Why Digital Revolutions?

Digital Revolutions aims to build the largest ever creative picture of how information and information technology affects our lives. In today’s information society, information and information technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives. With an ever-growing number of internet-enabled handheld devices, always being connected has never been easier. Yet there are an estimated 10 million people in the UK who have never accessed the Internet.

The mission of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, is to enable this information society. This involves both improving IT literacy skills as well as helping people to better access, use and manage information to lead richer, more fulfilling lives.

The competition has been devised to encourage people to look more closely at how information and information technology impacts them.

For many (particularly younger) people, it’s difficult to remember a time before the convenience of online shopping or Internet banking, or being able pull up a map or a recipe on a mobile phone at any moment.

Access to information has never been greater, but what does this really mean? Public services are easier to access, but has this reduced social exclusion? Do you feel safer because of the number of CCTV cameras in place, or do you consider this a violation of your privacy? Have you ever exercised your right to make a Freedom of Information request?

How?
1. Make a 2-3 Minute film about how technology has changed your life
2. Upload it on YouTube and tag the film “digitalrevolutions”
3. Fill in a submission form email to digitalrevolutions(at)bcs.org
4. Get people talking about and watching your film. Use the wonderfully rich digital world!

Who?
1. You must be at least 18 years old
2. You must be a British resident
3. Your film must be in the English language
4. Make sure you enter the correct category: Amateur or Professional.

The Professional Category is open to anyone with a broadcast or theatrical credit, including anyone working in a paid capacity on a film or television project that has been broadcast on UK television or released theatrically in the UK

The Amateur Category is open to members of the general public aged 18 or over

If you are a winner….
Professional Category: Winner gets £5,000!
Amateur Category: Winner gets £10,000!

Enter Digital Revolutions Competition and Win an Apple iPad!
Our deadline for entries is October 15, but we want people to start sharing their stories sooner. Therefore if you submit a valid entry into our Digital Revolutions competition in the next month (until 6 September), you could win a brand new Apple iPad in addition to having your video considered for the top Digital Revolutions prize!

For each valid Digital Revolutions entry (meaning the video is successfully uploaded to YouTube, properly tagged, and you’ve submitted an entry form to digitalrevolutions@bcs.org) we receive between 4 August and 17th September, we’ll enter the submitter into a random draw to win a 16 GB Apple iPad.

How can you maximize your chances of winning?
Crossover Labs will be running four workshops across the UK, to offer you guidance from some of the industry’s leading names who will give tips and advice on how to get your idea across in your video and also how maximize its impact once its online…

31st August – London
1st September – Cardiff
2nd September – Sheffield
3rd September – Edinburgh

The purpose of the introductory mini-labs is

- Provide potential competitors with informationn about the competition, its scope and how to enter to
- Stimulate debate about the impact of digital technology on society, politics, the economy, education, culture
- Inspire participants to generate ideas for subjects and topics to cover
- Give practical tips and advice on making, digitising and posting their films

Only fifty places are available at each workshop on a first come first served basis.
To make sure you secure one of these exclusive places you must register your interest

Enquiries please contact us - digitalrevolutions(at)bcs.org

Over the next few weeks I will post some views on the question: ‘what does convergence mean in the creative industries today, and what are the research and development challenges which should be addressed by the Technology Strategy Board.

A good place to start is the definition proposed by MIT’s Convergence Culture Consortium:

“’Cultural Convergence’ is not just another buzzword (or two). The phrase describes an emerging pattern of relations bringing together entertainment, advertising, brands, and consumers in creative and often surprising ways. These new relations are underpinned by three key concepts: transmedia entertainment, participatory culture, and experiential marketing.

Transmedia Entertainment describes the flow of stories, images, characters, and information across various media platforms. The coordinated fashion in which this takes place deepens consumer experiences.

Participatory Culture describes new ways consumers interact with media content, media producers, and each other as they explore the resources available to them across the media landscape. Consumers are active participants, shaping the creation, circulation, and interpretation of media content. Participation deepens emotional investment in media properties, expanding their awareness of both content and brand.

Experiential Marketing refers to key ways to capitalize on participatory culture and a transmediated media environment. Developing novel brand extensions and strategies that play out across multiple media channels enhances consumer identification with both products and brands.

