Labs Presentation 2006 7

BBC Innovation Labs: 

BBC Innovation Labs Matt Locke, Head of Innovation BBC Future Media & Technology

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What are the Innovation Labs? A programme for commissioning and developing innovation projects with indies A way of using an innovation community to explore near-term research (1-3yrs) A way of finding out more about indies across the UK and their talents A 3 stage process: Launch days – meetings with indies to share BBC strategies and briefs Idea Filtering – scoring submissions from the website and selecting teams Labs – a 5 day rapid prototyping workshop, with pitches on day 5 IP Neutral – we have a 3 month ‘first look’ contract, but no IP

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What we did last year 3 Pilot Labs – Yorkshire, North-West and London Each cost £100k - £50k from BBC, £50k from regional partners 170 ideas submitted – 29 selected for Labs – 12 invited for further development Partners – North-West Vision, Yorkshire Forward, Yorkshire Screen, Creative London Project Blog – http://open.bbc.co.uk/labs

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What did we learn? Labs is a very effective way to see lots of ideas – much better than ad-hoc meetings The better the brief and contextual information, the better the ideas Most proposals were ‘bbc+ webmeme’ the best ideas were ‘bbc+webmeme=+++’ The Labs themselves were creative, collaborative and stimulating – a good opportunity to just focus on ideas for a long period of time But the ideas have taken too long to get to next stage – we can improve on this…

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What we’re doing this year Four Labs – Scotland, North England, South England, London Covering 12 Regional Development areas (N & S England cover 4 each) Involve more BBC commissioners in whole Labs process More information about tech roadmap (from 2.0 project) NESTA as partner for more investment/business support

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Timelines Oct 25th/Nov 27th Launch events in England and Scotland Nov 6th Application process opens Jan 12th Application process closes Feb/March Labs events

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The Briefs

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Nations and Regions Localness on bbc.co.uk – There are currently 55 separate Where I Live websites on bbc.co.uk containing a mix of local news, sport, information and community content from across the UK. We want to increase the reach of this content by providing it in the most useful forms for our audience to use. How can we offer local content in more innovative and flexible ways on bbc.co.uk and to engage with, and reflect, the relevant local content and conversations taking place on the web?

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News Interactive News services for young people – BBC News currently has a declining reach amongst 14-24 year olds, and we want to grow this reach via innovative new products. How could we deliver BBC News in an engaging and interactive way to this audience via the BBC News website and platforms like mobiles, online games, public screens or social networking sites?

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Sport BBC Sport is looking to increase its interactivity around the major events in the sports calendar (eg Wimbledon, Rugby World Cup, Euro 2008, Olympics, etc). In particular we are looking to provide innovative services to enhance our coverage of the live action, in real time. We are keen to increase our reach among younger (15-24) audiences and are exploring opportunities on the BBC Sport website, but also on mobile platforms and on the wider internet beyond bbc.co.uk.

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Internet Team – search/navigation Cross platform/location navigation – The BBC is looking for more ways to move users between interactive platforms where there is complementary content and experiences available. How can we move users between various media platforms and physical locations to increase the quality of their BBC experience by delivering them relevant content? How can we do this in ways that will excite and surprise them? Proposals need not be limited to the traditional platforms of “web”, “TV” and “mobile” but could also include use of other IP based media (ie. Instant messaging, email, images) and may want to include location-based or situation-based aspects. They may work across all of the BBC or only a small section and be based on navigation generated by the BBC or by users.

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CBBC Bridging the CBeebies and CBBC age group and brands online: We currently have a drop off point at around 5 years old whereby children feel too old for Cbeebies and too young for CBBC. There are also few instances of us bridging content, brands and services on line from the upper age of CBeebies age group to the lower age of CBBC. How can we aim to bridge that drop off point and create a seamless transition from our Cbeebies brand online to our CBBC brand online?

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Interactive Drama & Entertainment The BBC is looking for new ways to tell stories online. We’re looking for ideas aimed at young audiences who are familiar with the web (13-19 year olds) and at older, more mainstream audiences who are becoming more comfortable with the technology. Successful proposals will have an understanding of: * how new web technologies can add depth to the storytelling process * how gaming elements can be incorporated * how social networking elements could be incorporated

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Radio 1 With FM switch off on the horizon, 10,000 tunes in your pocket, and a widening competitive sphere, Radio 1 will face unprecedented challenges to stay relevant. How can Radio 1 remain a musical right-of-passage for today’s 16-24 year olds? Radio 1 interactive aims to give it’s audience greater choice over when, where and how they consume Radio 1. Specifically we’re looking for ways to increase access to our output, enable discovery of music and content, enhance our output and build audience participation and creativity.

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Thanks! matt.locke@bbc.co.uk