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aib awards video: robin hamman interviewed by jonathan marks

I've been really busy speaking at different events the past few weeks.

At the end of October, I spent an afternoon at the News of the World Editors Conference. I'm afraid I can't tell you much more about that but it was a lot more fun "being grilled by Fleet Street's finest attack dogs", as Editor Colin Myler put it in his invitation, than one might initially suspect from an event with a billing like that. They sell 3+ million copies of their Sunday paper in a country of around 60 million people but have, thus far, only made baby steps online.

On the 9th I was at blogboat.be in Ghent, Belgium, to moderate the evening panel debate between Dan Gillmor, newspaper editor and author Henk Blanken and Han Soete from Indymedia. The panel was proceeded by an afternoon discussion about citizen media, blogging and journalism which took place, as the name might imply, on a boat.

Then, on the 12th, I was one of two guests invited to take part "in conversation" on the stage at the Association for International Broadcasting Awards dinner at St. Lukes LSO in London. I was interviewed by Jonathan Marks - video below:

I also did the first of four three hour teaching sessions, each comprising of a lecture followed by two workshops, at the Department of Journalism at City University, London, where I'm teaching on the MA International Journalism programme. I'm back there again on the 2nd of December.

In Mid-December, I'll be in Dubai for the New Media Event which I'm particularly looking forward to as it, potentially, will be an entirely new audience for me and I'm hoping to learn as much, if not more, than I dish out myself.

blogboat - citizen journalism: this weekend in ghent

On Sunday, I'm heading to Ghent to take part in Blog Boat 1.0 - Citizen Journalism. As the name suggests, it's an event about blogging and journalism which will take place on a boat but, rest assured, the organisers tell me it's not an us vs them sort of thing, nor will the boat actually move.

During the afternoon, an invitation only "meeting of the minds" will bring together journalists, academics and bloggers to discuss the future of citizen journalism and, in the evening, I'll be moderating a free (registration required) interactive debate with Dan Gillmor and other participants from the day.

Here's how the organisers are framing the debate:

"Over the last couple of years traditional media has tried to formulate an answer to this development in finding a balance between print - and online information, in keeping track with the newest technological trends to present their information and in figuring out how to integrate citizen journalism within their (online) information channels.  What are workable/feasible models for the future? 

In what way technological developments will influence the way we deal with news and information. Will they empower us more, will new constraints appear and will the old once be sorted in time? Is there a possible role for guides/filters and who would these filters be (newspapers, well known bloggers ... ? And in line with the later, is there a possible role for guides/curators guiding non-expert users through the information in an open way build on trust and reputation? What are the possible ways forward for mainstream media in working with citizen journalists?"

Having met Dan and several of the other participants previously, I'm looking forward to a thoughtful, challenging and wide ranging debate.

Although over 100 people have already signed up, registration is still open so if you want to attend, make sure you get your name on the list. See you aboard!

               

bbc blog costs £17 billion...

bbc blog costs £17 billion...
Originally uploaded by robinhamman

Last year, Iain Dale brought us the news that government blogs were costing tax payers many thousands of pounds a month to run. David Milliband's blog, for example, apparently costs over £40,000 a year and the Welfare Reform and Child Poverty blog was revealed, in response to a parliamentary question, to cost nearly £1500 per month to run - equivalent to around £2 per visitor.

For a second or two, when I read the headline "BBC Blog That Cost our Banks £17 Billion" in Metro last week, I thought a journalist had got the wrong end of the stick - afterall, I used to run the BBC's blogs and they didn't cost anything like £17 billion...

Thankfully, that's not what the article was getting at. Instead, it was blaming BBC Journalist Robert Peston, who blogged about the near collapse of a major British bank and a government brokered merger in the hours before the markets opened, leading - some say - to even greater losses in the financial markets.

The Independent recently wrote:

"In recent weeks, as capitalism itself has seemed in peril,, the BBC business editor has hardly been off duty, whether reporting for Radio 4's Today programme, for rolling news and the bulletins, or posting on Peston's Picks, his influential blog.

On 17 September, at exactly 9am, a new entry on that blog opened with the simple but remarkable sentence: "Lloyds is in advanced merger talks with HBOS to create a giant UK super retail bank, I have learned."

Within seconds of posting the story from the PC in his office at home in Muswell Hill, north London, Peston, 48, had walked to the spare room and, via a specially-installed ISDN line, was broadcasting his scoop live on the BBC News channel. In the words of this newspaper, Peston's influence meant that he was "one of the few men with the power to dam the floodwaters heading HBOS's way". This was the same reporter who had already won the Royal Television Society's "Scoop of the Year" award for his coverage of the collapse of the Northern Rock building society.

Peston is perhaps the first senior journalist to publish a major, breaking story on their blog as the first available outlet. My guess is we're going to see a lot more unmediated, unedited journalism like this in the future although there are, it should be said, major risks involved. It's not just Andrew Gilligan who can make a mistake.

speaking at european broadcasting union

I'm going to be speaking at the European Broadcasting Union's International Broadcasting Conference in Geneva on Tuesday.

