Immediately after the session, I made an Audioboo thinking about what I’d heard and how different the mood was from a similar session at Brighton last week:

16:08 Absolutely packed session on the Creative Industries at the #nesta fringe meeting in Manchester

Jonathan Kestenbaum says opportunities and barriers are great; lots of issues to discuss; about 5 mins from each panelist. Then discussion.

Timforchange Just realised martha lane fox is on the panel, great online entrepreneur. 

Martha Lane-Fox

16:09 Digital is exciting but more technical people  don’t always have the necessary levels of business acumen – so this is a key issue not to be forgotten.   Digital inclusion is ‘hyper-relevant”. It’s right and it’s economically valid. Unlocking more people and including them unlocks more markets.

16:10 Creativity can be unleashed through inclusion. [mentions her activity as 'semi-royal visits].  Deprived iner city wards can also particpate – example of Knowle West near Bristol and www. greenfootprints.org; an initiative of Lil – a gardener who created gardens and new media with young people – this is a great initiative for the local economy and society.

16:14 Timforchange Martha lane fox recommends social action project between elderly + youth see www.greenfootprints.org.  

Simon Waldman – Guardian Media Group

16:15 Fear and excitement characterise the media over the past few years of radical transformation. Very exciting and very scary.  Need smart innovative start-ups as well as MSM – need to help media businesses trasnform.

Three specific things to highlight:

• BBC and good governance; need to make sure BBC behaves well
• A more liberal approach to newspaper ownership; especially cross-media
• The world and ecosystem of search and content aggregation

Tremendous times to live in. And possibility of great growth -[ but care needed to preserve what we've got].

Sue Woodward – Sharp Project and Manchester’s Commission for the New Economy

16:20 Second biggest media hub in UK, lots of radio, lots of old and new media. 100,000 students. 60,000 people in hardware and software. 87,000 people in creative industries.  Important is the continuing commitment from City government. And Manchester has a major internet exchange. Sue mentions importance of new investment of new networks. Need to expand the infrastructure of the City Region.

16:22 Digital infrastructure needs significant investment to create new businesses and new jobs. Needs infrastructure Capex which cannot come from existing infrastructure. Needs intervention. [Audience approves, perhaps, certainly reacts!]

Jonathan Kestenbaum says we need politicians who have been ‘out there’ in the real world – introducing Jeremy Hunt as someone who qualifies for that description.

Jeremy Hunt – Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

16:24 Started as a publisher and we concluded that the internet would ‘kill’ course directories. So we became an internet company. Spoke to Martha [laughter] at lastminute.com [she obviously has no recollection of this at all].  It’s exciting and there are opportunities. Internet can transform the lives of non-technical users. Anecdote of his Grannie and ‘the Silver Generation’ using a chat room. Groups of people can be lonely and the internet can make powerful connections.

16:24 Timforchange Jeremy hunt went to get advice from martha lane fox, when setting up his company ‘hot courses’. She doesn’t remember.

16:26 There is a broader internet phenomenon which is about the democritisation of innovation and the creation of a new ‘Trade Route’. For the UK this is a huge opportunity and if we get it right we can capture the opportunites. Our regulation is too heavy handed – Communications Act 2003 is not sufficient to deal with the reality of the internet. Media ownership rules are not helpful to new business models.

Need to ‘de-regulate on a massive scale’.

16:29 Intellectual property is an issue and we won’t vote against Mandelson’s bandwidth throttling plans.

16:30 Need new models for local media and we need to look at the potential for local TV – we are unusual in not having our own local TV stations.

Need much faster development of fibre infrastructure – ducts need to be open; like the developments in France of opening up France Telecom’s duct infrastructure.

16:33 Timforchange We need to make much better progress in getting uk connected-roll out of high speed broadband. #cpc09 #nesta

Now moving on to Questions and Discussion

Martin Smith Ingenious Media – alarming talk about the Digital Economy bill not going through. The creative economy is £58.3 bn. Need to get a bi-partisan approach to the bill.

