Archive Projects 'Flocking'- Timelines for All?

From time to time I realise that there is a tidal system at work behind the great institutions of this country and the wider world- it's not just economic cycles, though that's clearly a major factor, but also the social, the technical, and the political. At the moment this seems to be leading to a general resurgence in research into archives, and in particular, public access to them.

In the last week I've seen several completely unrelated demos and discussions of projects that seek to present harmonious, integrated and user friendly interfaces to a wide range of disparate archive assets, and what is striking is the congruence of 'vision' of the user proposition. Timelines! It's all about timelines!

As it goes the BBC has some pretty groovy timelines in service, but by and large these are exquisitly hand crafted pieces of digital interactive animation. The next generation of tools are going to have to give that same slick and accessible interface, but to widely heterogenous assets, sometimes from widely different sources! A timeline of the the next generation will need to provide access, meaningful access, to resources from across a broad federated archive, and include all manner of objects, including text, images, video and even 3d models for manipulation and exploration.

Within the BBC this is beginning to stretch beyond the relatively simple domain of linking web resources, into exploring how we can make the broad sweep of our online offering 'time taggable'. We are also contributing to JISC funded projects exploring how assets from us can be combined with others from archies, libraries and academic collections across the UK can be combined. This project is not universally welcomed- there have been objections to the threat of the BBC archive overwhelming other collections. We recognise these concerns and our current efforts in partnerships are very much focussed on bringing benefit to our fellow partners, and avoiding crowding out others. For one thing, we hope to help pioneer tools and technologies that will be then available to smaller archives for lower cost, because we and other 'big hitters' a
have made the initial research investment for the benefit of all.

For myself I do love a good timeline, but I do fear that the smoothness and accesibility of a graphical user interface is often at the expense of it's flexibility and power. Having said that- Gapminder demonstrates that power, flexibiliuty and beauty can be found together, if a clear idea of the user is maintained.

One last link: check out this Smashing magazine review of top graphical interface examples for Gapminder, BBC History and many more.

beebcamp2

beebcamp2, originally uploaded by meeware1.

Last week saw the second Beebcamp held at Whitecity. Top kudos to Philip and all the organisers, and many thanks to all the invited contributors who came in and really added to the event.

For me one of the best things was bouncing the BBC Micro for the 21st Century ideas off a new crowd- there are at least two good leads now, outside of the BBC, for me to explore further, in addition to the existing ones.

And in other news, I got the promotion I was going for- Still not entirely sure of a start date (so much still to do on Avatar, including Vegas!), but I hope to soon in in the saddle so recently vacated by Matt Cashmore!

Where Steam Punk was Born

Friday saw me in a facinating meeting with an EU technology research programme representative, and people from some of the most active research groups in the UK- that was great, but it's a topic for another day. Today's post is about the venue- the Institute of Mechanical Engineers- and their decorative stuff!

The I Mech E as it is usually called sits at the bottom southwest corner of St James Park, at 1, Birdcage Walk. A nice spot, tucked in behind the Foriegn and Commonwealth Office, very desirable. And our meeting was in the Whittle Room. The Frank Whittle room, Frank Whittle inventor of the jet engine and total engineering hero, and this room was absolutely stuffed with Whittle memorabilia- it was fantastic (and ever so slightly distracting when the gentleman from Brussels was explaining the finer points of the managment of conflicts of interest in proposal assesment schemes).

So that was completely brilliant, and then, on the way out, I notice that the hallway was lined (literally lined floor to cieling) with working model tractions engines. Working in as much as they could work if you fuelled them up etc- they were sitting in glass cases that day. All well and good you say, but this was to traction engines what the Natural History Museum is to bugs- this was the most incredible collection of the freaky, funky and downright weird traction engines that ever were. This then, in the heart of London, is clearly the true home of the Steam Punk ethic- the sanctum sanctorum of engineering mastery, the motherload of victorian gentle-person design and makery, and they know it!

