Hugh Garry

Become an Expert

This week I went to Beebcamp2, which was brilliant. Content producers and tech people thrown together for a day of discussions and thinking around subjects of their choosing. It was great to see a few non-BBC people invited too. People like Adrian and Dan from Six To Start, Charlie Beckett, Suw and Kevin Anderson and Rachel Clarke.

I ran a couple of sessions around subjects I’ve been giving a lot of thought to recently. One session I ran was around collaborative storytelling. I chose this not because I’m an expert in the field but because I want to be. The idea of becoming an 'Expert’ in a field is a challenge I set myself every year. In fact, I set myself the goal of becoming an 'Expert’ in 3 fields every year and I’m lucky enough to have a job that allows me to do this.

I feel I must make clear at this stage what my definition of an 'Expert’ is as it may differ from yours. To me an expert is someone who can talk authoritatively on a given subject from having lead a project on it. An expert is someone who went out and did it. It does not mean I have infinite knowledge of the given subject or that it would be my chosen subject on Mastermind should the unthinkable happen and I find myself one day sat in the leather chair. For me it’s about being in a position to share knowledge with work colleagues who are eager to know more based on true experience. If you follow this definition then with a little ambition becoming an ‘Expert’ should be relatively easy. Everybody is an expert in something. They just don't realsie it.

When I told a group of people last year that they should become experts they looked at me blankly, like I'd just asked them to do something far beyond their capabilities. But I wasn't. I was asking them to do something new, something they have more opportunity to do at the BBC than they will have at virtually any other media company in the world.

So how do you become an expert? I'd suggest the following...

• Be interested
  I’m always asking people ‘what are you working on at the moment’, ‘whose blogs are you reading’ or ‘what was the last thing you saw that really blew you away’. Someone much smarter than me said that a good way to be interesting is to be interested. Read magazines you wouldn’t normally read and speak to people working in different fields than you. If you don’t step outside the area you know then you are unlikely to find anything new to be interested in. Chances are there are enough experts in your area already.
• Be passionate
  Passion is the greatest tool in anyone’s toolkit. Full Stop.  I wouldn’t exactly say that you can do anything with passion alone but it’s the first thing I look for in people and has got me though when I’ve lacked in other areas. If you’re passionate about a subject becoming an expert in it is easy. When I told a former colleague I first went to see U2 in Manchester in 1982 see told me the date and the venue instantly. It was remarkable how she could have stored such information and retrieved it so quickly. Her expertise was built on passion alone. Imagine trying to accumulate that sort of knowledge with zero passion for the band. It’s unthinkable
• Do it
  Don’t just talk about it – do it!!! The best way of learning is doing. In the past I’ve committed myself to projects as a way of ensuring I become an expert. Committing yourself to something you know little about puts you in a ‘no turning back situation’. Commit yourself and the decision is taken out of your hands. You’ll be an expert before you can say ‘why the hell am I doing this’.

Sharing knowledge has become a big part of my role recently. I spend a lot of time doing it and I love it.  When I come out of a meeting knowing that I’ve just helped a producer or team reshape their thinking on a project based on my ‘expertise’ I get a huge rush of excitement. No, don’t laugh… I really do. It’s the same ‘punching the air’ moment that many of my colleagues have when they see a rise in unique users. There have been occasions when I’ve transformed projects with the simplest of insights gained form doing. I love it when I know I’ve saved a producer hours, days or even weeks of work by sharing a new way of thinking based on my experience.

And that is why the BBC is such an incredible place to work. Not only do I get the opportunity to become an expert in a multitude of disciplines, but with such a diversity of networks, shows and digital output the place is bursting at the seams with ‘Experts’ whose knowledge is ready to be tapped into. I came out of BeebCamp glowing with delight at the learnings from the day. Almost every single person at every single session had something to say that made me think. It may have been someone leading a full session or someone contributing the simplest of sentences, just enough to make them an ‘Expert’ by my definition.

