bbc – Page 9 – Cubicgarden.com…

Perceptive Media in Wired UK’s Top Tech for 2013

Someone from the BBC’s Future Media PR pointed out to me that I was in the latest issue of Wired UK. The whole thing isn’t online yet but I’ve made a manual copy (thanks to Laura Sharpe for buying the ipad version on my behalf)… Till its up online

Advertising Displays, Television and consoles are hooking up with recognition software to second-guess our hidden desires. By Ed White

Televisions, computers and retail displays are increasingly watching us as much as we’re watching them. They are likely to be the catalyst for a shift from mass to personalised media. Broadcastsers, game developers and tech companies have long dreamt of knowing who’s watching, and then making content relevant to each viewer.

Cheap cameras and sensors are making “perceptive media” a reality. First was Microsoft, whose Xbox gaming peripheral Kinect, launched in 2010, has put a perceptive-media device into more that 18 million homes worldwide. By linking people to their Xbox Live identity using facial recognition, it has made the gaming experience more tailored. But perceptive media is wider than gaming. Over two years, Japan Railways’ East Japan Water Business has installed about 500 intelligent vending machines that recognise customers’ age and gender via sensors and suggest drinks accordingly. Intel’s Audience Impression Metrics suite (Aim) users data captured by cameras on displays in shops to suggest products. Kraft and Adidas are early adopters. The software will also monitor responses to improve brands’ marketing.

But the real winner will be the entertainment industry. Samsung and Lenovo announced at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show that their new TVs will recognise a viewer by using a camera incorporated into the set, and bring up their favourite programmes; Intel is working on a set-top box with similar capabilities. Face tracking software is also making our screens more intuitive. Japanese broadcaster NHK is experimenting with emotion-recongnition software which can suggest, say a more exciting TV show if it detects boredom. But where perceptive media gets really exciting is in using viewer data to change narratives in real time. US-based video game company Valve software is experimenting with biofeedback systems, measuring physiological signals such as heart rate and pupil dilation in players of Portal 2 and Alien Swarm. If the zombies aren’t making you sweat, the AI director can send in more. And television may follow, believes Ian Forrester senior producer at BBC R&D. Sensors in your TV would pick up who’s in the room and subtly change the programmes’s details, live: for example the soundtrack could be based on your Spotify favorites.

If that sounds Big Brother-ish, that’s because it is. Perceptive media’s biggest hurdle will be privacy. But advocates such as Daniel Stein, founder CEO of San Francisco based digital agency EVB, say that if brands can prove the value of data sharing, they’ll win people over. Here’s looking at you.

Ed White is a senior writer and consultant at contagious communications, a London-based marketing consultancy

Connected Social: Design based thinking

My parents were deeply worried that I was doing too much again. Specially after what happened to me with mybrushwithdeath almost two and half years ago. I can tell you and them that my blood pressure is normal…

So what have I been up to…? Because my blog has also suffered due to the hectic schedule.

On Tuesday 30th Connected Social and 31st EpicWerewolf…

BBC Connected Social

I stopped arranging events because frankly my skill isn’t in arranging or managing them. Something Matt Cashmore was much better at than myself. However I’m good at being the spark and inspiration for the event in the first point.

After watching a few Connected Studios it become clear something was need to make it a more complete experience for people involved. Hence I convinced my manager of this need and we tried out Connected Social in July. That went well and after a bit of a break it made sense to bring it back.

The evening was all ignite style talks around the theme of design based thinking.

It was a good night of talks and further concentrated the need for a social event following the connected studio events in my mind. Maybe a little shorter and around one set of talks instead but everyone still enjoyed it.

Of course by the end of the night I was glad it went well and I was able to create a good informative event for people, however I was already thinking about Epic Werewolf…

Okcupid turns matchmaker with your Roommate?

The last time I seeked a flatmate properly…

This surprised me when I first heard that Okcupid was going to have a go at fixing the roommates market…

Not satisfied with running the best dating site on the planet, OkCupid parent company Humor Rainbow appears to be launching a service to help match up potential roommates. If Humor Rainbow can pull it off, the process of searching, finding and vetting potential roommates is about to get a whole easier, fun and more interesting.

