The Original Sims

The buzz at the end of the evening was fantastic as several dozen hung back for a drink.  The climax was a 45 minute speech/talk/conversation with Doug Richard.  After the final Q&A with the other speakers Tom Loosemore, Emma Somerville and PR Smyth there was a palpable enthusiasm. 

My job was mainly to keep the show rolling as MC and chief time keeper.  This was probably the biggest gathering of people involved in digital media in Northern Ireland.  We are certin it will not be the last.

Next steps - following the publication of the Invest Northern Ireland Digital Content Strategy and the formation of the Digital Industries Group

This week’s interview on Learning Tea-Break was about Digital Photography.

To the Radio Academy in Belfast last night. Host, UTV’s John Rosborough, introduced the man, once described by a UK tabloid as "Dann, Dann, the Hatchet man".  Trevor Dann is possibly the man who saved Radio 1 to become what it is today, cutting back the "old guard" (who I once worked with) and starting anew as a radio station for people younger than 25.

Radio 1 had become an institution (parts of which the inmates had assumed control) and like an institution it had it’s own set of mores and traditions, it’s own passwords and secret handshakes.  And it was very, very old.  In what was seen in very negitive terms at the time, Dann and his colleague Matthew Bannister made the significant changes which probably stopped Radio 1 becoming privatised and rejuvenated the station to develop into a creative force that it is now.

The long awaited Digital Content Strategy for Northern Ireland was launched yesterday by Invest Northern Ireland.  They have been leading the development for over a year.  I came onboard more recently as a member of the Industry Advisory Panel under the chairmanship of Adrian Lennon.

There is a real feeling of progress now.  Ministerial backing from Nigel Dodds and Invest Northern Ireland is bringing a ring of reality to much of the talking and planning of the last year. 

The launch of the strategy morphed into a planning meeting for the Broadband Content Opportunity event on 30 January at the Science Park which I am MCing.  This is a good start to a new year where we will be looking forward hopefully and expectantly rather than backwards.

Belfast Telegraph report

Irish News report

Radio Ulster started a new programme this morning called Learning Tea-Break about computers and the internet. I was interviewed and within a couple of minutes of broadcast was fielding calls from listeners.  I had mentioned the Internet Made Easy CD (here and here)which I helped to produce last year (or was it the year before - time moves fast!).  The CD was sent to every home in Northern Ireland - 750,000 or there abouts.

I still have a few under my desk.  Contact me if you’d like one, too.

The site is http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/teabreak/

Some snow fell in and around Belfast on Wednesday evening and caused travel problems on the road and at the airports.  A news person and a weather person were chatting on a radio/tv outlet.  “What does this say about Global Warming?” asked the newsperson.  “Well you’d expect snow in the winter.” replied the weather person.  True, but what a missed opportunity.

I’m not an expert and a little knowledge can be a useless thing, but this is how I understand it.

• Belfast (Northern Ireland) is at around 54 degrees Latitude. 
• In January other places at around 54 degrees latitude are locked in by snow and ice for months at a time; Newfoundland, eastern Alaskan islands, Siberia.  They are place names associated with “the cold”.

The British Isles are not associated with “the cold”, so a sudden snow fall will cause disruption.  The reason is that these islands are un-latitudinally warm is that we are bathed in the Gulf Stream.
I’m told by people who know (and there is more information here) that

• as the world warms (yes there is warming), the Arctic will melt and the cold water – moving south – will cool the Gulf Stream.
• As the Gulf Stream cools, the protection it gives the British Isles reduces and what is “Global Warming” for us becomes “Welcome to the freeze – it snows in winter – all winter and parts of the autumn and spring, too.”

I’m not saying the theory is correct, I’m not saying that Climate Change is caused by industrialisation.  I’m just saying that among reports of Gritters, accidents and amusing stories of difficulty getting to and from work, there was room for a different discussion. I just thought it was a missed opportunity.

But you expect snow in winter, don’t you?

“Looking forward” to another year is an exercise of optimism over experience.  The last few years have ended with expressions of “goodbye and good riddance” including 2007. So why do I stand at the beginning of 2008 and look optimistically toward the coming year?  Well if I had been in the prediction business, I would have been hounded out of town with my crystal ball and bag of entrails long ago.  There are changes afoot, and I know this time next year I will have been through some.  There‘s this for a start which will effect in small or big way everyone I know in the BBC.  It has already begun.

Let’s have a few predictions for a laugh. 

• There will be a Big Brother in the summer – but it will either be the most controversial and sensational or be the worst performing.  It will mark the end of the franchise for Channel 4.
• Clinton and Obama (as VP candidate) versus McCain and Guilliani (as VP candidate) in US elections.
• Social Navigation will be pre-eminent, but towards the end of the year there will be the beginnings of a rethink and search for focus on many sites including Bebo (who will be yet again questioned about their responsibility towards young people – they have taken on a tough territory, I admire them for it) and Facebook, which will have /already has become boring.

Although I have the usual smoking/drinking/exercise new year resolutions, I think I should really try to ensure that I post more on this blog – it could be my only creative outlet by the end of the year.

If you’ve got this far - may I wish a happy and presperous new year to all our reader.