Its incredible to say those words but in April, I have my birthday and also my work birthday.
20 years ago, I accepted the position as a XSLT developer for BBC WorldService in London, I did apply for two positions, the other one under BBC New Media central, which I did also got a offer for, but turned down.
20 year with some great and challenging moments. Everything from setting up RSS on 40+ language services BBC Worldservices, BBC Backstage, Perceptive Media, Perceptive Radio, Databox, Living roon of the future, Public Service Internet, Human values, Adaptive podcasting and so much more. Some of the best stuff has come from non-sanctioned collaborations and works, for example with BBC & Mozilla’s ethical dilemma cafe. beebcamps. barcamps. etc…
MyPDS and Perceptive Raido in the museum of science and industry in Manchester (personal highlight)
Although there is lots of good, there has been a lot of frustration in those 20 years. Moving a public service corporation known for broadcasting and news to one leading the future of the internet, is something I compare to the innovators dilemma. My lack of interest in TV has been tricky but always thought it made sense if I focus on a public service internet.
In the last few months a lot of people I have worked with in BBC R&D, have left for new positions in other organisations. Some of them I have worked with for a long time and respect greatly (heck one saved my life).
I have been through many different BBC restructures and seen 5 different director generals (Mark Byford, Mark Thompson, George Entwistle, Tony Hall and Tim Davie) outline their plans for the future.
The pandemic changed working practice sometimes for the better in my own view and sometimes worst in other ways.
Being in the BBC R&D advisory team is still the best place for me currently. I still have the belief, its the place a public service internet can be realised in collaboration with others.
However, 20 years certainly makes you think… I didn’t plan to be at the BBC so long and certainly don’t plan to be around for another 20. I’m very aware of the industry changes but have an eye on where could be next? What ever I do, it needs to be to the benefit of a future public. My current research is focused on the future of social (not social media) something few organisations have the true time to look at in detail.
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: The voice scamming is something most have heard about, but this podcast shows how vast the problem is in Asia. I suspect similar will be heading to the west soon enough.
Ian thinks: Cory’s new book The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation, says it all but if you were not convinced this interview with Vice will clearly why the fight for the future is not over, why and how you should be involved.
Ian think: The Mozilla podcast is in full swing again with a focus on the humans behind and affected by large language models. Mozilla do a great job reflecting viewpoints from outside the western markets with important contributions from Kenya and India in episode 2.
Ian thinks: There has been a lot of discussion following the recent Isaacson book. I found this the very best series about Elon, not only critical of Elon but also a wider nod to many of the tech oligarchs and the culture surrounding them.
Ian thinks: Douglas Rushkoff is a character which some people enjoy and some less so. He was recently added to the Time person of the week, and this short podcast interview is a reminder of what the internet and technology could/should be and how it fits within human society, not consumes it.
Ian thinks: Taylor Lorenz’s book explores the tension between the owners and the women who drive the platform/service. Similar to Symons Browns’s Get rich or die trying, but focusing on usually stepped on female early adopters, this could shine a light on a sector never really covered.
Ian thinks: Its hardly a surprise people are finding their ways around the limitations of Gen AI systems but this really goes into details how people are social engineering sensitive information out.
Ian thinks: When Marc Andreessen published the techno-optimist manifesto. Most people just ignored it as silicon valley nonsense, but a few put together words to carefully deconstruct why. This blog is a perfect reply but also covers a lot of positive elements covered in this newsletter. Well worth the read.
Ian thinks: Repair is essential for sustainability, we all know this and recent changes within the tech/internet sector has helped this already growing trend. The question is when some of the big companies will fully throw their weight behind such movements?
Ian thinks: This post by the Verge sums up the struggle for many around social media right now. I highly recommend listening to the podcast, especially with interviews from Cory (pluralistic) and Manton (microblog), as they both give more definition to the problem. I would also recommend the deeper conversation with Manton, who discusses the Verge piece at a lot more depth.
