JOURNAL : FEBRUARY 2007

IMAGE 1 - BUZZ WORDS/TIME LINE




IMAGE 2 - SCATTER DIAGRAMME



IMAGE 2


Researching Web 2.0

The competition Brief has sparked an interest in Web 2.0

From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2

Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences, and since 2004 some developers and marketers have adopted the catch-phrase. Its exact meaning remains open to debate, and some technology experts, notably Tim Berners-Lee, have questioned the meaning of the term.

... advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds (and other forms of many-to-many publishing), social software, Web APIs, Web standards and online Web services imply a significant change in web usage.










http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/

PRODUCTION PROCESSES - JOURNAL

POSTINGS - MOST RECENT ON TOP


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FEBRUARY
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Interview: Robin Moore
Write up report

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JANUARY
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RESEARCH NOTES:

SOMETHING OF NOTE:
Link: Elaine England and Andy Finney Course, 8 Mar 2007: Product Management Training: Interactive Media
http://www.atsf.co.uk/atsf/pmtrain.html

NB: VERY GOOD WEBSITE - ENABLES USER TO GO THROUGH PRODUCTION CYCLE OF 'VIRTUAL' COMPANY:

http://www.skillset.org/interactive/overview/



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DECEMBER
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13 DECEMBER: PRESENTATION
Feedback - see London & Finney - apply to BBC processes


7 DECEMBER 2006 - INTERVIEW WITH ANDY ROBERTS, PRODUCER WHERE I LIVE (BBC SE WALES)

BBC WHERE I LIVE WEBSITE
BBC WEBSITE GENERAL
bbc.co.uk /news
bbc.co.uk /sport
bbc.co.uk/weather
bbc.co.uk

HISTORY
Information from Andy Roberts, Producer, Where I Live (Southeast Wales) site. Joined in 1996 from Radio 1. (Web design was totally new area for Corporation with decades of experience in radio and TV).
Initially envisaged as educational tool (BBC has huge education division)
Now seen as service site

1997: Limited news site to coincide with election
98: Wales – European Summit of Ministers in Cardiff
Andy included section “Cool Cymru” – unusual, in terms of larger BBC picture.
99: Expansion – World Cup in Wales, National Assembly

2001: Where I Live launched as three-year project initially

FIRST HAND STUDY OF PRODUCTION PROCESSES

Initially hand-coded (HTML) and later Dreamweaver – therefore a centralised IT function – copy handed over to technicians.

Boosted by News website technology – News Content Production System

2000/1: “All Wales” site. WIPS (Wales Interactive Production System) – system of templates set up by technicians to allow non-technical staff to use site – template-based system > led to decentralised production. Wales divided into 5 areas: SE, SW, Mid, NE, NW.
“A lot more people creating a lot more content” (Andy Roberts)

DEFINITION AND PLANNING

Each area has Producer and Researcher; and
Journalist – but s/he reports to news dept in Cardiff

Make day to day decisions and oversee input

Community generated content – mostly by email (also comment boxes)

Clearly, problem for central management/ joint projects – result: weekly telephone conference – producers five regions plus Robin Moore (executive producer New Media (?) and assistant producer

With Agenda.

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Public broadcaster with brief “To inform, educate and entertain”.

INFORMATION AND SERVICE

Travel, entertainment, local history

Wealth of information - challenge is to make it accessible and easy to use. Users all over the world. Template system – simplicity, standardisation, accommodates lots of information, simple and predictable.

DESIGN
Template based and very limited number of designs. Essentially-
Index page (with thumbnail links and index), main page (onemain image with content) and galleries (enables photo galleries)

CONSTRUCTION

Centrally planned but locally constructed.

MARKETING

BBC is public broadcaster and cannot promote itself at expense of other media companies (already in trouble in Midlands – local TV stations). Also not permitted to take advertising. Board is trying to introduce advertising – being opposed by staff. Marketing is through community events, community studios, buses, etc.

TRACKING, EVALUATION AND MAINTENENANCE

Centrally evaluated – every week get rundown (see Agenda) – evaluated in terms of updates.


RECOMMENDATION:
FUTURE: SPECIFIC PROJECT
Abolition of Slavery project
Just launched (end Nov) – will follow this as case study

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NOVEMBER
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SCHEDULE/TIMELINE

http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dcv3fqr6_0dk3kvg&revision=_latest

TECHNICAL PROBLEM POSTING TABLE (SCHEDULE)
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If retrying doesn't help, try waiting a short while and trying again. And if that doesn't work, your local helpdesk might be able to help.
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http://docs.google.com/View?docID=dcv3fqr6_0dk3kvg&revision=_latest

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PRODUCTION PROCESS SCHEDULE

Week one: 21st & 22nd Nov (10am)
Briefing
Analysis

Week two: 28th & 29th Nov (10am)
Project Lifecycles
Project Manager’s Responsibilities
Make contacts

Week three: 5th, 6th Dec (10am)
Production Company meetings & preparation for presentation. (5th & 6th Dec)
Consider ‘real life’ brief.
Live Brief workshop (Wednesday 6th Dec) (10am)

Week four: 12th, 13th Dec (10am)
Presentations (group) (12th Dec)
Development

Week five: 16th, 17th Jan (10am)
Development

Week six: 23th, 24th Jan (10am)
Development

Week seven: 30th, 31st Jan (10am)
Development
Deadline Reports 2nd Feb

Week eight: 6th, 7th Feb (10am)
Development
Deadline Practicals 9th Feb

PRODUCTION PROCESSES - WEB REPORT

PRODUCTION PROCESSES
THEORY VS PRACTICE?