Maker Faire Newcastle 2009- Update

The deadline for getting your Maker proposal in is the 8th of Feb, this coming Sunday, so if you're going do let Josette know as soon as poss! The BBC has now commited to being there, and we have a cunning plan.... robots, weather, RFID, etc etc.

More to follow (maybe even a URL to the project!)

Snow Day!

quentin the snowman, originally uploaded by meeware1.

Quite a few people have blogged about the BBC's central role for our audiences during the recent weather events,but you might like an insight into the way the corporation as a whole coped. Whilst you'd be absolutely right that our public facing infrastructure held up magnificently (offering travel info when so many train companies web sites gave up the ghost), some of our internal business support systems weren't so fortunate.

Perhaps it's obvious, since I made this spectacular snowman yesterday, but our ability to allow staff to work from home all came to a juddering halt around 9.15 yesterday when the majority of the staff in the south east tried to log in from home. I shan't go into the details of the whys and wherefores- it'll take a while to figure those out, and much of it will remain 'private' to the BBC, and rightly so. What's particularly interesting from my point of view is that there were so many other ways to get on with work. Twitter, Gmail and especially Yammer provided a vital channel for us to coordinate efforts and continue work.

Whilst it is critical that the BBC retains control of the excellent audience facing infrastructure that lets us continue with our Television, Radio, Web and other IP based services throughout the most trying of challenges, when it comes to the 'non-broadcast critical' bits and bobs that keep the office going, I'm wondering if we may look more to the cloud and to distributed and open systems to provide, if not the core functionality, then at least a managed backup.

The BBC does have to be careful about it's cyber security- we are, in the eyes of many, a 'valid target'. It's shocking the number of people who see us as an arm of the UK government, even in the UK! Sensitive data, critical communications, the whole of the broadcast chain is, and should remain a well protected central spine of the business. However, we've recently been debating the use of Yammer, and whether we'd be better to run our own Laconi.ca servers internally for the same function. I think we've just had one good illustration of why that might not be such a great idea.

After all, those Darpa guys did have resilience at the top of their wish list all those years ago,

Planning for the Maker Faire

As in plans to do some 'making'. As in come March the 14th/15th, O'ReillyUK will be hosting the first Maker Faire in these islands *. The Backstage and BBC R&D (yes, it's an aging site, new one due soon!) teams have decided this would be a really fantastically interesting thing to get involved in, so we are putting together a team at the moment to go along and "Make Stuff".

We're not absolutely sure what we'll make just yet. Inspiration is coming from the excellent videos from previous Faires, our own experience with Mashed and other big events, and the fact that this is in National Science and Engineering Week, in the bicentennial of Darwin's birth, at the Life centre .

We want to keep it "open", so pretty much anyone can have a go at doing at least part of what we do. We think environmental science and exploration is a good element (the Darwin/ Life thing). We'd like to use loads of great BBC content, and we also need to be in the spirit of Make, and have lots of noisy, messy, smelly breaking and mending and making and hammering and gluing etc. and we'll also be filming it too. As plans develop I'll post them here, and you may even see tweets from me as the cunning scheme comes together, but for now, watch this space!

Oh, and do let me know if you're going too- should be a hoot!

* There is actually a simultaneous event a lot like a Maker Faire in Glasgow called McMADSAT (great name) but O'Reilly can really only do one at once. being the lazy sods we are, our team are doing the one nearest, but we're really keen to hear how they do in Glasgow.

Bettr

Having a facinating time at Bettr- this unconference is a little small, and perhaps not as fluid as some, but the level of attendee engagement is excellent and the discussion is very wide ranging and eclectic. For instance, just at the moment the guy from tinker.it is leading a discuson on the best way to socialise innovation in teaching, unconferences and the ilk. headconference has been explored, but I think we're looking at lower level, grass roots stuff.

There's a brilliant twitter backchannel under the #bettr tag.

Ice Tilt /Shift

Ice Tilt, originally uploaded by meeware1.