This research project has run for a long time and at some time thought about pulling the plug. I always thought it had so much potential and needed to reach different people who will explore and use it for many more use cases than a research agenda.
Add more well thought out SMIL features like fallbacks, real time fades and effects, etc.
Finish the XML Schema I started (I’m too out of schema writing sorry)
There is so many people who had a hand in Adaptive podcasting, which are all named in the credits. This project couldn’t have happened without them and it speaks volumes about a future where collaboration is the default.
I am personally humbled by everything and if I wasn’t in Amsterdam during the Society 5.0 conference would be sending out lots of emails letting everyone and anyone know. There is a long long list of people to contact to let them know its all public now. Its also one of the research projects which has always been in the forefront of my mind and consumed many of my cycles. Its a great project and in the history makes clear the trajectory of progression. However wouldn’t existed without the community of practice, which kept me on my toes. Even now, I’m keen to see the community grow and built the amazing experiences which we dreamed about.
This is a clear sign of the power of public service. Many will ask why would the BBC open source this? Its in the BBC’s royal charter, helping build the UK economy. This is also a natural end to the Perceptive Media workstream for me, looking at implicit interaction to drive experiences and narratives.
Ultimately I’m hoping to further the ambition on podcasts and adaptive audio full stop. I have always said and stood behind the notion media has so much more potential. I do expect some enterprising individual to take the source code and port it to the Apple app store. Although I’m already looking at fdroid for the latest player too.
If you have any questions about Adaptive/Perceptive podcasting please do get in touch via email or github. This project is leaking so much potential be it public, commercial, etc.
I really look forward to seeing what people do with it all…
I have the joy of speaking at The Podcast Show on the 24 – 25 May in London.
I’m going to be talking about Adaptive podcasting and object based media. I’ll be joined with a couple more people discussing the possibilities for the future of podcasting. You won’t want to miss this…
You can book your Day Passes now and save 25% (£55 Day/ £99 2-Day) to this major International festival for the business of podcasting. .
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: The problems with GDP are well known but I certainly like this video by the Economist which makes the urgency a lot clearer. Can money stop deforestation? Not while we look quarter to quarter.
Ian thinks: Although things are not super clear in the AI generation space, Lensa AI always struck me as something you may want to avoid. As usual people jump in and think later.
Ian thinks: Interesting discussion hinged on the question will we grow to regret computing as much we regret the way cars changed society. I have compared Jane Jacob’s life and death of the american city to the modern technological world.
Ian thinks: I found this conversation with David Zipper fascinating from a public service point of view. All the hype and funding going into autonomous cars isn’t making our streets safer for the public, and David has some very clear points demonstrating this. Worth reading this Time piece too.
Ian thinks: Seeing some of the good things about the darkweb is never a popular but Mozilla does a good job explaining what it is and how it works in the usual fun style.
Ian thinks: This interview with the author of web3 is going great, Molly White is just great and this interview has so many to think about. Follow on from the interview Paris Marx and Molly White talk about the FTX.
Ian thinks: A bit of a history lesson of where microblogging came from and where it splintered. Blaine Cook’s instinct for this space has been spot on and with him throwing some weight behind the fediverse
Ian thinks: Umair makes a lot of good points, comparing the way Twitter was made to work with authoritarian countries. A real taste of whats to come if the public service internet isn’t fully realised.
I have been pretty busy recently and had not as much time to do much blogging. To be fair my mastodon microblogging has increased quite a bit, can’t think why…
During the busy last few months, I gave a talk at Durham’s Bright ideas gathering. It was a really good event which felt like a TEDx with a number of different topics and speakers.
Originally I was going to give a talk about the recently launched Adaptive podcasting but gave it more context with why its a important project. Along the way we stop at the big changes coming to the BBC looking at my own personal view of moving to Manchester.
Thank to Herb and the team which delivered another excellent conference even in the middle of train strikes.