Richard Mollet BPI – tax treatment of IP and innovation is to change. Any comments from Trasury colleagues?
[Couldn't hear name] formerly Dir of Innovation and Strat NHS choices. West Midlands SHA contract on local TV and Health? Any joined up thinking?

“Top-slicing of the licence fee is mad and we won’t support it” – Jeremy Hunt MP.

Sue Woodward makes the point that we can use technology to save cost and help people live longer in their own homes.

Q from Debbie in York (via internet) – about media ownership – but it’s about the print industry being able to consolidate geopgraphically.

Q from: Nick from Channel 4 – re cuts in public spending. How can Govt spend be used to drive innovation and improve health – example of Maverick TV.

Q from: Andy Cook – who represents Magazine Publishers. Cites importance of Google search – a real concern because of the power of Google.

Q from: Jeff – Quadriga Consulting – how can Governemnt act as an exemplar of how to use digital media?

Jeremy Hunt – “The money has all gone and we need to recognise that”

Hunt continues; need to create an environment that supports risk taking.  Government can be an exemplar in the sue of IT. But we need to learn the lessons of failed government IT contracts. Mission creep results in over spend.  Need small-scale projects that can be innovative and result in useful new initiatives not strangled by bureaucracy.

Sue Woodward gives example of Sharp Project – ’spend buttons’ but get new space from an old warehouse. Doesn’t necessarily need big money. Needs more basic conditions and flexibility.

Simon Waldman – Google does not invest in content in the UK. They are an innovative business. They have grown the internet in the UK probably better than the BBC has.

Martha Lane-Fox. Google is concerning and needs to be watched. But has no solution. Maybe we can encourage diversity in search-engine use?

Q from webcast re tax breaks and tax take from internet users to be ploughed back into new developments.

JH says ISPs are ruthlessly competitive. Can’t see price going up.

Martha Lane-Fox says tax credits made no difference to lastminute.

Q from: Caroline Deal – Media trust – any plans for joining up by taking young people ‘off the dole’ and helping them to be creative and become a new gen of digital and social entrepreneurs?

Q from: Ian Forrester from BBC SW (via internet) re ‘bandwidth throttling’ causing a problem with innovation.

JH says Welfare to Work will incentivise creative industries to create new jobs.

Sue Woodward – some educators see media studies as ‘not proper’ needs a change of tone as they can support new educated software engineers and physicists – creating high value jobs.

[session ends at 1700]

I live blogged this fringe event on 29th September, one of a series of meetings being hosted in the Fringe of all the party conferences.

Immediately after the session, I also made an Audioboo with some immediate thoughts and some reflections about being at the Fringe of a Party conference.

12:34 The Creative Industries are a ‘key’ sector at the heart of the recovery, says Jonathan Kestenbaum and we need to understand how they can make a contribution and some of the opportunities and risks we face.

12:36 Peter Bazalgette

Opens with remarks about RAI and Berlusconi. Involving the BBC in too much politics is a mistake. Parties all have a policy on the BBC. PB Supports Bradshaw on top-slicing of the BBC. But top-slicing needs to go into quality, not tired regional news.

“There is no digital dividend” – most media companies don’t see what theor business model is anymore. This is a big problem.

“We need as much ‘nudge’ as ‘fudge’” on the management of digital rights.

12:40 Needs better balance between ‘pay’ and ‘free’. ITV is commercially challenged. Product placement is marginal but does improve the position for advertisers. Medium term prospects for TV uncertain. Bur longer term it will work.

Professional content will always be attractive to advertisers – this won’t change. Training is a major issue, he says and it’s getting worse.

12:43 Richard Wilson – TIGA

Games sector makes an important contribution to the economy and is very export focused. Important role to play.

In the games sector qualifications are higher (80% at degree level) and average salaries are higher than other sectors at £30k.
Sector is growing globally but contracting in the UK. Poor supply of staff is the issue. Need incentives.