I think they can pull it off because they understand data and like the devastating effecting they’ve had on the dating market, they are not just drinking the Tim Oreilly’s Coolaid but living by it.

Data is the Intel inside – Tim Oreilly

Its a real shame they got bought by Match.com because I would have loved to see how far they would have gone with there data stance (heck someones got to do something)

Its maybe a good time to say I’m considering a flatmate again…(last time having one may have saved my life – Thanks Tim) Specially now I have a bed in the spare room which doesn’t eat up all the space in the small 2nd bedroom. Ideally its suited to BBC Staff coming up from London and wanting somewhere to live before getting to know Manchester (and deciding to live in Cholton or Didsbury)

Of course if the right person came along I’d consider a longer term arrangement, but we’ll see…

Perceptive Media at TedXBristol

This is my high level talk I gave for TedXBristol.

The powerpoint is a little screwy on the presentation but generally you get the gist. Its also the ones where I decided to mock up a clip of the introduction of Flashforward to give a instant view of what Perceptive Media could do.

I’m waiting to see how long it is till the video clip is taken down off Youtube for possible copyright violations (which I feel is totally wrong and it fits under transformative works). I used the same videos at Oreilly Tools of Change to amazing effect, although I do feel with more time I should have found some text to change slightly. Maybe I’ll do this for the writer workshops at the end of the month?

I could swear I wrote up my feelings about TedXBristol somewhere already, but can’t seem to find it right now.

Either way, I’m very happy to see it online and look forward to the feedback from people interested in Perceptive Media. I thank the team for inviting me and I look forward to spending more time in Bristol in the near future and good to see Bristol growing its digital community…

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.

Ultra High Definition Olympics

I had the pleasure to experience the BBC Ultra hight definition and NHK’s Super Hi-Vision again today.

There has been enough wrote about about Super Hi-Vision on the R&D Blog but I wanted to give my view on it.

16 times the density of 1080p, and it looks like it. Each clip we saw was crisp and full of depth. Interestingly on the depth side is the lack of need for 3D. The actual density seems to increase the illusion of depth a lot. Unlike that crappy add-on 3D effect you see too much of, it feels completely natural. Well I guess it would feel totally natural as it as such….?

22.2 channels of 3D surround sound, yes it felt and sounded amazing. People will say it sounded loud but the reason it sounds loud is because if you go to the real thing (like I went to the womans semi-final football a couple days ago) then it is loud around you. It feels like your in the Olympic stadium in London.

The clips we saw was the opening of the London 2012 Olympics (parts cut together). The mens 100 meters final and some cycling events from the velodrome. Each one had plenty to see and watch. Not only could you see the audience but you could see which camera phone they were using to take pictures! During the 100meters I watched to see where that bottle got thrown from, and although I didn’t see exactly the person. I saw a number of potential people who it could have come from. Thats how rich the density of the picture. Likewise I was able to hear the chain of the bikes as they switched into high gear. Clapping from the crowd urged you to look around to check if someone in the audience was actual clapping as it sounded like it.

The swing of the camera wasn’t too bad but I can imagine it being pretty intense if it swings and pans too much. The framerate was great and made everything look super real (as said almost 3D like)

Its fascinating and if you can experience it, do go you won’t be disappointed. Its still going on daily till the end of the London 2012 Olympics. What you waiting for…?

London 2012 Olympics

I got to say I’m really surprised how good the London Olympics has turned out. Charlie Brooker wrote this up in the Guardian recently which I can understand.

I’m finding the Olympics hypnotically watchable, partly because the BBC’s coverage is so crisp and comprehensive and informative and useable, and isn’t jammed full of brand names and commercials. And it’s partly because … well … look, I don’t know.

Like Charlie, I was hearing all these crazy stories about Locog wiping out anything which even smells like the Olympics. Then the London 2012 Olympics actually opened with that simply amazing opening ceremony which NBC screwed up for many of my American friends. I watched it the day afterwards in full using the BBC’s total coverage and I was blown away. There was something very British about this Olympics. From the opening to the music used in Beach Volleyball.