Convergence describes a process rather than an endpoint. More than just technological consolidation, the process of convergence is distinguished by changing consumer flows through the media landscape. It represents a tectonic shift that has altered the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences. As advertisers look for new ways to engage audiences, content creators search for new audiences, and audiences seek new ways to connect with culture, the nature of what counts as entertainment, advertising, and culture are rapidly changing. We are seeing the blurring of aesthetic and technological distinctions between media platforms, of ‘advertising’ and ‘content,’ and of ‘creator and ‘consumer.

This altered landscape privileges ‘expressions’ over ‘impressions;’ engaged consumers draw together information across multiple media experiences, creating new touchpoints for brands and properties. Convergence culture calls for a re-negotiation of the expectations of media content producers, advertisers, and audiences.”

The TSB published a strategy paper for the Creative Industries last year. It had five key priorities. The first of these concerned meta-data and a competition was recently announced for projects which addressed challenges in this area. The next two priority areas were contextualised as opportunities arising from ‘convergence’, a word rather like ‘innovation’: much used in the context of digital media and emerging technology but ill defined and imprecisely understood.

This is what the TSB said about the challenge of convergence:
“Technology convergence is blurring the boundaries between sub-sectors and creating both challenges and opportunities. The Technology Strategy Board has most to add by focusing on crosscutting areas.”

The two priorities related to convergence specifically identified in the paper as are:

“Improve interoperability and increasing convergence cross-platform”
“The goal here is to achieve increased technical and service interoperability between content, products and services, platforms, networks and devices. We anticipate significant benefit beyond the Creative Industries, in particular delivering broader societal value to public service sectors.”

“Promote knowledge sharing and multidisciplinary collaboration”
“With technology convergence blurring the boundaries between sub-sectors, there are benefits to be gained from transferring know-how between different Creative Industry sub-sectors. There are also opportunities to learn from industries outside of the sector. “

Against each of these priorities the TSB outlined some proposed actions. On interoperability and cross-platform convergence:

“The Technology Strategy Board will:
•    stimulate the development of new skills and cross-media collaboration to aid the development of brand new product or experience concepts that exploit integrated, pervasive environments;
•    ensure business models and transaction (including micro- transaction) systems are available to support commerce;
•    encourage the development of interface technologies and standards, where required, to increase interoperability between networks, applications platforms and devices; and
•    foster solutions to support the trading of digital assets between content creators and distribution platforms. “
And on knowledge sharing and collaboration:

“The Technology Strategy Board will:
•    provide a trusted source of knowledge on technology and market developments and provide the mechanisms for creative businesses to explore potential impacts and opportunities;
•    promote partnerships between business and academia through collaborative projects and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships;
•    signpost creative businesses to other support-agencies within the broader innovation landscape and, where needed, develop the mutual understanding necessary to facilitate successful relationships;
•    promote multidisciplinary cross- fertilisation between the Creative
•    Industries sector and other technology and market application areas supported by the Technology Strategy Board;
•    transfer creative industry know-how to other sectors, in particular to apply design thinking and creative industry solutions to societal and industry challenges.

It’s not unreasonable to assume, given that meta-data has now become the focus of a call for funding applications, that the TSB is likely to call for proposals against some of these proposed actions.  But are they the right ones? Is investment in these areas the highest priority for companies doing business in the converged media ecology?

The TSB does listen to advice from industry. They held a series of consultative meetings this time last year with businesses in the games, music and television sectors while they were planning this year’s competitions.

Now would be a good time to make your views known.  The best place to do so is in the discussion groups on the Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Networks’ (CI KTN) site.

The TSB’s funds were described at an event recently as one of the last remaining pots of gold in the public sector. Let’s make sure it’s invested where it’s needed: join the discussion here.

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/nesta-issues-templates-for-ip-rights-deals/3011008.article

Summary of the Frameworks and the templates and how they can be used can be accessed here
http://www.nesta.org.uk/areas_of_work/creative_industries/digital_innovation/ipr_frameworks

He has now followed it with Havana/Miami which looks at the different aspirations of and challenges facing young Cubans on opposite sides of the Straits of Florida.

“The Cuban Revolution happened more than fifty years ago – long before they were born.
All of them are young, with a rich Cuban heritage.

Living just 90 miles apart,

in the USA and in Cuba,

They share common dreams, hopes, worries and desires.

They are the future.