I shared the slides on slideshare (which is still a thing it seems)
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: Personal data stores make a lot of sense, especially for developers as this post makes clear. However its consistent with the discussions I have had with startups with “The tech culture in the U.S. is a lot less suspicious of companies that are looking to centralise their data, because they can see a way to make money off of that”
Ian thinks: Following the personal data store dev discussion above, its a lot clearer for public interest companies who want to innovate and provide a different proposition from profit driven companies.
Ian thinks: This short documentary is pretty powerful and highlights how much worst the dumpster fire is outside North America and Europe. Well worth the 12 minutes of your time. Also worth mentioning Mozilla’s little mini-series is fun, educational and instantly shareable. I personally have shared a few with some less technical friends and its been well received.
Ian thinks: This is good news as the national regulator does have a lot of power to work in favour of the public, but has spent too much time focused on traditional media.
Ian thinks: The Unfinished live conference has caused quite a splash since its inception. A lot of the talks are worth re-watching and if not seen before, you are in for a treat.
Ian thinks: Shannon is no longer excited by Technology, but through the post its clear she is focused on the big mainstream tech. Looking away form the mainstream into the indie & niches could be what she’s missing?
Ian thinks: We all knew it was coming, but to see it happen in the EU first was unexpected by myself. Expect many more to follow suit, a high profile court case and hopefully a renewed look at micro-payments.
Ian thinks: There was a small announcement about Bluesky coming soon, but I found at least the first part of this video with Kevin Marks and Jeff Jarvis looking through the AT protocol quite revealing of whats coming.
I remember ages ago you talking about something you were researching around personal data stores. Then I saw on the most recent click, something similar.
I looked it up, knowing colleagues in the team have recently done a interview with BBC click and found the above video. Its great to see it being used in unique ways and always reminds me of the great BBC news story “Why the BBC does not want your data”
To me its clear a personal data store is a key part of the public service internet ecosystem. There is much more to it but people controlled data is a key corner stone. Its also why the Perceptive Radio sits next to MyPDS/Datapod in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).
My role in personal data store project ended a while ago but I’m still involved in tangential research around this all. Part of it being the living room of the future and other new research.
The public service internet is one step closer… everyday!
With the Android app/player you can listen to adaptive podcasts. With the app/player installed, you can load and listen to your own made podcasts. There is of course RSS support, providing the ability to load in a series of adaptive podcasts (replacing the default feed from BBC R&D).
With access to the web editor on BBC Makerbox, you can visually create adaptive podcasts in a few minutes. Its node like interface is running completely client side, meaning there is no server side processing. Just like the app/player, which does zero server callbacks to the BBC. Pure Javascript/HTML/CSS.
If you find the web editor not advanced/in-depth enough for you, there is the XML specification which is based on SMIL. As the code can be written or even generated. We even considered other editors like audacity.
But I wanted to thank all the people who helped in making this go from the Perceptive Radio to Adaptive Podcasting. So far I started a github page but will write the history of how this happened when I got more time. Partly because its a interesting story but also because it demonstrates the power of collaboration, relationships, communities and the messy timeline of innovation.
The Ethical Dilemma Cafe Manchester happened last week on Tuesday 26-Wednesday 27th April. It was quite something to build, prepare and experience.
Building on the ethical dilemma cafe in Mozfest 2014, we took the idea into a real working cafe complete with the public coming and going, but experiencing the dilemma.
When I say the dilemma, what do I mean? In 2014…
The café offered popcorn, juice, and smoothies not found anywhere else at the festival, but to enter the café, you had to cross a boundary that required a ridiculous data user agreement. As part of this agreement, your personal information would be plastered through the festival’s halls hours later. This experience was about getting out of a chair and experiencing the dilemma in a real, tangible way. Would you read the agreement in order to obtain a glass of juice? Ignore the agreement and quench your thirst in ignorant bliss? Or read the agreement and walk away, and try to find snacks elsewhere because the agreement was unacceptable?
While in 2022 with the changes in how mobile phones are less leaky about data and a ton of frankly new challenges (some are explored in our virtual mozfest 2022 session), we decided to explore both the QR code and personal data sharing problems.
