Here are the events as they happened, it is the agenda in chronological order:

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Welcome

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Culture Blog Interview

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Social Media and the Arts

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Peter Gregson Interview

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Further Field

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Digital Rights and Wrongs

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Technology Blog

Art of Digital London – Sadler’s Wells – Comment is Free

Bill Thompson introduces the last section of the day, Comment is Free.

It is an unstructured question and answer session in which Bill encourages comment from people in the audience.

Here they come:

If you don’t have systems of attention or systems of care then everything falls over.

There are poles of things at the moment, we haven’t really explored the middle ground. When we do it will feel less like the extremes we are currently seeing.

How many people who tweeted during Peter’s performance found it distracting?

CJ Lyon offers a comment:
As an amplifier of content, one has to make a decision about being there to experience an event or being there to blog it.

She advocates Blogger nights at theatres as she would like the choice of not having to listen to ‘click clicking’.

What happens after today?

You can join the Art of Digital London network at artofdigitallondon.ning.com.

There will also be workshops and more.

It’s very much about taking this opportunity to find new forms of collaboration, of finding new partners.

What do other people think about the YouTube Symphony Orchestra?

Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian did say that it felt like an experiment for the sake of technology.

It actually got 9 million views.

Collaboration between YouTube, London Symphony Orchestra and Carnegie Hall.

Brought together a collection of amateur musicians to perform music written by a respected composer.

The project gave rise to a lot of community aspects, people looked towards mentoring each other and commenting on each other’s videos.

@peterjlaw on Twitter will be following up this event with a ‘Geekcamp’.

Bill draws the event to an end.

Rachel adds that this event will be followed up by workshops that allow Regularly Funded Organisations to share knowledge.

It’s a wrap!

Hope you enjoyed the event and found the debate both stimulating and encouraging.

Bill Thompson now introducing the next section which he says is now about asking a more fundamental question: we used to think we knew what public service content was.

We don’t any more.

What, if you are an arts organization keen to reach new audiences using technology do about this?

Panellists: John (Tate), Frank Boyd (Unexpected Media) Marc Boothe B3 Media, Jess Search (Channel 4 BRITDOC), Adam Gee (Channel 4), Hasan Bakhshi (NESTA)

Hasan answers: Public service content is content, absence of public support, would not be available in a marketplace.

Every time an arts organization tries something new it is a learning opportunity.  There is a real opportunity for Public sector organisations to experiment with new technologies and enrich the sector.

Jess shares how she runs BRITDOC and her job.  Was previously a commissioning editor but left because wasn’t able to make content she wanted to.

Now funds documentaries.  Only those rejected by the major broadcasters.

Takes a different view to Hasan.  Content that somewhere along the line asks us a moral question.  She is talking from a documentary perspective.
The remit is to find how this content will be funded in the future as the way it has been funded in the past is no longer happening.

Channel 4 BRITDOC is mentioned in the Digital Britain report, in the context of celebrating their use of partnerships.

The End Of the Line a good example, supported by Waitrose, Google, Prince Charles hosted a screening at Clarence House.

Comissioned MORI to look at why people don’t want to pay for documentaries.   Found they all firmly believe in it but won’t pay for it.

Adam Gee, commissioning editor, cross-platform factual.  Examples, Embarrassing Bodies, Alone In The Wild.

Digital Britain, really a radical vision, as far as Channel 4 is concerned, shift your vision to what 4IP and the educational department at Channel 4 are doing.

A large part of what Channel 4 has done historically is to give people a reason to be inspired.

The real issue here is how to get attention in a really noisy world.

It’s a real challenge and a particular challenge for arts organisations.   The whole issue of getting attention and transforming this attention into engagement of some kind is the core challenge.

Marc Boothe from B3 Media now introducing what his 9 year old organization is doing.  B3 Media works in moving image and still and other mediums particularly amongst the black and ethnic minority communities.

Issues of digital inclusion, bridging the digital divide are issues that stand out from the Digital Britain report.

B3 Media work on 20 projects a year.  An example, Future Lab, run in collaboration with Channel 4 and Skillset.

Film 4 commission a film.  6-8 digital short films.  Power Lab, developing cultural leaders run with Tate and Southbank.

There is a huge opportunities to be had but let’s not fool ourselves, all these things cost money.

A point from Twitter came up about how the body language of the panel looked like a group hug was needed so all the panelists gave and received a hug!

Frank Boyd now introducing what he has worked on. Worked on one of the first multi-media projects.   Has been involved in the charter discussions at the BBC, looking at culture and education.

Currently running a program called Crossover which is based on the concept that innovation using the new technology available depends on getting stuck in!