It was a bit of a last minute booking, and will involve a 4am taxi journey to Luton Airport, but it will be a real pleasure having the opportunity to discuss how social media is changing the media landscape with the leadership of many of Europe's Public Service Broadcasting corporations.

Photos, tweets, etc to follow...

press gazette media law conference

On Wednesday (25 June) I'll be at the Press Gazette Media Law conference in London, delivering what will be my last conference presentation as a BBC person before I leave (on Friday) to join Headshift.

I'm going to be speaking about the sort of risks - primarily, in this instance, legal risks - which arise when news and media organisations encourage or host audience discussion, content submissions and community.

You may be surprised: I've come up with at least eleven different legal issues that online community managers and social media providers need to be aware of.

I'm also going to discuss the different between moderation (policing) and hosting (facilitating), both of which, some solicitors believe, actually increase a website publisher's exposure to liability for libel.

I'll get my slides up on slideshare as soon as I've got better bandwidth than I'm currently getting using a nokia n95 as a bluetooth modem whilst on a train in a 3g wilderness somewhere south of Birmingham.

dna 2008: live streaming video coverage from my mobile

I used my camera phone, and a free service called qik, to stream live video of a panel discussion titled "God is a VJ". The panel included:

    •    Pat Loughrey, Director, BBC Nations and Regions
    •    Tone Kunst, Editor-in-Chief, NRK Nordland
    •    Christian Trippe, Brussels Bureau Chief, Deutsche Welle
    •    Michael Rosenblum, President, Rosenblum TV
    •    Prof. Adrian Monck, Head of Journalism, City University (UK)

It's a bit shaky, and I had to use the lowest quality setting to keep streaming costs down, but it's still sort of watchable. Or at least listenable. Ok, so I'm no VJ, nor am I God, but at a higher quality, and with the phone steadied properly, the results could be much better.

dna 2008: michael rosenblum kicks things off

  Michael Rosenblum 
  Originally uploaded by robinhamman

It took a whole 3 or 4 minutes for Michael Rosenblum, the first keynote speaker at DNA2008, to get to that now quite tired cliche

"if you don't wrap your head around the change your gonna die..."

And the way most newspaper and media companies have adapted to that change?

"I'll have these three fuck ups in the corner to do the internet and it will be fine"

Rosenblum says three things are converging to make an almost perfect storm: video cameras that "cost 800 bucks and any idiot can use", low cost laptops and the internet. He describes that storm:

"In the world of meteorology they talk about storms. There's the 50 year storm and the 100 year storm.... in the world of journalism and technology, there's the 500 year storm.... a giant tidal wave... Guttenberg thought the printing press was about making cheaper bibles... but the invention of the printing press... brought about a whole new world of a free press. We don't live in a world of print anymore, we live in a world of video and online... this technological storm is going to wash away most of what we understand today and replace it with something different. Whether you participate in it is entirely in your hands."

Rosenblum's talk was interesting, well delivered and entertaining but I can't help but think that he's maybe spent too much time whipping up his perfect storm and not enough actually out there in the real world. There's a vast gulf between the media landscape he describes, where media companies put little effort into "the fuck ups" in the corner who run online, and the massive investment and talent being thrown at new media by the BBC (my employer) and many others.

losing sleep over dna2008 in brussels

I'm in Brussels for DNA2008 (Digital News Affairs... the year is fairly self explanatory).

I hate to sound like an advertisement, but for those who haven't been on it, Eurostar is cool, very very cool. Or so I told my twitter friends on my way over as I streamed video live from my mobile, whilst traveling at over 100 mph, to the web using qik.

I've also uploaded a few photos, including the one below that I took on my way out for a nice dinner with John and Laura from Journalism.co.uk. Unfortunately, I missed Abdu from Al Jazeera  and only just bumped into Andy Dickinson from UCLAN.

Monday is mostly high level stuff about the future of mainstream media and I expect lots of presentations along the lines of:

"Things are changing because of, you know, the interweb, and we've got to act fast..."

I don't mean to sound cynical before the conference even gets underway - the first day should provide ample time to sort out the last few details of my presentation, which takes place on the second, much more practically focused, day.

I've got free broadband in my room and access to the executive lounge but haven't yet found out whether there's wifi in the venue. If so, expect the usual onslaught of live blogging coverage here. If not, watch out for the dna2008 tag on flickr, technorati and icerocket. Ok ok, and if you're really stuck in a rut, google blog search too.

PS. New conference friends go here...

dallas morning news asks readers to sift lost jfk assassination docs

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins recently made public documents and relics relating to the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy.

The existence of the materials, stored in a 6ft x 6ft safe, had been kept secret until now.

The Dallas Morning News has put the documents online and is asking readers to help sift through the content which they say includes "transcripts, personal and official letters, newspaper clippings, lists of jurors, police reports, rap sheets, autopsy reports, trial notes, police notebooks, photographs and much more."     