As my role at the BBC is all about creativity and innovation I’m always interested in new ways of thinking and I always ask the Radio 1/1Xtra Interactive team to try 1 new thing for every event they cover. If the answer to the question ‘Has this been done by the BBC before?’ is ‘No’ then that makes becoming an ‘expert’ within the organisation easier. This year my goal is all about encouraging members of the team to become experts. If everyone in my team becomes an expert in 3 fields in 2009 the BBC will benefit hugely. Collectively we will have worked on 30 innovative projects and created a database of knowledge in 30 areas for the rest of the organisation to tap into. Repeat that across Radio 2, 3, 4, 5, 6Music, Asian Network and Switch then the simple idea of becoming an expert becomes a very powerful force indeed.

If it Doesn't Spread, it's Dead.

I really enjoyed this white paper by Henry Jenkins called 'If it doesn't Spread, it's Dead'. Interestingly it was funded by the members of the Convergence Culture Consortium, including GSDM Advertising, MTV, and Turner Broadcasting.

Some really interesting stuff on the evolving nature and re-contextualising of media as it circulates within our culture and how this may be seen as something separate to a meme or viral which merely 'passes on'. Phrases such as memes and viral media suggests replication of the original idea, ignoring that ideas get transformed, repurposed, and distorted as they pass from hand to hand. He prefers to refer to it as 'Spreadable Media', something that changes shape as it follows a journey. A view that goes against the idea of sticky media.  Members of the Radio 1 interactive team may remember me referring to this as 'Slippy Not Sticky' in my awayday talk last year.

It goes on to look at the metaphor in more detail and talks about power relationship between the producers and consumers.

"The metaphor of "infection" reduces consumers to the involuntary "hosts" of media viruses, while holding onto the idea that media producers can design "killer" texts which can ensure circulation by being injected directly into the cultural 'bloodstream'".

Our audiences are no longer passive consumers that simply pass on messages at best? Often marketers and media companies would like to think so in hope of keeping their message pure. Relinquishing the power of the message is still something they struggle with and will continue to do so for some time. He also talks about 'viral DNA', a myth that I talked about in this blog post.

Worth watching and certainly worth taking the time to read the full white paper. Having said that, and despite all its great intentions, I won't be able to include the video on my blog because it's not embeddable. Or in other words, less spreadable. It's less remixable and difficult to help evolve.

So I'll take this opportunity to post 'Kittens Inspired by Kittens After the Dentist' instead. A great example of Spreadable Media showing how this and this became the what you see below.

I Want One...

I don't care what they say about it.

Happy to be Second

So, Shoot The Summer (a film I made last year) has been shortlisted for 2 awards. The first being a MediaGuardian Innovation Award and the second being a Webby (the Oscars of the Internet apparently). It's great news and I'm happy in the knowledge that I probably won't win either.

I have this knack of coming second, it's what I do best. And I'm cool with that too. It all started when I was in scouts. I picked up 3 silvers in one swiming gala (backstroke, crawl and breaststroke) and I think that set a trend for the future. An ARG I did a few years ago called Frozen Indigo Angel narrowly missed out on several golds and was part of the Sony Silver Award we picked up for Radio 1's Big Weekend interactive offering, whilst Band in your Hand suffered a similar fate in numerous marketing awards. 

I've watched many people getting upset at not picking up the big prize at awards and find it amusing. It's as if all of a sudden being second/third or even fourth best in their field is failure. The Webbys receive 10,000 entries each year so to be up there... well put it this way, it's better than digging a hole for a living. I'm chuffed to bits and am in no way embarrassed at being so.

Besides, if I did win I think I might start getting worried that it was a sign that my ideas were thinning, diluted to an extent that they could be explained easily in the 500 words you are allowed on your entry form. If I could do the ARG justice in 500 words then it wouldn't have been much good to begin with. Similarly, Augmented Reality has to be experience to be believed it's that incredible, no words can ever do it justice and neither can this video.

