#1000flowers

Will says we’ve seen people pretending to be TV presenters today, but nothing really hyperlocal. So – with Will displaying an adroitness at one-handed typing – here’s an example of hyperlocal video.

Corby; welcome to hell

Almost none of Will’s hyperlocal sites do video, they don’t need to. Engaging in local debate might not mean TV, it might mean thinking with a local radio mindset. He’s hoping we’ll see a new debate on regulation – all he did while in the civil service was pile more regulation in.

He thanks to Rick to organising today. Gives an unabashed commercial plag for talkaboutlocal.

And he stops.

Doesn’t want to do a history lesson – but is going to…

Ranting is part of the English revolutionary tradition. Says we’re at the beginning of a revolution. With parallels from 300 years ago. It is only now that we’re seeing the liberty of print again. The chaos of the higher power is the web. There’s a do it mentality – for rural broadband, for the problems of our own time. Exactly as our forebears do…

An exerpt from Mr William Bragg, “St George’s Hill”. But…

The regulatory panel members showed that there are possibilities for partnership.

One of the biggest problems is broadband speed, esp. in rural areas.

Go back to 1620s/30s/40s. In times of crisis we turn to our own community. What fascinates Rick about the Diggers is how the story of what they were doing got round the entire country – like had not been seen before, with the pamphleteers. Ideas spread by the new press, allowing ideas to circulate, and you can see it those every changing communities the changes we see today.

Things to do: Build networks, forge unlikely friendships (even with engineers) , cultivate networks, cultivate HMG, chase and embrace brands.

There’s a vision – MyDoorway.to/Loddon – trying for a common treasury, building content channels and maybe monetise.

And now… “You got a friend in me” (RandyNewman)  The Rt. Hon. Eric Pickles (MP)

So: Big Society – putting a Flip in front of our local representatives, and if they don’t understand their local communities put in people who do.

“For action is the life of all, and if thou does not act, thou dost nothing.” Gerrard Winstanley.

@MrRickWaghorn is proud to be a Ranter…

(NB: naming on speakers particularly shoddy on this one – if I’ve got it wrong, comment…)

Pete Kirwan: Wondered how much of the local news paper industry is salvageable. Big differences in quality. US expectation was that large numbers of groups would go down, and the grassroots would emerge. Top down provision looks misplaced… And shareholder drive for consolidation. Those factors might mean no enormous potential for hyperlocal… Gaps between larger market coverage, and over long term space for independents to flourish, and task will become easier not harder. Remains to be seen how many independents enter Mr Parry’s tent…

Rick: Shows Oldham podcast coverage of motability scheme, with local business messaging… John Eccles explains they use the podcast to precisely target oldham/saddleworth -with (?) a national Ford ad. remixed with local content. Mixing Ford ad. with local story.

Adnams guy: We need to make sure our advertising isn’t interruptive. Make our advertising part of the Adnams experience. Our main site is a blog, we produce our own YouTube videos – and we’d love to advertiser within local news sites that attract our audience. We’re building it, because it doesn’t exist.

Q: How do you do measureability for commercial content? Conversions are the new metric – how do you get your head round snipershot content?

A: Says that’s difficult to answer… EG: Adwords spend miniscule, return miniscule, so it’s about working with producers to find the mutual balance. They send out product advertising emails, backed by a blog post with video – the better the video, the better our conversion

Phil – 80% of revenue in home improvements goes to local companies.

Q: Is the six thirty slow becoming less useful?

A: Yes. They use twitter, it’s free. They can communicate with those who want to communicate to us. And our content is consumed throughout the day – they get more response in the day.

Will Perrin invades from the floor: claims not to know how to monetise his site, but shows us how high his site comes for “tesco kings cross” and “nandos kings cross”. How can he engage with those extremely large companies…

A: The key is one step on – Google adwords will get them those eyeballs, if hyperlocals have valuable content that’s better cos we’ll be part of the experience, not tacked on.

Q: What is good content?

A: That which is interesting and engaged on. Bad content is blogs which strip RSS feeds on other blogs… Good content is whatever I’m looking for. Maybe sport.

Q: Quentioner used to do PR for Adnams…. She thinks real and relevant stories are capturing the stories of the villagers in Southwold.

A: Struggles with finding the time to produce the content.

Alistair Brown

STV a commercial PSB, STV local, internal project name STV anywhere – they don’t mind how people consume their content. Now on YouTube, for audience beyond locality – seeing interesting things there. Also aiming at PS3 etc. Interested in all the experimentors, Patch has similarities to what they’re doing. No, we don’t know where this is going, we’re learning from UX, we’re launching sites that map to local authories, pilotting with 6 sites in North Lanarkshire. Experiment, evolve. Hiring journos, expanding, aiming for 25 sites live by Xmas. 20% of Scottish population by Xmas.

Collaborating with local individuals for content provision, with editorial infrastructure. Investing in quality, with supporting hierarchy, and relationships with local authorities and commercial and public sector organisations. No legacy, no print to worry about, aiming at inclusiveness, and open.

