events

Digital Engineering: A New Approach to Digital Delivery

This week saw the launch of PanLogic‘s digital engineering survey findings, looking at the state of planning maturity in the digital sector – manna to this digital strategist! William Makower, Panlogic’s Founder says:

To draw a parallel from the construction industry, clients work with architects and quantity surveyors before putting out a tender for the build. It is not the builders who plan and design the building.

You can request a copy of the research on PanLogic’s website.

Panlogic have defined the term ‘digital engineering’: the provision of independent advice on strategy and digital business change. The crucial element here is independent – if you buy (or usually get bundled-in or ‘free’ advice) from a digital agency, not surprisingly, often their recommendation is to build ‘stuff’ that their in-house development teams can deliver.

Highlights from Panlogic’s survey of digital, commercial and marketing professionals:

Clients lack confidence in their digital strategy
40% of clients flag issues relating to their readiness and confidence in their digital strategy – this is likely to be because most businesses have organic digital growth, not a strategic road map.

Projects are not integrated
Most clients have worked on multiple digital projects in the last 2-3 years, creating risk and complexity around duplication.

The outcome horizon is short-term
66% of projects need to deliver return-on-investment within a year. This places pressure on delivery time frames and potential compromises user experience.

Digital can’t get no satisfaction
Overall client satisfaction levels are pitiful at just 30%. 70% of clients commissioning work are not happy with the end product.

Managing external agencies is difficult
50% of clients don’t have the capability or capacity (by their own definition) to successfully articulate requests and manage the relationship with their digital suppliers. 50% of clients would consider outsourcing their stakeholder requirement development.

I attended the launch of this research at NESTA. As part of an interesting round-table discussion we talked about the slow maturation of digital industry: the industry is slowly growing-up and getting better at defining and selling what it can do. Clients are better understanding what they want, but not always how they need to request and get it.

Outsourcing digital delivery is a mixed bag: the skills to successfully manage outsourcing companies is often lacking, even in specialist digital agencies. Ethically, I don’t really agree that we should be off-shoring skilled digital jobs to other economies when Britain has the potential to deliver best-in-breed digital work and grow skills and create jobs.

My main take-out: I feel the digital sector needs to get serious about addressing dis-satisfaction and get real about delivering results. You don’t have a 70% disatisfaction from a wedding planner – so why can other sectors define and deliver great customer service, and the digital industries, more often than not, cannot?

Digital engineering is a progressive concept which I hope businesses will start to embrace and adopt. I look forward to seeing more self-defined digital engineers helping to shape a better digital service sector.

For more on the digital engineering research, see PanLogic’s website.

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digital consultant‘s 2Post methodology provide independent advice and guidance on your organisation’s digital strategy- setting the cart (technology) firmly behind the horse (your business objectives). For information on develop and growing your business’s digital strategy with digital consultant, get in touch today

Westminster Media Forum: TV bites back and dual-screen viewing

On 31st Jan I attended the Westminster Media Forum event: TV Bites Back – dual-screen, viewing, social media and the power of the schedule.

A collection of top industry speakers from the TV and digital TV industries presented their view of the future of TV, in which interconnected digital and social media services are nurturing new audiences for on-demand content, communities of TV fans and sharing TV content. This in turn has created ambitious TV programming linking the ‘first’ screen (TV) with immersive and engaging experiences online (dual-screen).

Linear viewing is dead, long live linear viewing

It would appear that the digital future of viewers watching TV media on mobile device, tablets and laptops is finally here. But along with flying cars and space-suits, current TV watching trends are still rooted in the broadcast. Indeed, the big Saturday night TV spectacle (X-Factor, Strictly et al) has seen a resurgence in popularity, where ‘dual-screen’ viewing has created more demand for immediacy and real-time engagement between fans. Heaven forbid I miss another final of The Apprentice. Social media fear of spoilers is forcing TV fans to organise their life around the broadcast schedule, as it did before the internet came along.

