Digital Strategy for the West Midlands
I gave a presentation at the LUCID dissemination event today in which I proposed that the region needs to think afresh about setting a strategy for identifying opportunities in the digital economy. I know, sounds grand doesn’t it. The bottom line is that I have to write a short paper for Advantage West Midlands to influence their agenda in this area.
I’ll be writing that paper on a blog platform over at digitalstrategywm.co.uk.
The theme I’m using (the same one they are using for the Digital Britain consultation) allows for comments on each paragraph which I’m hoping will get populated sufficiently so that I can work them into the paper I send back. I’d welcome co-authors as well as commentators although I’ll appreciate it if the thought of writing strategy fills you with dread. The site is looking a bit bare at the moment but I’ll be setting out the sections of the paper very soon so do subscribe to the RSS feed. In the meantime I’ve posted up the presentation that kicks it off both here and on the consultation site.
A Social Media network for West Midlands Digerati
One of the things to emerge from last Friday’s launch of 4IP here in the West Midlands is that Channel 4 & Screen West Midlands intend to launch a social media network for those interested in applying to the fund. During the announcement of this I put out a tweet asking why we needed one imposed; shouldn’t the existing community build its own? The response was very much why do we need one at all?
However, we do need something to improve connectivity in the digital sector as many of the companies in the room that day that I knew are simply not part of the existing network of bloggers and tweeters that has been building up over the last 12-18 months.
My guess at the thinking in C4′s head is that they would build something similar to www.38minutes.co.uk, a site for Scottish/Northern Irish digital creatives to come together and discuss 4IP. Go take a look – it already has 300+ individual members and 45 groups/companies. It looks superb to me at first glance and the discussions have high level input from C4. In fact it’s further proof that although the West Mids were announced as the first 4IP region the Scots/Irish seem ahead of the game. That’s due in no small part to the energy and talents of their new 4IP commissioner Ewan McIntosh (go read his thinking behind 38 minutes). We do have more cash to spend apparently in the West Midlands (£10m) so perhaps there’s some consolation there but we really need to get going with connecting and collaborating.
Which brings me back to: should the digital sector just go ahead and build its own digital social media network? Is that a difficult thing to do? Would A DIY solution better demonstrate to C4 that we’re well up for 4IP and raring to go?
More on 4ip
Channel 4′s 4ip blog continues to offer up details on the thinking behind the kind of projects that might get funded when the initiative goes live in September. In the most recent post Stuart Cosgrove outlines the fund’s stance on Computer Games:
“But 4iP is not about pure gaming entertainment nor should it try to replicate or compete with the existing online or console games products. The objective is to work in territory where Channel 4 has a reputation – identifying areas of creative culture, where there is a gap or failure in the market and turning that opportunity into success.”
And he has something to say about ‘Serious Games’, something we all get excited about here in the West Midlands:
“The term ‘serious games’ needs next generational thinking and beyond the games themselves there is a challenge around the users, what communities are locked out of gaming and its traditional market positioning?”
He name checks a specific game that C4 have invested in. Bow Street Runners is a spin-out from the City of Vice series. In fact there have been many hints dropped in one place or another about the kind of projects that C4 are interested in. If I find the time I might collate them. What they will share as projects is that attempt to address market failure; to attract audiences who have yet to be reached by either conventional media or fall outside of the scope of core markets addressed by most interactive media producers.
Finally, he also mentions the computer game competition Dare to Be Digital. That allows me to show off the fact that I was on telly last week talking about it.