Xover Networking Day, originally uploaded by FrankBoyd.

I attended a brilliant Crossover Session with Frank Boyd and co.
This time at Electric Works at the Digital Campus in Sheffield.

Topics of the day where business models for new media content, development of new media content for kids, IP and legal structures for new media collaboration, funding, commissions and the issues around cross-media delivery.

I had great chats afterwards with Dan Hon, Sixtostart and Richard Land, Illumina. Questions where raised about how to get paid for producing content. I think an important insight is to look at what services you could deliver e.g creation of attractive meeting points that meet a market need rather than just produce content.

On the train back to London we were a bunch of geeks including David Bovill, Dave Sag, Cathy Skinner, Dorigen and Mark Atkin that talked so intensively that we where degraded from first class to second class.

Recently I was at the commonwealth club for the launch of David Royston-Lee and John Purkiss new book “Brand you” in which they share their extensive knowledge in personal development and recruitment about how can you brand yourself to become attractive to the job market. I was asked by David to contribute with my knowledge in social media.

Apply now for the very first Crossover Nordic that is about to take place in Sweden between 15-19 September.

It is a five-day residential content/cross media development lab aimed at experienced and established creators of Game, Film, TV, Animation, Mobile or New Media in the Nordic region.

The lab is free for all the 20 selected participants. They will be selected by an expert committee from different media sectors.

All experienced and talented professionals from the Nordic Countries are eligible to apply and one project are eligible to win a development prize of 100 000 SEK.

A final pitch of the results from the lab will be held at the Nordisk Panorama Five Cities Film Festival in Malmö the 28 of September.

Click here for more info

BETT show 2008 - National Hall, originally uploaded by Peter Bromley.

I attended the huge BETT show last week to have a few informal meetings with possible partners and for some inspiration.

A fantastic show and enormously much to take in. One day was not really enough to cover the hole show.

It struck me again (have been on quite a few shows about new technology now), there are loads of companies that offers LMS and CMS but there isn´t many that offers engaging content. I´ve been hearing voices from the exhibitions saying that the money is in selling the CMS and LMS and not in the content itself. A lot of talk about “content is king” 592,000 hits on google but it doesn´t seem to be true so far…it should perhaps be, CMS is King!

One exception is Espresso Education, now proud owners of Channel 4 learning which they acquired in March 2007. They have a really nice designed learning platform with engaging animations and video clips from channel 4´s clipbank.

A smart and well designed learning platform is Norwegian Fronter Open learning platform, VLE or MLE. They started up in 1998 in Norway and are now taking a good position on the European market with offices in 10 countries including the U.K.
I met by occassion Steinar Hov, Training and Delivery Manager at a café in Islington just after they won the final BECTA award in May 2007, after being one of ten accredited companies. They are now in full steam to implement their learning platform in over 2000 schools in the U.K.

Not so well designed but quite cool is the Just2Easy web based document processor. There is a great potential in this tool. You can create word documents, layout pictures, videos etc and draw animations in realtime on the web. You can invite people to take part of the creation and share the documents.

A quick explanation of Buzzwords:

ICT - Information Communications Technology

Curriculum Online - Curriculum Online is part of the UK government’s drive to get more ICT and multimedia resources in classrooms across the country. This is done primarily through the eLearning Credits scheme, which is operated by Curriculum Online.

VLE - Virtual Learning Environment

MLE - Managed Learning Environment = VLE

LMS - Learning Management Systems

Feedback, originally uploaded by FrankBoyd.

The Crossover Labs have been very successful and I asked Frank Boyd, Unexpected Media if I could use my contacts in Sweden to produce a Crossover Nordic.

The interest has been great and I have convinced broadcasters, film institutes and regional funders in the Nordic to be partners in a lab next year. I invited Desirée Engholm, Commissioner from SVTi (Swedish TV) to come over to the U.K for one day to study the lab. SVTi has now decided to be one of the partners in the Nordic version next year.

In the Crossover U.K everybody was really open to share ideas and to collaborate.

Frank Boyd describes the U.K version on his blog www.unexpectedmedia.com. “Crossover UK, which finished on Friday, was probably the best of the 35 creative labs we’ve done in the past 10 years. Good people, good projects, great pitches on the final day. Roy Ackerman, creative director of Diverse, described it as: ‘an inspiration, enjoyable, creatively empowering, almost life-changing’.

The Crossover labs differ from the BBC Innovation Labs in that people don’t come in teams and they don’t come with a project. The point is to get people from different backgrounds (film, tv, games, animation, web design) generating ideas and working together in interdisciplinary collaborations to develop them.

It’s a demanding creative process designed to be accessible and engaging at the beginning but which quite quickly encourages participants to move beyond their comfort-zones.

The ride can get quite bumpy, one of the documentary film producers said: “It was a remarkable week and I felt extremely privileged to have been part of it…I may have resisted at moments, but it’s given me a lot of food for thought, and since I like challenges, at least of the creative kind, then I am grateful for the push”.

Some of the projects developed at Crossover will take part in a pitching competition for a £10,000 development award at the Sheffield DocFest in November.”

Thanks to darrell berry for the photo from flickr.

On Thursday I went to Queen Mary´s University in London to see, (actually to hear) Future of Sound, conducted by Martyn Ware, (founder of Human Leauge and Heaven 17).

There was a massive line-up with interesting speakers and we were surrounded by 3D, (speakers). I sat down, ready to close my eyes for a trip in to the sound scape, but it didn´t really happen, because it was more a talk about sound rather than a performance.

The second half was better in that perspective, (more sound). Highlights of the evening were Brian Duffy, (toy orchestra and solar/sand/sound experiment), Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner and Luciana Hall with the Interactive Brainwave Visual Analyser.

I think what Future of Sound does is very important. They are leading a debate about sound and its functionality in design, science and in the society and they invite the audience to take part of the debate.

I am convinced that the use of sound is going to explode in the media content world very soon. It is still quite unexplored and totally under estimated as a content.

Thanks to steph winfield for the photo from flickr.

The first thing I saw when I came to London was busy city people in pinstripe suits and tall glass buildings.

Like many others I am here for a purpose, projects that needs to be done so where to start?
I started to research the web of who to meet and where to find them.
A perfect way of finding real people is by attending network events.

Here are some good events where you can find real people, make good connections and gather useful information.

Creative Alchemy
Claudie Plen hosts a friendly social event for people in the creative industry.

Own It
Learn about IP-(Intellectual Property) rights. How to protect your ideas. Ask questions and mingle with other creative people.

ICA The Club
Host speakers - Meet up and share ideas with creative people in design, trends photo, digital, and music.

NMK – New Media Knowledge
If you want to learn more about the new media industry and discuss ideas with digital agencies and people in the digital arena.

Like Mind
An informal breakfast with friendly creative people.

Coffee Morning
An informal breakfast with friendly advertising people (a lot of planners, but they are friendly too).

Mini Camp
All the innovators and geeks in the new media industry drink beer and talk about future projects and collaborations.

Meet up.com
A service where you can start our own networking group.
There are plenty of interesting groups to join.

Creative London
The Strategy Agency for London´s Creative Industry.
They have links to different events.

CIDA – Cultural Industries Development Agency
They organize events to inspires and give support to the creative and cultural sector.

Nesta
London´s Innovation support. They are hosting events in innovation.