Each week,
3 videos from Havana,
3 videos from Miami,
Over 3 months.”

Let me start by considering a broadcaster which does appear to have redefined its role in a digitally networked world. I have chaired a couple of panels in the last six months on which Tom Koch, who is responsible for international licensing for PBS in the States, was a speaker. The first time I heard him talk about PBS’ approach to digital media was at IBC in Amsterdam where I produced a panel to answer the question “Does TV speak digital?”

Tom proposed that PBS in general, and WGBH in Boston in particular, has adapted well to the changing landscape and was becoming fluent. He said that around 6 years ago the network had taken a strategic decision no longer to think of itself as a broadcaster but as a producer/publisher/distributor that identifies issues, subjects and themes which are of interest and generates ideas for content and services related to them.  The idea is at the centre of the development process and decisions about the appropriate media with which to engage users/an audience come later. In this context he described television as the “executive summary” of the content developed across a range of platforms.

In many cases a project will now be designed to have a 5 year life cycle. Examples of this approach include Evolution, Commanding Heights, Latin Music USA, and We Shall Remain.  PBS’ experience has demonstrated that over a period of years, the reach for these projects will easily outstrip the audience for a TV broadcast and that users will engage more deeply with the material. In some cases programmes will be broadcast at the launch of a project, in others the web proposition comes first with user response and participation providing content not just for the growing online resource but for a broadcast programme as well: Digital Nation is one such case. The longevity of these web-based projects can also make them attractive to sponsors who wish to be associated with their subject-matter or values.

One reason that PBS has been able to adopt this approach is that it is not in direct competition with the major commercial networks in the US: it has a share under 5% and sees the new platforms as providing a way of engaging more people more deeply. BBC and Channel 4, by contrast, remain ratings driven broadcasters for whom television remains the most important platform. The BBC sets out to be the dominant broadcaster in the UK and devotes immense resources to getting better share than its commercial rivals. BBC1’s success in doing so in the early part of the decade has only reinforced its focus on maintaining that position. Channel 4 may only have a relatively small share but television is the only medium that matters to its senior management. When Crossover ran a lab for the channel’s commissioning editors, one of them stated very clearly that his success in his job was only assessed on how well his shows rated with a TV audience.  As a result, although interested in experimenting with other platforms, there was no incentive to commit any of his budget to doing so.

It’s not so long ago that the BBC was further ahead in adapting to digital technology than any broadcaster in the world. I was invited to run internal creative labs there in 1999 because there was a real appetite for innovation and experimentation, for inventing new services and formats, imagining the future. There was even a department called ‘Imagineering’; although the name was unashamedly purloined from Disney, it did indicate a willingness to take a divergent approach to envisioning the future of media. This was the time that Marc Goodchild was able to exploring interactive documentary with “Walking With Beasts”, Gary Hayes was piloting non-linear narrative with X-Creatures, Sophie Walpole commissioned the BBC’s first ARG, Jamie Kane, Jon Kingsbury was re-inventing Video Nation for broadband; many seeds were planted. Many of these early trials proved to be false starts but even the projects that weren’t hits were an invaluable source of learning about the affordances and grammar of interactive and participatory media, as well as about users and how they actually used the new devices available to them.  Specialist interactive development teams were established for drama and entertainment, factual and learning, sport and news.

Ten years on and the BBC has a much more conservative view of its role in the digital era. This is in part because of external pressures, some legitimate concerns about distorting the market, and incessant attacks from commercial players taking every opportunity to clip the corporation’s wings. But although some of its retrenchment is an understandable response to criticism from outside, the BBC has made a series of structural decisions in the past five years which have trapped it in what is essentially a 20th century framework from which it will find it difficult to escape.

Two critical changes occurred early in Mark Thompson’s period as Director General: the specialist interactive teams were dissolved and, as New Media became Future Media and Technology, all editorial and commissioning control reverted firmly to television commissioners and controllers.  This re-assertion of the dominance of TV was reinforced by the decision to provide a webpage for every programme; it makes sense to do so but it also creates a fundamental structure in which ‘the programme’ can be seen as the BBC’s core product. Despite dropping the ‘tele’ in the new Vision Division, it was implicit in abolishing of the online genre teams that the real expertise and authority in drama, entertainment, documentary etc lay with the commissioners and producers in proper media like television and radio.  This reassertion of the traditional hierarchy was reinforced by the repositioning of what had been the New Media division and the replacement of Ashley Highfield, who had editorial aspirations, with Eric Huggers who did not.  And then, of course, there was the success of the iPlayer which has persuaded many people (including ex BBC1 Controller Peter Fincham) that, far from being replaced by it, TV may yet take over the web.