Having said all that if this doesn't win gold at the Sony's then then I'll eat my swimming certificates for dinner. It's a simple idea executed brilliantly by the team, filled with showbiz DJs and stars, being judged by 'Radio' people. Big stars in videos is much easier for a judging panel to get their heads around than The Fratellis performing live in your hand. It should be right up their street.

Lyddle House on the Prairie

When Russell came up with the brilliant idea of crowdsourcing a model village of the future (2050 to be precise) I thought it would be a great opportunity to get my fingers sticky with some UHU and the Hornby Terminus Office Building he kindly popped in the post.

Naturally my early thoughts centered around internet connected appliances and eco friendly structures. But in 1988 Talking heads released their last studio album, which had this brilliant track on it.

David Byrne's tongue in cheek vision of not being ready for a green future shaped my thinking around Lyddle End 2050, spinning my thoughts into a much deeper and darker direction than is natural for such a positive guy like myself.

The first bit of construction was building a Spotify playlist that would help me shape my vision. Thanks to the brilliant collaborative nature of their playlists everyone can add a track to the playlist. Feel free to chip in regardless of how different your vision of Lyddle End 2050 is from mine. It will be interesting to see how it ends up

So... as I said, it all gets a bit dark from here on. We all dream of a green future, but what if it was forced upon us at a rate we weren’t ready for or willing to accept. What if factories started vanishing before our eyes regardless of their economic health. High street names we know and love started disappearing, not because of a financial collapse but because they were forced out of business by the new green police for not adhering to extreme government policies. 

"This was a Pizza Hut. Now it's all covered with daisies...I miss the honky tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens... And as things fell apart nobody paid much attention"

Planes are grounded, car production brought to a halt, roads replaced by fields, alternative energy sources failing under the weight of demand. As the song says “If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawn mower”

Here's a glimse of my house in Lyddle End 2050. The solar panels on the side of my house haven’t worked since the riots of 2035 and the metal fronting on the front is protection against the looters and The Green Police. The collapse of the IMF, and the subsequent closure of the world’s banks, prior to The Environmentalist Party taking power leaves us living in a Mad Max like lawless state.

Everyone carries a gun. Everything is locked down. Everything has to be taken by force. In Lyddle End 2050 nipping next door for a cup of sugar takes on a whole new meaning. If you’re not fighting off The Green Police for imposing a 1 child per family limit you’re shooting your neighbor for stealing apples form your tree. We asked for a green future and we got it.

As for fully connected appliance and the internet of everything... well... The internet in 2050 no longer exists as we knew it. Our faith after the first 5000 days was somewhat misplaced. This article in Wired about the man who 'broke the internet' coupled with the vulnerability of 'The Cloud' made me think about how totally insane the whole idea of the internet is in the first place.

"It was the ultimate hack. He was looking at an error coded into the heart of the Internet's infrastructure. This was not a security hole in Windows or a software bug in a Cisco router. This would allow him to reassign any Web address, reroute anyone's email, take over banking sites, or simply scramble the entire global system"

We were one good hack away from surrendering all our secrets and the great hack of 2045 gave one man more power than all the superpowers combined. As a result our fully connected world disconnected piece by piece faster than you could say "Can I have an Oyster Card please". Fibre optic cables were ripped from under the floors and we couldn't smash RFID enabled possessions quickly enough. TVs, gaming systems, fridges, cookers, phones, items of clothing, bank cards, doors, windows, clothes, toothbrushes...

We spent 45 years teaching everything we owned to talk to servers without ever giving a second thought to what it would be like if those servers fell into the hands of one man. He knew our every move... and I mean our every move. He controlled the internet, he controlled what was left of the banks and he controlled our houses remotely. We couldn't brush our teeth without him knowing how many stokes it took and we couldn't put food in the fridge without him knowing the fat content of each item. Once again paranoia took hold and the only way to deal with it was to destroy everything.

So, my Lyddle End 2050 house is an unconnected steel structure, a hollow shell surrounded by over grown trees and fields, protected by guns and free from possessions. Still, it has a wicked soundtrack. Can't wait for the street party.