Well done if you stopped.

If you are still reading do you ever wonder what makes it so difficult to stop? There seems to be something about the human being that makes us want to consume words – many of us seem to find it hard not to keep on pressing forward, seeking to find out what’s in the next sentence.

Perhaps this is what fuels our addiction to the (streaming) media?

It’s not just words of course. Moving images, and sound too. We watch. We listen. We consume.

In the light of some research on the use of the iPad in the home that our Insight practice is cooking up, I wondered whether we’re getting something wrong.

It took me years to give up watching TV. I still find it hard to pass a newspaper stand. And the constant chitter-chatter of the radio presenter still has an attraction even on a slow news day.

And what have I done? I’ve replaced those streams with others: Twitter, Facebook, email.

Of course, I celebrate the idea that we’ve at least loosened Big Media’s unique hold on our attention.

For a couple of years I worked in a company trying to change the way source information was delivered to consumers.

And, lo and behold, fifteen years later, a really popular app for the iPad is Flipboard – which allows the user to build their own newspaper out of their own Twitter and Facebook feeds – the totally personalised and customised newspaper dreamt of by media futurists for more than 30 years. And with content that may – or may not – be produced by a media professional; content direct from the source.

But what monster have we created? With the iPad, and the commodity-priced tablets that will follow, a way for anyone, including corporations of course, to reach directly into our homes. A way for anyone’s voice – even mine – to reach you.

And there’s the rub. What are we giving up by allowing our valuable time, our valuable headspace to be used up by the sound and fury of others voices?

Isn’t there value too in a bit of peace, a bit of quiet reflection. In staring into space. Listening to our own voices? Why the rush? What are we running away from? What are we scared of?

I know that in this new world we can create and produce too – I’m writing this post aren’t I?

But that is my problem; yours is that you are reading it.

So stop entertaining yourself to death. Why not go and sit quietly? Eat a peach? Ride a bike? And enjoy.

About the same time as the second ‘What the F**k is Social Media’ presentation was being bandied about, I remember wondering whether the huge usage stats therein were good or bad, and if we should be pleased that we lived in a world where billions of images, videos and words were being uploaded constantly. Purely from a time point of view, there is only so much a human can absorb in any one day, and so were we being smart by encouraging clients to add to the noise?At around the same time, I started reading about the real-world impact of this information abundance, and the scary realization that the cloud isn’t actually a fluffy, floaty cloud full of binary angels and heavenly code, but is a physical lump of hissing, whirring servers, dotted around the globe (although apparently they’ll soon mostly be in Iceland, where lower temperatures mean less cooling costs – genius idea, although imagine the mild panic when the next volcano erupts and takes the internetz away).

So, what can we do about this environmental problem? Server technology and data storage is obviously becoming more advanced and less-resource heavy, but the ‘build a bigger barn’ approach seems slightly lazy to me; in the same way that every day millions of people now recycle rubbish, we need to recycle content. I’ll quickly caveat this now, this is by no means my idea; somewhere in between ‘What the F**k’ and ‘real-world impact’, I became aware of the legendary Russell Davies, and like any self-respecting admirer, I set about reading every musing the man ever had. It was then that I stumbled across the term ‘unproduct’, the idea of ‘maximum idea, minimum stuff’, and the realization that there may be another way out of the data swamp. Unproduct is a term coined by Matt Jones, where-by newness is not a purely consumption-based thing, and unproducts (could be things, services, etc.) can be enjoyed/used over time due to an extra amount of thought that went into the creation of them – put simply, things that last longer.

What if, as content providers, we really consider what it is that we are making, and whether we need to be creating new? Could we not re-use something else that either we or somebody else has already created, but through creativity give it new value? Media is littered with clever appropriation, whether it’s Cassetteboy’s latest, or topical satire, we have a wealth of tools that with a little ingenuity can turn old into new, mundane into compelling. How about if major brands, content providers and governments showed the same creativity? I’m genuinely excited about the thought of big business concentrating on the ideas rather than the making, but am also realistic about this happening any time soon, if at all.

