Obama and the identity box

The Obama victory is such a wonderful event. I think Maya Angelou sums up best why it is so special. (Dare you to watch Maya speak so eloquently and passionately, and not be in tears by the time she reads her poem “I Rise”.)

It isn’t just that he is a democrat and doesn’t come from the white wealthy establishment. It isn’t just what he symbolises. Nor that he is smart (please tell me that the word intellectual is going to stop being a term of abuse).

But because he has in bucket loads that under-rated and sadly rare value of common sense. It is inevitable he’ll disappoint, make decisions people don’t agree with, or are just plain wrong. But by using common sense to come to conclusions, there is a greater chance that his decisions will be well thought out. And he has the leadership skills and charisma to get people to follow him, even if they don’t always agree with him. Now that’s a special talent.

Obama inspires so much debate about race and identity. Is he black? White? Bi-racial? Post-racial? Not “proper” African American because he is the son of an African and an American, but doesn’t have a slave history? A new type of American as he is the son of an immigrant?

While Obama’s existence and and experience is causing this particular debate around race and ethnicity to move on and progress, I don’t really share the need that some people feel to put labels onto others. Surely it is up to the person to decide what, if any, label or identity they wish to choose? When done by others, there seems to be an expectation that this identity explains everything about someone. By doing so, leads people to ignore the parts of someone which don’t conform to that identity, or inflate the parts of someone’s behaviour which re-inforce the stereotype.

I wrote a very rushed colour piece on Englishness and identity years ago when I worked at the BBC (the page has now been deleted, but I found a version on a forum). It wasn’t a  particularly good or amusing article. It was intended to be satirical, but I think in parts it reinforced rather than confounded national stereotypes and certainly was a little immature in places! However, despite this, elements of the piece still sum up my views on my own identity.

A Gaelic-speaking mother, Welsh-speaking father, born in England, raised in Australia, lived in the UK for over a decade. I don’t know what that makes me, but I know it doesn’t make me any one singular thing: a Scot, or Welsh, or English, or British, or Australian (despite my accent). 

I’m really quite comfortable with not having a clear sense of what identity box I go into, no matter how many times people try to say that I am one of these things. I’m quite happy being just Jen.

Goats, marketing and motivation

Last week, a bunch of us from Channel 4 and OMD (not Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark but our media agency) had a session to discuss how we promote the new version of channel4.com that will be launching towards the end of the year. The new site will be all about Channel 4 TV shows, the linear TX and watching video. It will build on the developments we’ve made in recent years: free Catch Up of TV shows you’ve missed; tonnes of video clips from shows on TV now as well as classic programmes from the past 26 years; lots of programme support pages to extend users’ engagement with their favourite TV. All very exciting, necessary, and exactly what Channel 4’s main website should be about. 

Not to get all Carrie Bradshaw, but it got me thinking how different it is to promote a brand new, game-changing product, compared with something that is making incremental innovations. 

It made me come back to one of the theories from my MBA which is pretty well known but very useful – Herzberg’s theory on motivation-hygiene factors. The logic is that there are things that can de-motivate you at work: a broken chair, your computer not working, feeling that you aren’t paid what you should be. However, when these things are fixed (your chair is comfortable, you computer works like a dream, you feel you are being paid roughly what is fair for the job you are doing) then you aren’t motivated to work harder (“wow, this chair is so comfy I’m going to try especially hard today!”). Instead, the things that motivate you are often more intangible, and are factors such as recognition, growth, responsibility – being appreciated, I guess.

Although Herzberg was talking specifically about motivation at work, you could twist it to be about the marketing of existing products which are incrementally improving. Promoting something as new that people assume you are doing already is a bit like the broken chair. Yes, it is right to launch a new version of your product that consolidates all your activities (fixing the chair), but people aren’t going to necessarily see it as new and shiny. Rather, they’ll see it as more (and hopefully better) of what you’ve been doing for years. 

As an aside, if you want to become hugely well-off, one way is to come up with a management theory and get it included in MBA material. You are then quids in each time it is published by the hundreds of business schools round the world. Charles Handy, Porter’s five forces, Mintzberg’s organisational configurations. The list is endless.

My management model would be the goat fucker theory, based on the old joke: A man discovers the cure for cancer, do they call him cancer curer? No. He saves children from a burning building. Do they call him child saver? No. But he fucks one goat… 

Really, it is a (cruder) version of Herzberg. You can (and should) spend a lot of time making sure that your products are what people expect them to be, people’s desks are fixed, computers work, etc., however you shouldn’t expect extra recognition or a big medal for doing so. Rather, if you mess these up (and worse, don’t also offer the factors that encourage and inspire), then people rightly get de-motivated. And you run the risk of being considered the Goat Worrier.

Launch of the new Gaelic TV Channel, BBC Alba

On Friday night, the new Gaelic TV channel, BBC Alba, finally launched.

Long pushed for, the channel has been the focus of many movers and shakers in the Gaelic media/political/activist world for nigh on 20 years. Since the early 1990s, the BBC and STV were forced by an Act of Parliament to carry additional Gaelic programming. Even though there was £8m for 160 hours of originated TV available from the government, this wasn’t something that the broadcasters took to with alacrity. Instead, they either shunted Gaelic programming off prime time into the wee small hours (STV), or in the case of the BBC, fulfilled their duty however were painfully aware of the sacrifice in audience they were making. The reasonable logic for both broadcasters being, why run Gaelic TV shows in prime slots when English programming can attract larger audiences?

Put in this context, it isn’t any wonder that Gaels have long yearned for an all-too-Braveheart ”home of our own”; a TV channel where the language can roam unconstrained by the realities of terrestrial scheduling in an increasingly competitive market.

