Interesting Stuff: BeebCamp 2
We like to think we're an innovative bunch here at the BBC, and so events like 'BeebCamp' are a very important part of what we do.
The first BeebCamp, held last year, was a resounding success. Last Wednesday saw the second unconference organised by BBC staff. Taking inspiration from the popular BarCamp events, BeebCamp is designed as a collective, spontaneous bashing together of ideas, with no set structure to the day. In attendance were mainly BBC employees, but with a few external thinkers invited in for good measure.
Sadly, the BBC Internet Blog team couldn't attend, but thanks to the plentiful amount of bloggers in attendance we needn't miss out on the chat.
Roo Reynolds has written this great round up of the day's themes, events and conclusionsN.B. This is a link to last year's Beebcamp. Apologies - Ed.
Ian Forrester, from BBC Backstage, has posted a selection of videos from the event. Here's a discussion about what we should do with the official @BBC Twitter account.
More of Ian's videos can be found on the BBC Backstage Blip.tv channel.
Rachel Clarke, senior project manager at twentySix London, provides a non-BBC look at proceedings with her round up.
Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, ran a session on User-Generated Content (UGC) and blogged his thoughts here, recalling events on the now infamous snow day:
The BBC famously got 60 000 people sending in pictures and video during last month's snowstorms but, as I asked, why not just stick it all on Flickr? Why bother with all this stuff?
The answer from the technologists was various. Firstly, it must add value. There is enough content on the Internet already, the BBC shouldn't add to it just for the sake of it.
Photo by Steve Bowbrick
Jason DaPonte left BeebCamp with an idea burning a hole in the back of his mind: Would it be possible to have a pre-pay BBC?
Jason writes:
Would this water down the quality of our content? It could. And that would be a disaster; but I suggest that we would only allow ideas that clearly deliver public value and were true to the BBC purposes and values into the system in the first place to avoid this. Yes, we still need commissioners and editors to perform this function - I'm just proposing a more direct and accountable connection with audience members.
Could it work?
No chance, says Nick Reynolds:
Underneath it is the argument you sometimes hear from people who say "I only like Radio 4 and Radio 3 so why can't I just pay for that?".
The answer is "because there probably aren't enough of you to fork out the millions of pounds to keep them on the air".
Philip Trippenbach says maybe, but with some restrictions:
I'd say widespread, constant community polling is a great thing and should happen. But I don't think the number of viewers who are prepared to pay for something should dictate whether it gets made or not. It should be - and is - relevant to programming decisions, though.
While you're on Philip's blog, check out this post for a tidy round-up of blogs about issues discussed at BeebCamp.
You can take a look at the reams of photos taken at the event here (or by using the slideshow at the top of this post).
Attendees and others have been busy tagging BeebCamp-related articles/blogs on Delicious -- find them here.
And finally, see micro-reactions via Twitter here.
Dave Lee is co-editor, BBC Internet blog, BBC Online, BBC Future Media & Technology.
Comment number 1.
At 00:32 24th Aug 2009, bretdriver247 wrote:"We like to think we're an innovative bunch here at the BBC, and so events like 'BeebCamp' are a very important part of what we do."
Sounds great!
Thanks a bunch....
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)