Simon Terrington (Terrington & Company) believes TV 2012 is much the same as TV 1997: the same players and the same types of shows. Past predictions were wrong – Saturday night TV is still fully linear. Research shows that dual-screeners are actually usually doing other unrelated things (digital distractions). Researching the show you’re watching and voting only occupy a small amount of time, for a small amount of the overall audience. 75% are not dual-screening, of which 75% are not engaging with the show (although I would argue that a 6% digital engagement is very high) . Phil Redmond, legendary soap svengali and creator of Hollyoaks and Brookside, believes that 50 percent of a good soap happens off the screen, like over the garden fence or in the papers. The 2012 equivalent of this is GetGlue, Facebook, or Twitter.

Sir Peter Bazalgette (MirriAd, Nutopia) believes that in today’s diffused one-eyed media landscape, mass media is king. The first Big Brother saw bookies taking more bets on first eviction night than the races. Rapel’s Law believes that innovations in media add to its landscape, not detract.

I’ve seen this reflected in my work with other creative forms like music: as genres become more dispersed, audiences rely more on gatekeepers and taste-makers to inform their consumption choices. For TV, this means BBC, Channel4 and SkyOne continue to be serious influencers.

This theme was echoed by John Tate, Director of Policy & Strategy, BBC, who talked about research which showed the serendipity of video reduced with on-demand (dilemma of the celestial jukebox – what do you play next?). Developing better recommendation tools is the next phase for services like iPlayer. I wondered if a Last.fm style video scrobbling service will emerge.

Tom McDonnell from Monterosa (who develop cloud systems for interactive TV projects like The Million Pound Drop) believes two-screeners are more attentive, engaged, share and buy more. Wireless broadband has shifted the landscape. Portable devices like the iPad mean TV can be consumed in any room, space or place. The radio phone-in was an accident created by a US radio DJ who talked to his friends between records, then switched on the mic. Dual-screening can create new models of interaction to re-invent TV content.

If you’re still miffed as to what the big deal is about dual-screening, Monterosa have a very cute and engaging animated video which explains all.

Steve Bignell from MediaCom believes the dual-screening world is nascent. The deal between Zeebox and Sky, a hot topic at this event, impacts on product placement and panning out how this will work for non-Sky content (although Zeebox’s Anthony Rose was keen to point out Sky only own a 10% share in the company). Longer form shows (serials and longer duration) with peaks/troughs work better for engagement than special interest programmes. Lean back, entertainment TV is still vital for the TV economy.

Ilse Howling from Freeview believes the water-cooler moment is right here, right now, but there is a generational split: younger audiences discuss Masterchef recipes on Facebook and analyse together the final death scene in Sherlock. ITV2’s ‘Take Me Out: The Gossip’ was the most tweeted show last week: humans are naturally curious and gossip loving.

Tony Broderick from FremantleMedia (creator of the X-Factor ‘clapometer’ iPhone app, taking the traditional voting idea to a new platform) believes to succeed in the connected social TV viewing landscape, producers need to bring character and narrative to social media experiences, along with editorial voice and TV talent.

Tess Alps from Thinkbox believes programme-makers and broadcasters need to get perspective: put more effort into making first screen great and engagement will follow. We are seeing the emergence of ’T-Commerce‘ – TV becoming a direct sales medium through AR apps, QR codes and retailer apps. She offered some useful research data:

- 27% of people have found out online about a brand/ad seen on TV whilst watching TV
- 40% of evening UK tweets are about TV (depressing!)
- 300,000 Tweets were sent before, during, after Sherlock, representing 2% of viewers

If content is king, the consumer in King Kong

…or so Steve Plunkett from Red Bee Media believes. (Well, it just isn’t a media conference without an obligatory ‘content is king’ reference, even 10 years on!). TV technology innovation has accelerated since 2000 – not from TV devices/manufacture but web (YouTube, iPlayer). We have yet to fully exploited the intelligence of the internet for TV. Connected TV content enables more choice, more interactivity, and making TV more than just video.

