Throughout the week the mentors' input was invaluable to help turn our seedling idea into a tangible concept - we can't thank you enough. It was a pleasure to work within such a positive environment and the fact that so many great ideas were established by all companies is testament to this.

We were lucky enough to have had our idea selected by the commissioners and now look forward to working with the BBC to develop it further. Apparently Saul's long, flowing golden locks mesmerised the commissioners during the final pitch (see exhibit A - http://www.flickr.com/photos/93727562@N00/110448807/).

Location: Swinton Park – a luxury castle hotel set in 200 acres of parkland, lakes and gardens – near Masham, North Yorkshire. The castle is surrounded by an estate in which guests have access to rivers, reservoirs, moorland, dales and beautiful countryside bordering the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Dates: 6th to 10th March 2006

Five intensive days (and four late nights) of brain-storming, market research, prototype/concept development, end-user profiling, mentor meetings, group meetings and ‘run-thru’ presentations culminated in a 15 minute pitch to two BBC commissioners (Jem Stone and Jason DaPonte from the BBC internet commissioning team).

The mentors made the difference between a good event and a great event. A well-trained and highly motivated team - they kept the energy up and the attitudes positive. Daily briefings were a must - reminding everyone of their goals, the key messages and helping us all to make adjustments where necessary.

Reminiscent of BBC TWO’s Dragons’ Den, where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to secure business funding, each team’s Friday presentation was the climax of the entire event. Although ten companies were invited – not all of them, including Save9, walked away with a BBC project commission on the final day. The lucky few deserved their accolade – they delivered great pitches (some very entertaining) and innovative ideas that had to be explored for their potential.

I’m sure most of us came away with much more than we had expected; a great experience, the kudos that comes with working with the BBC, some free publicity and business contacts that will hopefully last for years to come. A major bonus of the Yorkshire Innovation Labs 2006 is that each team will also be invited to another BBC workshop to pitch to venture capitalists and business angels - for exploring other development opportunities and financing.

In summary this was a significant event for new media companies in Yorkshire such as Save9 – with the BBC clearly demonstrating their interest in the creation and growth of new media talent within our region.

Our idea, due to be birthed in the morning of Day 5 took somewhat of a U-turn at about 6.30pm on Day 4 when we read the press release for 'Get Smarter in a Week' and realised that our baby was going to be too close to someone else’s. We'd been pipped to the post by Michael Aspel and Saturday night red button light entertainment. Doh! We couldn't see a beeb exec - with or without a soaking of Chardonnay - commissioning something so close.

So, we had the night and a few hours in the morning to put together Plan B. Over dinner, we stormed an idea we'd 'parked' earlier in the week and did a quick and dirty impromptu pitch to Frank and Rachel before retiring to bed for a early night. Getting up whilst the lark was still tucked up in its nest, we refined the idea and put together a presentation in the lab time we had left. With the clock tick-tocking, we presented what I think was, in the circumstances, a pretty decent proposition. Without a doubt we'd applied the processes we learnt in the lab and put something together with audience and their needs in mind.

My recommendations for lab virgins. #1. Research - make sure your idea is unique or takes a fresh twist on something that's already popular or that's just emerging; search the BBC site and your preferred search engine high and low for similar projects. #2. Get to know your trusted Volvo; look at the BBC's core values, what it wants to achieve and what it has to do to comply to its public broadcaster remit. #3. Get into the head of your target audience, live their lives, be them for a day. And if you haven't got an audience in mind, by heck, refocus so you do.

Monkey tennis anyone?
http://www.davidsquire.co.uk

Here's the schedule for the final pitches today:

10:00 Dubit
10:20 Gamesauce/Firesoft
10:40 DESQ
11:00 BlinkMedia

11.20 Coffee

11:40 Synergy
12:00 Sense Internet
12:20 Technophobia

12:40 Lunch

14:00 Save9
14:20 Beacon-Dodsworth
14:40 Quba

15:00 Commissioners' decision making time
15:30 Commissioning announcements and wrap-up
16:30 Close

I wasn't sure whether to try some airy description of the concept and what it might mean (I might have got away with that at a technology art conference, but the question and the context seemed to deserve a better answer), or let Pete chip in with something about the technical nuts and bolts.

We talked to Stuart Nolan about this afterwards, and after a while we came up with the line "It lets you get and add comments about the place you're in."

That seemed good enough, except that there is something about the word comment that sounds a bit one-off, not very active, and even a bit knit picking.

I thought it might be worth adding -tary.

Commentary makes me think both of a commentary to a book - extra information, useful facts, clarifications - and also the sports commentator, "they think it's all over" kind of exclamation, lasting for a period of time during an event. Those senses of commentary fit with some of the many ways people like to use their mobile phones.