The problem, according to the paper, is that the documents are, "...neither cataloged nor indexed, and they are in no apparent order. Given the volume, we haven't been able to review most of the files. That's why were calling on you. Here's your chance to review never-seen-before materials related to the JFK assassination." 

Asking readers to help sift through the massive amount of material released is, of course, a great way to use the audience to help find interesting details that will generate stories. At the moment, it looks like the only way users can do this is to send messages to the paper or post on a discussion board - neither of which really harnesses the full potential of the network.

I think the paper is missing a trick by not creating an editorial framework around how people can help with the project. For example, the paper could ask users to use a social bookmarking tool, such as del.icio.us, to bookmark, tag and share. This way they'd be able to more quickly index the documents, making it easier for those with specialist skills or knowledge to get to the documents where their skills can be put to best use.

Simply putting the materials online, and asking audiences to help sift through them, is a good first step but so much more could be gained by applying the newspaper's editorial skills to creating a framework for participation.

turning processes into content - 2 new ideas and a request for help

I'm working on a presentation about turning processes into content for the DNA 2008 conference in Brussels next week - and could use your help. First, here's how the conference website describes my one hour slot - the text in bold is the key bit:

Many news and media organisations are now using reporter, programme and editor blogs to reach out to their audiences. Most of these are add-ons to existing output, creating a further burden upon often overstretched production teams, but that need not be the case. Robin Hamman, a Senior Broadcast Journalist for BBC English Regions, is the man behind the scenes of the BBC's Blogs Network. Part of his role is to inform journalists and programme-makers about the usefulness of social media tools such as RSS, social bookmarking, blogging, social networking and photosharing. In adopting such tools, they not only make productivity gains, but can start to more easily turn many of their existing processes into compelling content which, potentially, will help them reach new audiences. Likewise, blogging need not be an additional burden on production teams - if integrated well into a programme it can be an essential driver of content both to and from audiences. In this session, Robin will outline the amazing potential and opportunity that arises when your news teams understand and use social media and blogs in the way enthusiasts do.

As I put together my slides over the next few days, I'm also going to blog it in the hopes that you'll be able to come up with some other ways that content producers and journalists can create content out of their processes.

The classic example, of course, is the behind the scenes video footage you get with many DVDs but in my original post on this subject I suggested that journalists and other content producers could do the following:

1. make your RSS subscriptions publicly visible (example: BBC Manchester Blog)
2. use del.icio.us or another social bookmarking service to store and share links to your background research (example: Jemima Kiss / Guardian PDA Newsbucket)
3. share your rough notes, meeting minutes and preliminary results as soon as you can (example: iPM)
4. post photos, audio and video as and of your work (example: Reuters Mobile Reporting Kit photo)
5. don't just reply privately to emails and comments, quote from them and respond publicly (example: BBC Internet Blog)
6. spread your content around automatically using the import feature of the different blogging and social media services you use
7.  use your downtime to microblog, giving audiences a sense of immediacy (example: twitter feed for the BBC Rugby World Cup Blog)
8. blog site statistics (ranging from user numbers to social network friends - I'll probably use TechPresident as my example)

Now for some new ideas to add to the list...

I've been thinking alot recently about how various services that track behaviour or movement could generate content that, in some contexts, could be interesting:

9. Tracking listening: I'd love to see the last.fm profile of a favourite DJ or artist - it would be a great way for me to feel closer to them and, possibly, to find new music.

It would also be interesting, I think, to see what a journalist embedded with American soldiers in Iraq was listening to as they camped between missions involving heavy firefights. Metallica? Zero 7? Hendrix? Knowing would give audience members a new link to the mindset of that reporter. I don't have a real working example of this from mainstream media (???).

10. Tracking Movement: I've already suggested, in my earlier post, that, within many editorial propositions, there are opportunities for travel or movement to be of interest to the audience. You could give a sense of this via microblogging on services such as twitter, or by inputting the cities you'll visit on dopplr, or setting your current position via Plazes or Zonetag + Flickr. But let's take that further.

nike + ipod uses a small transmitter inserted into a running shoe which sends speed, distance covered and other data to an iPod. When the ipod is synched with itunes, it sends this data to a website where users can track and compare their statistics with those of others.

We often talk of the beat journalist yet a common criticism aimed at journalism today is that much of it is done whilst sitting behind a desk, staring at a computer screen. Why not use nike + ipod to show how much ground a journalist has physically covered whilst covering the story? I'm thinking this would make particularly compelling add-on content for those reporters and journalists on the campaign trail, perhaps a sports photographer or cameraman covering a sports match from the sidelines, or a DJ performing a live show. Again, I don't have a real working example of this from mainstream media but would love to see one.

That's ten ways that journalists and content producers can turn their processes - things they'd be doing anyway - into content without any real additional burden. What others things are you doing? Have you spotted any useful examples or inspiring implementations of any of the above? What do you think of the ten ideas I've outlined already - are they workable? are they compelling for audiences?

I plan to post the final presentation slides, and perhaps of video of it's delivery, for all to share and will credit those who provide tips, links and ideas that make it in. Thanks for your help.