Search results matching tag 'Lord Carter'

G’day mate, Digital Britain can go XXXX itself

1641923 — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:31:00 GMT

“First, I have to start with an apology, we’ve spotted a mistake in the report… has anyone else spotted it yet?”

As far as agenda-setting Government launches go, Lord Carter’s opening gambit to the press pack at the RSA as he unveiled Digital Britain this week was far from reassuring.

What followed can best be described as a cagey preamble on some of the report’s key findings, delivered by someone who already seemed painfully aware of its own shortcomings.

At one point a member of the press read out a quite ludicrous sentence, overly complicated and full of disclaimers, and used it to question claims the report was clear and transparent.

“Yes, that could have been written better, so full marks for spotting that,” came Carter’s concise, sarcastic reply.

At another point, when asked for the second time to clarify the report’s recommendations regarding top-slicing the BBC licence fee to help ITV’s regional news, a weary Carter said he would be counting the “number of column inches” the BBC gave to the rest of the report, in the interests of fair and balance coverage.

Mildly amusing, it raised a titter, but hardly fair. The changes Digital Britain describes in its Public Service Content chapter pave the way for the first major overhaul of BBC funding in its 87 year history, you could understand the interest.

For Carter to become so exasperated so quickly offered some indication as to the many hours the creation of the final White Paper had already stolen from his life.

Another pesky member of the press pack launched into an attack on the Government’s plans for a universal 2Mb connection speed by 2012, surely it’s not enough and already behind the curve?

You’ve misunderstood, replied a patient Carter. He went on to blame his own “failure to communicate” that the 2Mb had been set as a minimum level, to ensure the pockets of the country currently without any decent service would not be handicapped or overlooked in the future. And so it went on.

The inglorious launch was actually the perfect precursor to what was to follow in the press the next day. “Digital dithering” cried the Telegraph, “Digi or dodgy?” asked The Mirror, while others like the Daily Express simply warned “Now a Tax on Every Phone”.

Of course, there were positives to come out of the report, not least the Government’s backing of a DAB radio network by 2015. The decisive move could be just what the industry needs to kick-start its new path in the digital age – let’s not mention internet-based alternative models for now.

Elsewhere, Digital Britain went as far as it could – not even the current Labour Party can force BBC Worldwide and Channel 4 to reach a partnership agreement – but the wheels have been well and truly greased and the train is now rolling.

But still, in the short-term Carter’s toils have been largely thankless and cannot really be judged until much further down the line.

I was not surprised to also learn this week that far from rejoining the fray at ITV, as suggested, the Lord now plans to leave his public life for the sunshine of Australia.

Like Water for Broadband

1319935 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:46:00 GMT

Today's the big day for Digital Britain. The consultations have produced a very long wish list. I expect Ben Bradshaw will read out his in Parliament this afternoon. In a ‘simultaneous broadcast’ (how quaint) Lord Carter will be presenting the outcomes of his investigations into the state of Britain as a digital nation at the RSA. So listen in to Parliament this afternoon.

Early reports indicate that a lot of people will be disappointed. In order of moan, the music industry will be upset that the government is unlikely to ‘criminalise’ filesharers. Fans of local news will have to put up with the fact that people don’t buy local papers any more. Court reporting from the Norwich assizes will be given over to Google. The Technology industry will think the government isn’t going far enough, especially in relation to developing a ‘next generation’ infrastructure.

The BBC will think it’s got off lightly, frankly. Ofcom will become busier. My mum won’t really care. Broadband is important to her, but not actually as important as water, or electricity, or chocolate, for that matter.

My wish list? 3 million more homes online. Phone boxes should become internet points (as opposed to condom dispensers). And creating a digital economy that supports British content production in a more intelligent way than previously, which actually comes from software rather than hardware, and from people rather than pipes.

I’d like to see a British Google, Digg or Microsoft. But somehow I don’t see that coming about as a result of policy thrash.

And the outcome? There'll be ideas for government policy that will either legislate for uncompetitiveness (Korea and Japan already have far more advanced internet infrastructures) and force media companies into accepting changing state for the future. There'll be liberal protectionism for the past (especially in salvaging lTN with BBC monies). It'll certainly be a long list of wishes. But as ancient Jinn will tell you, three's probably enough.

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Digital Britain Unconference. An alternative view for Lord Carter.

1319935 — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:05:00 GMT

Anyone familiar with this brief? "We've been working on this for nearly a year, but we're not sure we've got anything good. You need to come up with a plan by next week that will save the world." Alright, it's not quite like that, but I was struck by the similarities between watching the Digital Britain Conference panel debates and the innumerable briefing meets I've been to over the years where the digital question has created an atmosphere of confusion, excitement, panic and opportunity amongst those charged with stewarding brands into the future. Everyone knows that a 'lick of digital paint' isn't quite enough. But nobody knows quite enough to make a decision. And those that do know feel they haven't been consulted.

In the case of Digital Britain, there are big unanswered questions. Defining 'digital' is problematic enough. Although the official consultation period was drawing to an end, it felt right to do something about these questions by posing them to a wider community of those who have been involved in the digital economy for rather longer than Lord Carter. From an original tweet by Bill Thompson on the backchannel at Gordon Brown's Digital Conference, 12 unconferences were held (including London, Manchester, Glasgow and Cornwall) to discuss the interim report and provide useful feedback for the Digital Britain team at BERR. Most of the communication took place on twitter (unconference was, briefly, a trending topic). The outputs of these sessions were compiled and edited into a series of reports, and then edited into a single submission given in this week, which the Digital Britain team are reading 'with interest'.

Will it make a difference? I hope so. Was it worth it? I guess so. As a whole new model of consultation it was an experience of our age, truly collaborative, intense, interested, bright people, with an interest in 'doing something important' and 'doing the right thing.' If only agencies could work this way.

