Category: design-and-ideas

Reinvent content and the tools

A number of things on my mind recently centring around narrative again. There also connected (at least in my mind they are)

George Entwhistle today gave a speech to BBC Staff… (read the whole thing) where he mentions reinventing content

In a bold first-day speech, the BBC’s new boss says the corporation must stop thinking that online innovation means repurposing broadcast content and instead ‘create genuinely digital content for the first time’.

As we increasingly make use of a distribution model – the internet – principally characterised by its return path, its capacity for interaction, its hunger for more and more information about the habits and preferences of individual users, then we need to be ready to create content which exploits this new environment – content which shifts the height of our ambition from live output to living output.

Adam Curtis argues TV needs better techniques

Television no longer has the dramatic techniques to explain today’s world, according to leading documentary-maker Adam Curtis.

At a masterclass session at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television festival, Curtis will claim that the traditional techniques television uses, such as the identifying of good and bad guys and a linear narrative, are obsolete.

Apple was awarded a patent on a broadcast device that uses implicit acts to decide if you’re going to be interested in a section of the content (thanks Tony)

A user … may not be interested in every media item provided as part of a broadcast stream. For example, a user may not like a particular song broadcast by a radio station, or may not like a particular segment of a talk radio station (eg, the user does not like the topic or guest of the segment). As another example, a user may not be interested in content originally generated by sources other than the media source (eg, advertisement content). Because the user has no control over the media broadcast, the user can typically only tune to a different media broadcast, or listen to or consume the broadcast content that is not of interest.

Perceptive publishing?

The reader

There was a reason why I decided to use Media oppose to TV or Radio.

The core concept of Perceptive Media can be applied at many different levels and different outputs.

How would Perceptive publishing work? Well if you imagine you have a ebook which can be read on a system which is also connected to the web and/or has sensors of its own. Imagine if that ebook reader has API’s which can exposes certain data to the ebook its self.

The way you hold the ereader, landscape, portrait, ambient temperature, time, geolocation, ambient noise, etc, etc. I have a feeling Perceptive Publishing may actually be a lot easier than Perceptive Broadcast…

You get the picture… and so do Oreilly who have put Perceptive Media into their Tools of Change conference in October.

I was interviewed about Perceptive Media and how it could work in publishing…

In the early days, Perceptive Media is being applied to broadcast technology. What potential applications for Perceptive Media do you envision in the publishing industry?

Ian Forrester: We have only scratched the surface and do not know what else it can be adapted toward. In BBC R&D, we watch trends by looking at early innovators. It’s clear as day that ebook reading is taking off finally, and as it moves into the digital domain, why does the concept of a book have to be static? Skeuomorphism is tragic and feels like a massive step back. But Perceptive Media is undoing the limitations of broadcast. It certainly feels like we can overcome the limitations of publishing, too.
Tools of Change for Publishing (http://s.tt/1nB8P)

Why we build, is it in the narrative?

IMG_2247

I had the pleasure of seeing Rowan Moore talk live about his book why we build in Manchester with someone special.

As she said herself, its a interesting way to give some insight into the world of the architect. Something I originally wanted to be a long long time ago but I choose Design instead.

Anyway as Rowan was talking about positives and negative in different architecture decisions. I started seeing a slight pattern in the positives. Originally I put it down to playfulness of buildings and spaces but then I started thinking its about the narrative. What do I mean?

As an architect, you lay the foundations of how the space is going to be used in the same way as storytellers/game creators imagine the world the narrative is formed in. They then plan routes/journeys people and things go through that space. In the same way a book lays the foundation and the person’s mind takes it on to different level.

Its a thought and maybe very wrong (specially because everyday work I assume is pretty mundane) but I think about my best examples of good architecture and think about how it leads you on a path but allows you to explore without getting in the way.

Its like being taken on a journey. In fact, the features or sticking points are also like social objects or talking points.

The Street at PQIMG_2227

Pacific Quay in Glasgow is BBC Scotland’s headquarters and I was in love with the Street idea. I seen a similar idea in 8-House’s Ørestad District, Copenhagen. The street for me is a narrative through the complexity of a building. But not only that, its a talking point (social object) and a great place to bump into people and have the conversations you get in corridors.

TechHub sets sights on Manchester

I always said Manchester is a great city, and there’s plenty of talent not only in Manchester but further a field around the North of England. Well I’m not the only one which says this…

TechHub, the shared workspace for startups, is launching a site in Manchester in November. The new space will be the first UK-location outside of London.

The hub has agreed terms with property investment firm Town Centre Securities (TCS) for office space over two floors at Carver’s Warehouse in Piccadilly Basin.

My thought is this has to be a great thing for uniting the many different communities in and around the city. Can’t wait to see it open and where things go into the future. The guys behind it are great, full of spirit. They took the time to thank myself and martin for our talks at TedXManchester2 which may have kick started some of this.

Can I also just say, I called it right 2 months ago when I tweeted something connecting TechHub with Manchester. TechhubManchester it is…

TedXBristol live – Saturday 15th Sept

I have the pleasure of talking at TedXBristol next weekend. This follows another excellent talk at Canvas Conference on Friday in Birmingham.

The whole of TedXBristol will be streamed live, so you can get a idea of the richness of the talks yourself.

In the meanwhile there’s a cheeky little interview with me on the TedXBristol blog.

