Reboot Britain

Yesterday I went to Reboot Britain, an event organised by NESTA - the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

The idea of Reboot Britain was born from NESTA’s report "Attacking the Recession" which was published earlier this year and outlines measures to support a more dynamic and resilient economy.

In his foreword to the Reboot Britain publication Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA tells us that Reboot Britain asks an important question of us in this digital age: given the unprecedented challenges we face, how can we best overcome them by harnessing the unique tools now at our disposal?

With this in mind I sat down to listen to the impressive line up of speakers on stage in the lecture theatre, and what a treat it was. Here are the highlights for me:

Gillian Tett - (Assistant Editor, Financial Times), talking about the banking crisis:
Innovation occurred in such small silos that no-one outside the system understood it and no one inside the system had the big picture.

Tony Ageh - (Controller of Archive Development, BBC) – Mining the Archives, a new Age of Opportunity:The BBC archives are about to get sexy. The BBC has 5 ½ miles of shelved archives and over 400,000 complete programmes. It would take over 120 years to convert these programmes into a digital format. Tony Ageh says the answer is to let people “have” the content; making this content freely available will create entirely new businesses. The media sector will reinvent itself through its archives.

Martha Lane-Fox – (Digital Inclusion Champion, Digital Britain) – Ending the Digital Divide: People being left behind are left behind in every sphere of their life. Let’s focus on getting the 6 million people who are most socially disadvantaged online; if we can do this, we can increase their confidence / motivation / skills / inspiration.

Charles Leadbeater – The Mutual Media Manifesto: Media is something we do with people, not to and for people. Renegades and pirates will be the ones to create the innovations of the future.

Alan Moore – (co-author of Communities Dominate Brands) - Straightline Thinking stops here, the true promise of the networked society: There is no more online or offline, there is only blended reality. Don’t talk about digital, talk about technology as co-operation.

These are just some of the great soundbites from the excellent presentations and although some left me with more tangible ideas than others, all were thought provoking and inspiring.

You can take a look at the Reboot Britain slide show below or download or follow the latest news and views on #rebootbritain.

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Web 2.0 and social media for PR and internal communication: collaboration in action

The much anticipated and most comprehensive white paper on the digital landscape in Britain – Digital Britain 2012 - is being published today. This report is expected to help establish the Government’s blueprint for the future development of all things digital (technology, the internet and broadcasting) throughout the UK. As the report's author and Minister for Communications, Lord Carter of Barnes stated earlier this year: "Delivering Digital Britain will depend upon a smart industry, working with a committed Government to produce lasting solutions."

Smart industry collaboration is indeed essential to help address some of the more complex challenges faced both within and between an organisation and its publics when embracing Web 2.0. And the time is right for businesses to share, partner and integrate their expertise and knowledge – in the true spirit of this digital age.

Therefore, in collaboration with our sister company theblueballroom (internal communications) and Redcatco (social media and collaboration technology), we are offering companies 360-degree online communications consulting, as well as implementation and training on how best to embed Web 2.0 and social media into business and communications strategies.

We believe this collaboration presents a unique internal and external end-to-end offering for the diverse business function owners who are benefited by the opportunities and impacted by the potential pitfalls that online strategies and tools can bring. This approach will ensure that marketing, IT, customer services, communications (corporate, external and internal), lead generation, new business and HR can benefit from an enriched understanding of how Web 2.0 and social media can enhance internal and external communications strategies.

Digital Media, Online PR, Social Networks: is measurement just a giant red herring?

I’ve been a busy bee recently: up in the smoke 8 working days out of 10.

Highlights? Loads of them, but particularly the FreshNetworks gig on Tuesday looking at Social Networks with a specific focus on monetisation, and last night’s inspiring Digital Britain Unconference (organised by @billt and @kcorrick) in London. And, as an aside, if anyone still wonders about the magic of Twitter, just the very fact that a diverse group of 80 to 100 people turned up to the ICA to provide a response to Lord Carter’s Digital Britain 2012 says it all. Similar important events are happening across the country, all mobilised through Twitter, blogs and networks and organised in just 2-3 weeks.

Forgive the nascent nature of my ramblings but I’ve got a collision of thoughts stacking at the moment. I’ve got to get them down, and would love any feedback and opinions that might help me make some logical sense of it.

PR and measurement

• PR: PR has long struggled to justify its existence through our clients’ evergreen, and justifiable challenge to demonstrate the value in pounds and pence.
• Equivalent Advertising Spend: Yes there are many ways – Equivalent Advertising Spend, share of voice, circulation – but they are all flawed for one reason or another.
• Influence of PR: PR impacts (or perhaps ‘influences’ – tricky word I know) behaviour online and offline, over a period of time – and this human behaviour cannot be measured. Also sustained PR can positively impacts the way people feel about a company – again, how do you measure that, particularly if money isn’t plentiful to carry out before and after attitudinal surveys.
• Brand Effect: That bluebottle-sized fly in the ointment called ‘Brand Effect’ is notoriously hard to track, measure or quantify.
• PR Measurement: Recently I have often heard my peers and colleagues waking up to online (at last!) and greeting it with the grateful and hopeful cry ‘And it’s measurable!’

Is it? I personally find this justifying statement worrying. Yes it is certainly more measurable, particularly if realistic metrics are built into campaigns from the start. However these can run the risk of turning people off, making the conversation unnatural and doing quite the opposite of the end goal.

Social Networks and monetisation

• Similarly, there is a huge amount of talk about monetisation of Social Networks – Facebook, Twitter – at the moment. Can they be? Should they be? After all companies have to see a bottom line return on investment, don’t they?
• As Joanne Jacobs was saying on Tuesday, Social Networks perhaps should not be seen as purely a vehicle to see a return on investment, and if they cover their costs that’s fine. People go shop later, online or offline – and if the network just serves to build that feel good factor (that many hard nosed marketers call ‘fluffy’) that’s significantly fine too.
  
  

Digital Britain Unconference

And then on to last night’s Unconference. Without sounding too much like I’m on a soap box at the moment perhaps monetisation, value, ROI of everything that needs to happen in the run up to 2012 should all be seen in a different light. Dare I think that perhaps ‘Brand Effect’ thinking should be woven in? Yes, infrastructure, education, technology etc etc all costs hard cash and those providers naturally want to see a return, particularly when all our pockets are not particularly deep at the moment. However, look at the steaming pile of compost we’re in now due the hard-nosed greed of the banking sector. Surely inspiring Digital Britain to become Digital Britons (as one of the attendees shouted) is key to this. And by communicating the benefits using everyday language and real world on the ground examples could be key to driving this revolution. Perhaps bottom line measurement should be seen for what they are: a diversion that steers us away from what really matters.

Am I barking up a tree, going down a blind alley? Any thoughts that you could add to this would be very gratefully received!