BBC Innovation Lab (Part 1)

At the end of March 2007, I was invited to the BBC Innovation Lab. The basic idea behind the Lab is to give independent producers the chance to pitch their experimental new media ideas to BBC Commissioners. More than that, though, it’s a workshop in user-centred design which has tried to set best practices for developing innovative ideas.

I think it’s a very exciting development for a number of reasons. Firstly, it tells us how the BBC sees itself. It used to be a broadcaster – radio, then TV. Forty years later the Web came along, and the Corporation kept quiet while its worker bees found interesting ways to apply it to their programmes. And when it was finally challenged, the BBC said something like, “Yes, we’re making websites. They’re for our TV programmes. It’s like leaflets. We’ve been doing leaflets for years. Nothing to worry about.”

But things are different now. Everybody knows websites aren’t like leaflets any more. And what the BBC is doing, quietly, but clearly, is saying – we’re not a broadcaster any more. We are a medium and a means – and we aim to weave the media fabric of this society.

Here’s an example: children on a school trip, heading to Whipsnade Zoo. They pile out and head to the bear enclosure. Grabbing their phones, they photograph a barcode next to the enclosure, and the next moment they see David Attenborough talking about the bears, and see the bears in the wild, on their phones.

Is this what a public service media agency in the 21C should be doing? Absolutely. Is it broadcasting? Clearly not. It’s something else, and that something else could be almost anything. And so how do you find those other things you don’t know you want? You start an Innovation Lab.