At the time of writing, the running-and-jumping stuff has begun in earnest; the sheer physical agony of which I can personally relate to thanks to hours spent playing Track and Field in the 80s. No reason to believe this won’t become another time sponge. So yes, thanks, Olympics, for confounding my inner cynic, and not being awful. And for, I suppose, on balance, I admit, I confess, in a whisper – actually being quite good.

Theres lots more I can say about the Olympics but generally its been impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing the woman’s semi-final of the football at Old Trafford tomorrow. Shame it doesn’t include Team GB but I’ve decided to back Canada over Team USA.

Really hope in 3-4 weeks time I’ll still be as impressed after the end of the Para-olympics. The lasting legacy is a big question but right now its looking pretty good…

BBC Connected Studio/Social

I haven’t mentioned the BBC Connected Studio on my blog to date. However its about time…

So its a new (its been running since May) BBC project which is all about open innovation. Every month we put out a brief around a certain product area in the BBC. To date its been to redo the BBC.co.uk homepage, rethink the Weather and Travel services and this month its re-imagine services for the Cebeebies audience.

Every month theres one day of idea studio and the pitches at the end. The idea studio gives people a chance to come together and explore ideas against the brief. Of course you can just go into a corner and develop the idea with yourself or your pre-selected teammates. Its about what ever works to get the best ideas. I find people come with a rough idea and tend to combine the ideas together or build on each others ideas. Open innovation is the key here. After the ideas build up and you’ve had a chance to run through a series of workshops including a end user pitch (or not if you don’t want to). Your now working things up for the pitch to the commissioners and everyone else.

If everything goes well, you get selected and receive a email to say the commissioners would like to see it developed into a prototype. At which, about 2 weeks later, its build studio time.

The build studios are like hack days (our learning from hackdays, mashed and over the air) but they run over 2 days and the end presentation doesn’t receive some token prize, they receive a good daily amount for being there time while developing the prototype. However at the end there is the opportunity to pitch the prototype to the commissioners for more serious amounts of money.

The events take place in Manchester, Glasgow and London which means theres no reason not take part. And that applies to staff as well as externals. Actually theres something quite magically about seeing BBC staff collaborating directly with externals. I’ll be excited to see how things work when one such team go through to the later stages.

It sounds slightly complex but actually its pretty straight forward, and takes the best parts of Innovation labs and Hackdays on a ride.

The BBC is serious about Connected Studio and has pledged a million pounds behind the whole project.

Ralph director of Future Media talked about how he loved BBC Backstage and what we built back then. And to be honest theres a air of Backstage floating through the whole process. For example anyone can register there interest via the BBC Connected blog (no secret handshakes or secret buddy systems just apply). This means you have as much chance as those on the BBC’s official supplier list. Connected Studio has attracted SME’s, startups, hackers and early adopters. Unlike backstage were talking about things which are made for deployment on the live site, so generally theres shorter term innovation (aka less 2 years).

The majority of new BBC Online products are built according to long term product roadmaps and the published commissioning process. However, we believe there’s room here for more disruptive thinking – that is, more experimental ideas that can be pitched, built and delivered to audiences in a faster, smarter way. We would like to hear from agencies and individuals who have fresh, innovative ideas to bring to this event and to seek funding.

The process isn’t perfect (but what is?) but is adaptable and is always looking for feedback.

So whats my role in the connected studio?

Well thats still being worked out but I’ll have my R&D glasses on when watching the pitches and I’m very interested in the network of people who are doing innovative things and have been to a connected studio.

However, something I can talk about is BBC Connected Social, which are events linked to the BBC Connected studio process.

Like Connected Studio its still very early days and I’m expecting it to twist and change as it matures. But its a good chance for people external to the process because they can’t spare the time, never heard of it or didn’t make it into the process to learn more, network and pick up some really useful knowledge all at the same time. For those on the build studio, its a chance to take a break, network and consider a slightly different take on the prototype there building towards (if they wish).

