B.tween Day 2
MadeByPi™ recently attended B.tween over in Manchester. Chris attended on the first day and will be posting his thoughts later, but in the mean time here are some of the goings on from Day 2...
Sitting in the auditorium the abundance of Macbooks reminded me of a recurring nightmare (trapped in a room full of designers!!) and suggested that perhaps this was more of a creatives event but I endeavoured to pin back my ears and take it all in. I was kicking myself for not bringing along my own laptop (battered old PC for us lowly account managers!) as people started to chat in the b.tween chat room. Having the live commentary on the big screen once the speakers took to the stage was a nice touch and a good stimulus for debate and questions.
I’d have to agree with Chris that the timelines system was a really nice touch if only because it meant I could put away my pen and paper and click away as the speakers began the day’s proceedings. Jon Newbigin made some interesting points about how digital technology can often take much longer to establish itself in the mainstream than early adopters predict. Perhaps more importantly, he suggested that the impact of this new technology is often more far reaching than originally predicted. Google and Ebay were two examples from the web that immediately sprung to my mind whilst the, until now sluggish growth of mobile internet may also be a case in point in years to come. See Jon's Talk Here
Kaiser Kuo from Ogilvy China provided an interesting perspective on the growth of the country and challenged that western media and institutions were ‘barking up the wrong tree’ with their continued calls for the removal of the ‘great firewall of china’. Kuo passionately made the case that all too often the focus of criticism is on the censorship of western publishers within China when it is surely more important to ensure that Chinese citizens have greater freedoms within their own online spaces. He also pointed out that the government imposed restrictions were far from impenetrable and that many Chinese people felt that some restrictions were needed. After years of communist rule, Kuo suggested that to open the flood gates to free speech may be counter productive in a country which is not yet accustomed to free thinking. See Kaiser's Talk Here
The two other sessions I found most interesting on the day touched on the emergence of cross-platform projects. Aggregators and Integrators explored the removal of the ‘middle man’ in the value chain and the emergence of cross platform media projects covering, online and TV with detailed audience data at the core.
Matt Locke from Channel 4 Education later discussed forthcoming projects including ‘The Insiders’ in the Cross Platform Innovation session. In the breakout session which followed Matt made an interesting point about the need to define the relationship of any social media projects in a language that can be understood across creative disciplines. He offers his ‘Six Spaces of Social Media’ as a framework;
1. Secret Spaces (SMS, IM)
2. Group Spaces (Facebook, Myspace, Bebo)
3. Publishing Spaces (Flickr, YouTube)
4. Performing Spaces (MMORPGs, Sports, Drama)
5. Pariticipation Spaces (Meetup, Threadless, CambrianHouse.com, MySociety)
6. Watching Spaces (Television, Cinema, Sports Theatres)