12:50 Miranda Sawyer

Public Money is often a hindrance to progress. But there is a role for public investment in the arts. We tend to under value our capabilities in this. Example of Liverpool as the Capital of Culture – drove investment in the city. Public money is needed in education and in big projects. Public money can be used to attract private investment and stimulate the economy. But it’s also about stimulating well-being.

12:53 Ben Bradshaw

The assumption is that the creative industries are re-shaping the economy. He thinks this is true. Every fringe event at this conference on creative industries has been ‘packed out’. Hears the pleas for support from people like Richard Wilson.

12:56 Creative industries are ‘not a luxury’, they are central to the economy and to our heritage. Museums very important also.

But how do we defend our creative value in a global economy? How can we make sure artists get compensated for – £180m a year ‘lost’ through illegal file-sharing. Digital Britain bill will reflect the unity of the musicians who made announcements last week. It’s an important issue. Bill will be brought forward in this Parliament.

Universal broadband access is an important aspect of the bill – this is something that the market will not provide – he says 40% of the country can’t get it. Needs to go further than 2 MBbps – need universal NGA through fixed-line levy. We need to understand what support there may be for local news – re-use of digital switchover money – BBC won’t get it anyway.

13:02 Training opportunities are key to the Government’s approach to Digital Britain – society wins and so do individuals who will be trained.

Culture is not a ‘luxury add-on’ – they contribute to the economy £1 spent of culture comes back as £5 in economic contribution

Now moving over to Q&A

Colin Tweedie – Governor of University of the Creative Arts. Vitality of the creative universities – they are worried by the potential cuts.
Q re product development and merging the Film Council and Games Council.
Q from Gary Townsend from Skillset. Future jobs in creative industries; need to think of supply of new talent but what about CPD for the existing workforce?

Sawyer says that the more ‘modern’ universities will demonstrate their value over time. A law degree from Oxford is one thing but it’s a bit of a stereotype – so dpn’t worry. Quality will out.
Bradshaw says that Universities will continue to be funded and they are capable of identifying the courses needed. New skills will come through – media studies not as ‘airy fairy’ as they used to be.
13:12 PB says training of ‘high-level’ graduates (not apprentices). HEFCE’s in meltdown and meanwhile Skillset is being cut.

Q re ‘cutting off’ illegal file-sharing from a woman from Ofcom – hierarchy of sanctions
Q from a writer and producer (Carol Haymann?) re rights deals on digital broadcasts

13:15 Bradshaw – hierarchy of sanctions will come into force needs to be funded by rights holders. PB says “it will never work unless we do a ‘nudge’ at the same time”.

Bradshaw says it’s an education job as well. Wilson says pirated games are running at 3 pirate copies per 1 gane sold in some cases.

Broadcasters need to be held accountable says Carol Haymann (radio producer and writer). We generate little money from repeats on BBC7 for example.
13:20 Sophie Jones from Channel 4. About C4’s role – Digital Britain is ‘bang-on’ about the importance of C4 public ownership to preserve support of new digital companies.
Nick Hull from 118118 – we’ve spent years trying to offer services at a reasonable price over mobile and have failed. How can creative producers do that?
Wilson asked to comment on 118118 question. A lot of games businesses would like to ‘self-publish’; broadly optimistic about business models for content suppliers.
PB mentions Moor’s Law. But there’s “Less’ Law” – which is that as content proliferates lower revenues result.
Sawyer says ‘free model’ will kill newspapers.
Bradshaw sums up – the market cannot guarantee all – BBC is a good thing but it needs to be more sensitive and recognise its effect on the whole media landscape. BBC governance structure doesn’t work. Much private sector activity benefits from the economies of scale of the BBC. But we need to re-assert the legitimacy of the BBC ‘with every generation’.

[13:30] Meeting closed.

We’ll start with Alastair Campbell’s opening address, detailing the theme of the event, ‘Innovation in Action: what does it mean?’.  Keep refreshing this page for updates to the live blog.

09:48 Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s pre-recorded message is screened, thanking the civil servants for their efforts and indicating the financial crisis.