The first one is Tuesday evening at Media City UK while future ones will also match the location of the Connected Studio (be it London, Glasgow or of course Manchester)

Its a chance to learn, debate and socialise on topics closely aligned to the BBC’s strategic themes.

The Build Studio for July is centered around CBeebies, and we are running a panel talking about building for the ages of under 13’s. With useful advice and tips from Mystic mobile & Lancaster’s Dr Paul Coulton, BBC’s Games grid Simon Lumb and BBC’s Children’s Jon Howard.

Hopefully we’ll see you at a BBC Connected Studio or Social soon… You know where to sign up and the next brief is around CBBC (Children’s BBC). Hopefully the next social will include a panel of young people talking about there media habits because that is always insightful.

Perceptive Media Launch at Social Media Cafe Manchester

If you’ve not experienced Perceptive Media yet, stop reading and go to futurebroadcasts.com to listen to the Breaking Out audioplay.

We’ve been sitting on Breaking Out for months slowly improving it as the browsers caught up with what we were trying to get them to do (WebAudioAPI is very topical at the moment). When we first started there was no way it was going to work in anything but the latest chrome. However things are starting to change…

Anyhow because of the wait to get things working correctly, we picked a date to release much later than expected. That date slotted right in between the end of the Euro 2012 and The 2012 Olympics. That date co-insided with SMC_MCR’s July event, the event where I first talked about Perceptive Media openly for the first time.

The event hosted at the excellent Cornerhouse Cinema was great. First up was Elliot Wood discussing the process behind his most recent digital art installation in Korea with studio Kimchi and Chips. Really interesting as there were some key points which matched some of our thinking. Mainly around openness and generative/organic systems.

After the break came some announcements and then Perceptive Media with me and Tony.

We quickly ran through our reformatted presentation from the EBU in April, to lay the context for those who were not at the SMC event in February. Afterwards we went into a live demo of Breaking Out the audioplay.

The audience enjoyed the play and seemed to respond well to part of the play I’m not going talk about now.

After hearing the audioplay we switched to a panel discussion with me, Tony Churnside, Henry Swindell (from the BBC Writers room) and Sarah Glenister (the writer of the script from the BBC Writers room). We also had Mark Boas and Mark Panaghiston (from Happyworm, the developers) on Skype just in case.

The questions were coming thick and fast, at one point I counted about 20 hands up of the 60 strong audience. Lots of questions about the idea of Perceptive Media and quite a few about the storyline. It was great having Henry there because he laid it out from the writers point of view. Sarah jumped in and gave her point of view writing the script, something she just published on the BBC Writers room blog.

The event was a big success for ourselves, SMC and everyone involved. The feedback we got was great and we did record the event for the purposes of research.

Following on from the launch. We’ve watched the prototype spread to quite a few places.

The BBC unveils its first perceptive media experiment and you can try it now – Martin wrote this pretty much live from the event and its gone a few places. And it appeared on Techmeme for a couple of days.

The BBC opens up its first perceptive media experiment and you can try it out right now

BBC demonstrates revolutionary perceptive media – Nice

BBC perceptive media brings the next big thing in tv and radio

Angie chan who did the illustrations talks about the project

Metafilter goes off on Perceptive Media – Would love to join this debate but alas I’m not going to get involved in the debate.

Google+ also has a few comments

Experience Perceptive Media yourself

Following up from my posts (here) (here) (here and also now here) about Perceptive Media… I’m very proud to announce Breaking Out, our BBC R&D experiment into new editorial formats.

The prototype requires performs best on Chrome using the new WebAudioAPI, but does work in Firefox, Opera and Safari through a fallback solution (this will eat your bandwidth as it uses WAV’s rather than compressed audio like Ogg Vorbis and Mpeg3). I would suggest keeping memory and cpu intensive applications shut while running the demo because there some serious calculations happening client side.

But most of all I’d urge everyone to leave feedback, no matter how bad or good it is… Then share it around for other people to hear and experience.

