Discussion Tables

This is like a coffee table on steroids. For the past couple of months I have been involved in the development of modified Microsoft Surface tables for use as interactive video players in public spaces. Dutch Public Broadcasting, NPO, has really taken the concept a lot further than the original design and the reactions from the public have been fantastic. Thanks to Punkmedia for some of the shots in this video. If you ever need a cameraman to capture conversations, Henk-Jan comes highly recommended.

 

Borders Closes in UK - Sign of the Times

 

Sorry to see one of the largest (and newest) bookshops in the Norwich Chapelfield shopping complex has shut its doors and emptied the shelves. It has left a rather large gap! But the real estate prices must have been astronomical. As a new Kindle 2 user, I must confess that for run-of-mill novels and business books, I much prefer to get these electronically now.

It seems from an article in the Guardian I read on line this morning, while installing a new computer for my mother, that Borders in the UK went into administration last month, 12 years after opening in Britain. The group's 45 Borders and Books Etc stores have been dumpring remaining stock for some weeks (I remember seeing one near Victoria Station in London), but slashed prices by 90% on all remaining stock for the final day's sale.

The problem with these fire sales is that the great books go very quickly, and I seldom make fantastic discoveries - just because they're cheap doesn't mean the selection was particularly good.



 

Creche for Christmas Husbands

 

Love this sign - seen in downtown Norwich, England just outside the pub next to St. Peter Mancroft church in the centre of the city. In town, mooching around the shops which are definitely much quieter this year than I can ever remember.

 

Snow Chaos, Railway Collapse & Spelling Mistakes

It never ceases to amaze me how Schiphol Airport and Dutch Railways seem to be totally incapable of planning for any kind of bad weather - and informing the public what decisions are made. Schiphol.nl can't handle the traffic to its site and trots out a poorly (half) translated website full of spelling mistakes and Dinglish - and honestly believes it's doing a good job. Er, no, it's actually a pretty lousy service, once again proving that communications with its "foreign" customers is well down their list of priorities. We're entering the second decade of the new Millennium and Internet is no longer an experiment. What would happen in any other kind of emergency??

As for the railways - you have to have second sight to know whether the trains will run tomorrow. Sadly, the website www.ns.nl has completely collapsed in a list of poorly worded excuses and NO up to date schedules AT ALL. Why can't the website and the mobile site convey the changes as a result of bad weather? It is because NS and the company providing the rails (ProRail) have absolutely no overview when things go just slightly wrong. So you can't trust the schedules at all. I also find it incredible that none of the warnings of "little or no service" can be found on the Dutch railways English language website. Stuff the adventure - I will follow the advice on the Prorail website, abandon public transport and take the car...the roads are fine. Thank God I didn't book a Eurotunnel/Eurostar experience. Those clowns have totally failed. When will Eurostar's Richard Brown apologise - and resign?

Incidental Collapse

 

It seems Czech radio, worried about musicians claims from podcasts, has decreed that producers must pick music from an inhouse composer of incidental tunes rather than grabbing something from commercial recordings. I think they have totally underestimated their position as the guardian of Czech arts and culture. Why don't they organise a few "music free" days to knock some sense into the Czech copyright authorities? If they don't, Czech radio is going to become so bland no-one under 65 is going to listen to feature programmes.

Oustanding in the Woods

 
Passing through Schiphol airport today I was struck by the fact that Accenture still has this giant advert up in the C-gate terminal. Bearing in mind Tiger Wood's infidelity, not to mention the car accident, I would be scrambling to get this embarrassment out of the way asap?

Impressions of Prague at Christmas

I have been in Prague for a few days. This is a city I keep coming back to - and which always turns out to be delightful. Especially the old city is magical. I'm here in the centre today to look up an old friend and colleague, David Vauhgn, formerly the editor in chief ar Radio Prague. David has a fascination with history - and that includes the history of Czech broadcasting during the momentus times before, during and after the Second World War. The old city is expecially magical - and mysterious - at this time of year.

 
 
 
 

First Impressions of LeWeb09

I got a message from a colleague in the Netherlands Thursday lunchtime asking if I could pop round to his Amsterdam HQ to troubleshoot a technical issue that came up. I said couldn’t because I was attending the 6th LeWeb in Paris. He retorted that since the Internet is no longer an experiment, why was there a need for a conference about it. Surely 5 conferences was enough? It sounded to him like holding a conference about electricity and inviting those who use 220 volts to come to share their experiences.