Maybe that's what it is, a kind of two way (or many way) ongoing commentary organised around places. Maybe.

Note to self. Never put pun in title without checking spelling first.

There’s been tons of useful stuff this week particularly ‘good cop – bad cop’ where you get to pummel someone else’s idea – put it back together and present it back to them.

One of the disciplines we’ve found useful this week is to describe a typical user for your idea (age, likes, dislikes, how they use technology etc) and then write a story about how they experience it.

Once you start presenting that story to a range of different people you quickly discover the strengths and weakness of your approach and identify the areas you need to work on. There’s no doubt this has helped us hone the idea.

ps thanks for the strap line Ian, we’ll keep you posted.

Tim & Cliff
http://www.synergy.tv

Jem Stone and Jason DaPonte from the BBC internet commissioning team will arrive today at midday, and will be around for consultation until the final pitches on Friday. We've timetabled 20min slots for each team with Jem and Jason this afternoon. This will be the only structured time you have with them - other than that they're around for informal chats. Here's the schedule:

14:10 - Technophobia
14:30 - Save9
14:50 - Synergy
15:10 - Dubit

15:30 - Break

15:50 - Desq
16:10 - Gamesauce
16:30 - Blink

16:50 - Break

17:10 - Quba
17:30 - Beacon Dodsworth
17:50 - Sense Internet

We found yesterday that it really helps to take half an hour to go for a walk around midday and change your surroundings otherwise you can develop a one-track mind.

Amongst other things we've learned a great new buzzword - “Snacking.” In the context of... “Simon generally visits the BBC website to snack on news content.” This was one of the terms used to describe web user behaviour in terms of how they browse and search the web and we liked it!

We're here (that's me, David Squire and my esteemed co-collaborator Stuart Nolan) to try to create something that draws on our collective experience in thinking about games, the aging population, play, enjoyment and enrichment. We're also here for the ride, for me to learn more about pitching and about how to develop an idea better and for Stuart to apply his thinking on play and games and to do some magic tricks of course!

The feeling of being on a roller coaster comes partly from the relentless but exciting pace the lab operates on - despite the vast amounts of food available, I can't imagine Matt, Frank and the mentors piling on the pounds - but also because your feelings towards your project/your baby alters every couple of hours or so. One minute you think you've got it strapped, you've found the killer app, the next it's back to the drawing board and you're down in the doldrums.

The premise of shaping your idea around Needs, Approach, Benefits and Competition helps. As you think more about your audience's needs and their journey, your idea starts to reshape into something far more interesting and more considered. I must admit I was somewhat sceptical about spending an entire day on 'who's your user?' but having someone in mind (from usual demographic profiling to how their average day pans out) really tunes you in on how people use interactive content and what they want from it. If we get this bit right, the rest should follow on nicely.

I'm sure everyone here would admit that the fact this is a competition with the potential prize of a commission is in the back of your mind all the time. But what's great and amazing, in an increasingly competitive marketplace, is that people are genuinely helping each other shape and focus the development of other people's projects. We must have pitched our idea now 3-4 times over the first 2 days, and the response, feedback and interest gets more helpful and more heartfelt each time.

Luckily, and despite a little gushing there, we're managed to avoid any hippy bonding exercises - things that involve having to close your eyes or pretend to be someone (or worse something) else. Thank the DG for that!

So, as the dawn breaks over the misty hills of Masham, its day 3 in the Swinton House.

10:00 - Introduction to the day and some of the user-centred design tools we're using
10:30 - 12.30 - project teams working in pairs to help each other develop user contexts and user modes

1:00 - 2:00 Lunch

2:00 - 4.30 - Teams working individually to develop user journeys for their products. Mentors will be available throughout this time if you need specific assistance or ideas for design tools
4:30 - 5.30 - Project teams back in their pairs to develop user benefits
5:30 - 6:00 - Prepare user-centred 5 minute pitch
6:00 - Teams split into two groups for pitching and feedback

Save9's project proposal aims to address all three of the main elements of the BBC's internet strategy - how the BBC makes content available on-demand, how people navigate BBC content and how people engage with BBC content.

Background

Broadcast TV permeates the lives of millions of people across the globe and on-demand video content is reaching an ever-increasing audience. Innovative digital television services are in abundance and the cross-over between linear media broadcasting and interactive media on-demand is blurring. It is not unusual to find internet web browsers built into modern televisions or for viewers to use interactive services supplied via digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasts. IPTV is a prime example of broadcasting and Internet convergence that has support from major electronics manufacturers such as PACE Micro Technology (PACE announced the worlds first ever hardware H.264 IPTV set-top-box in June 2005)...

http://www.pace.co.uk/corporate/newsroom/pacenewsitem.asp?id=10270&template=0

Project Summary

An opportunity now exists for Save9 Limited, in conjunction with the BBC Innovation Labs, to explore the potential of flowing synchronous meta data, split into topics of interest, with current digital video content via TV transmissions (DVB-SI) on a set-top box and/or on-demand digital recordings accessible through the MyBBC Player (or BBC iMP - integrated Media Player). http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp

Tech Note: DVB transmissions include a metadata transport layer called service information (DVB-SI). AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) in conjunction with an EPG (Electronic Programming Guide) and the BBC Infax database is another possible value added service that would simplify the roll-out of this concept without the need to affect original broadcast transmissions at all.