He thinks that the arts don’t speak digital.

He has run a lot of Crossover Labs over the last few years.  The participants engage in discussion regarding using new technologies.

When for the first time he ran such a Lab with artists he noticed that none of them noticed that there was a new dynamic with relating to an audience.

It very much is about co-creation.  There is a change in power in authorship.   Sadly, most artists don’t get it.

John from Tate adds that the Tate’s remit is to increase the public’s enjoyment of art, or words to that nature.

The Tate is now in the third phase of its publishing modely, it’s more about ideas, online and on other social media platforms.  The first phase was about putting on exhibitions the second about curating exhibitions.

A few years ago the Tate came to the decision that they were a content organization not unlike Disney or BBC.

The question is how do you use these new platforms to engage with audiences.  Turner films previously made by Channel 4, now made by Tate Media and licensed to the broadcasters.

There’s much more rich media on the website, they are also working on a major overhaul of the website behind the scenes.

Everyone will have an element of online in their jobs in coming years.   The communications will be unmediated.  The marketing and communications departments have been very protective of the brand and it’s going to be a major challenge to open up.

Bill asks ‘What would you say to arts organisations about how to respond to the changing audience’.

Adam comments by responding that it’s about inspiring dialogue amongst the audience. Example is Sexperience, a sex education project.

Frank Boyd adds that Channel 4 s doing some really interesting work with engaging with audiences, not just Adam’s work but also Matt Locke’s.

In this current environment, we’re at the foothills, no-one is an expert.

Frank Boyd adds that he thinks Andy Gibson, School of Everything spoke earlier as someone immersed in digital whilst Ekow Eshun spoke as someone trying to understand it.

Hasan makes a point that it’s also about looking at the economics of public sector content.  Jess points out the Hasan has written a very good paper on this subject.

Marc then adds that its about recognising that audiences now mediate the content.  Do things iteratively.

Q: How much should we share?

A: John from Tate says we should have the approach that it is ‘other people’s data’ and we need to allow others to access it.

Frank Boyd adds that recent legislation now gives independent production companies the rights to the content they create.   However, it means that the company that made the independent sector viable (i.e. Channel 4) does not get a return on their investment.

Jess Search adds that they are looking at models like VoDo in which the brands do not necessarily want to recoup.   Age of Stupid funded using a similar idea.

Q: Pubic service content also about sustaining diversity of output.  There is a disjuncture in looking at this.   Google made £1.5 billion last year in the UK and and returned £6ooo in tax.

Shouldn’t this be discussed more?  They are not at discussions like this.

Frank answers: Isle of Man have re-invented licence fee by putting a levy on rights honours.  However when discussed with the chair of PACT about whether this would work in the UK, apparently there is no political will for it.

Marc adds that none of the big US content companies have to invest back into the UK.

Hasan adds that arts and cultural sector was not interviewed in the Digital Britain report.  If one were to address, diversity, that would be were to start.

Bill asks how each of the panellists would summarise advice to listeners.

Hasan – Time for playing and trialling

Jess – Brainstorm who you’d work with

Adam – Just try stuff out, do it.

Marc – Collaboration will be key

Frank – Come on a Crossover Lab

John – Buy a video camera and an Apple Mac and start making your own films.

Next: unstructured Q & A, ‘Comment is free’.

Charles Arthur, technology editor at the Guardian is chairing this debate about whether the arts need a digital rights agency.

Panellists: Pete Buckingham (UKFC), Laurance Kaye (Legal specialist), Gavin Starks, Bronac Ferran, Jamie King

What is copyright?  During Peter Gregson’s performance there were a number of things going on, the performance, content from public speeches and Peter made the decision to choose a business model that was entirely around being paid for live performances and nothing else, Laurence Kaye clarifies.

Jamie King presents VoDo.  He talks about Steal This Film, a film he and some friends made in 2006 about the conflict between those who run industries based on restriction and the new paradigm which is unlimited digital copies.

PirateBay swapped their logo out from their website, replacing it with Steal This Film’s logo and in the space of two weeks, they received 2 million downloads for the film.

First time round asked people to donate a dollar, expecting to earn a dollar for each download. Only made around $3000.

Then asked people to donate $5 or $15 for a mystery gift.

They received $30,000!

In addition, they have received a huge amount of free publicity and distribution from radio and TV stations. Because the content is out there, Steal This Film now has an educational arm.

Discovered that no-one else would do it and have set up VoDo which is a project that allows film makers to promote their work on peer-to-peer sites

VoDo – voluntary donations.  If you connect with people with where they are, a proportion of the people will support you.