09:50 Alastair Campbell is introduced as our host and he is appreciative of a short intro.  He notes that he was asked to speak about his time with civil servants, and after initially refusing he decided to accept but now wants to sell his book outside!

09:55 Campbell tells the story of his first dealings with civil service as a new government minister.  It took him awhile to adapt and he felt that his PA was loyal to his predecessor.  Tried to replace her initially but he was unable to replace her. Then as time went by and they worked it out, he found her indispensible and was one of the few people he could not do without.  He received the same loyalty his predecessor had done.  This is the practice of the civil service: the assistance and access to information and resources that would otherwise be extremely difficult to access.

09:59 Campbell notes that in times of crisis – Diana’s death and the Omagh bombing given as examples – the civil service machine simply kicks in and communicates, feeds, supports and facilitates all that is required to deal with the crisis.

10:01 Civil Service machine necessary so that the actions of the government can be executed.  Yet the public service ethos is under significant attack in public mindset.  This means civil servants become far too defensive about the good things they do.  The very fact that you go in to the civil service there is an understanding of the public service ethos and work ethic.

10:09 When it comes to the changes in the structure of government, implications are substantive for the civil service.

[[JJ's note - lots of story telling here but not actually sure where we're going with this.  Apparently Campbell is trying to make civil servants feel happy about themselves, but not sure whether he's dancing around the issue of forthcoming widescale change in the civil service, or whether he's just promoting his diaries!]

10:16 Around the world there is surprise that there is such a small circle of special advisors around a minister. Those special advisors are not independent but they are impartial, and thus there is a mutual understanding and respect for the tasks and responsibilities they carry out.

10:19 Any bigger organisation has to have some strategic element and there is no larger organisation than government.  The only way we can respond to serious issues is to operationalise the benefits of a well-run department of special advisors.

[JJ's note: still don't know what Innovation in Action is meant to be.]

10:22 Number 10 on Campbell’s list of things you have to do to make the machne of government work is: “Encourage innovation in an organisation in a non-blame culture”. If civil servants feel that they have an opportunity to improve the outputs of ministers they should be able to do so – going above and beyond what is expected of them.

Question 1: Media and politicians direct their attention to old media and not enough to new media. [YAY!]

AC Response – media is completely transformed. Biampbell worries less about both new and old media as people are generating their own understanding of what is happening. Need to ensure the core strategy is strong, clear and understood internally and that all media are being used to transmit messages.

Question 2: How far do you think the media generally understand what the civil service is and what it does.

AC response: Understanding is not deep but they don’t really care about that. Journalists rarely are interested in the activities of the civil service because it is rarely newsworthy. Civil Service need to communicate their functions themselves in order to ensure raised morale and recruitment quality.

Question 3: Look forward to reading the book. If you are to be a footnote in history, what would it be?

AC Response: A FOOTNOTE??? To be frank, I can’t see much thinking about what I will be remembered for.  Because we are a democracy you remember a leader for their programme changes across a range of areas.  You don’t remember individuals within the team outside of the leader.  Campbell believes he was able to make some changes in communication in part because of changes in media.

Question 4: If there’s one thing that slows things down in civil service it’s ‘getting sign off’.  How do you circumvent.

AC Response: Errrm.  A well run department is one with clear direction and leadership and which works well.  Yes Campbell occasionally circumvented process but only as a privileged advisor.  Yes it’s frustrating, but sometimes, taking the time if it’s necessary is a good thing.

Question 5: You said if the brown smelly stuff hits the fan, you should stick your head above the parapet.  What do you mean by that?

AC Response: When things go bad, you take a lot of hits.  You need to still be there because it’s better to take those hits and to explain, apologising where necessary and to set out a forward plan.

Question 6: How do you ensure interest in modern media age?

AC Response: politicians with the abaility to speak clearly in 140 characters and have authenticity and candour will be more attractive to new media.

This time tomorrow we’ll be knee deep in the Amplifed09 London event. All the details went out in the last newsletter to everyone who signed up via Eventbrite. For anyone who missed it or is just plain interested how tomorrow runs here’s the main part of the newsletter:

Amplifed09 London is taking place at Tiger Tiger on Haymarket, Piccadilly, from 2:30 – 7:30pm.