Our main task for this week is to develop a prototype 'plug-in' that works with the MyBBC Player and/or an in-built digital TV-web browser that could theoretically support the user-insertion and viewer playback of annotated video content. The result would be an enriched and interactive BBC experience that is attained through the true convergence of broadcast television and internet services – with a minimal resource burden from broadcasters such as the BBC.

How it works - User Profile Scenarios

Key thought - 'Bubbles in a stream'

Example Scenario - THE ENTHUSIAST

'Frank', our imaginary sports enthusiast, is a UK Manchester City fan who eats, drinks, breathes and sleeps football. Frank feeds his interest through a range of media types; websites, newspapers, TV and radio. Frequently there are times when Frank gets very emotional about his sport - so much so that he would like to clearly demonstrate to the world why Man City's lead scorer (i.e. Andy Cole) is such a genius or how a particular section of the BBC televised game was ruined by a referee's decision. Frank may even want to highlight a few seconds in their most recent televised match to explain the off-side rule to his american friend. :-)

Using Save9's Synchronous Hyperlinking plug-in for the MyBBC Player Frank can now watch an entire digital video stream of any football match and insert topics of interest ('Bubbles') that can span from a split second to an entire section of the video. For example - at 15 minutes and 12 seconds into the second half a superb goal is scored by Andy Cole - is at that precise moment when Frank decides to insert a 'Bubble' comment icon and associated text/graphics into that defining video moment - captured for the posterity of his fan club (or even the whole of the UK!). Such annotations are accessible to other viewers who may watch the video at their leisure. Franks comments can be visualised in a side panel window via a simple toggle on/off button.

GUI (Graphical User Interface): A narrow window immediately below the media video screen represents the 'Bubbles' of annotations in the video 'Stream'. Put simply, different 'Bubbles' of information topics are represented by simple icons that stream slowly from right to left, as the video plays forward.

The power of our interactive concept is realised when you consider that almost any interest group can add topics of interest so that other parties may consume that content whether it is embedded graphical/video/textual data or a link to a 3rd party website. The 'Bubbles' stimulate interest depending upon the topic classification's icon. E.g. a 'i' icon for information, a star icon for a movie actor, a musical note for a piece of interesting music or a tree icon for an item relating to nature.

More later...

We quickly found out after the first presentation that we wouldn’t get very far in this exercise without having a specific target audience to map our idea onto so this was the real aim of today. We sat down with 2 of the BBC’s mentors and began to pick their brains about the strengths of our idea and where it would sit best. After some
deliberation we came up with two main groups where it would fly:

+ Parents - a group that is vocal, social and keen to make their experiences public - even if only within a closed community. We quickly ruled this user group out because it was deemed by the BBC to be too competitive, with sites already in place to serve this niche.

+ Minority sports groups (e.g. Wrestling, kayaking, shooting, archery…). With the Olympics coming to London in 2012 investment is being channelled into sports and there are minority sports out there that don’t get the platform (can’t afford an all-singing, all dancing website/journalists don’t sniff out these news stories) that is
afforded to events such as track and field. Therefore there is a gap where our idea may sit to provide these sports with a voice on the BBC website. This will serve to allow local clubs to upload their news stories, details of upcoming events and results for this data to be easily accessed by BBC journalists. Members of the clubs will have
control over content and be able to publish and comment. Anyone can also access this content and find out how to get involved so the site encourages positive action.

So we sit poised and ready for day two with a sound idea of who our users are and in a good position to develop this further today.

13:00 - Lunch

14:00 - Team exercise
Each project 'interrogated' by two people from another company, looking for strengths/weaknesses
15:30 - Feedback on each project from interrogators
17:15 - Website and blog info
17:30 - Wrap-up

Monday - introductions, expectations and initial feedback on projects
Tuesday - the audience - building user scenarios for each project
Wednesday - the idea - refining the project and focusing the pitch
Thursday - the pitch - building the prototypes and rehearsing the final pitch
Friday - The final pitch

Jem Stone and Jason Daponte - the commissioners from the BBC internet team - will be arriving on Wednesday to give feedback on the emerging prototypes, then will hear the final pitches on Friday. The other mentors and support team members will be here all week to work with the teams and help them develop their ideas.