Let’s not see the capacity to be copied to be subtractive.  It’s additive.  Let’s make a virtue of it.

Use your right to be copied to connect with more people to be copied.  It’s not just about donations.  Sell t-shirts.

Use that as a trail-blazer to allow people to connect with you.

VoDo have connected with Channel 4’s BritDocs.  Every month one of the films uploaded is chosen and published on the network of peer-to-peer distributors lined up.

Charles asks Pete what he thinks about Steal This Film.

A: He thinks it’s a good idea.  It does prove that all content on peer-to-peer content is not illegitimate.  We need to think more intelligently than just the headline positions that are being taken.

Q: Charles asks what is UKFC’s position as far as coming down on illegal downloading.

A: Pete answers that he will respond by looking at from his work which is looking at making content available.

We have to balance a clampdown anti-piracy policy with an availability policy.

A: Bronac adds that there are issues of ownership in relation to public sector sponsored content.  In this era where collaboration is linked to innovation, it’s an opportunity to go with the flow of innovation.

There is a call for consultation on illegal filesharing by a government department.  It is increasingly becoming necessary for the arts to get involved.  Will need to write a measured response so that commercial entities do not prescribe the outcome.

Set up a subscribed resource agency for artists that can advise artists.  It’s an agency that would include academics and lawyers.

A: Charles now invites Gavin Starks to introduce himself

It’s not a problem of rights management it’s about access and demand.  The ecosystem hasn’t changed, it’s got more artists.   You still need a body that manage the different points of the processes – artists creating content, rights licensing.
You still need all those actors, there is a now multiplicity of channels.

Q: Is copyright broken?  Is there an opportunity to fix it?

A: Laurence adds that Creative Commons is a great model.  We need to create a system so that when we think about creation, we think about how things want to be used.

There are already technologies that allow musical works to be tracked even without metadata, Gavin adds.

Jamie King says that Creative Commons is a rosette and nothing more.  It’s a complete failure as a licensing system.

The main question is how do I access this distribution?  It’s not about trying to maintain the old system of rights restriction.  Jamie then goes to add, if you want to prevent something from being shared hide it!  It could theoretically be worth £20 million!

Q: Charles asks Jamie King, what’s your fundamental currency, your scarcity?

A: It’s us!  We sell a huge number of t-shirts.

Pete adds that the model of giving something away and hoping that a relationship develops that generates revenue is not enough for everyone.

Jamie continues and says that the issue is that the Digital Britain report seems to be about maintaining the old regime instead of giving people access to new distribution models.
Now questions from the floor.

Q: Boris from a theatre company would like to know how to make £1 million using Jamie’s model.

A: Jamie responds.   No-one has got that sort of answer for you.  If you can’t make it with £100,000 I can’t help you.

Q: Are there any other business models for earning money when you don’t own the content?

A: Pete answers: this is like the question before, I don’t know how to answer that.   There is almost this practice of groping for a new platform for which copyright is not broken, like making t–shirts.

No-one has the answer, really.  Bronac adds that she has seen a lot of great work that isn’t copyright owned by the Arts Council.

She adds that it is more of an exchange of trust, there can be trusted systems that can be used in this context.

Gavin adds that it’s also about services.   Look at how you would move your industry from products to services.  He says Jamie’s model is a voluntary subscription.

Laurence adds that there is copyright and business models.  The two things go together.  There is also a moral right to being attributed.

Q: How do you view the new archives being built?

A: Charles replies that it is a null question as not all archives are accessible.

Bronac adds that it would be interesting if the Arts Council encouraged organisations to tag content so it could be automatically ‘archived’.

Jamie ends with the point that the peer-to-peer distributors have an archive that is several orders of magnitude more comprehensive than those of the individual person archiving content.

All in all, a pretty intense and interesting session.  We’re pausing for a brief break and then we’ll be on to the implications of ‘Digital Britain’ on the arts, or, what public service content looks like in the digital age.

Ruth from Further Field shares about their work.

Started out as a DIY web developer in the 90s, now run a substantial online platform, both for debate and for collaboration, allowing people to make things in real time.

The technology and the infrastructure are key to it.  The issues they struggle with are openness and how you make collaboration.

The controversy that arises is what produces the audience.  Core to their drive is a belief that it is through critical engagement with technology that we co-construct our culture.

We are not just passengers, we are mutual drivers.  Open-source very important to them.

Jeremy Bailey, Canadian artist, live video performance artists, programmer.

Uses YouTube to explore the tension between being an artist in its original form and the need for mass market.

Here’s his Video Terraform Dance Party

Questions from the floor:

Q: For Peter Gregson, why did you say you didn’t want to be political in reference to your piece that samples Obama’s inauguration speech?