Anthony Rose from Zeebox (ex BBC iPlayer boss) still believes the media’s role is as trusted authority: BBC news don’t just report but create the news. TV manufacturer is now about device maker – like Apple and Google – who want to become the new taste-makers. What Zeebox audiences want is more traditional than cutting-edge - help me find things (content, like adverts or other TV shows) rather than do things (technical features).

Panel discussion topics included:

- Engagement – those who do dual-screen, rather than being distracted are actually more engaged
- Why do we have collective viewing only for cinema or sport, why not watch Sherlock in pub (I’m game for that!)
- We are developing a new type of 30 second spot, with the principles of fun and interactivity
- In the in-flight entertainment industry, how do airlines make their screen the ‘first’ screen – add social element and people will want to join the mile-high club (the KLM ‘meet and seat’ app is kicking this off)!
- Word Clouds were used as a meaningfully way of analysing sentiment around TV discussions in social media
- Do we sound like the music industry in 2002? (I’d say yes)
- The second-screen is more likely to have fragmentation of devices, apps, spaces – this presents challenges of developing standards, development costs and getting a critical mass of audience for services

As TV advertising is at its highest level ever for sales, clearly the UK TV industry is doing something right. Making great TV, and investing in innovative, interactive and engaging mechanisms for interacting with that great TV, is ensuring that the UK is at the forefront of the international industry.

This was an inspiring day and showed the TV industry is in a period of growth and innovation rather than stagnation. I did however think the tone of some talks was a little bit too self-congratulatory: yes, people of many different ages are engaging with TV content on different platforms, but be wary that there is a whole new generation of viewers who aren’t acquiring the habit or love of TV viewing at all, and prefer to become active producers rather than consumer, choosing more interactive forms of media to fuel their creativity like computer games. Ignore them, programme makers, at your peril.

See more Digital Consultant articles on cross-platform (TV to digital) innovation

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Today’s Digital Consultant Links for March 29th

These are my links for March 29th from 01:03 to 01:35:

Taking The Tablet: 15 Ways Publishers Are Re-Imagining The Magazine – Great set of video and text articles looking at how publishers are creating new work and experiences for tablet readers (including Adobe AIR and iPad) which provide rich, multimedia ways for users to interact with texts and advertisements to create enhanced experiences which complement the high value and branding associated with the magazines. The aim being not merely to provide content but experiences which can be monteized.
The Democratization of Video Content Creation – Visible Gains, the monetizing video service, sing the praises of cheap, portable HD cameras like Kodak Zi6 and Flip as a source for creating competitive advantage in the organisation: "buy handheld high-definition cameras and distribute them to your best spokespeople and writers. Today’s evolving marketplace requires that you create compelling content to engage your clients and prospects. These are wonderful tools that jump-start the process." My own HD camera weapon of choice is the affordable Kodak Zi6 (c.£70), an HD camera recommended to me by several video bloggers. With free edit software included, there really is no excuse needed to star video blogging and reporting on what your business does.
Mediacamp Nottingham: social reporting from CreativeNottingham.com – Yesterday I was live reporting the Medicamp Nottingham (a digital media barcamp) event for my online community site CreativeNottingham.com. This was my first experiment in 'social reporting' – using online tools to capture and disseminate an event. Our experiment was all about real-time reporting – capturing as close to live reports as possible. This included using 'CoverItLive' to live blog key talks (which were updated in realtime on the website), very quick event reports (my the end of the day I'd worked out how to report, photograph the room and upload the blog post by the end of each session), short audio and video interviews with speakers and delegates and photographs uploaded throughout the day. We used our community website www.creativenottingham.posterous.com as a repository for media content. A good (tiring) day, lots of lessons learnt as to how to do it better next time.
Does The Times’s New Paywall Add Up? – June 2010 (presumably after the election) will see a landmark event in UK online publishing: The Times will sit all their content behind a paywall costing online readers £1 day (the same cost as the print edition. Ouch). Commentator Nick Thomas at Forrester Research looks at the economics, which is likely to see a reduction in readership to a tiny 60,000. The Times believe the niche, commited readership will still attract quality advertisers. This is a significant event as other news publishers will be likely to either follow suite or move to freemium based models (under discussion for The Independent) embracing building larger pools of readers and online audiences. Murdoch may be a brave fool with this move, yet he may also have hit on a way to change the online economy – force those who value to pay.
Women in TV: the missing 5,000 – A shocking report from the Edinburgh TV festival showing that 5,000 women left the TV industry last year, versus 750 men. The festival's panellists irated the audience by suggesting freelancers should pull themselves together, whereas many women feel the inflexible working practices mean that women are simply forced out of the industry when they want to start a family. The TV crisis is unlikely to see any major changes in working practices but hopefully sparking a debate will put the issue at the forefront of agencies like Pact and Skillset.