If your one of my lovely friends from around Bristol, I’ll be going for drinks and a meal on Saturday night. So get in touch if you want to join us…

Terms and Cons

 

Not written about TOS DR or Terms of Service Didn’t read.

“I have read and agree to the Terms” is the biggest lie on the web.  We aim to fix that.

ToS;DR aims at creating a transparent and peer-reviewed process to rate and analyse Terms of Service and Privacy Policies in order to create a rating from Class A to Class E.

A long time ago while the Data Portability group was in full swing, we talked about doing something very much like TOS DR but the issues of trying to get a unified system across all End User Licence Agreements (EULA’s) seemed like a total nightmare. The suggestion was to use a traffic light system to alert people of the bogus stuff ahead of time. This also meant it wouldn’t replace the EULA, it would just highlight some of the questionable stuff.

In the end it was far enough off the main focus of the group to make it a that would be nice rather than essential. Its a shame but it was the right decision for the time.

Hope the TOSDR guys get as popular as Creative Commons and team up with the likes of the plain english campaign.

To be honest if I had more time and wasn’t already doing lots of other stuff, I might be tempted to join in and help where I can.

Apple vs Samsung, consumers lose…

 

Apple have won their case against Samsung…

A US court has ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05bn (£665m) in damages after upholding allegations that several Samsung devices had infringed Apple’s intellectual property, including design patents and some functionality.

Samsung has promised to appeal against the decision describing it as “a loss for the American consumer”.

I can only say, the consumer will lose out in Steve Jobs legacy to take down Google…

The chilling effect will be felt…

 

The web of playful things

WIYB with Moleskine from Ka Tat Chan in Hongkong

If your like me, you may look at something like ioT and wonder what on earth does that stand for? Internet of Things…

From a far it looks like one of those buzz terms like Ajax and Web 2.0 became. Heck you might even find some crappy videos trying to explain what it is from a view.

If you break it down Internet of Things is simply networked physical things or simply NT? So we already know everything will have a IPv6 address in the next decade or so and frankly this is the very start of it. I quite like Dundee’s Jon Rogers (@ileddigital) physical apps and of course the physical apps store.

I’m very sure that networked things will be the next massive growth economy. You won’t be able to buy a thing without it being able to network in some way or another.

Here’s some justification…

  1. The other day I was trying to convince someone that IoT or networked things was going to be the next fronter for developers. I did a bad job trying to explain why she should consider it (although to be fair it was very late in the day for such a dramatic change, I admitted). Although very familiar with makerfaire and the maker audience, I was making the point that its not about that. The languages developers are using will power a good part of the networked things. Yes that means your TV, radio, speakers, pen (dare I say it) Fridge will one day have Python bindings or a RESTful API (hopefully not JSON). Programmers and developers once enjoyed the fact the computer was under their control. Now the real world is up for grabs!
  2. Yesterday I was listening to Tech News Today and heard a discussion about Yammer’s CEO forecasting the end of silicon valley. Although I don’t think he’s right and what he was saying did sound like crap, there is certainly a shift towards more hardware innovation. The presenters pick up on this in this 5min discussion which I clipped and put on Soundcloud.
    This is one of the points I’ll be making in the my Perceptive Media talk at Canvas Conf in September…
  3. Manchester’s digital scene has for the longest time lived in the shadow of London’s digital scene but something a rumbling and I personally feel the impact of things like Madlab, Fablab, DIYBio, etc, etc… will kickstart companies and startups which hack reality rather than whats on screen. Networked things will be a big part of this. BBC R&D also will be a part of this and we’re already in talks around our unique iot event called playful iot futures… Hope to have much more to say about it soon…

Where have all the bloggers gone?

Jon Udell asks, where have all the bloggers gone?

Good question… I do tweet more than I blog, thats very true.

I have Published 2,559 blogs (not including this one) and Tweeted29,087 (not including this one) but there not really comparable in my mind. Not simply because of the length but the detail and thought which goes into them plus its MINE. Of course you can crosspost which I do sometimes, and like Jon I’m choosy when I do.

It’s not just about short-form versus long-form, though. Facebook and Google+ are now hosting conversations that would formerly have happened on — or across — blogs. Keystrokes that would have been routed to our personal clouds are instead landing in those other clouds.

I’d rather route all my output through my personal cloud and then, if/when/as appropriate, syndicate pieces of it to other clouds including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. A few weeks back, WordPress’s Stephane Daury reminded me that I can:

@judell: since your blog is on (our very own) @wordpressdotcom, you can setup the publicize option to push your posts: http://wp.me/PEmnE-1ff.

I replied that I knew about that but preferred to crosspost manually.

More interestingly is Jon’s thoughts on how to make our own space/cloud better and more central.

  • Different messages to each foreign cloud. Because headlines often need to be audience-specific.
  • Private to my personal cloud, public to foreign clouds. Because the public persona I shape on my blog serves different purposes than the ones I project to foreign clouds. Much of what I say in those other places doesn’t rise to the level of a public blog entry, but I’d still like to route that stuff through my personal cloud so I can centrally control/monitor/archive it.
  • Federate the interaction siloes. Because now I can’t easily follow or respond to commentary directed to my blog echoes in foreign clouds. Or, again, centrally control/monitor/archive that stuff.

I’m currently using Disqus to mix twitter and facebook comments in with my blog but it feels very clunky. Ideally you want something more distributed like I’ve been banging on about for a while.