A: Peter answers that it was neither relevant or necessary.  He would be happy to have used John McCain’s speech but Obama has much better delivery.

Q: The video was a bit reminiscent of Sim City, is it?

A: Ruth says that they support artists who create using Sim City.

Q: How do you support such artists?  It seems almost hobbyist.
A: Ruth says they provide an infrastructure that supports artists to create for these mediums.

Next up: Mukul Khan, Ambient TV

Hybrid media an example of which is a project called Virtual Borders which followed a village headman from Thailand to China and then broadcast the information back to China.

Other projects, building a wireless network in East London in 2000/1 to connect independent artists around the city.  A completely self-run, self-organising network.

Hardware from plastic pipes, all the computers, donated.

Next project: Faceless.  Feature length sci-fi movie made entirely from CCTV camera footage accessed using the Data Protection Act.

The protagonists the only person with a face.

Other projects: trYptichon, visualizing location data from mobile phones.  Created an architecture of text based on the location of the phones.

Looking at the security industry.  Another project: The Orchestra of Anxiety, a harp made out of razor wire.

Visitors are invited to play the harp using electronic gloves.

Love, Piracy, and the office of religious weblog

An interview with an Iranian scholar has been turned into a book which has a 1500-word section censored except one word.

You can read the rest of the book by joining with others to share which word is not censored in your copy.

And we’re back!  We’ve listened to a very nice selection of contemporary music pieces performed by award-winning cellist Peter Gregson.

Peter Gregson now being interviewed by Hannah Rudman, director of AmbITion.

Hannah asks if The Words on the Wall, the projection of words by Peter during his performance is a distraction.

He answers that people have the option of concentrating on just the music if they wish.  It’s about engaging people on different levels.

Hannah asks if he asked for Obama’s permission before distorting his voice in the sample of his inauguration speech in one of his pieces.  He answers that he sent him a copy but doesn’t know if he listened to it.

Hannah asks what Peter’s business model is.

He answers that his Point of Sale is at the concert venue.  He explores freemium and paid models.  He has explored being a musician and being in the record industry but would have to sell millions of records if he just did that.

Questions from the floor:

Q: Has the software crashed before?

Yes, it did in Twitter’s offices, their server crashed.

Q: What software is powering the Words on the Wall?

It’s a Flash application.

Q: Are you a programmer?

No, I have friends who wear much thicker glasses than mine who can help.

Q: Have you thought of incorporating feedback from the web/Twitter into your actual performance?

Peter says he has considered it but in dealing with democracy, if the same number of people decide something is too loud/soft, it stays the same.

Q: Former cellist asks how easy or difficult it would be to play on the electronicdimensions, though much like a cello fretboard with a stand, is identical to an acoustic cello.  Could quite as easily play Bach on it.

Peter then plays another piece to end.

Andy Gibson of School of Everything introduces the next section with a discussion on playing with ‘social conventions’.

What are the implications on our culture, on power structures as a result of all these technologies.  We have a completely new ecosystem of news.  It’s changed marketing.  Viral marketing, by Skittles, turning their website into a social media account, annoying but works.

Various friends and followers on Twitter almost a consultancy for him.

See this as a time to play and find new ways to interact.

School of Everything, a marketplace for day to day learning.  Moving from a 19th century broadcast model of teaching to a social media approach where everyone can be a teacher.

What is cultural production when it’s not mass production?  When what we are doing is facilitating production.

What are the implications for expert practictioners when they are not stood in front a silent audience?

Where is the power of the audience and where is the relationship.?

Social media makes the invisible network of our culture visible.  What does it mean when I can then engage with it?

At what point does it become rude if I ignore what you are all saying?

Meg Pickard, head of social media at Guardian chairs the next panel.

Panel introduce themselves.

Naomi Alderman, writes novels, worked on We Tell Stories.

Live interactive story telling, allowed writer to interact with the audience.

“A novel that never ends would be a soap opera”.

Ed Baxter, works for Resonance FM, a community radio station, founded 7 years ago.  Its audience did not exist until it did.  It’s like a concert that never ends.

How it functions, ‘everybody has a radio programme inside them and should be encouraged to make it’.  Typically, the guest on a programme ends up running their own.

The principle at the station is to keep it going. When it get’s boring they change it for their own amusement.

A different perspective on community curation.

John McGrath, artistic director, National Theatre Wales, based on a non-building model, creating theatre for the whole of Wales.

Arts venues are often very good places to hide art.  Strategy decided to build a community site before building a website as an arts organisation would know it.