People scanned a QR code, signed up to a fake cafe ordering system with their email or social media login. After that, they are forced to answer a question before being presented with a QR code which can be scanned for a hot drink (or looking at the very very long receipt, cold drinks). If you went for a second, third, etc drink you will get more and much more personal questions. We had 5 levels of questions and the single 5th question was deeply personal. Is the coffee really worth it
Sometimes almost by random, the QR code would switch to a public rick roll (making clear you should be careful what you scan) but most of the time you get the webapp which will use any data used.
The biggest output being the questions and answers on a screen right on the cafe bar. Of course there were some intriguing answers to our questions.
I’m still wondering who wrote the answer with my name in it?
What do you value in a friendship? When Ian Forrester gives chocolate 😉
The Dilemma is just the start, as there was a whole number of talks, workshops and exhibits/interventions.
On the exhibits end we had everything from the human values postcards by BBC R&D and is everybody happy by Open Data Manchester to Presence robots (reverse metaverse) to the Caravan of the future.
Talks included Designing the Internet for Children with the ICO, Keeping Trusted News Safe Online with BBC R&D, Trustworthy AI – what do we mean when we say with Mozilla.
Talks were kept to 15mins as it went out to the whole cafe and people were encouraged to take a table to keep the conversation going afterwards. In typical Mozfest style.
Finally the workshops included Materialising the Immaterial with Northumbria University, Designing the Internet for Children with the ICO, Why might you personalise your news with BBC R&D, Common Voice / Contribute-a-ton with Mozilla.
In the usual Mozfest style there was plenty of great moments for example when the traffic warden came to check out the Caravan of the Future.
There was plenty of interest in the reverse metaverse (presence bots), which was one of the projects which run through out the 2 days. Like the original ethical dilemma cafe, we wanted to expose people to work in progress rather than a museum, where everything is perfectly working. When they worked it really worked well.
To get a real sense of the reverse metaverse / presence bot, I recorded Jasmine for a short while with a remote person.
Does it understand me, is a speech to text system trained using the similar/same algorithms as the Amazon Alexa. It was so weird to see how when it got the wrong word, it guessed with something so strange. Like Deliveroo and Kindle?
Having the public come into the space was a positive, as many of the regulars popped in and end up going to a workshop or checking out a few of the interventions. Even better was having the staff of the feel good cafe joining in and enjoying the event. There’s a few times, when I overheard people asking what was going on and then the staff suggesting checking out the loom, human values postcards, etc.
The concept really came together well over the two days. Its something which will come back in other forms. Keep an eye out for future iterations of the ethical dilemma cafe soon.
Massive thanks to everyone involved in the Ethical Dilemma Cafe, so many people from the Mozilla Foundation, who took over a hotel in the northern quarter (it was so strange seeing people I usually see on Zoom or in London only 10mins away from my home), all the partners who took a leap of faith with the concept bringing their research and passion to the cafe. The cafe and the amazing woman (can’t remember her name) who really went with the concept. All the people who helped promote it and encourage others to join us over the 2 days. My colleagues who pulled out a number of stops to make things like the coffee with strings, reverse metaverse bots, etc. All amazing along with the talks and workshops, which nicely fitted with our partners. Thanks to the security guard who worked 2 full days and his presence was just right. Finally thank you to all the people who traveled sometimes from quite far to make the event, because without you there would be no ethical dilemma cafe.
There is likely people I have forgotten and I have deliberately not named anyone in-case I miss anyone by name. But I thank everybody especially Sarah, Lucie, Jasmine, Marc, Henry, Iain, Julian, Sam, Laura, Paul, Jesse, Bob, Steph, Lianne, Jimmy, Bill, Zach, Michael, Juliet, Georgina, Todd, Charlie, etc.
Question: What do you value most in a friendship? Answer: When Ian Forrester gives chocolate 😉
Seen completely out of the blue while in the Mozilla/BBC Ethical Dilemma Cafe last week. I had to do a double take when I saw my name.