Details of the venue can be found here: http://www.tigertiger-london.co.uk/

You can find the venue on Google Maps here: http://is.gd/kemH

Tiger Tiger is itself a restaurant and bar, so you will be able to buy food and drinks at the venue (and party on after the event) and entrance is, of course, free.

If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to add any topics you may choose to convene at the event wiki at: http://amplified.pbwiki.com/London09.  Even if you don’t want to convene a session, do check out the topics to see what conversations you want to participate in.

We don’t have a specific timetable set up for this event yet, as we plan to adjust this barcamp-style at the event.  But if you are limited in the time you have to devote to the event, feel free to add a preferred time schedule to topics through the wiki.  There may well be some topics that go beyond a single session, so there should be flexibility to explore all the topics that are relevant to you at the event itself.

As for the overall structure, we’ll have two plenary-style sessions: the first at 2:30pm, to go through the resources and options at the event, and another around 5:50pm for forward planning and feedback.  Both plenary sessions should be less than 20 minutes in duration.  The sessions themselves are a standard 45 mins, with 10-15minutes between sessions for networking and placement for your next session.

If you can’t make it to Amplified, please let us know.  There are a bunch of people who forgot to register who now desperately want to come and are on the waiting list.  With 290 people registered already, we need to release some of those places if you are unable to attend.

Thanks to Joanne for the newsletter and to you guys for all the session topics up on the wiki so far. Smaller groups than at Amp08 mean more conversations and while we’re quite happy for more than one group to tackle a single topic (as we did at the ICA with the Future of Online Video) we also want to keep you busy on as many different topics as possible while we have you! We’re also expecting some lively discussion around the topic of Digital Britain…

See you tomorrow!

It’s actually a fair call.  Shirky has probably been in social media longer than most of the people on the Digital Britain Steering Committee and he’s certainly done a lot more to convince businesses and government officials alike of the value of new media.  But Shirky himself is an academic, and he’s not as connected to the British technology business scene as he’d need to be to really deliver on a costed, and tactical Digital Britain report.

But the Amplified collective are connected to British business and the social media, technology and creative scene.  We are the kind of people who should be participating in this kind of decision making because we collectively have experience across a wide range of sectors and we can cost projects, connect with providers or services and think creatively about how to solve access and participation problems.  We make decisions about the values and problems associated with interfaces, protocols and infrastrcture every day.  We mediate connectivity and we filter for meaning.

In short, the Amplified community are probably the best qualified group of industry professionals to advise on digital policy in Britain today.

But we weren’t asked to contribute prior to the publishing of the Interim Report at all.  And where we have been asked to respond – as all British residents and citizens have been given the option to respond – it is in writing to the Digital Britain team, or by participating in TED-style Digital Britain summit events across the UK in April and May.

If Amplified’s ambition is to make the UK into the most connected (and perhaps connective) place on the planet, then we need to be involved in the decision making process here because we actually know what is going on.  We’re not a bunch of disconnected researchers and policy wonks, but creators, entrepreneurs and networkers who can best advise on how to pull off a strategy that will actually result in a genuinely Digital Britain.

I’m suggesting that Amplified set up some topics in the regional events in February and May (and in between) that can actually help solve universal access to broadband services affordably and efficiently, and that focus investment on social media technologies and services that will assist the British economy.  Let’s show them how it’s done.

Other than that the rest of you are all there!

On the 21st we’re at the ICA for a morning of conversation around the future of online video. We’ve kept the title as broad as possible and we’ve got around 60 or so attendees, which isn’t too shabby for such an early start. With just a little over 24 hours to go I’ve added a bunch of possible conversation starters over on the wiki to kick things off. These were just off the top of my head and there’s plenty of crossover and probably one or two things that no one but I would be interested in. Do please feel free to add more.