In fact LeWeb isn’t about the web itself. It’s about people using the web as a distribution tool for a great idea. Some of the ideas presented are purely to make money and, to me at least, seemed to be minute refinements in on-line marketing schemes or simply more efficient ways to sell something - increasingly that means applications for the mobile.

By far the most interesting of the 2300 participants were those who came to share content or research concepts. I spent most of Wednesday looking at the 12 start-ups that pitched for 5 minutes each and then took questions from the audience. Some of the best ideas had the rawest of presentations, and I agree with the judges that LeWeb could offer those selected a pre-pitch coaching. Techcrunch seems to do that in the States. But they didn’t seem to have tried it when asked to organize something similar in Paris. Especially because many people are not pitching in their first language, making a concise convincing elevator pitch needs more preparation than we saw.

I personally found the ideas showed by Wordy.com, Hyperwords.net and Mendeley.com to be those with the biggest potential. They didn’t have the slickest presentations, but they did have the better ideas. Thought the keynotes by Jack Dorsey (www.squareup.com) and social media researcher Danah Boyd (www.danah.org) were the strongest. The presentation by Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was passionate as well as thought provoking - she announced plans to raise awareness for the plight of kids education during the 2010 World Cup. http://www.join1goal.org/ . Rania is truly a connected queen.

I saw several broadcasters wandering around, but only two international broadcasters - CNN, Deutsche Welle and France24. DW was recruiting bloggers for its Best of Blogs award scheme 2010.

Gary Vaynerchuk made a second appearance at LeWeb, and as usual shared his passion for people and building a business in the 21st century. I really like the way Gary is authentic about what he believes in and enjoys working hard. He also asked the organisers to consider more interaction and less panels/keynote presentations.

Le Web 09 using the audiences to distribute its signals

On my way to Paris for the Le Web conference on the 9th and 10th. They tell me that they are partnering with California based Ustream to allow viewers who can't make it in person. Either watch it below, or go and put the live coverage on your own website by going to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/le-web-main-stage and clicking on "embed codes" in the upper right corner of the video player. The stream will also viewable on mobile's via Ustream’s iPhone viewing application or the new Ustream Android Viewer. Organizers and participants will take some questions from the audience at #leweb on Twitter. I am personally looking forward to the start-up exhibition - and to find out who has survived the credit crunch in France. Last year, the French government said they were encouraging entrepreneurs with financial handouts. But how many took them up on it? Time to find out.

Video streaming by Ustream

Life as a Voice over Artist

Nice story from the UK Radio Today website. Also interesting example of BBC content that is designed to be "stolen".

Radio voice-over artist Peter Dickson, who has recently become well known as the voice of the X-Factor on ITV1, is featured in a video on the BBC comedy website.

The video gives us a staged glimpse into Voiceover Man's house where he has to put up with his wife's moans about his career.

Peter has been voicing radio commercials and television programmes for decades, but it looks like his most recent work is throwing him back into the general media spotlight.

Wisdom of the Crowds - Information Failures in Amsterdam

I have two recent incidents which make me trust the crowds much more than the civil service here in the Netherlands.

Incident 1.

Travelling back on a KLM plane from Athens we arrive at Schiphol airport right in the middle of a thunderstorm. Schiphol decides it is too dangerous for its personnel to keep the gates open (lightning strikes, etc) and suspends operations. We taxi to a parking area and wait. The captain comes on to explain. Ten minutes later we start seeing other planes taxiing towards the terminal. Captain tells us they have priority at the gate, but that we have to wait until another plane leaves our position. People on the plane start to ask for information about connections. We're told there is no information at the moment, except that connections have probably also been delayed by the storm. People on the plane get out their blackberries and go to departure/arrival info on www.schiphol.nl and discover this information is not true. After another 25 minutes on the ground a very irate captain comes on to explain he's had aan argument with Schiphol and has been lied to. They have not given him priority at the gate and we're still waiting for our gate position to be cleared. After 1 and 5 minutes on the ground we finally start disembarking. No KLM or Schiphol personnel to meet the plane with connection information. Those who don't already know from the Schiphol website (which was working all the time), scramble to find monitors for more info.

Incident 2:

Arrive in Amsterdam Central Station Wednesday morning to discover total chaos with the trams outside? Two trams, the numbers 2 and 13, look like they have "folded" into each other at the points on the left hand side of the station. Five traffic cops are shooing onlookers away. Couple of engineers looking into how to clear the obstruction with the minimum of damage. "All the trams that should be leaving from this side of the station are now leaving from other other side" is the message given by the officials. So the crowds move to the other side. Opposite all of this are the Amsterdam Traffic Offices where you go to get info and tickets. No-one from the staff can be bothered to come outside and explain to people what's going on, which track we can expect to find the right tram, or which halts are now unreachable because the tram routes have been changed slightly. I couldn't believe it, especially when I went into the information office and saw the staff just gazing out of the window. In this case it was a minor incident. But just think if this had been something more serious. Lack of information at times like these can be very dangerous indeed. My conclusion is that, for the moment at least, you get more information from the KGB than the GVB. It fits the image that Amsterdam is a fun and creative city but as this recent survey revealed, the city is rapidly losing respect when it comes to its position as a business centre. Logistics are a nightmare!