The Age of Stupid: Climate Change and Community Film Distribution

Today is Blog Action Day when bloggers the world over unite in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. This year’s theme is climate change – not something I usually cover on the digital consultant blog, but low and behold yesterday’s Power to the Pixel conference, the international forum for exploring cross-platform production in film, gave me some unexpected inspiration.

I attend a fringe event in Birmingham organised by Screen WM which screened highlights of the main conference in London mixed with some localised discussions with an American producer and distributor back in Birmingham.

The highlight of the London speakers was for me Franny Armstrong and Lizzie Gillett, the two film-makers behind indie-hit documentary Age of Stupid, a landmark film that aims to change the world’s thinking on climate change, seeking to engage 250 million viewers with a limited team and marketing budget, in advance of the Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009.

Armonstrong and Gillett felt there film was just too important to them – and too important for the planet – to be distributed in the conventional way, and the hard deadline of 250 million viewers in advance of December 2009 was ticking away. Funded by their own community, the pair kept all the distribution rights and negotiated their own way of getting noticed outside of the monopoly of distributors, cinemas and sales agents.

They organised an eco-friendly launch premiere in Leicester Square, London, with celebrities heading up the ‘green carpet’ and politicians speaking through a satellite link-up to many UK cinemas, creating a live, distributed event. The global premiere on 21/22 September 2009 linked up Downtown Manhattan with the Himalayas and other global locations with a live set from the UK by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke - showing you don’t need to fly celebs across the world to have a premiere – low-carbon style.

The most interesting innovation was in the distribution of the film. The producers steered away from cinemas and allowed community groups to show the film in their own centres with an online booking system set up called Indie Screenings for communities to programme their own event, making use of digital distribution where possible to save carbon and shipping costs. To date the film has seen 781 screenings in the UK alone, with roll-out of the site aiming to reach global audiences this year, and with the potential to develop the site later into a portal to support other important British or social films to enable wider distribution.

With a budget of just £500K utilising an army of volunteer evangelists and on-the-ground investors and helpers, the film has now beamed out to 45 countries and the team have struck deals to show the film in NHS hospitals, schools and the British Council.

Clearly the producers learnt lessons from Al Gore‘s climate change film An Inconvenient Truth which aimed to create a film that was distributed for social good rather than profit. But for me what is equally interesting is how a social cause can stimulate new forms of distribution and audience for digital content. Despite operating in a non-profit way, economic opportunities may arise for potentially a whole community of film-makers in the UK from this type of approach.

There were several other interesting other speakers at Power to the Pixel discussing cross-platform content in film. Slava Rubin from indie film-funding service IndieGoGo talked in Birmingham about how promotion for promotion’s sake was a dead art – every piece of content created in the film’s marketing must be interesting and relevant. The future of film is truly digital; as DVD sales decline from a $20bn business back down to zero, the reach of digital sales will be meteoric. We need to build a generation of ‘audience connected’ film-makers who can make direct connections – and seek direct sales – with their audience who may influence the investment, the content and the production.

Lance Weiler, director of Head Trauma, talked about films in the future being less about content – and perhaps the majority of the benefit gained from the social interaction with the content – like related ARGs or social networks tied into the film’s universe.

Rachel Mordecai talked about brand-funded films, striking deals with sites like Platform and Stardoll (the no. 2 website for teen girls with a staggering 214M users) synergising brands withentertainment content. She creates a story universe then hits ad agencies and brands direct whilst seeking a production company. Online video is a tiny ($0.7bn, compared to TV video advertising, worth $70bn) market but growing rapidly. Online video needs to immerse audiences immediately, with brands investing in the engagement.