As well as being fascinated by what a room full of social media practitioners can come up with after a few hours chewing this over, we’re also using the event to consider how a sit-down-cafe-style suits Amplified09. We’ve secured a range of venues for the events in the first quarter of this year and we’re aiming to have lots of small groups within them (as some of the smaller gatherings at Amp08 worked better than the really large ones). The point is to be conversational and avoid simply broadcasting as much as possible – so we’ll be using the opportunity to try out a few different scenarios over the course of this year. We’re still learning as we put this together and of course the input we get from all the attendees is something else we need to factor in.

If one particular topic is over subscribed then we’d rather have two sessions run than a single one where not everyone gets to participate. The power of Amplified events is that we’re already getting some very smart people together and the real value is in how they interact – not how good they are at sitting and listening (there’s a calendar full of regular events for that).

We’ll also be trying new ways to capture the event. We’re not sure how the ICA will handle a lot of live streaming, but we will be using video where possible along with the ‘one tweet initiative’ that worked so well at Amp08. I dare say we’ll have whiteboards and index cards to scribble on too.

Once this event is over we should be able to announce a date and venue for the first large Amplified 09 event (aiming for the end of February) and then the regional events should begin to fall into place.

We’ll keep you posted…

Thumbnail images from the awesome Horror Express now available on The Internet Archive

To keep the ball rolling before the first large Amplified09 events kick off at the end of February, it seemed a good idea to run a single session this month. After a conversation with the fine folk at the ICA (now on Twitter) they offered to let us have the run of the place on the morning of the 21st. We’re going to be chewing over the future of online video – be that in the form of television programming, film or original web content. @freecloud already ran a bolt-on event for this subject at the Social Media Cafe last year which formed the basis for his session at Amplified08. We’d now like to keep the conversation going and expand upon it. It’s a wide subject and depending on how many people turn up we can dissolve into a few groups to try and work out where online media is taking us.

This is also the first of a series of events to be hosted by CreativeCoffee Club London. After a very successful series of meetings CCC London is now morphing into something a little different. More of a hosted discussion on a set theme that will run monthly or so rather than the smaller weekly conversations from last year.

We’ll also be capturing the event and discussion via video, photography and Twitter hash tags in an attempt to nail down the best way to cover a session. No streaming video this time, but everything we capture will be available online later. Using the CreativeCoffee Club format this will work with a few people, but our hope is to expand on that as we’ll have room for up to 60 people. It’s an early start though as we have the ICA from 9am until 12 (entering through the back exit in true Tuttle Club style).

If you have even a passing interest in the moving image online then come along and share your thoughts. It’ll also be an opportunity to chat about other Amp09 events this year and have a decent cup of coffee.

You can add your ideas for the session and sign up on the wiki here just to give us an idea of numbers. See some of you there!

We’re still tracking all the ripples that are continuing to spread out from Amplified08 and I’m hoping that some of the bloggers posting about the sessions and the event itself will join us in some blogging here too (cross posting equals cross pollination and all that). In the meantime I’ll highlight some of these posts here. Now where to start?

@anniemole, Billy Abbot (@cowfish) and Chris Meade ran one of the sessions that I missed, but wished I’d had the chance to attend: The Future of the Book #07 (handy to hold onto those hash tags so we can keep track of what happens next). Slides from the session are available and @Emilicon had an overview of what went on up online pretty sharpish and includes her specs for a perfect e-reader. This line in particular jumped out at me:

Ideally a virtual mobile library connected to friends, with friends checking out annotated versions of each others books, imagine the insights shared.

Over on Annie’s Going Underground blog you can see that she’s certainly running with all this. Pop over there to read about a Channel Four debate regarding games and reading (an interesting conversation in itself and something I’m late to the table with after playing Portal and Mirror’s Edge) plus a competition!

As with all the initial sessions there’s a lot of scope here for what happens next. A follow up session at Amplified09 is the most obvious one, but smaller discussions around this theme and others can and should happen elsewhere and at other times. It’s only a matter of continuing to hashtag the conversations wherever and whenever they take place…

Now to download some more e books.