aled's cyfle

Wednesday 4 October 2006

BBC

Posted at 7:41 pm.

Today we went to the Beeb in Llandaf (Cardiff), to visit the New Media (sorry, Future Media and Technology) department. We had to sign a confidentiality form because we saw the work that they were currently working on, so I'm not sure how much I can actually write about ("Torchwood. That's about it.").

We were given talks by various members of the New Media staff, learning about all aspects of the work that they did. Producers, Encoding Technicians, Designers, Developers, Project Managers... all an integral part of the team that produces many interactive experiences, including the Dr. Who site (and the tardisodes, intended for mobile content, produced from scratch by the NM team), and the /wales and /cymru sections of the bbc.co.uk network.

I was a little surprised at how de-centralised they were - the Beeb require that they out-source 25% of the work to independent producers, and the New Media department was no exception. I'm not surprised at that, considering the small-ish size of their team and the amount of work they do, but I didn't realise they had offices all around Wales (that's a little naïve, I know). A lot of the more editorial, content side of their /wales and /cymru websites are local. The "Where I live" sections feature an extensive amount of content for 5 regions within Wales (North West, North East, Mid, South West and South East)... all maintained by English and Welsh staff located locally in those regions.

I admire their workflow and innovation, somewhat because of the many different websites they maintain, but mainly because of the time constrictions and guidelines they must abide by. The BBC websites must follow branding guides to maintain consistency across their websites, and any content must be available on a minimum of 2 platforms (for instance, the tardisodes are meant for mobile phones, but must be made available on another platform - to download on the Dr. Who website).

I was mostly impressed today by the guys who worked for the education sections of the /wales and /cymru sites. Their enthusiasm for providing a pleasing experience on different platforms (particularly for learning Welsh with Colin and Cumberland) was outstanding and really stood out in my mind.

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