Power to the Pixel in Birmingham was the first distributed event of its kind I’d attended. Unfortunately I don’t think it worked too well – there was too much telling and too little discussion, and the Americans leading the discussion were no doubt terribly clever but far removed from the types of opportunities and challenges those back in the West Midlands faced. Also watching a screening of an event is somewhat fatiguing after a few hours – like being stuck in a cinema all day. However, I think bringing this kind of higher-level thinking and engagement outside of London is important but to make a virtual event work there needs to be more engagement (a twitter stream or questions from Birmingham to the London speakers would have been awesome) between the different venues.

How social media shortens the gap of opportunity

A few weeks back, I was the guest speaker at the inaugural launch of Nottingham Girl Geek Dinners, part of a worldwide network of local events bringing together women technologists for chat, networking and – importantly – dinner. As a general rule I don’t like segregation in networks but in the high tech sector there’s definitely a need to provide alternative places and spaces for discussion as invariably there’s usually one one women or two in the room. I found the Nottingham Girl Geek group – a dozen or so working in broad fields including web design, PR, programming, usability, open source and education – to be friendly and overall welcoming – really diverse chats I don’t usually have at networks focused on sharing, learning and even occasionally knitting.

My presentation was about social media for business – a similar theme to some recent speaking gigs for DMEX in the North West but this time with a bit of girl geek and historic slant. Here’s the presentation.

I don’t really see myself as a social media evangelist – I’ve been too long in the web industries for that kind of bandwagon-jumping, back since the first dotcom wave and my days in the music biz when the rage was guerrilla marketing, us record exec minions seeded chatrooms, assuming aliases of teen skateboarders, tweenies and rock dads to sell the latest CD (yes kids, people still bought CDs then).

Rather I see social media as a new name for an old thing – like chat boards, newsgroups or forums – it’s just a newer more technologically sophisticated means of using digital tools to communicate – socially or for business. Online video and audio – as eulogised by @documentally et al – is yet another exciting means of creating many direct one-to-one and one-to-many interactions. Although the technology may not save the world itself, the accelerated serendipity and increase in openness to communication (as much a society as technology phenomena)helps us all to address our own personal, social and business goals. This is perhaps as closely related to the rise in the mobile phone as much as the growth in broadband. This can include political campaigning (like the MPs expenses Facebook campaign), creating your own news radar and bypassing corporation (see the decline in newspapers) and marketing a local micro-brand internationally.

But the interesting dinner discussion we ladies had was about how social media hasn’t so much changed everything as speeded it up. In the old days contacting A meant knowing B. Email made finding out who and where was easy (eliciting a response though, now, harder than ever). Social media means those who choose are open to conversations and ideas more readily and easily than before. Twitter and Facebook create small interaction which are less formal than a direct business contact by phone, letter or email. If you play it right, this small talk can more readily lead to medium talk (then to business). But don’t mistake small-talk for actual business or social networking replacing marketing (or even work).

Creating your own support network is quick and easy; seeking answers to questions, finding a supplier or partner more rapid and robust than ever. Social media shortens and accelerates the gaps between people and links up opportunities. Sometimes it fills the gaps to with meaningless twitter and chat, so we need mechanisms for filter this out (not an information overload but a filter failure) which is the next big challenge.

Girl Geeks dinner nottingham

Thanks to Elsa Bartley (find her on Twitter as @marmaladegirl) for organising it all. Here’s a photo from the night c/o PaintedGhost – see the Nottingham Girl Geeks Dinners website for more photos and details of next event on 3^rd August. See you there!

Digital Engineering: A New Approach to Digital Delivery

Westminster Media Forum: TV bites back and dual-screen viewing

Linear viewing is dead, long live linear viewing

If content is king, the consumer in King Kong

Today’s Digital Consultant Links for March 29th

The Age of Stupid: Climate Change and Community Film Distribution

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