Massive thanks to everyone involved in the project…

Writer: Sarah Glenister
Harriet: Maeve Larkin
Lift operator: Anthony Churnside
Producers: Anthony Churnside and Ian Forrester
Media Engine code: Happy Worm
Jplayer Audio engine: Happy Worm
Website code: Yameen Rasul and Matthew Brooks
Illustrations: Angie Chan
With special thanks: Sharon Sephton, Henry R Swindell, Maxine Glancy, Usman Mullan, Elizabeth Valentine and the BBC Writers Room

I’m also happy to say we will be making the Media Engine code available under the Apache License for all you guys who want to hack around with the concept yourself.

Actually there might be some easter eggs in the audio drama to find for those not interested in getting all dirty in the actual code.

Perceptive Media presentation at the EBU, Copenhagen

I really enjoyed my time in Copenhagen… It kind of reminded me of a combination of Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm. I had wished I had more time there for many reasons.

So what was I doing there? Well me and Tony Churnside were asked a while after that presentation at SMC_MCR by the European Broadcasting Union (they run the Eurovision song contest I’ve heard) if we would offer a unique look at a possible future for broadcasting. Originally we said no because the idea wasn’t fully formed (hence the early thinking) but it became clear we might have a demo which we could maybe show. That demo of course is still under-wraps and we hope to reveal it to the world soon enough (keep an eye on the BBC R&D Blog for more details). It was well received and it certainly got people thinking, talking and wanting much more. And yes it is Perceptive Media…

On top of doing the presentation and heading up a question and answer session with Tony, we got a good chance to see the rest of the summit and speak to many TV related people. Its amazing what our European public broadcaster friends are doing. Thanks to the always busy but super smart Nicoletta Iacobacci (who also uses troublemaker in her job title) from the EBU who was the one who invited us and made us feel very comfortable. Of course the amazing Mia Munck Bruns, who I had the joy of sharing my love for good cocktails with on the last night.

We also got to see parts of Copenhagen but we were mainly in Ørestad. I could only see the one of the moutain dwellings as talked about in the Channel4 documentary recently from a far, but it looked very impressive. And to be honest the architecture and design effort in Copenhagen was amazing… It was like walking through Stockholm or the pages of Inhabatit.

When we first arrived (our flight was 2 hours delayed) I had a massive headcold and couldn’t hear out of my right ear due to not flying well. But we walked straight into a session involving media study students and TV producers. It was run by Nicoletta and reminded me of when BBC Backstage invited the people behind UK Nova in to meet the BBC. The students explained there media habits and the TV producers tried to make sense of it all.

The thing which shocked me was the lack of twitter usage in Denmark. The students talked about using Facebook as we use Twitter. Google Plus never really came up ever. The 2/4 screens meme came up time and time again. And a few of the TV producers started getting irate why the students were treating TV like radio or as I prefer wallpaper.

They couldn’t understand why they have the screen on if there not watching it. Little disagreement broke out saying they should be watching what they broadcast. Well what followed was some ice words on both sides… As usual, as I’ve heard all my life. The students media habits were dismissed as early adopters. I asked if any of them created there own media rather than just consumed and shared? Very few did (maybe one) further indicating there not early adopters but just the norm.

Fantastic session along with

During the trip the EBU treated us to a series of lovely dinner including one at a amazing Opera Hall.

Unfortunately the way to the opera hall was via boat which isn’t exactly great for me. But I made it even with Tonys teasing…

The rest of the conference was dominated by TV as you’d expect and there was some real interesting things from other public European partners including Äkta människor or Real Humans

In a parallel present the artificial human has come into its own. Robots no longer have anything robot-like about them. New technology and advancements in the field of science have made it possible to manufacture a product – a kind of mechanized servant – that is so similar to a real human that it can often be considered a perfectly good substitute. The Human Robot (HUBOT) have also given rise to new problems and dilemmas. Thorny legal questions have increasingly started to occupy people’s minds and are still waiting to be answered: Who is responsible for the actions of a hubot? Do hubots have some form of “hubot rights”? Should they be paid for their work? As an ever growing number of people form relationships with hubots, the boundaries between human and machine become blurred. When humans make copies of themselves, which are so close to the real thing they form emotional bonds, the questions arises – What does it really mean to be ‘human’?