I love tilt shift photos- those cheeky bits of photoshoping that make real life look like a really badly slapped together train set- but I'm hopeless in Gimp (the OS photoshop equivalent). There are gazzilions of tiltshift tutorials online, and all of them fox me utterly (same goes for HDR natch). However- this site: http://tiltshiftmaker.com is totally brilliant and makes cool tilt shifts in a jiffy! I really need to get some good material for this, so spot me in the next few weeks atop every multistorey car park I can find!

Northward ho! or, not.

Today we finally heard how the great big BBC north project was going to be taken up by R&D, and I think the approach we are taking is a very sensible one, but also a little scary. Basically, we are committing to set up a world class, top drawer kick butt R&D lab in Salford by 2011, but no one is going to be forced to go. The opportunity looks amazing, and for those with the flexibility to make the move, it'll be great. For the rest of us, there's still a lot of uncertainty.

Sadly there's still no clear idea of where the South East R&D lab will live- W12 is a possibility, though space is dreadfully tight there, and expensive, and the facilities management is deeply underwhelming. A Surrey base looks unlikely, as does a Cambridge one I think, but both options are being seriously considered. All in all, it was a day of progress, and a call to arms for those on the staff with the ability and the gumption to make a go of a future in the North. For me...? I just don't know.

Plans

So, I promised to post more, so here we go. This is a quick outline of the things I really hope to do at work this year:

1. Do NAB- the big Las Vegas broadcast technology conference and trade show. The Avatar project will have a stand there showing off our prototype large scale A/V storage system, and current plan are to have one paper in conference and week of demos. Lots to do to get ready for that- I need to learn how to drive Final Cut Pro on macbooks first- and we are planning on shooting a film to take out with us too!
2. Turn the ideas about a BBC micro for the 21st century into a real live project- no idea how, or where or what, but there enough great ideas swirling around this idea that it just has to fly.
3. Get some of Steve Bowbrick's ideas about openess in the corporation into action- some of these are revolutionary in ways I can't even post about (hows that for irony!) but their all capable of properly shaking this place up!
4. Fly more rockets.
5. Visit more great out of London offices- Glasgow was a highlight of last year- I need to return to Manchester and Birmingham, and I really ought to get out to Belfast and Bristol!
   

OK, that'll do for a first stab, especially considering how fragile I feel after last night.

Resolution!

I shall blog more next year- promise! Till then, have a great new year's eve and I'll be posting more in 2009.

L8r!

We Took a Break

Opatija Flying Dutchman, originally uploaded by meeware1.

Like I mentioned in the last post, Rowan and I just got back from a break in Hungary, Croatia and Italy, which was great. Not only did we have long sunny days soaking up the Adriatic sun, but Rowan also had her teeth finally fixed up, some fourteen months after her calamatous bike accident.

I really can't tell you how relieved and happy I am that she has made it through to the other side of this. It's a horrible horrible thing to see the one you love in constant pain and discomfort, and I'd have moved mountains to swap places with her. At last she can smile again in confidence and comfort, and did so on the lovely Opatija Riviera. Rowan's photo's are, as ever, far better than mine, but this is a nice one I got whilst enjoying a very fine capuccino at Cafe Levandra.

Awake at the Wheel

My usual refrain in this blog has been how in spite of all the great stuff going on at the BBC's R&D area, basically it's going to hell in a hand cart. Against that background the last 3 weeks sojourn in Hungary, Croatia and Italy was a blessed release from the pressure that working in such a state of apparently terminal decline can bring about. Great holiday by the way- will blog some pix via flickr later.

About eight weeks ago Eric put the whole relocation of R&D on hold- a move I was worried by (and I still do think it will have cost us some difficulties in setting up a space in the White City buildings). Yesterday we saw the first elements of what he has cooked up during the hiatus, and it delights me to say that everything we saw looked great.