For now, smaller brands like howies show us how things can be done, but I urge you to repeat the mantra ‘maximum idea, minimum stuff’ in your next client meeting, agency briefing or any other kind of situation where there’s temptation to fall back on the new. If it helps at all, here some slides that I put together that will hopefully inspire, and not confuse.

Further reading:
Greenpeace study on Making IT Green

Russell Davies and the unproduct

The NHS gets a rough ride – we rarely hear anything positive about it in the media and it’s already becoming a battleground for this year’s election. Whether it’s reports from the Care Quality Commission or shouty electioneering, we’re bombarded with ways the NHS needs to change.

But what about the people who use it – you and me – what do we think, how could this be used to make things better, leveraging the power of social media?

To an extent this is already starting to happen, and Liz Barclay’s Radio Four documentary NHS Punters Speak Out, looked into some really interesting issues around online, crowd-sourced feedback as an effective force for change in public services.

As a prime example, Patient Opinion uses the principles of ‘consumer’ led sites like Trip Advisor, simply asking people to ‘Tell their story’ of health care they’ve received, good and bad, as well as allowing those responsible for care to respond.

For and against

Opponents say that these sites are ‘at best a crude popularity contest, at worst, downright dangerous’, that they only attract people with an axe to grind, only represent the views of the ‘upwardly-mobile’, web-savvy and represent a small sample in comparison to paper and telephone-based surveys.

These arguments don’t seem to bear up under scrutiny. Just a quick glance over Patient Opinion shows plenty of stories of genuine gratitude (which is a breath of fresh air) and provides a more balanced picture than we usually get.

It’s also apparent that some service providers are not only monitoring and responding, but actually making changes as a result of this feedback – as in the case of one young mum whose criticism of the ante-natal care she received lead to increased resources.

Excluded vs inclusion

As for the assertion that these sites won’t represent those without ready access to the web and the skills to use it, Champion for Digital Inclusion, Martha-Lane Fox, argues that we simply turn the model on its head.

Rather than worry about those who may be excluded, she says we need to work on the number of people with computers, broadband and training, something that’s being addressed through the Digital Britain initiative, targeting socially excluded and economically deprived families.

And, even if you do believe that the proportion of people using online as a way to find information on goods and services is comparatively small (which I don’t), why would you choose to exclude them from your current feedback mechanisms, especially when they’re providing a way to publicly celebrate success and demonstrate improvements?

Futureproofing

There’s also the case for planning ahead – the current generation of young people are going to be using the internet as their main communication tool, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a travel company or a dentist’s surgery, if you’re not prepared, you’re not going to meet the needs of a network society.

The bottom line is that the NHS is a service and the people who use it are consumers – and the needs of those consumers are changing. Why not apply some of the same principles that we would to holidays or restaurants, to something that’s of vital importance to us and those we love?

Why stop here?

If we can successfully apply this to the NHS, why not other areas of public service – MyPolice (winner of the amazing Social Innovation Camp) are already doing this for our police services, but what about our schools, universities, public transport and all aspects of local government?

How about UserVoice for your local council (like Ideas for Seattle) or Get Satisfaction for your child’s school. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

Thanks to Flickr bod j.reed for the fantastic image.

So when a big and exciting design and build project landed, with a healthily ambitious deadline, we thought it was a great opportunity to put agile to a serious test.

Meeting the needs of changing requirements
The project is working with two key clients, a charity whose aim is to increase entrepreneurial behaviour in the UK and one of the country’s leading entertainment and communications companies.

We’re building a social platform that combines quick, easy video blogging and networking features, to equip disadvantaged young people with the skills, confidence and contacts to make it as entrepreneurs.

All in all this project means a lot – to the people funding it, the people who will be using it and, needless to say, to us! So as the first major project on which we fully commit to the agile process, we’re investing a lot of time, energy and confidence in this.

