation is also known as discontinous innovation.
According to guru disruptive innovation consultants Innosight:
“disruptive innovations either create new markets or reshape existing markets by delivering relatively simple, convenient, low-cost innovations to a set of customers whose jobs-to-be-done are ignored by industry leaders.”
More specifically, disruptive business models, are how restructuring the way we do business can create a new market - particularly in low-cost, flexible, and online based businesses who can produce ‘just good enough’ services to suck in those who wouldn’t otherwise participate. And the ‘hidden’ market for a business service is potentially massive. For example: the growth in low-cost, no-frills airlines for those who just want to get there, Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets for those who just don’t need Microsoft’s powerful Excel, or Zara’s quick from catwalk to shop designs for those who want their fashion fix quick.
In short: disruptive innovation is all about changing the business world, albeit maybe only a tiny bit of that world. It could be a piece of video presentation software that cuts out the low value corporate video market. It could be a service like Etsy that enables local designer-makers to connect and sell to the world.
Are you a disruptive innovator in the creative and digital industries?
I’m really excited about this project because its:
1) Probably the first time that research on this topic has been focused on small instead of corporate businesses.
2) Almost certainly the first time disruptive innovation has been applied to the creative sector.
I’m looking for case studies of creative and digital businesses who could broadly fit the label of ‘disruptive innovators‘. Perhaps they are in software, fashion, music, web development, film or computer games. I’d ideally like to establish contact with UK creative businesses. But if you’re a creative business outside the UK, I’d like to know what you’re doing too, and if you’re a UK small business doing something really interesting outside of the creative sector that could be cool too. Social enterprises also may bring something interesting to the mix.
Its not just a dust-gatherer piece of research: case studies will go into a downloadable brochure and blog website, plus there may be some publicity and stuff associated with the launch.
Any suggestions for your business or people you know? Please email me at: Susi O’Neill: susi@digitalconsultant.co.uk
Or post your suggestions and a website in the comments below. Look forward to hearing your ideas!
Add comment July 9, 2008
Ideas from thin air at NESTA Innovation Edge
On 20th May I went to NESTA’s Innovation Edge, a free one day conference at London’s South Bank Centre where the good and the great of innovation-led entrepreneurs, technologists, policy hucksters and futorologists (many sporting wide-heavy rimmed glasses, like myself) gathered en masse (3,000, exactly) to conflab on the broad subject of ideas in the UK - a temporary ideopolis, if you will. This was the largest ever event held by NESTA, the state-funded endowment for science, technology and the arts (three-quarters funding quango, quarter fresh thinking).
Here’s a few highlights alone because I only caught half the event and it’s been covered in detail elsewhere and aggregated by NESTA. Indeed, this was an event with social media at the heart where Twittering was actively encouraged by participants and fed into the discussion. See the Innovation Edge stream of tweets.
A few thoughts on what I saw:
Bob Geldof
Bob Geldof (describing himself as ‘not small and fat like Bono’. Good to see the Oirish rock dinosaurs are as bitchy as members of Girls Aloud) tells us, paraphrasing George Bernard Shaw’s description of ‘unreasonable men’, that an innovator “persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the innovator.”
Other cutting-edge revelations from the man who saved the world:
- “Ideas are like a-holes. Everyone’s got one”.
- Consumerism is not king: world resources are limited, so innovation entrepreneurs are needed more than ever, in particular social entrepreneurs (like Muhammad Yunus and micro-finance for better ploughs in Bangladesh) Yet we are losing the ability to celebrate social entrepreneurs - it’s all about he who makes the most money, not the most radical change. Examples include e-credits by mobile phone to buy meat from a far away village, to guarantee food will be there instead of wasting a day’s travel.
- The English are proud of their eccentricity - but also proud that they don’t make any money from their inventions (like Tim Berners-Lee)? Yet there is an underlining fear of failure whish is destroying innovation.
- The future is about co-operation not competition - it’s Facebook, Open Source and the NHS. Knowledge and connectivity will liberate the world from politics and poverty - Harvard geeks and ubiquitous computing spread the knowledge which ended the Cold War.