There are three key points as far as I'm concerned:

• The decisions about where to put R&D geographically, and how to structure it internally, are all being based on a serious 'back to basics' review of what the BBC is doing R&D for- and they're being quite up front about saying it's a philosophical enquiry. This is tremendous exciting, and appears to be really progressive too- Eric considers R&D to be an asset at several levels, including nationally and internationally.
• The relocation plans, as were, are scrapped since we were going to loose too many people with those. That's not to say that some elements won't look familiar, but the fundamentally cavalier way that the relocation of staff looked like it was going to be handled is gone. That, plus the clear, sensible, and intelligent context the analysis above is providing will give us a much better chance of keeping enough key people. We must retain critical mass, and this move will be designed to acheive exactly that.
• Finally, and perhaps most importantly and most tellingly, Eric has appointed Matthew Postgate to be controller of R&D. This is great- I've been working part time on an innovation strategy for mobile for the last few months, and he is a rock solid bloke. Eminently proffesional, technically savvy, open minded and with a radical streak a mile wide- he was running the BBC Mobile area for a few years and under his managment we've seen some great launches (iPlayer on iPhone and Nokia n96, Electric Proms, and the great Olympics coverage to name just a few). The fact that this appointment has been made early, and in advance of Erics wider scale rejig of the whole of FM&T, gives us confidence in our place in the dvision and the wider BBC.
  

The atomosphere at Kingswood was better yesterday than I have seen it for years, perhaps ever. We used to feel that there really was no one at the wheel, or at best we'd get occasional nudges from a sleeping, part time, frankly un-qualified and un-interested journeyman manager. Now we have Matthew, and we have very high hopes indeed.

The latest greatest meh!

Just returned from Fly Me to the Moon at the Odeon in Brighton- rainy afternoon,weekend looking after 4 yrar old nephew, so we check out the latest animated feature. This was different though- this was in 3d using circular polarized projectors and glasses.

Of all the 3d technologies I've experienced this is possibly the least worst- no colour weirdness, no flipping out if you tilt your head or move an inch to either side, but it was still a vaguely nauseating hour and a half, with perhaps twenty minutes spent with uncomfortable eye strain and unresolved stereoscopy. The Film sucked too, very much so. No humour of any kind, some very laboured 'jokes' and in the end credit, Buzz Aldrin appeared to tell us it was a 'scientific impossibility' that there had been three talking flys aboard the Apollo 11 mission. Nice touch!

Avoid this like the plague unless you absiolutely must see every single 3D tech going. I'm off to lie down in a darkened room.

A BBC Micro for the 21st Century?

Wow, just done my first flying solo Barcamp session, and I'm relatively please with how it went. It was a pretty loose exploration of the last BBC Micro (late 80's, hugely influencial, but with a gestation and reasoning behind it which might not agree with your preconceptions!), and an exploration of whether and what the BBC could or ought to do along the same lines some 25 years later.

Thanks a gazzilion to Rain for blogging it. That's actually rather more structured and complete than anything I had written down about it!

I'd also like to thank the audience, who not only seemed really attentive, but at the end everyone engaged in a really spirited discussion of the potential avanues in which this could develop. I hope to continue this dialogue in Backstage, keep eyes peeled for a blog post there.

Ask the BBC Anything!

Just done a session at BarcampBrighton3 (for which Adactio has just produced a delightful Schedule) on' Ask the BBC Anything' alongside Ian Forrester and Rain Ashford of the BBC Backstage team. Not a huge turnout (which was probably for the best) and the questions were all sensible and managable:

There was one about the slight flakeyness of a widget for Radio POP, a social netwpork radio beta from Radio Labs; apparently for one of the campers the widget stops running when minimised on his Mac. One to pass along I think.

There was also some interesting questioning regarding the way the bbc interacts with 3rd parties in developing it's web presence. It seems we're perceived as being entirely self sufficient, technically in this area, or at least we were, and it was interesting to discuss the sometimes conflicting dynamics toward efficient centralisation and adaptive, flexible local development, along with the complexity of dealing with potentially thousands of suppliers (and I didn't even touch on our finance system nightmare!).

