This is the blog of Ant Miller, senior research manager and dilettante geek at large at the BBC.
I wail moan and cuss about the challenges and fun to be found here.
These are my personal opinions, and not those of my employer. Or anyone else here for that matter.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

An occasional bulletin

I've been slack with blog posting, and to tell the truth, I can't promise I won't be just as slack in future, but in the mean time here's a few updates:
  • The follow up to Mashed continued with a visit from ARM to Kingswood which was brilliant and facinating for all involved, and a visit by me to CogApp in Brighton, which I found fantastically interesting and should, I hope, lead to some collaboration before long. Might even help me get into Broghton BarCamp (I keep missing the ticket allocations).
  • The departmental move out of Kingswood Warren to White City continues to stumble on- it looks as though both the research portfolios I work in will be in the new spaces by mid October, and since I don't have much specialist kit, I'll be based there permanently by that time. I shall still make up copious excuses to travel to Kingswood while I can though (it's much better than Wood Lane for flying rockets!).
  • The big division I'm a part of (FM&T) has a new head- the very excellent (and YOUNG!) Mr Eric Huggers. Sadly this has not yet led to any visible progress in the appointment of the Controller of Research nor either of his deputies. These three critical roles remain under the care of stand ins, and though I know and admire them all, it's not their main job, and this is getting into deep management crisis territory.
  • The BBC has a new 'director of archive content' in the shape of Roly Keating. If you've come here to get some idea of what that means, then I'm sorry, but I am as flummoxed and confused as the next person. It's a weird role- Archives are part of FM&T (Eric's fiefdom) but Roly will Report to Jana Bennet. However, it's also true to say that the BBC has been banging it's shins against getting the archive public since Greg Dyke announced it at Edinburgh almost exactly five years ago. In the mean time we have had the Creative Archive (now defunct), Motion Gallery (commercial but excellent), and the brilliant but metadata only Programme Catalogue (also defunct). Copyright in all it's many forms has consistently knee capped these efforts- that and a shameful timidity at the very highest echelons when it comes to engaging with and possibly against rival commercial interests. Maybe what we need is someone who is 'all about' getting content in front of audiences in the mix and getting the content out there. Quite why that role needs so many wierdly dotted lines of management around them bemuses me. I'm considering running a book on when the next big re-org is coming.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you enjoyed the meeting at Cogapp as much as we did! I found it fascinating to learn out about the sheer breadth of activities that the BBC gets involved in (not least of which, the shadowy Special Circumstances branch of Content).

N.b. You should be able to get a fast-track 'first timer' ticket to BarCamp. I'm hoping that you'll be demoing a thumbrellamin prototype there...

Eddie MIller said...

At last a new blog entry! At least I can read Breakfast in Bed to find out what you've been up to.