So if it’s a big project, why take this approach? More than anything, we’re confident it offers clear advantages over the waterfall model, especially on a large-scale build.

Traditionally the agency takes a brief, produces a full specification and goes away to build it. Months later they come back, while requirements have changed for the client, with something that might not still meet their needs. Using agile, regular reviews mean new requests can come in at any time and the end product can change accordingly.

Engaging outside expertise
We know the value of engaging outside expertise; we do it whenever we know an external resource can add massive value to our clients – so considering the scale of the project, we started by bringing in an outside Agile Consultant, Mark Stringer of Agile Lab.

Mark accompanied us to the kick-off meeting, in which we undertook the time-honoured ritual of stories and priorities – working from the core objectives of the site and the needs of the people who’ll be using it, we created a list of things they would want to achieve, which we prioritised before breaking them down into a series of features and functions.

We (the royal we, really it was Steve Winton, our technical lead) estimated how long these would take to build and broke them down further into two week ’sprints’ – bursts of work in which various people from different disciplines develop core aspects of the site.

Initially this is working well, building on the open source technologies we know and love – WordPress and the BuddyPress plugins – Steve is starting by delivering the core functionality of site while I’m designing how it will work and how it will be laid out.

Facing problem one
As with any large scale site with its own individual identity, branding is a big job and something that we’ll all need to get nailed before we can start on the page design and front-end coding.

In the meantime, we’ll work on the user experience design and back-end development, putting the fundamental inner-workings of the site in place.

Planning it out, this posed our first problem – how we can later start to tie in all the other disciplines.

The solution we’ve come up with involves a staggered approach to our sprints, coding back-end functionality while working on the user experience design for the same feature set, scheduling in page design of the same for the following sprint, and front-end coding for the one after.

It might sound confusing but on paper it’s looking like an answer to the problem of bringing agile to a large, multi-discipline project.

Problem one leads to problem two
This fluid approach solves many problems but lead us straight into to our second headscratcher…

What really happens when requirements change? As I said, in agile priorities change between sprints and new stories are introduced, which can leave us feeling a little nervous about exactly what’s going to come out at launch.

Our solution? Well, to be honest, it’s still early days and we’re still working on it. Currently we’re regularly reappraising the backlog of stories and ensuring we keep a holistic view of what we’re aiming to deliver, but beyond that it’s a work in progress. Perversely it’s one that makes us feel a bit more nervous than if we had a weighty document specifying exactly what the finished product would look like and do.

Have you used agile on a large-scale web build? Or had a site built for you where everything wasn’t set in stone before development began?

How did it make you feel? I’d be really interested to know.

Yesterday started like any other day at NixonMcInnes; Will was running the ever popular Measurement Camp when he was suddenly pulled aside by our friends at Hotwire and asked if he would like to provide comment on the breaking news that Facebook had decided to change their terms of service and implement an ‘irrevocable’ licence to do exactly what they want with your content.  Facebook have now returned to their previous terms of use after tens of thousands of users said it breached their right to privacy.  Controversial eh?  So controversial that the BBC picked up on the story and invited Will to comment.  We naturally, jumped at the opportunity, it’s not every day you get to be on the BBC after all.  15 minutes of fame at last.

So Will had to leave Measurement Camp early (apologies to all of those in attendance and thanks to those who were left to wrap up the morning session) and was whisked over to Television Centre in White City where he was interviewed for the BBC lunchtime news.

Back in Brighton, the NixonMcInnes office and various members of the Twitter community eagerly waited to watch him on the TV.

Check out the Twitter chatter that’s been going on; NB this content is liklely to be out of date in a couple of weeks time.

Such an exciting and memorable day, we simply had to shout about it.

We are very proud of our Will, well done and many thanks goes out to Robin Wilson at McCann Erickson for the lead and to Hotwire for securing the opportunitty and organising Will on the day.

View Will’s stellar performance.

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