We closed with a discussion on copyright, and the oft quoted Tom Loosemore tale of the orchestral work with difficult to clear rights came up again (twice). The feeling seemed to be hugelky sympathetic to our (the BBCs) plight, as opposed to the feeling of the long term copyright holders. The continuing copyright renewal of Mickey Mouse came up, and much grumbling was heard.

I hope that a few of the people there do come and join the Backstage community, and that we get some good input from them over the nextfew months- there was enough smarts around the table!

The Omnivores 100

Just once in a while I'll go off piste and stray away from the workaday grind on this blog, and here's one such diversion- I'm following the excample of WordRidden (another Brighton blogger who, like me, will be taking her first plunge into Bar Camp at BarcampBrighton in a couple of weeks) who has completed her Omnivore's 100. I could explain, but this link has everything you need to know. So, bold, I have eaten, crossed out I would never EVER eat

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Feeling pretty good about that, and the things I've still to try look intriguing! Only two things I'd never eat, and I am adamant about that (though I doubt I'd revisit the Durian in a hurry).

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.
  

The Monday after Mashed

This is a tough blog to write- for the last two days I have been immersed in yet another epic hacking fest, and this time I took rockets! Sadly I don't have very many great photo's, you can find hundreds here though.

Highlights:

• Social Flight Simulator- a tremendous, multi hack team effort, given inspirational leadership by Ewan Spence, a man for whom the word eccentric might have been invented (though if it had, it'd be spelt with at least half a dozen markup characters!). I had a brilliant flight up from Darwin to Tokyo with the very excellent Michael Sparkes. Michael turns out to be an exceptionally good pilot an gave us a tremendous flypast of Mt Fuji!
• Meatspace GPS Tron Bikes- Tristan Roddis of Cog Apps (a brighton outfit i've been aware of, and slightly in awe of for a while) had a great game with GPS phones, google earth and walky talkies. It was a hoot, exhausting and buggy- just what Mashed is all about!
  
• IBM Power managment games things- can't remember what they were actually calling this, but it was brilliant games driven approach to using data out of power usage monitors.
• BBC Subtitles- at last, after an unfortunate loss of access to the subtitles on our own shows (we outsourced this work, so now have to pay extra if we want to do anything with this utterly invaluable additional metadata- DOH!) someone hacked an OCR driven XML creator for these, then integrated it into REDUX (if you have to ask....). Out of the back of that dozens of hacks were started at around seven on Saturday night, and a fair few, including an amazing translator, made it though to final submission.
• Pie. Great pie. Thankyou Matt Locke and Channel Four for great pie.

Not only all this great geekery, but I also got to catch up once more with Craig and Josette from o'Reilly, Glyn from ORG, and Nick Radlo. Pamela Clark from Nasa was a facinating person to meet, and we chatted for ages about research analogies, institutional cultures of innovation and cuttlefish skin. Thanks to Matt Locke not only for the pies but also for the lift back to Brighton- Matt is a luminary in this world- franky if he offered me a couple of hours to chat about the BBC, innovation culture and continental philosophy in a skip full of rubbish I'd take it in a femto second- to give a lift home too was generosity itself.

Gearing up for Mashed

So Over the Air was cool, but I wasn't around for all of it. No this year's big hackety fest for me is going to be Mashed- except I can't get the HTML badges to work, hmm.

Anyway, there will be a few very very cool bits that I already know are happening, but I'm not sure what's public yet, not being at the absolute nexus of Mashed planning. However, Channel 4 have been involved already, so hopefully they'll have some cool stuff to play with. The Kingswood guys have gone full throttle on building a complete TV station in a box- so we can hack around with live tv feeds. And I think I'm going to bring some rockets, and little camera, and let's see if we cant do live interactive rocket cam TV. Not sure about 3d though.

UPDATE on the Badges- OK I think I see the problem- somehow a rogue " character is borking the HTML on the badges on Matt's site. He knows and will fix soon I expect.

UPDATE II- Fixed by the Exfellent london biker!