Great talks in Amsterdam on Mobile developments

good talks from the recent Mobile Monday in Amsterdam

Tribute to John V. Russell - BFBS & BRMB

I was very saddened to hear that pioneer broadcaster and friend John Russell had passed away suddenly at his home in Cyprus on 6th October 2009. I met him several times when he came to Hilversum to run courses for the Radio Netherlands Training Centre.

A few years back I visited his home on the island to meet him and his wife Sue. We started chatting about his great radio career and I decided this was material that we should share with others - so out came the camera. What I have posted here (in two parts) are sections of the interview recorded that afternoon, where John shared a lot of wisdom about what works and doesn't work in radio. Through the training work he did in later years, many students owe their careers to John. His wit, wisdom and authenticity was a great gift and I hope this video will inspire others as much as it inspired me. John was truly one of the Masters of the Media.

John V. Russell Tribute Part 1 from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

John V. Russell Tribute Part 2 from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Cleese Classics

Confusing UPC Ad

 

UPC is running a huge ad campaign across Amsterdam, obviously written by PR people who hate technology terms. As a result, the ad is nonsense. Under certain circumstances you can get a download speed of 25 Megabit/sec for 25 Euros a month. This ad reads like you get 25 MB storage for 25 Euros, which would be a really lousy deal. And there is no fibre to the home...its fibre to a distribution point somewhere in the street. Does the average punter know anything about fibre optics? If they do, they would know that they meant 25 Mb/sec. Did the people in the bus stop know what was being offered? No. I asked them.

Windows 7 - ads are truly awful.

Microsoft has produced some pretty awful ads recently, but this one encouraging people to organise a Windows 7 Launch Party in October are nothing short of bizarre. It looks like a Tupperware party on steroids. I like Windows 7 which is a welcome relief to Vista, but this is NOT the way to get others enthused.

Pop-Up Radio - Radio Manuela on 109 FM

Wandered around the Picnic event in the West of Amsterdam this afternoon. It was rather quiet today - the crowds are coming tomorrow we're told. Attended a presentation on the current state of the Arab blogosphere hosted by Al Jazeera, but they were not taking questions from the audience. That will happen in a workshop tomorrow. In the exhibition hall were two guys playing music and with a big sign saying Radio Manuela. Yes, there were on the air. Did I want a music request or to be interviewed? I said no, I had a question. Were they really on 109 MHz FM? Yes, they said. It is a 400 watt transmitter and covers most of Amsterdam. But don't most radio sets stop their coverage at 108 MHz? Yes. So that means that although they are broadcasting, no-one can actually hear them unless they have a modified FM receiver. Er, yes. I was the first person in a long while to ask them that question. Their "station" is infact a piece of art. They operate it only at events, and then just because they get treated as royalty because they are from the "media". The fact that they are broadcasting (illegally) on a channel no-one can hear is their open secret. Hey, stop fussing about the technology and enjoy the music. As their sign says, Radio Manuela - keeping you young, sexy but not famous.

Nice Stats Update

Working on something similar, but then with shock stats for Europe.

Travelling a lot at the moment

My temporary lack of daily blogging is mainly due to a heavy workload filming - and the fact that I am converting a lot of files across to the Mac platform. I am not a Steve Job's fan, but Final Cut Pro is becoming the de-facto video editing platform that I cannot ignore. Sony Vegas has served me well in the past, but later versions in combination with Windows Vista made my busy schedule impossible.

No doom and gloom from the NYT labs

Nick Bilton -Inside the New York Times Lab from Jonathan Marks on Vimeo.

Nick is currently on leave from the New York Times development lab to write a book. To be titled "Byte, Snack, Meal" it is due to be published by Random House in May 2010. At the Rotterdam Eday, organised by Emerce Magazine, and hosted by Marc Canter (now living in Cleveland, OH), Nick gave us a compressed insight into what they're doing in difficult times. This department within NYT is certainly smart. They are looking at the influence the cloud is making on storytelling - and the role of sensors (as opposed to censors). More on Nick's website nickbilton.com