It’s a very active Ning site, with hundreds of contributors, all contributing ideas about how the National Theatre of Wales should work.

Similar work being done online as was done at the Contact Theatre Manchester where lots of different people are encouraged to come up with different ideas.

Rachel Coldicutt, head of new media at the Royal Opera House.

Looking at how audiences change and move and experimenting with how you make a very conventional audience more interactive and less protective.

Richard Slaney, London Philharmonia

Have lots of audience who engage with content.  Looking at how community response relates and influences a live audience.

Q: How do you deal with quality?

A: Ed Baxter says that it is about combining as many different participants.  If you learn something, you tell everybody else how to do it.

Andy Gibson adds, it’s about allowing the audience to decide what is quality.  Just because you aren’t curating content doesn’t mean people aren’t curating it.

Rachel Coldicutt:  if we only put on what people wanted, it would be La Tosca every night.  When you do what everyone wants, it’s often not as interesting.

We’d be less likely to open the programme to the public but the contents of the programme can be opened up.

Q: How are you doing this at National Theatre Wales?

A: John McGrath: it’s about sharing with everyone that it’s a journey.   You can choose to filter or watch what is filtered.

It’s about creating space.

Q: Creative community chaos.  How do you manage all these different interactions with community?

A: John McGrath, listening.  You have to guard against any defensiveness.

Meg adds: It’s about helping the audience come up with the commission.

Rachel Coldicutt adds that there is a line to cross, you have patrons who pay a fixed amount each year and can potentially join the conversation with their specific ‘customer service’ needs.

It’s wrong to think that there is one model, Naomi points out.  The audience is helping you shape it.  In addition, there are some people who just want to be in the position where one person’s unique vision is being presented to them.

They don’t necessarily want to be involved in filtering the process.

Perplexity, another piece of work Naomi was involved in that included lots of audience interaction.  Your audience helps you with events planned with them.

It gets them caring about things more because they were actually involved in the story.

Q: How do you engage/inspire/encourage people who don’t want to be involved?   Is consuming stuff an act of participation?

There is a way of picking up on the people that really want to be involved.   Meg says that you then run into the problem of self-selection of vocal participation.

Ed Baxter adds that consumption isn’t about feeding oneself.    The consumer is a product, consumers do work.  He is bemused by this notion of ‘conversation’.  ‘Performance is not conversation’.

Richard Slaney adds that if you watch a number of 16 year olds in the audience, you’d observe that they are working hard to stay still and listen.

There are ways to include audiences.

Now we have questions from the floor.

Q: Why do people use pseudonyms online?  How does this impact on audience curation?

A: Naomi adds that when you engage with audiences online you have to deal with anonymous commenters.

People like to be anonymous.  Ed adds that it is pop culture.   “Digital is as puerile as 1970s glam rock.”

What we’re doing is establishing an online brand for our conversation, Andy Gibson adds.

Now it feels like we’re tightening up on our online culture, it makes us all accountable.   Obama recognised that there was more accountability in the online space and said the same thing wherever he was speaking, recognising it would be online forever.  McCain on the other hand didn’t realise this and said different things to different people.

Q:  How far do we assume equality of access? How do we improve digital inclusion?

A: John McGrath answers to say an arts organisation has to look at how it engages with people online and on other platforms, as a whole.   Like Ekow Eshun said, it’s not a good idea to have one department in charge of digital or online for example.

Rachel Coldicutt adds that there are limited seats within an arts organisations and the online space increases the number of potential participants.

Richard Slaney adds that arts organisations need to look at improving web accessibility for disabled people.

Q: Is there a quality control mechanism for adding content to School of Everything?

A: Andy Gibson answers that whilst its true that universities have a process of accreditation around courses, it is possible to still get great courses without needing such a system.

Money is a social object.   It’s all about giving people the information to make good choices.  It’s about allowing people to make demand led decisions.

Q: How do you deal with a largely volunteer workforce, will you pay people?

A: Ed from Resonance FM says he has no solution to that problem.  The social glue that we are bound by is people not having an expectation of earning money.

John says that every opportunity, from stuffing envelopes to being a new producer is offered to the entire group.   Pay isn’t always money.

That’s it for the morning sessions.  Back after lunch!

Panel Discussion between Bill Thompson, Charlotte Higgins and Ekow Eshun about participatory arts projects in the Manchester International Festival.

The crux is creating places that artists and audiences are immersed. 

Charlotte comments that she is not a critic, you have to ‘pay more to hear my opinion’.  Speaks ‘pidgin Digital’ at best.

As a journalist, you do engage, you do Facebook and a blog and that provides a whole new way of engaging with your readers.

