Links for June 28th through July 1st
Some links for you:
- Study into new contemporary art museum linking Arcadian with Digbeth | Birmingham Post - News - West Midlands News - Note that 'film centre' gets a mention but no funding to investigate the potential to develop one. Contemporary art really does have the cultural high ground in the city at the moment. That's great but it reinforces the idea that cinema is something that's only worth funding at the production end, not the distribution/exhibition end.
- My Tiny Plot » Blog Archive » A Little Piece of Gardening History - Lovely piece on finding an old seed catalogue and the history it revealed.
Links for June 25th through June 26th
Some links for you:
- Pixel Perfect Pre-Raphaelites - Latest News - Digital Birmingham - "Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will be the first museum to offer an unrivalled resource for studying the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, using Microsoft's cutting-edge Silverlight technology to bring pixel perfect definition to the screen, as if seeing the real artwork in a museum. By mid-June, over 2,000 fine and decorative artworks with never before seen clarity will be available through Silverlight, a plug-in that offers the Pre-Raphaelite website and its users an amazing Deep Zoom functionality."
- Light House – One of the Best Film Venues in Britain « We are Light House - Damn right it is!
Towards a Centre for Excellence in Digital Participation
So I tweeted an idea when I got to this part of the Digital Britain report on ‘Getting Britain Online’:
“[it will] will require provision of appropriate support including outreach, skills training, and demonstration of how people can get the most out of the digital revolution, delivered through tailored, local, community-based programmes building on existing networks”
And I thought that’s something I’m always being told Birmingham is ahead of the game at. Take a read of Be Vocal - there you’ll find plenty of examples of tailored, local, community-based. Why doesn’t Birmingham take a lead here, put a marker down? Not to presume a superiority and show everyone how it’s done but, just like the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice does (to which I have a connection and think is fab), provide a resource point for excellence to be nurtured, developed and made useful. That’s why it’s a centre FOR, rather than OF.
Now if you read Digital Britain it talks about Digital Participation in quite a specific way (and in doing so casts aside the much used term ‘media literacy‘). Participation would in effect be the responsibility of an organisation doing the equivalent job of Digital TV switchover and be charged with: “coordination and a clear and co-ordinated series of messages about the benefits [for being online]“. I’m thinking it’s gonna be a bit trickier than Digital TV switch-off which has an extremely compelling offer at its heart (”you won’t be able to watch TV as we’re going to switch off the analogue signal you know and love”).
So the ‘Centre’ wouldn’t be interested in leading any ad campaigns for getting online. Rather, it’s about thinking through that participation bit. Participate in what? with whom? to what end? I think it would do the following:
- Identify best practice
- Nurture digital champions
- R & D new engagement tools
- Outline useful strategies for engagement
- Show how this stuff works on the ground
It would be one way in which those charged with the participation stuff as Digital Britain describes it knew what good stuff looked like. It would give them insight, new tools, compelling stories.
In my mind it has a front door with a receptionist and long opening hours. I’m prepared to be swayed on that one but I’m not sure it should be tucked away on a campus (but I do think universities have a role here - at least one thinks this area worthy of study). Birmingham needs a big front door to digital participation or it does up until the point we’ve got everyone online and participating.
So I’ve had enough people now say, yeah, sounds interesting, let’s talk about it. I now plan to continue talking about it in a way that suggests everybody else has already agreed to it and it’ll be here before you know it. If you see me in the street I might mention it.
Oh and funding - not a clue at present but we’ll see….
Thoughts?
Links for June 17th through June 24th
Some links for you:
- Look Brum, I'm on TV! | Metro.co.uk - "you’d think I’d be excited at the news that Birmingham is getting its own TV channel in the next few months called City TV. But then, I’ve spent far too much time trawling through the higher ends of Sky Digital programming, where channels claiming to promote the likes of the Isle Of Wight pop up for a month, display some of the worst camerawork you’ll see this side of Hollyoaks, and then disappear just as quickly."
- Putting Government Data online - Design Issues - Clearly I need to read and understand this…..
- eGov monitor - A Policy Dialogue Platform | Promoting Better Governance - "In Birmingham last week Carter – rather charmingly - said it was down to individuals like me to be the social voice of the digital future. I’m quite happy to take that on, and keep on fluttering gently but persistently away at the glimpses of light clearly visible at the end of the policy tunnel."
- Birmingham 'ideal' to pilot digital future | Birmingham Post - Creative industries - Piece based on Digital Birmingham's response to the Digital Britain report.
- 10 Things that are great about Brum | Be Vocal - How could I not bookmark this? Spot on in all regards.
- Be Vocal : Using social media and public data in Birmingham - A site about social media for social good in Birmingham and using the internet to turn public data into something useful.
Links for June 12th through June 15th
Some links for you:
- Yoosk today! - All Topics - Yoosk Digital Britain page for Birmingham event.
- The Digital Mission Regional Tour is coming to Birmingham! - "A series of regional workshops are happening around the UK to talk about the Digital Mission series to the USA taking place in Autumn 2009 and Spring 2010. The events are a perfect opportunity to find out more about the Digital Missions, their objectives and talk to those who've had the opportunity to attend a previous mission."
