BBC Innovation Labs, Part 1

Last week we were invited to attend the launch of the BBC's Innovation Labs 2008 – a competitive scheme to encourage independent new media companies to pitch innovative ideas and concepts for further development and commissioning.

Matthew Cashmore (the development producer running the project) encouraged attendees to blog their journey through the application process, and always being ones to join in wholeheartedly, we're taking up the challenge.

We popped over to Salford Quays for the event – it was the first time I'd been to the Lowry, and it's really quite an extraordinary place. At the moment it has a slight air of a really modern, architecturally interesting building which has landed in the middle of an industrial construction site. It didn't really have a 'buzz' around it – maybe the chilly autumn day had put off the day trippers, but the only people around seemed to be a college art class, sitting around sketching the buildings. Obviously over the next few years this will be changing dramatically, as the area becomes home to many new apartments, businesses, and the BBC itself.

The morning session was very interesting, as several of the key BBC team talked about their future media (I suppose new media has to stop being new at some point) infrastructure, strategies and the changes they have coming up over the next 18 months. The introduction to their use of personas when planning projects was very useful – it's something we have done informally on a number of projects already, but having a more comprehensive and formal structure for this can only be of benefit.

We were also introduced to the word “archistructure” - at the time we weren't sure if it was a mis-pronunciation of “architecture” and “structure” or if it was a hugely modern and important BBC buzzword. Whichever – we liked it immensely, and have already started using it in meetings to demonstrate how cutting edge we are!  

They were videoing the presentation (presumably to go up on the Labs website at some point), which (me being the shy and retiring type) meant I didn't ask a couple of questions I might have done otherwise.

We were also introduced to the briefs, which ranged from very open to much more specific. One of the biggest challenges I think we'll face when coming up with ideas is to think of something totally original and new. There are lots of bright people working at the beeb, so any obvious ideas are out - we'll have to come up with something pretty special to make them go “wow”.

Unfortunately we had to leave midway through the afternoon for an emergency urgent client meeting, so we missed the final part of the day (personas workshop and feedback). One of the perils of being a busy and active company!

Our next step is going to be to brainstorm some of the briefs, and take a look in detail at what the BBC is already doing in these areas, so we can narrow down our process. Luckily the closing date isn't until January, so we're planning on having a pre-Christmas wind-down creative session, to see what we can come up with. We'll try and keep blogging progress here, so stay tuned.

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