David Milne

Every area has a community editor, who know the area intimately, support from team of camera operators, team of local researchers to ensure data is accurate, and supported by regional editor and then overall editor and board oversight. Accountable, but enabling. Inclusiveness very important, reaching all the people who have a role, including existing groups… Not everyone is confident at communicating, so we build workshops and build skills so people can submit content via the website, pro-am approach to devolve story-telling skills down into the community. Also responsive to the needs of the audience. Flexible and organic – local authority levels contains communities, and they’re open to those comunities, inc. the ones who cross geographic areas.

Video is part of the story, but it’s part of the content, using the best medium for the story. Local TV reaches out from the STV local site – can move up and down channels, might reach regional or national news, and national content can move down as well…Hyperlocal and community editors serve as an early warning network for stories. Local operators covering a population of 500k, items made into bulletins, distributed across the web, but move up – the primary thing is distribution through the web.

STV local extends local choice, invests in communities, works in partnerships…

Q: How have the public bodies reacted?

A: Ourselves and colleagues have done hundreds of meetings, this is public information, all we’re doing is pulling it together,…

Q: Interests me that the patches match local authorities, therefore very focussed for communications budgets…

A: No surprise, it’s a very sensible way to split down. It’s all about choice, they’re getting positive feedback because they’re a new way to get to specific areas.

Q: Where’s the bar for quality? Online provider or elsewhere?

A:  We need to capture the stuff on highquality broadcast quality, so it can be taken elsewhere… Eg the submarine story – we had global contacts for that.

From the floor: quality irrelevant, it’s about the importance of the content.

Q: Can you show us how it works?

A: Yes… For mobile, it automatically pulls in content relevant to where you are… Here’s Cumbernauld. Huge success in getting content out of the community, passing the lessons round. Nothing is below their radar.

Q: Confirm the local content editor sub’s and publishes the content?

A: Yes. Trusted contributors have potential to move up the chain…

Caroline opens… Here to discuss the vision for the future of local TV… These are people who are making it happen right now.

StreamExchange.TV (Fi Ryder), MyCornwall.tv (Dorian Spackman),  TribeTV (Lou Mains), LichfieldBlog (Philip John),  Oldham College (John Eccles)

Fi Ryder: streamexchange.tv digital video agency, Northampshire TV information based channel. Public sector support, local commercial sponsorship, future is about content… Single platform plays are going to have problems. Spectrum isn’t the be all and end all – streaming not broadcasting.

Dorian Spackman: 90% of what I can see on screen is irrelevant. If I’m in Penzance I’m in a region which goes nearly to Birmingham. But the realities of Cornwall is that it’s a collection of hyperlocal areas. Their approach marries economic advantage for very rural areas – employment, training. There’s local training opportunities in “TV” production, but not jobs, they aim to help sort that. Also aiming to represent hyperlocal communities and give them a voice. Very grassroots. Interested in understanding how we address the hegemonies.

Lou Mains. Commercial sector. Publishing content to niche audiences… Clients want video, and need to reach audiences, PR can find those audiences. How can we help you?

PhilipJohn. Interested in how content creation happens?

John Eccles. TV from the students…

Q: How do the commercial models work.

A: Dorian – it’s very painful… We still need pump priming… Philp – we’ve been lucky, we put Addiply on and we reckon we’ve got good content. and we only accept relevant advertising. If we kept it relevant, it’d work for video… It’d be a no-brainer.

Q: Will Perrin – would any of you want to get on the spectrum? Will it ever be worth it…

A: Dorian: Not paying 2 million quid for a sky channel was a good thing – and there’s 10M Cornish people online. Fiona: it’s about convergence, and people will consume content through the medium of their choice…

Sits in a strange hinterland in the digital space as a creative… Thinking how to bridge a fascinating transitional time. Not to be a speech full of answers. Hoping to think of the two ends of the debate. Not how to make local media, not going to talk policy, bu to talk about the dynamic.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing we are about to hear if Ofcoms views. It is personal, entirely what he thinks, and not from any private knowledge at all. Perspective, not insight.

He’ll talk about analogue regulation in the digital age… “slightly connected”… a slightly flattering description of this. He’s a maker of things that are interactive and participatory (Not user generated, but made…) Co-created 4docs, about the future of film-making. Now from Lewes, which attracts “not radical radicals”

“What is local media anyway?” Continues to be a revolution in creative potential. Easy to go too far with that… Availability of the ability to publish doesn’t make artists, but is important. More important, is the attention economy. Attention used to be about distribution, not any more. So what happens… The value is where stuff is scarce. So, now the value is scarcity. The rise of Google is about directing attention. And we allow them to charge us for that. The large media properties are bigger now, because they can get more attention – but there’s a long tail.

Mostly nobody cares about what is created. The thing about irrelevance is that everything is irrelevant until I focus on it. 4 years ago, he didn’t care about small children – now he does. He’s about to become a governor of a school… Content/issues relevant to you create communities of interest – niche content.

There’s two perspectives. Top-down. A legacy of where we come from, and economy and regulatory models are topdown… TV/newspapers as defining paradigm.