- MA Social Media - Blog of the MA Social Media at Birmingham City University, UK. It starts in September. Occurs to me that maybe more courses should have their own blogs - not just those that teach blogging as part of the course.
- The online marketing expert blog - Does what it says on the tin - useful insights into online marketing.
That cinematic backwater thing - maybe I just need to chill
I thought I’d leave a week until I blogged about last Monday’s ‘Cinematic Backwater‘ debate which kicked off the excellent Fazeley Digital Festival. I thought maybe I’d calm down in the interim, that the underlying issue of ‘does it matter that Norwich get cool films before Birmingham?’ would vex me less.
Suffice to say I’m still vexed. And I’m even a bit more vexed because having now aired the topic in public I could see that I wasn’t alone in feeling frustrated at the current state of film exhibition in the city. For those new to me moaning about this take a read of the original post that resulted in this event being created. I was joined by a fantastic panel: Roger Shannon - Film Producer & academic; Ian Francis - film festival curator; Rachel Carter, Film Producer and co-founder of Fullrange Media.
All agreed that yes, it did matter that some films tend to only get to Birmingham on their second-run. Not all in the audience agreed but in general the discussion covered:
- the dominance of film programming by the few to the detriment of the many;
- questioned whose role audience development is in the region;
- pondered the cultural priorities of a city where Digbeth can have three modern art galleries but no cinemas;
- debated the link between a thriving culture of exhibiting the weird/leftfield/arty/independent and the impact that might have on the films that we produce out of the region.
Roger brought with him a whole bag full of consultants’ reports from the past 20 years that in one way or another touched on the issue of whether Birmingham needs a new arts cinema. He drew our attention in particular to a recent report by Tom Fleming ‘Mixed Art-form and Media Venues in the Digital Age’ (link to PDF).
There was some reference to the Arts Lab/Triangle era and there was much nodding at the suggestion that what we need now is perhaps the best of that (its radical edge for a start) combined with the dynamic and vibrant social media scene that’s currently setting the city apart. That’s perhaps where this discussion should go next.
For me though it still comes back to competitiveness. Those in the city with access to resources and the power to influence decisions need to understand that when Norwich are getting interesting films ahead of us then the time for action is now.
My Dad is definitely not on Twitter
About a year ago I was talking to some work colleagues about an event that was taking place about social media. “It’ll be full of the usual suspects,” I said. “But Dave,” they responded, “you are a usual suspect.”
I suspect that’s how I’m viewed - a usual suspect. Truth is I don’t actually attend that many events. Birmingham Social Media Cafe maybe from time to time but little else. In the last few weeks though I’m aware that I seem to be all over the place. I pitched up at West by West Midlands 2, I chaired a debate about cinema exhibition and most recently I’ve been explaining why my poor dead Dad (30 years gone this year) isn’t on twitter.
You can read elsewhere about the mindmap idea behind the event ‘My Dad’s on Twitter but he doesn’t know why’ at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth. I think I gave a rather dour speech about how Twitter seems to come with a whole set of unwritten rules that puts newcomers off and can be intimidating for organisations. Tolerance towards people’s mistakes was my request. Some useful points were made from the audience. One of them took me to task about my argument that digital doesn’t archive as well as analogue. Digital captures conversation, was his response and what a rich seam to mine that would prove to future historians.
The second half of my talk touched on the Internet of Things. No-one really picked up on this despite my fab example of GusandPenny, the tweeting cat flap. My argument here is simple. Once Twitter gets filled up with objects, rather than people, we’ll realise how dull we are in comparison and how our unwritten rules were naive at best. A Twitter of Things is coming I declared - I’m not sure anyone believed me.
An enjoyable evening overall, some sharp questions from an engaged audience and some drawing to boot.
Fazeley Studios Digital Festival continues throughout next week.
Links for June 6th through June 11th
Some links for you:
- Wade on Birmingham » Blog Archive » Birmingham’s digital TV transition: Are you converted? - Just a reminder that if you live in the other Birmingham in Alabama then your analogue TV signal will be switched off by Friday. Read a book instead is Wade's suggestion.
- Screen WM seek Production Trainees to work on the new series of major BBC drama series Hustle, shooting across Birmingham this summer. - "Screen WM, the regional agency for the screen media sector, are seeking production trainees from the West Midlands to assist in a variety of departments working on the new series of the hit BBC show Hustle which will be shooting in locations in and around Birmingham from July to October. These positions are ideal for new entrants to the television industry or for crew who would like to try working in a different production department."
- Birmingham: The Forgotten City » Blog » Trevor Morris; a British web developer from the Midlands, UK - "There seems to be a lot of noise recently about how Birmingham, the UK’s second city, is lacking “respect” from event organisers in numerous disciplines; notably for me – web and movies. Also, it seems Birmingham isn’t able to cultivate thriving communities which are found in other cities such as London and Brighton. What I would like to know is why?"
- My suggestions for getting started on Twitter - Kate Hughes does an intro on using Twitter. Very useful.
- Birmingham, B29 - And I'm in B30. Great to see this blog brought back into life. If they ever need a B30 blogger to guest I'd love to contribute.