Question: What do you value most in a friendship? Answer: When Ian Forrester gives chocolate 😉
The screen was part the ethical dilemma, where people use a QR code to register for free hot drinks but in return they need to answer personal questions getting more and more personal/intrusive the more hot drinks you have.
Do I know who wrote the answer?
Actually I do not, but I have a small number of people who I do think it could be…
Look out for a full blog post in the next few weeks.
In the background there has been talk about what would the ethical dilemma cafe look like in 2020? By the time me and Jasmine talked about it here, there was enough momentum between Mozilla’s internet health report and BBC R&D’s research into the public service internet, to really make it happen.
With Mozilla Festival currently mainly virtual, it was a good time to try a more distributed festival. Hence why not run the ethical dilemma cafe locally in Manchester, in a real cafe with real hot drinks and with the general public too? Heck yes!
In 2014 we worried about hidden microphones, secret cameras and toys with prying eyes. We asked for off buttons, clearer privacy terms and control over our own data. What has changed since then? Are our worries still valid? What are the new areas of concern? Or are we just more accepting of relinquishing control?
In 2014 we worried about hidden microphones, secret cameras and toys with prying eyes. We asked for off buttons, clearer privacy terms and control over our own data. What has changed since then? Are our worries still valid? What are the new areas of concern? Or are we just more accepting of relinquishing control?
The Ethical Dilemma Cafe is a relaxing space to grab a free coffee and meet fellow festival participants. However there is a catch!
You will have the opportunity to let your personal data take you on a journey through a space full of wonder and intrigue, where you will uncover the power of data and algorithms and how they shape your world, whether you’re aware of it or not. But nothing in this world is for free, the dilemma you face is your willingness to cross the threshold and be complicit in the interpretation of how your data defines you and your community, in perpetuity.
This year the Cafe will show you how your data is reflecting your identity in the digital world. How measurement, categorisation, and labelling of humans by machines determines the barriers and privilege you experience. It will prompt you to question if the established metrics are measuring the right things, at an appropriate granularity and how their influence touches your online and offline experiences.
If you are local to Manchester, join us from April 25-26 2022
If you are local to Manchester or can travel from around the UK, you don’t want to miss this 2 day event. Put it in your calendar now, Tuesday 25th & Wednesday 26th April.
To quote Buckminster Fuller “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Ian thinks: I read this thinking this is not the future of social media, its a future I reject and look elsewhere for a more sustainable/longer term future
Ian thinks: Talking about the future of social media… I don’t really care about Loot, I do care that people are trying something very different. Our notions of social network is driven by Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Ian thinks: Following Mozilla’s research into disinformation in Kenya, The study is a positive step for fact checking, but I do wonder how many people you would need to avoid systematic gratification?
Ian thinks: Having the inside track on this prototype/project, its interesting to see whats highlighted in Wired and the comments from different angles.
Ian thinks: Whats not to love about the framework laptop? DIY, right to repair? The CEO also has a business model behind this all too. I am considering one for my own laptop next year.
Ian thinks: Douglas is somewhat ironically on the money but I’m not certain NFTs are the answer he thinks it is. Worth a read or listen, as the notion is important enough.
I have written about Islington Wharf so many times and even had my thoughts committed to the Sunday Times. Its good to see the BBC covering the systematic problem of the British building industry when it comes to buildings in the UK. Its not just cladding, the whole construction industry is a total mess and peoples lives are in tatters because of it. Its just not on!
Does it go far enough? Not really, but its a start. Hopefully there will be follow ups and other media outlets jumping in because there are so many people (like myself) who need the pressure on the industry to fix the massive latent defects and drive out the cowboys.
Sexy Beasts is a new dating show where real-life singles sport elaborate makeup and prosthetics to put true blind-date chemistry to the test.
There seems to be a bit of stir about this one, although lets be honest its another fad dating show. Will it go beyond a couple of seasons? I very much doubt it. Its certainly not a first dates, which just keeps going and going.