An Analysis of the BBC's Production Processes, through The Abolition of Slavery Project

BY VIVIEN VAN DER SANDT
STUDENT NO: 06003781
Email address: viviensandt@yahoo.co.uk

Exercise 1: Analysis of BBC website:

The BBC website contains a wealth of information - apart from TV and radio programme information, it also provides services such as weather and traffic, entertainment information, subject specialities such as history, event-based information (such as Black History month, a regular feature) and so on. The challenge is obviously to make this information accessible and easy to use. Visitors to the site hail from all over the world, therefore the information must be cross-culturally user-friendly. The key elements evident from the site are simplicity and standardisation, presenting similar navigational tools (thumbnails, for instance) for each page. These elements help visitors to easily access the information. There are a small number of templates - essentially an Index page (with thumbnail links and index), Main Page (onemain image with content) and Galleries (photo galleries, often as slide shows) - but the site is still visually intersting, as the wealth of information gives each page a very different appearance.

The Abolition of Slavery Project
Illustration:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sites/history/pages/slavery.shtml

(Access this link to see an example of an Abolition of Slavery project page)


The BBC website is, above all, a service and information site, in line with its role as a public service broadcaster. As the sites are funded by public money in the form of a licence fee, they are bound, by the Charter, to ‘educate, inform and entertain’. All these elements are evident in their website. A large part of their brief, of course, is to promote their radio and television schedules. Another part is to serve the community.

The BBC undertakes a range of projects. There are some which are commissioned (by BBC Commissioners), some in which they pitch ideas, and others which are handed to them as part of their day-to day-duties. To narrow down this brief, this report will look at one current project, the Abolition of Slavery (the anniversary celebrations of the end of slavery in 1807).

Within the BBC, this is considered more a ‘theme’ than a project. While the BBC planners are often looking for themes to feature, this one was of course a given – it is already a well-publicised and long-anticipated anniversary and many organisations are making it their project for the year. The theme was considered ideal for the BBC as it embraced history (the website already has a popular and well-developed History section), it would appeal to a wide range of racial/ethnic group and a wealth of material was already available. The programme has already started in October 2006 - when the anniversary was highlighted in a regular series, Black History Month - and will run until November 2007. The main focus will be on March 25, the date the Abolition Act was signed in 1807.

Definition and planning

It was decided that since each region had their own particular stories to run (Hull would obviously highlight William Wilberforce, Wales has chosen to look at the buildings erected with income from slavery) the project would be handled by the regional websites (the Where I Live section). A Project Team was convened - it has a Project Director and Spokesperson and representatives from TV, Radio and Virtual (that is, new media). The Education and Legacy and External Liaison departments are also represented. This Project Team is tasked with co-ordinating the project and distributing all the information and schedule details to the relevant sections. The BBC has an intranet site called Gateway and a large amount of information has been posted on this site by the Project Team – therefore anyone in the corporation can access what they require.

Unusually (since Wales radio and TV usually operate fairly independently from the English operation) on this occasion it was decided that Wales would fall under the British regional programmes for practical reasons (as most of the Where I Live sites are in England). Naturally, all website work is dealt with via the New Media departments (several regions have one, and in Wales it is based in Cardiff). Falling under the New Media department in Wales are five regions – NE, NW, SE, SW and Mid Wales. Each has a producer and a researcher and all would be expected to find the local angle on the slavery theme, and post the material they can find.

The BBC is a bit different to most commercial organisations. A typical production cycle would consist of Planning (scoping), Project sign-off, Asset gathering (pre-production), the Build phase, Quality Assurance, Release sign-off and Launch.

A decision had to be taken on how to deal with the material over the long term. It was decided that it would run on the regional site for the course of the project, and thereafter it would be embedded in the History section (which already has a sub-category, Black History.

Information Architecture, Design and Construction

Where the Information Architecture, Design and Construction are concerned, the BBC is in the position where it is building on an existing website for every project. (There are occasions where it would do a site for payment, for an outside agency, but this is not the case with the Abolition of Slavery project). The BBC website is a well-established site so any new projects obviously build upon/slot into an already well-established information architecture. The design and construction are also usually established. As Robin Moore put it “We don’t think outside the box, we think in the box” (that is, they think how the new content can be produced in current templates – within the organisation this is referred to as ‘traditional builds’). The producers use a template system which makes the pages uniform and predictable for the visitor. In Wales, production staff use the WIPS (Wales Interactive Production System), a template-based system that allows a large number of inputters to produce pages that adhere to the overall style.

The Researcher at regional level would be tasked with sourcing material. The web pages would be built by the WIL producer in each region

Marketing

To a large extent, the BBC IS the marketing exercise, as the websites are marketing their radio and television programmes (and also community events). But they do sometimes get involved in marketing. They run focus groups. They also advertise – not much in print advertising, but mostly billboards. Some user testing is led by external testers. There are also smaller groups convened for in internal testing.

Tracking, evaluation and maintenance

Fifty percent of the BBC website’s traffic comes from search engines and the insertion, at construction stage, of the good, original keywords, is an important task.

The BBC website has a Your Say section which constantly invites comment and contributions regarding any item on their site. The feedback from this interactive facility is a valuable guide on how much interest a particular project has attracted.

The website is already featuring a few stories but the full impact of this theme could be assessed only later in the year.

The BBC website features many themes similar to the Abolition of Slavery issue, as well as other types of projects. All are commissioned, constructed and signed off in steps similar to those described above. The BBC, not aimed primarily at making a profit from its production activities (although there are some income-producing projects) operates in some ways differently from commercial operations. The BBC website is an established institution (started in 1996, it is now a sprawling network of main and mini sites) and therefore each new project builds in existing architecture and practices. The production processes reflect the nature of the work they do, and the nature of the Corporation.