It can be very tough.  Potential for negative comments.

How do you deal with that? Bill Thompson says. 

There’s parallels with the issues arts organisations are dealing with. 

Poetic justice in a sense, journalists quite often the ones writing.  You take the sane comments and ignore the bad.

There isn’t a need for ‘specialist’ skills, it’s more about learning that there are others better at doing certain things.

Bill adds that it is now about being able to take in wisdom from the wider world. 

Ekow Eshun: It’s not about online or offline, they are all the same thing.  You are a fool for not paying attention to the ‘online world’.  Case in point, though there are bloggers in here, we are all in the same room.

Bill now asks how Charlotte how she lived with the last 10 years of massive change at the Guardian as it transitioned from being just a newspaper to having a web presence.

Charlotte says that it is more work, she has gone for writing 2 or 3 articles a week to writing a blog post a day and Twittering as well.

Hard work but a huge opportunity.

Ekow Eshun adds:
Spend less time watching what people do and more time watching how people organise themselves.  There’s more currency, more space for ideas.  If we operated like 60 years ago when the ICA was formed, just providing exhibitions we’d cease to provide value to the public.

The real driver for change is fear of being left behind.  You can’t claim to be a contemporary space and have relevance to your audience without connecting in this way.

Technology is an access point to deeper engagement.  The question is how you use those to engage with the public.

Questions from the floor:

Q: Someone asked why Ekow Eshun closed the Live Media department and sacked the digital curator. 

A: Ekow Eshun says having a department called Media Arts held back the process.  Anything that related to some of the issues being discussed here was being diverted to this one department.  He felt it should not be this way, digital should be embraced by the ICA as a whole.

He took the decision by taking the long term view for the ICA.  He decided not to ghetto-ise the way ICA worked by leaving all the digital development to one department.

Q: How did Ekow specify that his particular audience wanted a less fixed schedule.

A: Ekow adds that all these things are on a scale.   There are still exhibitions and film screenings but the recent ‘Talk show’ mixed everything up. 

Manchester International Festival set a new bar to how arts organisations collaborate. 

Q: Discussing the notion of ‘free-ness’ and its influence on the behaviour of the organisation. 
Bill paraphrases this to: does Free inevitably corrupt you?

A: Ekow answers: we decided to get rid of our entry free, without looking to replace it.  We now have more people coming through the door.  As a public institution, we have a responsibility to engage with our public. The over-riding aim is to forge a relationship with our audience.

Charlotte adds, all these things are interconnected.  Much of the services in the country are not really ‘free’.  The Plinth could only have happened here.

Q: It’s about Power in relation to this medium.  We’ve spent a lot of time this morning not addressing technology as a power.

A: Ekow says that a lot of this debate is not about neutrality.   We are talking about what happens when a lot of people have access.

We have been talking about it.

Next up: Social Media and the arts

Quite excited to be live blogging the Do The Arts Speak Digital event.  There’s a stellar line up of speakers, Dame Liz Forgan, Ekow Eshun, Charlotte Higgins, Bill Thompson and Meg Pickard of the Guardian.

Bill Thompson is now doing the house keeping.  Jokes about us all twittering incontinently.

#getambition hash tag will be streamed 

Liz Forgan is now introduced.

Very pleased to see how many people are here.  Particularly pleased to have established the partnership with the Guardian, Meg Pickard, Charles Author.  Also here, Channel 4, Britdocs.  Will  be developing the relationship.

Know that many arts orgnaissations have already started sharing their work online.  Other orgs sharing their media experiences, Royal Opera House and more.

Has just learnt abut MIDI from Peter Gregson.

ACE not to be just inspirational and generous but also to be useful.   Idea is to help people learn how to have access to digital world.   Digital opportunities one of priorities till 2011.

Comissioned work with Film Council.  Commisssioned research with MTM looking at current online output.  Synovate have looked out general perception of arts provision online.

Rolled out AmbITion roadshows of which this is the last.   This starts London’s group.

It’s hang on to your hats time.   We don’t have all the answers but often know someone who does.

Rachel Baker from ACE London now introduces today’s events.

Backdrop to this day is the Digital Britain report which provides a roadmap to digital development in the UK.

The Guardian’s reporting of this was key to her access of it, and much of today’s agenda arranged around writers/features in the Guardian.

Charles Arthur, PDA Blog, all very inspirational to her and she is happy to see them here.

Arts orgs aware that they are sitting on very valuable content.  Question is how do they enable access to this for their audiences.

Peoplespeak will be linking blogs and other online  content during the day.  Specialists at enabling people to speak using a number of digital platforms.

Today is about enabling those not as fluent as Peoplespeak.  Do speak!

