Here’s an interesting criticism of BCCDIY – that it risks “devaluing the commercial aspects of digital marketing“. I’m not sure what that phrase means exactly, but I’m guessing it’s along the lines of ‘if you give your time away for free that devalues everyone else’.
Here’s a comment I left on the article that’s not showing up yet:
Interesting article, and it seems to have sparked some twitter conversation – whilst I agree with many of your points, as one of the originators of the BCCDIY project I’d like a little bit more from you on why you think that the project could potentially risk “devaluing the commercial aspects of digital marketing”.
The project is an open source approach to designing a city council website using a user-centred philosophy.
I would say that having a strong open-source community adopting that thinking in a city is a good thing.
This blog itself is built on the open source Wordpress platform, which was put together by Matt Mullenweg and an army of volunteers. On one hand you could say that releasing an easy to use blogging platform harmed the industry – businesses at that point were building their own commercial systems and subsequently lost clients and saw budgets reduce.
On the other it is easier to argue that systems like Wordpress offer a set of tools that enable commercial activity built on them, create jobs, and expand the numbers of people who use digital media tools, and thus leading to higher demand for digital services like marketing.
Suggesting that BCCDIY is bad for the industry because of its open source ethos certainly sounds a little protectionist, as if pointing out that there are easy ways to achieve functionality that is good from a user’s point of view is a bad thing, because jobs will be lost. I’m hoping that’s not what you’re suggesting.
If you’re viewing BCCDIY through purely monetary ‘value’ (discounting the idea that if in some ways it’s better than the original then it must be worth more), we came up with a very rough estimate of person-hours put into the project over the two weeks it was created, and came out with a figure of £38,000 of equivalent agency hours, should the work have had a client to send a bill to. (I estimate ‘rough’).
I agree with Jo and think that viewing the project as a stand-alone outside of the community of people who got involved risks devaluing one of Birmingham’s unique selling points – that collaborative instinct combined with a supportive environment.
I would also most certainly hope that just the act of volunteering one’s time for a few hours for a project that one believes in is not something to be discouraged because it might potentially devalue the work of others.
Here’s a quote from Tim Berners Lee on how governments should be using the web, and is more than a little one of the inspirations for BCCDIY – link: http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/GovData.html
Government data is being put online to increase accountability, contribute valuable information about the world, and to enable government, the country, and the world to function more efficiently. All of these purposes are served by putting the information on the Web as Linked Data. Start with the “low-hanging fruit”. Whatever else, the raw data should be made available as soon as possible. Preferably, it should be put up as Linked Data. As a third priority, it should be linked to other sources. As a lower priority, nice user interfaces should be made to it — if interested communities outside government have not already done it.
Please note the last part of that quote – interested communities. BCCDIY is at the front of what I think will be a change in the way that we use/reuse government data and information.
Viewing BCCDIY purely through the lens of digital marketing misses the point – this isn’t about a good looking website that markets something – this is about what we as citizens of a city expect from our local government through the web to enable us to interact with the city’s services and information in ways that suit our needs.
London C-all-in-g
Some changes are afoot, and it’s high time I blogged about it. In short – I’m going to be in London doing something exciting.
As part of the Clore programme each of us must undertake a three to four month ‘placement’ with an organisation of our choice. For instance my friend Ariane is working at CERN for a few months setting up an artist-in-residence scheme (after running the fantastically named Pestival), others step out of their roles in small cultural organisations to work at much larger ones (on the Olympics, large theatres, performance spaces, etc), and vice-versa.
I’ve been struggling to find the right placement for me, mainly because it’s hard to imagine myself stepping right out of the agile development / open innovation / rapid prototyping / mashup / culture / web / startup world that I’ve been in for the last few years. A month is a year in Internet time, and all that.
So, rather than stepping _back_ from that world I’m going in deeper – it’s what I’m passionate about and given that the experience of Clore could be summed up in just the one word “authenticity”, this can only be the right thing to do.
So my ‘placement’ is a little different from ones that have gone before – I’m co-founding a startup.
It’s the first company to come out of the All In Group, a private venture that was formed earlier this year specifically to set up, finance and grow creative technology businesses.
What I’m working on is very exciting and in a few months I’ll be able to talk about it, but until then we have to keep what it is under wraps, suffice to say it’s a new venture focussed squarely on the creative industries.
I’m really excited – I’ll be working with some amazing people to build something utterly cutting edge, with finance in place to do it.
Along the way I’ll be documenting some of the issues generally faced by a creative/tech startup, some of which I’ll be publishing here, others will go into a paper for Clore. I’m also putting together a wish list of people I’d like to meet and learn from, and I’ll be doing the occasional day shadowing one or two, or meeting over coffee to get a better understanding of creative/cultural/digital leadership issues.
This also means, obviously, I’ll be away from Birmingham, but I’m not cutting any ties!
Over the last couple of years I’ve been cementing a strong relationship with Made Media, who are in my opinion one of the best teams to go to for cultural web production in the UK, and they’re taking on my web production projects, as well as any opportunities that I can see are great ideas but can’t work on myself. As always – I’m happy to bounce web ideas around on Twitter or over a coffee with Made on hand to turn them into reality for you!
Both Odadeo and Help Me Investigate continue to go from strength to strength and you can expect to see interesting developments on both fronts in the coming months.
I also remain a strong advocate for Birmingham, and I hope that having me in the capital could be useful for arguing the case for regional creative enterprise and strengthen ties with the big cultural organisations. In my time here I hope I’ve sown seeds that now have a life of their own, and are each continuing to grow in their own right – things like Type, Created in Birmingham, Creative Republic, the SXSWi yearly missions, BCCDIY… Looking further back there was Default at the Medicine Bar, VJing at Prosession at the Que Club (remember that?)… There’s too much to summarise here but I hope that in some way all of these things have had a positive impact on Birmingham.
It’s been an amazing decade where I’ve been lucky enough to experience some great successes (as well as my fair share of failures!). But all in it’s great to be leaving on a high note – new opportunities beckon. I’m sad to be leaving the city I’ve called home for a decade, yet very excited by the new opportunities that this move will bring, occasionally bewildered by the scale of what I find myself working on, but more often confident that the impossible is just something that hasn’t been done yet.
Over the next month or so I’ll be in Birmingham at the weekends until we’ve found a place for the family to live, and once we do I’m sure we’ll be organising a little party to say ‘adieu’.
Wish me luck!