Then there’s the bottom-up perspective of blogs/communities/etc. (Something in there in about Big Society, although we don’t know how it works…)

What is it _for_? (He won’t be ranting about local TV as it is now…) They echo the national – whyso? Same story, different filter… Not sure it’s working anyway… His local newspaper doesn’t hold  anything to account anyway… Generally, it advertises car boot sales.

So what are the issues? Information/comment/news… Sport comment proves local media is alive… Then all the questions about news. Not objectively verifiable. Novelty is not news, news is what people think is news therefore political.

Not really about cost. Partly about access. Partly about search/discovery. Not necessarily about keeping people there but linking – Google gets rid of you fast, therefore is the Platonic ideal of a website. Quality and accuracy can be issues. Is this true, is it accurate. Gets fixed largely by the market – not in my interest to be rubbish at this. (Maybe not if there are dominant regional players…

Issues about comment? Trolling. Even more opportunities to shout! Comments sections are for commentors, not consumers. 1/9/90 – it’s not even that. Even smaller than 1% comment and argue. Tiny community of commentors. We have replaced the Groucho Club with the guardian comments section. There’s a literacy problem – commentors don’t necessarily read, and may not be able to write… Lack of serendipity. You comment amongst those who are like you. and then those diametrically opposed come in and shout at you. Logical conclusion: Tea Party. (Business model of Facebook is to bring you together with people like you. Sharpens difference with those who aren’t…)

Issue about news… Accuracy and impartiality (Don’t listen to this bit) Genuinely are questions about impartially, and we have it good in the UK. Chilling moment when you surf a UK site, and the word Rubicon appears. Live, in real time, articles disappear… (eg. Nobel peace prize) How do you fund investigation – woodward and bernstein weren’t amateurs. Think about the implications of ownership and plurality. And how good is the stuff? The creative and journalistic capacity. Facility with the kit doesn’t make you a story-maker. (Ob. disclaimer: this blogger is an excellent example of this…) We are waiting for a media literate generation.

Interactive media brings participation… Communities of interest and therefore maybe collective action. Rhetoric of social media turns out not to be so. You need very strong ties to want to affect change. eg civil rights movement. Social media ties are weak. Like buttons are easy… Not to denigrate.

Top down approaches… Make the existing system work – IFNCs. Local TV debate, broadly about re-tooling the existing system. Content absent in current debates… Talk about mechanisms and regulation, says it’s a meal but no real substance. Because we don’t really know. Massive faith in TV as a platform – is this really a smallscale platform and therefore fit for local TV purpose? New rules on local government media spend. Cancelling Teachers’ TV and Kent TV. Analogue approaches for digital problems. If you want to see someone elegantly sitting on the fence, it’s Nick Shott’s letter on the DCMS website… £25M not enough to make digital TV work locally. Also spending on rural broadband without mentioning content.

Bottom-up approaches. Empower activists is good, but don’t get caught by pilots. Job is how to mainstream. Pilotting is the long grass… Massive difference between activists and mass markets. Activists are early adopters. Need to be capacity building. And to work out link between networks and content. If we are to deliver rural broadband pilots, maybe we need digital planning? And what’s the self-reinforcing business case?

1) What is local media anyway? (What is local anyway?) What are its objectives? and how can local media achieve them?

2) Step away from the technology… Do not fixate on tech.

3) Think about commercial models. How do you fund local content and service creation?

4) You must also build capacity of active participants and media literacy for all. (4docs had several hundred docs. and not one was rubbish… ) YouTube is a skip into which you put media and some floats to the top…

5) Think about commercial radio, not local TV…

6) Understand prominence using brands and discovery capability of mainstream media – mass reach of big brand – not just their distribution power. Prominence can come from partnering with existing brands/publishers. Easy to forget…

7) Couple high speed broadband to local content.

…and that is a loosely connected set of thoughts….

It’s often claimed that the best part of a conference is the coffee breaks – where you meet up, deconstruct what the speakers have just said, discuss it, mash it and mix it with whomever you happen to be standing next to.

An unconference takes this one stage further…

During 1000flowers there are two slots for formal unconferencing.

We’ll start with a blank agenda for these two slots, and 5 break out areas where people can meet.

What we’d like is for people to come to 1000flowers with an issue they wish to discuss, experiences they’re happy to share, or simply a question they really want to ask. Then at the event: pick up one of our post-it notes, and place your session on the agenda – in one of the break-out areas, at one of the time slots. If someone else has a similar session, feel free to merge them.

Rules?

1) If you propose a session – do please turn up to it. (But see below)
2) If a session does run – can someone record it in some way to share later? (Just 3 bullet points is enough for a wrap-up: obviously blogging it afterwards would be even better.)
3) If you find yourself in a session, and you’re not learning or sharing – just leave and find somewhere where you can. (It’s the “law of two feet”, and noone will be offended.)
4) if there’s only two of you in a session and you’re learning and sharing – that’s fine. (However many people are in a session is the right number.)

More at; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Space_Technology