Looks like one to watch for sure…

Great to experience Copenhagen and see that crazy bridge/tunnel to Sweden from the plane.

The year of making love part 2?

I have no idea what they (Fevermedia) think there up to now…

But they seem to be recruiting for part 2, cover there tracks or trying to rescue the year of making love… A friend (removed details just incase), sent this to me, I first thought it was a old email but when I looked at it again, I noticed the date was way after the epic fail which was the year of making love event.

From: Flanagain, Kerry, Fevermedia [kerry.flanagan@fevermedia.co.uk]
Sent: 14 March 2012
Subject: Exciting new BBC Three show looking for single people to take part!

I am contacting you from Fever Media on behalf of BBC Three.
We’re currently looking for people to take part in one of the UK’s biggest relationship experiments, for a brand new BBC television series.
The show will put the new science of compatibility to the test and in order to do this we are looking for single men and women that would be interested in going on a date with their perfect partner.

I have attached a flyer to this email, it would be great if you can pass this onto your students via the intranet, or display it somewhere? Anyone that is interested can contact the team using the details on the flyer and someone will get back to them ASAP.

Alternatively we’d be really grateful if you can help spread the word via your social media networks to get encourage students to get involved. Can the you retweet the link to our application stage please? Our twitter account is @yearofmakingluv
And to post the following on your facebook page please:

Would you like to be set up with your ideal date in a ground breaking scientific dating experiment? Fever Media and BBC3 are looking to fond you the perfect match! To take part please call 02074285759 or email your details toyearoflove@fevermedia.co.uk

Many Thanks,
Kerry Flanagan – The Year of Making Love
Researcher

And I’m not the only one to spot this… On the Facebook group setup by people who were there the first time, someone posted this Exciting new BBC three show looking for single people to take part!

Yes it seems Fevermedia didn’t learn their lesson first time around and want to repeat the mistake once again. But this time it might be that they stacking the deck (as such) this time to be sure? (of course this is all rumors, but if true show how desperate Fevermedia really are and serious lack of any scientific standing in the show)

My mate runs a modelling agency , yesterday he got a phone call from the fever team asking if any of his models would like to be on the tv show ..

Once again, the scientific experiment is just a washed away in the aim of creating TV. I certainly won’t be taking part, although I will be watching and researching to see what they do this time around.

Connected Studio, what a good idea…

News recently has been talking about Ralph Rivera’s Connected Studio.

Mr Rivera is set to announce the creation of a £3m “Connected Studio” project which aims to connect BBC developers and producers with their commercial counterparts, and establish a new technical platform for outsiders to build digital services around BBC content.

Speaking about the plans at the conference today Rivera said “the studio is that space where technology and the creative storyteller come together” and that it “made sense” to “create a connected studio”.

He told the audience this could see the creation of a virtual space and possibly a physical one also.

What a excellent idea…

Just the kind of thing which cuts the gap between, narrative and interactivity. painters and hackers? storytellers and architects? Something which has been crumbling for as long as I can remember.

Inspiring the next generation…

On Wednesday I’ve been invited to Albion High School for their World of Work as part of the BBC’s outreach programme. Its something I’ve always wanted to do more of but till now not really done anything about till now.

I’ll be talking with year 9, considering there options for GCSEs next year. I have roughly a hour with each group and they will shuffle around each hour. It was suggested if I wanted to give a presentation of what I do, that might be good. However I’m unsure what exactly I would present if I did…

This is consistent with the new economy of work and dare I say it rework. How can/do you explain what you do to people outside this new economy? I have this problem all the time when meeting new people or going on dates.

Most of the time saying I work for the BBC tends to throw up many more questions like “which TV show do you work on?” I then explain I work at BBC R&D and ask if they have an idea what R&D means? After a second or so, I chip in with its Research & Development. They usually start saying, “oh you research for which programme?” To which I tend have to try and explain I’m work on technology which underpin what the BBC does and will do into the future.

If I’m feeling a little more playful, I will say something like “I work in the grey area between legal and illegal, seeking out emerging technology/opportunities which hackers, startups, early adopters are working on to scratch their own itches.” Although stretching the truth its not far wrong.