The full report is available here. Other comments are available here, and here.

Digital Britain Conference the most important to be held this year says Gordon Brown.

1319935 — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:14:00 GMT

Fresh from the G20, so might be a bit of overclaim. Yet the ‘dodge-it-all’ bandwagon carries on apace, with #digitalbritain trending top on Twitter on Friday. Gordon gets digital, it says on the live feed twitter fail, lampooned so cruelly in the Telegraph. But the politicians aren’t saying very much really, other than now that the rest of the economy is fucked, it’s down to the digital economy to save the nation. Give or take an embarrassing email or two. Does that sound familiar to anyone in agency land?

I think there’s a problem defining the digital economy. Sly Bailey thinks it is EVIL. And is DESTROYING JOURNALISM, along with local councils whose efforts to publish Redbridge council newsletters should be BANNED. Lord Mandelson thinks it is the infrastructure and investment backbone the nation needs to prepare for the future. The Chinese government thinks it a means to take over the world. Will Hutton says the Long Tail is nonsense and we are slipping relentlessly towards a disturbing world of enormous monopolies. Lord Carter thinks it should spawn new business models. Lord knows how that’s going to happen whilst the majority of the consultative process takes place with the institutional behemoths of telecoms, media and technology.

And poor Stephen Fry – his ‘internet should be like driving’ analogy was rather shot down in flames, apposite given Mandelson’s efforts to bail out the flailing ‘British’ car industry. There is a serious debate to be had about digital skills, which lost its way on the day in the crossfire of opinion about how the education system doesn’t teach critical thinking anyway. Expecting teenagers to apply thoughtful analysis to web browsing habits is ignorant to the point of ridiculous. Note to self – distinguish between the development of creative and technical skills that school the talent that will keep the nation great from the general IT literacy and media literacy content of the national curriculum that will help the nation keep up.

Funnily enough, this digital conference diversity reflects the agency world quite well. Two schools of though are forming. Introducing, in the blue corner, the ‘old’. Without true expertise and effort to create new models of thinking, working and creating, this group will truck along into a state of blissful monopoly and lowest economic denominator of quality and nostalgia, until Google one day does swallow up WPP, Havas or indeed Trinity Mirror. And in the red corner, welcome the ‘new’ challengers who will reshape the way business is done, who seamlessly move between code and creativity in their arguments. What can we learn from the experiences of the digital agencies? There’s a decent body of people out there that really understand the digitisation of media, the democratization of content and on-demand business. Wouldn’t you rather hear from someone with ten years experience of articulating the value of user experience versus brand positioning, at the coalface of digital strategy?

Then there’s the third corner, the purply beige regulator, who looks at the ‘big picture’ of protecting the establishment whilst claiming to encourage innovation. As anyone involved in the start up scene will tell you, you don’t get much help with the latter from this government. Hats off to the founders of Bebo and Lastminute who’ve just set up an angel fund to support innovative businesses, identifying a real gap in the market for the micro-business community of new ideas. I’m an enormous fan of innovation, but short of the occasional social media start up, we aren’t seeing very much of it reported at the moment across Brand Republic. Yes, economic consolidation is a blunt instrument, bashing the experimental with the tried and tested.

Don’t take pioneer status for granted. Get involved in the Digital Britain debate. It’s more important than you think. For a start, you can follow the #unconference we’re putting together by searching #dbuc or @dbuc [ok, so you need to be on twitter for that]. Alternatively, contribute to the Fake Digital Britain report here, and test your digital literacy skills to the full. Beats writing to your MP.

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#carter - not quite as Digital as we'd like Britain

1319935 — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Neatly put by the bloggers today – why don’t we just call it the Carter Report as opposed to the Digital Britain report? I get that it’s a status report on Government not of Government, but it’s a pretty big deal altogether and needs a lot of thought. Unpicking the innumerable strands that make up what Digital Britain is by no means a simple task, but then neither is creating a digital economy out of nothing. Critics of the report have suggested that there is a little too much ‘old media’ in it rather than new media. Peter Bazalgette today at the NESTA debate likened this to propping up the shipbuilding industry in the 70s. Given the news stories around LDV (that great engineering firm once known as Leyland Daf Vans) seeking a relatively paltry sum to stay alive yesterday, it seems an apposite analogy.

I also think there is rather more to content than TV shows and music clips, and the media publishers need to step into the fray a little more with points of view about their economic models of the future. There’s also a relatively new and ever fragile economy creating start up businesses, but this vital and future focussed segment has been ignored by the Digital Britain report, so far anyhow. One could argue that the fragility of the whole economy is more pressing, but encouraging innovation around the edges of the content industry, and commercial advertising industry, has to be an outcome of any discussion around Digital Britain.

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The future's bright. The future's digital.

1319935 — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 10:51:00 GMT

The Creative Britain report was about helping creative business move from the margins to the mainstream. The Digital Britain report is about establishing a proper platform for the digital economy, and will have far reaching impact across many industries, not just this one.

From a creative perspective, the Government is keen to leverage Britain’s internationally-recognised talent in online, as well as move on from a leading position in global entertainment formats, advertising, marketing services and research. There is indeed a lot to do to take the economy back from gloom to boom, but there is no doubt that a strong position in digital knowledge and understanding around content generation and ‘how to code’ is as important as the massive infrastructure issues facing the telecoms sector to deliver economically viable broadband to everyone in the nation. And what is the ‘second public service’ provider to consist of? All this and more will be debated over the coming months. I felt the Creative Britain report was about looking backwards to how great it was being a digitally illiterate creative director in the sixties. The Digital Britain report is about looking forward to how great it should be being a digitally literate creative business in the future. I, for one, welcome it.