Interesting ideas and inspired delivery - and of course Sir Bob can get away with saying (and expleting) what the rest of us in need of a pay cheque cannot. But not really sure if he had anything new to say about innovation, and I glazed when he starts banging on about famine, politics and the like (knowing full well he’d be taking tea backstage with PM Brown).
From the keynote panel:
- Not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur - we need managers and follower to.
- Children learn in different ways now -a 6-year-old published a white paper on Barbie using Google.
- Throw out the ancient conflict between East (China, India) and West - come together to tackle the big global issues of health and climate change. Power blocks can become trading blocks.
- Developing world citizens are honest in managing investment, not handouts - Kiva, lending to entrepreneurs in the developing world, has a 98% payout rate.
- What can the Prime Minister do? Not let the rules of the past, the 19th century way we still do business, rule business today. Leading nicely to…
Gordon Brown
As expected, a lot of rhetoric and hot air a la Creative Economy. ‘We want to be the innovation nation, not just now but in the future’. ‘UK will shine because of our creative ideas’. etc. BUT…
A much underestimated man, Brown’s speach, un-scripted and seemingly off the cuff, was filled with humour, anecdotes and a genuine enthusiasm for the work of UK’s innovators. He recalled his pre-parliament career as a university lecturer - and certainly exhibited qualities of enthusiasm, dedication and learning - ‘which you have to leave at the door for a career in politics.’ I couldn’t help wondering if he’d be secretly happier in the hallowed corridors of Higher Education than ruling the country. Inspired but without substence.
Seminar: Are Online Social Networks the New Cities?
Delving further into the realm of a digital ideopolis with Michael Birch (CEO of Bebo, just to put you in the picture, and because these kind of events do kinda drag after lunch, he looks lots like Chemical Tom of Chemical Brothers), Richard Leese (Chief Exec of Manchester City Council, looks like Nick Hewer from The Apprentice), John Gisby (Channel 4 New Media, looks like Dom Jolly of Trigger Happy TV) and curator by acclaimed author of ‘the New Entrepreneurs’ Charles Leadbetter (looks like just about every other male at the conference).
Birch: Bebo is modelled on what makes a city great - but diverse like London, not modelled like Milton Keynes. Social Networks are like a bar, they can be brilliantly designed, but if they’re not populated they won’t do business. ‘Early dopters’ are like the alcoholics waiting at the door for the bar to open.
Leese: Manchester has to drive itself forward - it could easily become the first post-industrial city of decline as in times before.
Panel and audience discussion:
- Sue Thomas (De Montfort University) describes social media as ‘the dissolution of the monasteries’. Interuption is a part of digital, modern life. Yet it’s not always atruistic, it can be used for negative political or social gain e.g. cyber bullying.
- We wouldn’t put so much public money into TV if we were starting from a clean slate; Channel 4 Innovation4Public starts to re-dress the digital balance.
- Social networks are like online version of coffee shops - nodes of social interaction points. Digital oils the wheels of social interaction. Can we establish a digital bothy - a Scottish moutain refuge where serendipity, not shared niche interests or offline connections, can connect people together in new, unexpected ways?
- Schools need to be more web-based, but a straw poll showed a small majority of attendees think the teacher/pupil relationship for learning will still be the core of future education, not replaced by an online model.
- Is digital media fragmenting the family? Strangely, in days gone by we gathered together in the living room in front of the TV - but today everyone is on their computers in their own room online.
Best from the rest:
The ever eloquent James Heartfield pours cold water on the Davos-like event atmosphere cast by Gordon Brown c/o Spiked Online.
Nick Booth @ Podnosh captures some of the Twittering.
And a proper-proper review c/o Claudine Beaumont @ The Telegraph on Tim Berners-Lee who describes the internet and its users as like a teenager with growing pains.
In summary:
A good day full of somewhat lively discussion and networking. Innovation Edge #2 would be a ‘must be there’ event. However, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and it did feel like the lack of any commercial or other sponsors made the event very much about selling NESTA’s new agenda and self-promoting its own greatness with the best known speakers money can buy. Does it skew the balance for commercial events? Probably not, but next time some commercial input - or even opportunities for open space or small user-generated discussions, would be welcome. The IQ of the room must equal a billion - enough brainwaves to raise the roof and do some serious positive damage if harnessed in the right way.
4 comments May 20, 2008