So back to the main question… How best to communicate what I do and the opportunities available to the next generation?

Ultimately I’m really hoping to bring out the geek in each one of them (tall order in less than a hour), convince them they can follow their passion no matter what it may be, because frankly life is too short (oh good video to show).

I’m tempted to show i am i do the all new Google Schemer, and maybe some podcast videos then talk about different aspects of my work life/aspirations. Hopefully it will inspire some questions and if not I can ask the young people about their media/social habits?

If this goes well, hopefully I’ll do some more as the BBC does quite a lot of outreach.

A year of making love and where it went wrong

Most people will remember the last blog I wrote about the BBC Three dating experiment called A year of making love…

Well I went to the event and frankly it was a total shambles. So what happened (imho)?

I have to be careful because I did sign a contract with them, which if I read correctly did have clauses which seemed NDA like (yes I do read contracts but it was very rushed at the time and we never got a copy of what we signed) From memory it was more about exclusive use of footage, etc. And Fevermedia actively encouraged us to document our experiences for a year. From the paper work they gave us…

How was the YOML (year of making love) launch day for you – what was your experience?
What do you think of the science that matched you two together… has it done well or not!?

They even supplied free wifi on the day which did really surprise me, hence lots of tweeting, uploading photos, etc… So I’m just posting my own thoughts…

I got up and got myself ready for the 7am coach journey from Piccadilly Station. 4 Coaches were put on with males in two and females in the others. We were meant to leave on the dot so we would reach the secret venue by 10am. However that never happened as we left Manchester at about 8am instead (no real reason why, or at least explained)

Then when we finally got to Millbrook, we were left sitting in our seats on the coaches for almost a hour. Yes we were on location but each coach was sat in a formation waiting for what? No one knew, no communication, no one to ask. Coach driver only said he’s been told to wait. In the end, its was only my bladder and my unwillingness to go pee in the bushes near the formation of coaches. I personally think they wanted to do a shoot of everyone getting into the building but it just never happened.

Marching into the building/hanger to use the toilets, it seemed stupid to go back to the coach. I also had met some guys on the coach who followed me (more about them later). So we stuck around and waited in a queue of woman also waiting to register and get in.

Finally through registration and directed into the green zone to collect our wrist bands and sign the very light contract. We were given a a food voucher (a sandwich and a drink), information sheets and told to wait with other matches. To be correct, the green zone was mainly for males and the orange zone mainly for females. However, I was pleased to see some woman who in my terrible gaydar sense were homosexual. I was pleased mainly because I did wonder if this experiment was exclusively straight, which turned out not to be. A matching experiment should work with LGBT too, OkCupid‘s does.

Right after about a hour of waiting around, we were told to go into the main area. To be honest it was massive and very impressive at first. Orange (mainly women) on the left and Green (mainly men) on the right. Separated by a large isle in the middle, like a church wedding. Were were also explained this is a “scientific experiment” which has never been done on this scale before…

The idea was when your number is read out, go to either side/wing to get quickly sorted and get given a couple number. When your couple number is read out, emerge from the hidden wings, walk on to the stage meet your partner for the very first time say something nice and walk down the isle in front of the cameras. Basically they wanted to capture that very first moment when you met and the reaction as you walked away to learn more about each other next door

And to be frank for the first few hours it worked. There were some amazing matches and some great moments when people lept into each others arms, did a spin on the spot and carried the parter down the isle over there shoulders. The energy in the room from the 1000 people was great. However after 2-3 hours, the space started to empty from matches and the energy started to shorten.

Where it went wrong…

We were promised breaks but never told when they were. Instead there were long periods where they had called quite a few numbers and trying to sort out there partner numbers in the wings (once again no communication of what was going on).

Little Update…
Also worth mentioning there were doing in small batches starting from 2xxx and 1xxxx going upwards. So realistically I should have been matched very early with 2135. However they skipped over large batches at certain points. But still generally going up into towards 2500 and 1500. Of course they never reached 500.