Ekow Eshun now speaking.  Shares how the ICA website, redeveloped from an informational resource is now one of the top arts organisation websites.

Whilst there is vast potential for progress, the constraint is money.  The real question posed by our connected world, this digital Britian is how it affects what arts organisations deal with the public.

Chris Anderton’s Free inspired him to scrap a membership fee to attending ICA events? The idea that a barrier was in place anachronistic.

When access is faster, as it is now, it places an onus on organisations to change and become engaged and capable to respond to the passions of their public.

Recent series, ‘Talkshow’ month long, screenings, workshops, all free, encouraged public dialogue and interaction.   Suggested donation of £1.

Become a less fixed and structured venue, more about collaboration and less about ‘show and tell’.

A marker to becoming a place genuinely interested in engagement with audience.

How do we interact with our audience?  This is the question not ‘Do the Arts speak digital?’

We are already speaking digital.

Up next: a panel discussion with Charlotte Higgins, writer of the Guardian’s Culture Blog

The summary of the key points in the report is available here.

This blog entry isn’t trying to summarise the 246 page report, or Lord Carter’s presentation of it! My point of interest is from the cultural sector, so I’m listening with that filter on – Lord Carter is a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company for a start! However, from a read of the summary of the report and a scan of the big report, its more about pipes than poetry.

[Point 1] Digital connectivity: The communications infrastructure has to be addressed, and is being, through finding the cash to upgrade the UK’s telecoms networks .

• BRIC countries have dedicated Ministries for Communications and Technology. This leads to singularity on regulation: not the picture in the UK. Therefore, a report TO government has been the best way forward: you can make suggestions from the outside in, bring more plurality. Basically the report recommends deregulation over regulation, which will allow business models to emerge as the market decides what it wants.
• Broadband is now at highest levels in government as a utility, so that’s why there’s a fund to expand the network 100% nationwide. The choices for how the funding of the network upgrade (next gen fibre networks) are being mapped out. The levy at retail level as a subsidy on fixed line is the best way to produce a cash flow of c. £150m pa, which over 7 years would create enough cash to create 90% of the UK to have fibre by 2017 (this could raise broadband speeds to c. 40Mbs, 100Mbs if you pay for the fibre to go from the street cabinet to your house). Questions about this levy increasing budgets, and therefore shareholder value for PLCs (e.g. BT, Virgin Media), were raised during the debate: equity subsidy into the cash flow fund for upgrade should also be considered.

What I think: this is GOOD. We will have a country where connectivity is pretty much guaranteed anywhere, even if the speed is not. Although the 2Mbs is the floor not the ceiling aspiration.

[Point 2] Digital Economy: But the report also accepts that what is currently happening with technology is disruptive – its not just a natural upgrade process, and so the UK needs help with changing industries to be effective : this needed if we’re to have a quality Digital economy.

• The Digital Economy is essential to the UK’s competitiveness. The report positions this argument at the centre of government, with 25 proposals and 26 recommendations, and that’s why this report is so important. A digital economy bill should be passed in the next parliamentary session.
• Industry being supported by digital test beds to promote innovation and experimentation around digital content – the one for the creative industries will funded by the TSB; 
• new channel 4; and new regulation 

What I think: this is GOOD – government is admitting that digital is changing our economic make-up, and so will provide industry with support. There’s cash for innovation, and ongoing discussion on new “broadcasting” landscape.

Finally, the last main point is about digital participation.

• The liberation of the wireless spectrum is the bit of the report that the newspapers have missed: extend 3G services to voice spectrum and incentives to encourage 4G mobile (mobile broadband) to be provided by mobile operators – this strengthens the broadband network further, coming closer to 100% at the floor of 2Mbs.
• Issues in participation – digital divide is compounding itself: those who are not connected at home are not connected at work. Public service delivery cannot happen if 35% of nation are not online anywhere and don’t have the skills to participate. 
• The guaranteed provision of independent, impartial news outside the BBC and C4 is explained: you can only guarantee the provision if the strong existing commercial companies Channels 3&5 exist – these are editorially competitive to the standard of the BBC. (Apparently, UGC and other commercial companies cannot provide the level of impartiality required – they don’t have to, and sit outside the regulatory framework and sector rules that the broadcasters submit to).
• Digital content points: regulation around piracy has been created, and its not 3 strikes and you’re off the internet! But a regulatory framework is now there that will penalise pirates, and it has been established to help rights owners benefit from new business models emerging.