There is a multiplatform commissioning team staffed with people who are committed to extending what the BBC does but they have no real authority – or money. It is hard to point to any recent ‘digitally native’ BBC projects which are genuinely groundbreaking. There have been some successful cross-platform projects, such as Britain From Above, but these tend to be examples of a broadcaster staying well within its comfort zone: where there are opportunities to take a radical approach they are often fluffed. There were high hopes that last year’s Truth About Crime would the first truly integrated web and TV current affairs series for BBC1, but in the end the online component was secondary to the broadcast programmes.

In the past two or three years it is Channel 4 that has shown the most imagination in exploiting digital platforms. Embarrassing Bodies, Landshare, Battlefront, Year Dot and Routes are innovative projects which reveal a deep understanding of the specific characteristics of digital platforms. The channel has also begun to develop a new approach to commissioning better suited to the web and participatory media; they have also launched the 4iP initiative specifically to explore how public service might be re-imagined for contemporary media and their users.  The problem is that this activity remains on the fringes.

I remember being told when I was still a BBC staffer that because I had never made any television, I would never have any real credibility with the people who made the important decisions. There is little evidence that things have changed in the past five years.

Jamie Campbell from Juice Games who was a participant in Crossover Play has written an article about the experience. You can read ithere

Another participant, Karen Johnson, has given an account on her blog.

Channel 4 is delighted to announce a new partnership with Crossover, the cutting-edge media training organisation that specialises in preparing  producers to embrace the cross-platform future and new opportunities in emerging digital media. Channel 4 is leading the way by being the first broadcaster in the UK to put their commissioning team through immersive 5 day Crossover Labs to equip them for a ‘platform agnostic’ media future.

Crossover is fast becoming one of the world’s most respected training programmes in innovation and digital media. It brings together people from across the creative spectrum, from the worlds of TV, film, gaming, web design, theatre and science, and through a process of careful workshopping and mentoring, gets them to generate ideas for new types of media.

4Talent, will contribute financial support to Crossover to expand its portfolio of activities for 2009/2010 – beyond the Labs - to provide a deeper level of on-going support.  Crossover has designed a ladder of progression from workshopping ideas, through mentoring and business support, that will enable a new breed of super-producers to create the media of the future.  Channel 4 Commissioning Editors and 4IP will be part of the rich mix of Crossover alumni brokering relations and collaborating in the launch of the Channel’s  cross-platform future.

To pull all this activity together Crossover is holding a summit on 4th November in Sheffield. The Summit will bring together some of the UK’s and the world’s leading producers stepping into interactive production and leading thinkers on innovation. on the Summit Day

‘Crossover provides a proven and successful model for getting creative talent from different disciplines to work effectively together. Creative firms looking to grow their business need to develop these ways of working to fully exploit the potential for new revenues in a digital environment.
Jon Kingsbury, Director, Creative Economy Programme, NESTA

“The world of cross-platform content and distribution demands a range of skills from technical, creative, artistic and business contexts. Crossover is a perfect environment for talent to get together and really understand how creativity works in each others’ fields.”
Matt Locke, Commissioning Editor, Channel Education

As preparation for the workshop SABIP commissioned a research team at University College, London to undertake a literature review of publicly available research into what people are actually doing and their attitudes to copyright.  This included this report, commissioned by Marrakesh Records from media consultancy Human Capital which makes chilling reading for businesses which generate revenue by selling recorded music: “we find that the majority would even sacrifice sex for music. And yet music is increasingly becoming a commodity for which young people do not expect to pay.”

One of their major findings is that all the serious surveys into how people behave towards copyright material in the digital world has looked at young people under the age of 23, mostly students at universities in the mid-west. There is very little evidence about the attitudes of older demographics.

As one part of the workshop, I had the delegates build a map of the media ecology in which government is now reframing regulation for intellectual property in the creative industries. The delegates were asked to identify key factors shaping the new media landscape and then create ‘tag-clouds’ indicating the major issues. This is what they produced:

Landscape for intellectual property regulation in the UK