Great things happen. I'm really lucky to work with some incredible people. Last week there were a few examples of this happening in my world.
The first was something rather brilliant that happened on Thursday night in a studio somewhere near Radio 1. Radio 1 exec producers Rob Lewis and Piers Bradford have been amongst the most forward thinking radio producers in all my time at the station, embracing digital and continually smashing through the boundaries. Take last week's U CTRL KATY as an example.
When offered a considerable amount of time with Katy Perry they could have opted for a tried and tested formula, a safe bet, something like a co-hosted show. But no. With nothing more than a few days to organise and some rather brief conversations with myself, Sam Bailey and Will Kinder a plan was hatched to take her off air, put her in a white room with a webcam, then let Twitter, Facebook and SMS control her.
So just let me recap there. Given the option of having her on air for an hour with a DJ talking to her, or taking her off air, putting her in front of a potentially smaller audience in front of a webcam and allowing the twisted minds of our audience dictate what she does they chose the latter. There should be medals handed out for decisions like that. It's what makes what we do at Radio 1 so exciting.
Sam Bailey's excellent project management skills were well and truly put to the test. Having previously project managed Scott Cam this might have looked like a walk in the park, and he certainly made it look that way as he talked me through his work flow on his iPad - or perhaps he was just showing off. In radio sometimes things have a habit of jumping up and biting your ass when you least expect it and if he ever writes the blog post he's promised then I'm sure he'll explain that 'a walk in the park' this was not.
Excellent joint effort between on air and online producing a moment of 'Radio' that you are unlikely to stumble across anywhere else on that dial.
Music Hackday London
Over the weekend I attended Music Hackday London. Over 200 hackers worked together quite literally around the clock making some really innovative apps. You can see the full list and try some of them out here.
As reliable as ever my colleagues David Hooper and Patrick Sinclair produced a couple of humourous hacks using the Essential Mix and Playlist data. Patricks's Essential Mix Glow Sticks tracks all users mouse movements (converted to glow sticks) on the Essential Mix page. David's Playlist Squirrel is a game that allows you to discover new music on the playlist with the help of everyone's favourite woodland animal.
TrackDropper from Yves Raimond on Vimeo.
I thought Yves Raimond's Track Dropper was brilliant. It is like geocaching with tunes. It's something I've been wanting to do with our content for some time. The closest I've come was at Big Weekend this summer when I dropped a load of links to shows from the festival around Bangor via Foursquare.
Another one worth a mention (all of them are worth a mention but it's getting late) was Earth Destroyers. Using the Songkick API it looks at the journeys travelled by bands on tour and maps out their route from gig to gig. Some bands plan their tour in a way that ensures they fly as little as possible, whilst others happily zigzag their way across the planet giving little if any thought to the amount of C02 produced as a result. This app lets to does all the maths for you. Very simple. Very clever. Stand up U2 and bow those heads in shame.
Big up! Sam Bailey :)
Posted by: Sam Horner | September 07, 2010 at 02:55 AM