This is BAD – although participation being recognised as an issue is GOOD, its only in relation to people being able to connect to government services (so if they can all do that digitally, government saves on having to make other formats available). Digital participation as a social problem is not discussed as part of the report, its parked, and we’re to discuss it as social matter. Also content isn’t dealt with in any other format than news.

Questions

Fiona Campbell, Voluntary Arts Scotland: what if people can’t afford the phone bill or the kit?

LC: This is a significant social policy issue: but all utility bills are hard to pay… but at least telecoms bills have come down in relation other utilities, and should continue to come down.

Social isolation – does going digital in terms of public services mean that those excluded from society already (eg. school refusers, the elderly) become more excluded?

LC: No, social networks allow the balance of this, but there should be a robust debate about this. [And some people won't have the skills to participate in social networks].

Blair Jenkins: Essence of debate in Scotland: we need to have proper competition for BBC in Scotland – the Scottish Digital network can provide this in Scotland [LC: but its got money]. However, the emerging public service content sector may be defined UK wide – this will be a disappointment for Scotland who already have a successful model of delivering local news through PPPs.

LC: Agrees there is a case for funding primarily news content produced by not the usual suspects (pilots in Scotland and Wales). However, children’s content and cultural content are also important, and time will tell whether there is a case for funding it. The debate is ensuing about other public service deficits in terms of content over and above news, and whether they should get subsidy, and the debate will broaden once news pilot is more established.

Questions from the floor now for a panel including CJ Lyon who ran the Social Media in Action Workshop, Christian Payne (CP) aka OurManInside who ran the Participation Masterclass, Dave Moutrey (DM) from Cornerhouse, AmbITion project facilitator and Steve Manthorp (SM) from 4iP.

Q: How to manage time whilst using social media tools.

Asked by a gentleman from Redeye, the photography network.

CJ:  It all depends on the aim of the organisation.  Usage and mileage will vary.

SM: The key is finding the right person.  That person has to be recognised as an active part of your marketing team.

If you don’t, a neglected social space is a potentially very damaging tool.   Engaging with social media tools is a rod for your own back.

If you don’t use it you can send out the wrong messages.

CJ: It’s about using the tools that you’re already using more efficiently.  She worked with an artist who started tagging pictures she was already posting on Flickr with specific tags and this allowed further use on her website.

Just by tracking one tag you are using to bookmark content using delicious (the social bookmarking tool) you can automatically populate your website with more information.

CP: Open University use Twitter instead of email.  Found out that 50% of staff were using tools like Twitter and so allowed them to include the Open University URL in their Twitter bios.

Redeye could use a few tags to contribute a lot to Flickr.

DM: Cornerhouse have been brave enough to ditch their paper flyers and gone for pure digital marketing.

Whilst front of house at the venue feel that this is a really bad idea, he is convinced that most of the promotion for Cornerhouse’s events come from word of mouth in the digital space and is really keen to find a way to change the way Cornerhouse does things to accommodate this.

Q: We are talking a lot about Twitter now, what could it be in a few years?

SM: Watch the mobile social networking space.  The real ‘democratiser’ is the mobile phone.

CP: For him it doesn’t matter what is next, there are already lots of Twitter clones out there.  Location based mobile integration of spaces with keywords of interests will be the next thing.

An example:
Graveyards that share information about people in them via textmessaging using Twitter-like  tools.

“When HMS Twitter goes down, lifeboats will carry audiences using Twitter-like applications.”

CJ: Interfaces changing, becoming a lot more tactile based – iPod touch, iPhone.

SM: no real effort made to include ‘digital immigrants’ – older people who aren’t using social media at the moment.  Thinks this is being overlooked.

CP has registered OAPedia.org to enable people to share stories told by older people.  If you’re interesting in projects like @granumentally, where he helps his gran tweet about her life and memories, contact him, he adds.

The only thing that stops his gran from engaging is the interface – the need to type.

Kay Wells from Oldham Coliseum shares that the Coliseum is now tweeting with a group of ‘older constituents’ and it’s working well.

People want to get involved.

Hannah now shares the end of event instructions – token for free drink at the remaining event(s) is your lanyard!

Head downstairs for free drinks and announcement of the Liverpool Art Prize.

Drinks on the 3rd floor, Liverpool Art Prize on the ground floor.

And that was it!

Hope you enjoyed the AmbITion Roadshow North West.    Please share your feedback about the event in the comments.

Here are all the day’s proceedings in chronological order:

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Introduction

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Hide and Seek Festival Case Study

AmbITion North West Roadshow – New Writing Partnership Case Study

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Questions From The Floor

AmbITion North West Roadshow – 4iP Workshop

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Own It IP Workshop

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Twitter Participation Master class

AmbITion North West Roadshow – Plenary Session