Connected Studio: Launching Phase One
Servers for Â鶹Éç Redux, an innovative research projectÌýaround serving on-demand audio and video
Late last year Ralph Rivera, Director Â鶹Éç Future Media, unveiled his vision for the Connected Studio. As the person responsible for delivering the first phase of the Connected Studio, I’d like to give you a sense of what we aim to deliver over the next 12 months, and why.
Connected Studio enables the creative community and Â鶹Éç staff to work in partnership to develop new features for Â鶹Éç Online. Today we’re launching phase one of that initiative, a 12 month series of events where external and internal creatives can get together in a room with Â鶹Éç tools and assets, and brainstorm and pilot new formats and functionality.
Focused on theÌýten Â鶹Éç Online products, the programme will make available up to £2m of investment to fund pilot projects which audiences will be able to trial.
The first set of Studio events will be based around the Homepage, Search and Navigation Products running their first Creative Studio event in MediaCityUK. Check out the call for ideas and sign-up at bbc.co.uk/rd/connectedstudio to join us at these events starting on May 4th. Once you’ve registered interest, you’ll also be kept up to date about all forthcoming Connected Studio events.
The majority of new Â鶹Éç Online features are built according to established 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. To achieve this sort of disruption, we are going to be opening up existing and emerging Â鶹Éç Online tools, a wider range of our data sources, and latest audience research (both user and market insight) for people to work with.
We want to inspire a steady flow of these sorts of disruptive ideas, which is why we’re opening this up to everyone, both within and outside the Â鶹Éç. Our initial plan is to offer up to one million pounds of investment in 2012/13 to fund external creativity, and enable at least the same level of Â鶹Éç staff time, resources and expertise to be made available for internal development. If you want to get involved or find out more of the specifics around our Creative and Build Studio events, please visit our site.
Storytelling and Technology Meet in the Studio
Douglas Birkinshaw with the Marconi E.M.I Instantaneous Television 'Camera' Transmitting The View From Alexandra Palace
Ralph Rivera articulates the vision far better than I can, but put simply the ‘Studio’ (for radio, television and film) has been, and remains, a dynamic and innovative place where storytelling and technology come together to create great experiences for Â鶹Éç audiences. This has been happening successfully for over 80 years. (As an interesting aside the first Â鶹Éç Television Studio opened in 1932).
Now in 2012, just ahead of a major point in Â鶹Éç’s history with our plans for the first truly digital Olympics, we are looking to re-envisage what the ‘studio’ means in this highly digitalÌýand highly connected world. The Â鶹Éç still wants and demands ‘places’ to host storytellers, designersÌýand technologists who bring their smart new thinking together with the latest technology and tools to inspire better experiences for our audiences. However we know these places may not be like the facilities of previous generations – in fact many of the most disruptive start-ups in 2012 operate in ‘the cloud’ working virtually with data, tools and code.
Simply, this is what we believe the Connected Studio could be - a mix of virtual open resources and real-world facilities – with a rolling programme of events and funding calls designed to inspire and deliver great ideas for Â鶹Éç Online and its partners.
How the Connected Studio will work
We will start on May 4th with the Homepage, Search and Navigation Products runningÌýtheir first Creative Studio event in MediaCityUK. Check out the call for ideas at the Connected Studio site.
In June we are working with the Weather Product to run Studio events in London, and in July we will be back in Salford with CÂ鶹Éç looking for more disruptive ideas. Further ahead, we are already planning a few special Build Studio sessions over the Olympic summer looking at our future user experience and how to make the Â鶹Éç a more open platform before launching more exciting funding calls later in year.
Through these studio events and funding of pilots we want to engage the UK tech community, from start-ups to successful digital businesses to freelance creatives, as well as staff within the Â鶹Éç, and give them opportunities to develop pilot projects both separately and collaboratively.
The ambition of Ralph Rivera, Future Media, and our colleagues across the corporation is to evolve the Â鶹Éç into a faster, smarter and more open organisation. Connected Studio represents another step towards that goal.
So if this feels like something you want to be involved in then please register your interest and follow us on TwitterÌýat . I look forward to coming back to share the developments during the year.
Adrian Woolard, Project Director, North Lab, Â鶹Éç Research and Development responsible for Phase 1 of the Connected Studio programme
Comment number 1.
At 11th Apr 2012, Kit Green wrote:I get the impression that even those involved do not know what this is.
Is it MBA blue sky thinking (yawn) or research led creativity (exciting)?
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Comment number 2.
At 12th Apr 2012, nedal wrote:good
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Comment number 3.
At 12th Apr 2012, Russ wrote:So let me get this right: having spent millions removing customisation from the homepage, and ignoring several thousand comments on the matter, the Â鶹Éç now want to pay a bunch of people to tell them how to customise the homepage?
Seems to me the fundamental error in the is the assumption that the homepage is the 'discovery engine', and that it is "the only Â鶹Éç online product that performs this role".
That's complete rhubarb. It always has been complete rhubarb. What I'd like to see is the recognition that Â鶹Éç Online users have a plurality of entry and discovery routes. Does not the proposition of the notion of 'my [Â鶹Éç] home' enforce the point?
Russ
P.S. Apropos the notion of 'my home', I did ask some while ago for a link to be added from a user's ID profile to the User Profile, but there was no response.
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Comment number 4.
At 12th Apr 2012, DBOne wrote:@Russ : 'having spent millions removing customisation from the homepage'
Interesting - do you have evidence for the cost of the implementation of the new homepage?
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Comment number 5.
At 12th Apr 2012, Russ wrote:DBOne - no I don't have evidence of the actual cost of the homepage revision - my 'millions' was figurative. It means 'a lot of money'. (I can't imagine the Â鶹Éç wanting to reveal the actual spend.)
The initial budget for the Connected Studio is 1m.
Russ
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Comment number 6.
At 23rd Apr 2012, ctop wrote:What do the people taking part in this get out of it? A previous poster mentioned the "Â鶹Éç now want to pay a bunch of people to tell them how to customise the homepage" are people getting paid to be involved or are they just looking for a cheap way to generate "disruptive ideas", dangling the carrot that you may get to work on a pilot project in the future?
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Comment number 7.
At 24th Apr 2012, DBOne wrote:#6 See point 4 here
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