May 04, 2008
Five reasons it might not be so bad to have Boris as Mayor after all
1. The Mayor doesn't have much to do anyway. He may have an £11B budget but it's really only half a job. New Labour deliberately hobbled the Mayor's office from the beginning by retaining control of everything important at the centre and providing no direct tax raising powers. The remarkable thing about Ken's tenure has been how much impact he's been able to have with control of public transport and bugger-all else.
2. He's funny. He is funny isn't he?
3. He'll be a one-term Mayor. Nothing he's proposed is achievable within budget. He's backing away from the Routemaster idea (which has been authoritatively rubbished). Central Office cagily supported Boris but not his policies. With all the big reforms already firmly entrenched Boris will struggle to make an impact. As budgets rocket and policies evaporate disillusionment will set in.
4. Cameron will cut him loose. He may be better behaved now but you can't innoculate a boob like Boris against gaffes. Can it be long before he alienates bus drivers or pensioners or people who live in Penge?
5. He'll get bored. Boris evidently has the attention span of a nine year-old boy. As his concentration lapses he'll drift off. Pretty soon he'll forget where he works and after a year or two Londoners will be able to pick someone else.
April 20, 2008
Cheap, reusable and accessible IT for schools
Right. What's the definition of a really good bit of primary school IT? Is it ambitious and over-arching, integrating dozens of systems, forcing new behaviours all over the place and generally rending the fabric of reality? Or is it something really simple and quick to build that benefits the whole school community, costs nothing and can be re-used indefinitely? Here's an example: Matt Johnson, switched-on deputy head at Fair Field Junior in Radlett (where I'm a parent governor) has put together a page at the school web site that uses Twitter, some Javascript and MMS photos to track a school trip.
Year four have gone to an activity centre in Staffordshire and Mr Lock, one of the supervising teachers, is twittering and sending photos from his phone. Result: more engaged parents, a fascinating and permanent real-time record of the trip as it unfolds and a system that can be reused every time the school goes away. The page is here and you can follow the trip on Twitter at twitter.com/fairfieldtrip.
I wrote about one of Mr Johnson's earlier Twitter projects—which is still running because the cost of maintaining it is essentially zero—here.
April 15, 2008
Why do I have such a bad feeling about Highfield's move to Kangaroo?
What message does it send when you hire the country's top new media manager to run a start-up business in an increasingly lean and competitive industry? What are you saying when you tap the Executive Board of the nation's state broadcaster (and one of the most important media owners in the world) for your joint venture's new MD? What does paying half a million pounds per year (my guess: his BBC salary is 350K) to the top man at your fledgling IP TV business say about your priorities?
Is it a statement of ambition and substance? An aggressive line in the sand for competitors and partners? A gesture of confidence in the business model and the medium?
Or is it a defeated acknowledgement of the status quo? Are you really saying "don't worry everyone, we've had a good look at this IP TV thing and it's going to be just like telly". Does it scream "we haven't got a name, a business model or an audience yet and already our HR costs are totally out-of-control"?
Frankly I'm worried. I'm worried that rushing out and securing the services of the best new media executive in the land is not the confident prelude to a smooth launch and rapid ascent to profitability and fame but rather the last thing you do before people start adding the prefix "troubled" to the things they say about you—as in "Kanagaroo, troubled web TV joint venture, today announced the appointment of Ashley Highfield..."
I think this role was really the perfect opportunity to 'skip a generation' and reach out to the dozens of smart managers one or two layers below Highfield at the Beeb and in the commercial sector. I think that opportunity has been missed because Kangaroo is already a disaster waiting to happen: an almost unmanageable Euro-pudding of a joint venture with no visible path to profitability and a business plan that's in free-fall. Hiring the industry's top man (and, thanks to iPlayer's triumphant launch, its streaming TV talisman) looked like a large enough and decisive enough gesture to silence the doubters. Fat chance.
Or am I just being negative?