Later the blame was pushed on to people leaving and their partner being left alone. In actual fact, if they had brought us into the arena in small batches, instead of random it would have speeded up the process no end.
People started using there phones, reading magazines and generally chatting away. The clapping went from loud to drips in a sink. People screamed for food as we hadn’t had food for over 5 hours! I was thinking about starting a shout out about this but decided better of it.

The event was due to come to a close at 6pm but we left the venue at about 8:30pm. Lots of people including myself, came by coaches but others drove and got connecting trains to Milton Keynes. If your coming from a long way, you want to make sure you get home safely (specially if your a single woman, friends were not allowed – you had to come alone). The coaches threaten to leave but were held back as long as possible. There was a air of people needed to go and they did.

Fevermedia tried to speed things up but with the false positives and the lack of excitement it became very telling. However, instead of changing things (after a announcement captured on youtube). They pushed on with the same format (they really wanted that moment of first meeting on camera), even my number got called and I was waiting in the wings to meet my partner.

Then they changed their minds (finally realising this will never work in the time) and pulled everyone to the back of the venue to read out the numbers and matches. This was very badly done (it was like calling for cattle) and done far far too late. Hence it pretty much exploded at the end with a ugly stand off between production staff and the people who had not been matched (roughly 100 people).

I like many others were peed off (lack of food, drink, sitting in uncomfortable chairs for hours on end, with very little communication about what was happening) that maybe in the room was our matches but we would never find out because they wanted to hold on to that information. At one point they even suggested a speed dating session (I hope as a unhelpful joke) which would have made the whole scientific experiment a total joke. Fevermedia did say they would contact everyone who wasn’t matched and match them over email but like many expressed, the moment is gone and after such a bad handle of the situation why would anyone want to be involved again?

The cold light of the next day

They wanted to be the largest but only matched about 350 couples? (aim was 500). They could cover up some of the holes on in post but its going to need plenty of editing and they will never get the magic 500 couple number, specially now.

It wasn’t that I was pinning my hopes on meeting the one, just that I like many wanted to meet them and felt bad for this other person who you may have even rubbed shoulders with. In actual fact, I met some great people on the day and sharing stories and experiences on the coach was interesting.

After all the trouble of the day (we got back to Manchester after midnight! I even had to direct the coach driver…), a few of us went to Tai Wu for Chinese food as we were so bloody hungry. Two of the guys I met on the coach, had met there match partners but hadn’t really clicked (yet?) so hooked up with other people. One of them came to Tai Wu with us and they seemed to be hitting it off very well. Mismatch maybe, who knows? We’ve all agreed to meet up again soon in the Northern Quarter for drinks as we swapped numbers.

For me it was a the not knowing and being in the same room with someone who might be a great match. End of the day I was more interested in seeing if it could work. One guy I spoke to on the coach home, had staked quite heavy amount of time and effort on this and was deeply upset. Some would say thats really bad but at just 18 and frankly a super shy personality, the build up and catastrophic breakdown of the show was heart breaking. I did say to him don’t confuse the show format with the actual idea of using maths to connect people. OkCupid does a excellent job (imho) but I have to date answered over 500 detailed questions. While for the show we answered roughly 50?

End of the day, I’m not that upset (some were screaming blue murder at the end)… I do fear it reflects very badly on the BBC because I heard negative comments about the show and attributing BBC Three. It was all very anticlimactic for something which started off well (even with the small problems at the start). I did feel sorry for Fevermedia specially when people were laying into them but if they had sorted out the matches and worried less about getting that on camera everyone would have been a lot happier. I’d suggest they should have done it over 2 days for such a number of people really, but I imagine that would have been a logistical nightmare too.

This further adds further weight to my thoughts about broadcast TV. There’s a sense your just cattle and don’t matter in getting the final product. Your the bi-product and thats just not right (specially felt this when they were reading out numbers like cattle). In my TedX talk earlier in the week I talked about everyone being unique and special. 500 new stories and relationships had the potential to be an amazing story but for a lot of people it was an experience they never want to be involved in again…

And with this I rip my green band off with my match number 2135. Its very unlikely I’ll be involved any further… And I’m sure my match if anything like me won’t either…