That phrase be careful what you wish for springs to mind. Just in terms of (very) basic sums. In the past, there was £8m to make 160 original hours a year. Now, there is £14m to broadcast five hours a day (approximately 90 minutes of which will be new). That is around 540 originated hours a year. A tripling of the output, with less than double the budget. The per hour budget is going from £50,000 to considerably less than £25,000. Ouch.

It gets a little confusing, as the BBC is putting in an additional £7m that covers existing radio and online activity, plus new playout and operational costs. However despite this, there still are additional costs that I’m assuming inevitably must come out of the £14m channel budget. For example, money to reversion acquired shows and pay for the repeats that fill the remaining 3.5 hours a day, the administration of the channel, marketing and press activity.

My figures are approximate and simple. But what they demonstrate is that for even the most creative producer (and they’ll be hard to find on the money), trying to make quality programming on budgets which are less than half what they were pre-Channel will be a real challenge. Let alone then attracting enough people to the channel to watch it. 

Malcy writes 'today' on Garry beach. Picture by Sam.

The biggest concern for the channel is creating a Gaelic ghetto by taking the lion’s share of programming off terrestrial and onto digital. Especially considering not all the digital audience will be able to access the channel, as it is only going out on Sky and Freesat. While getting onto the Freeview platform post-digital switchover in 2010 will help, in the meantime being a satellite only, digital only TV channel makes attracting audiences very difficult.

As an aside, eight years ago, the Outer Hebrides – where most of the Gaelic speakers live – had the most Sky subscriptions per head of population in the UK. Would be interested to know if this is still true post-Freeview launch. My mum, who is my barometer for all things Gaelic, got Sky specifically so she could watch the channel.

I used be Head of New Media for a very small digital TV channel, and we had to work incredibly hard to market our shows via as cheap a method as possible. In the main, press to promote shows to magazines and newspaper listings (a Pick of the Day was worth its weight in gold), and on air cross-promotion from our terrestrial TV partners (the most valuable marketing of all). Plus, focussing on the web to act as an additional distribution method. While the BBC brand will help the channel’s profile, as will on air mentions on the terrestrial output, the question remains whether this will be enough to attract people’s attention to the channel in an already crowded market (assuming they can afford the access in the first place).

Taking all this into account, as well as the sheer cost of running a channel before you even make an hour of programming, it isn’t any surprise many niche content creators are by-passing the traditional satellite channel model and instead are looking to the web as a much cheaper method of getting programming straight to an audience. As everything to do with Gaelic, there is no simple answer. The majority of speakers are older (sorry Mum), and therefore it can’t be assumed they will be happy doing their viewing over the Internet (let alone the issues around the quality of internet connectivity in rural communities such as the Highlands and Islands). Having said that, it will be interesting to see the traffic figures for Gaelic programmes on the iPlayer (although none are there yet), and how many of them are coming from a non-Gaelic (or non-Highland and Island or even Scottish) audience.

As someone who has been there before in both TV and the Internet, and who cares passionately about the future of the language, it will be fascinating to watch BBC Alba find its feet and create programming that is both good, and more importantly, is watched.

Anything but by any means

Sam Wollaston savaged By Any Means, the BBC1 series where Charley Boorman travels from Ireland to Australia using any method of transport except commercial flights.

Without wanting to re-hash Sam’s argument (which is neatly summed up as who the hell is Charley Boorman anyway, and why is he on my telly?), it was an utterly baffling and irritating programme. 

What is the purpose of Charley’s journey? It would make sense if there was a reason for this adventure. Raising money for charity, an attempt to break some record or other. Something.

But instead it seems it as simple as a little rich kid (well, man) who likes playing with petrol-consuming toys. While he is hardly the first (or likely to be the last) person who has the funds to romp all over the world, does this really justify a commission to make a TV series?

The other infuriating thing about the show is its lack of knowledge that Charley displays about the places through which he travels. Usually, the producer would have given a few facts to the presenter so they could pass on the information in an engaging way to the audience. Instead, Charley says that the English Channel is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Or one of them. Which is it? In this show, it doesn’t seem to matter. 

The final point (and maybe this demonstrates the target audience of Top Gear-esque polar bear hating petrol heads) is a sequence on the scallop trawler. The trawlermen dump down dredgers that rip up the seabed, and are viewed by many to have a devastating impact on the environment. And yet, no mention. Rather, Charley says mmm, yummy scallops as he watches starfish, sea urchins and other creatures spread on the deck that have been hoovered up from the sea floor.

Now this has got to hurt

Jenni Russell has written in the Guardian a brilliantly considered demolition job of our prudent leader. The user comments are equally cutting and insightful.

After wanting this job so much, allowing this singular obsession to run rampant for a decade in office, he finally gets the keys to number 10. And everyone (well, many) hope that things really are going to get better. That Tony and his centrist policies have buggered off for good. Gordon will restore the red in Labour. PFI will get the boot. No more active involvement in illegal acts in foreign countries. The unquestioning deference for the wealthy will end.

All of these hopes really ignored the reality. Gordon Brown was the most powerful chancellor in recent history. He was instrumental in defining and leading the government for the previous 10 years. Even just the example of PFI and the Tube demonstrate how disconnected from reality people’s hopes were that Gordon would renew old Labour. Despite all the evidence that it was going to be a disaster, he pushed through the privatisation of the Tube, seemingly heavily influenced by a spat with Ken Livingstone. He was responsible for the enormous con of off-balance sheet recording of PFI debt (doing financial strategy for my MBA left me wondering huh? How on earth is that considered a sensible thing to do? We are liable for the debt, but it isn’t accounted for as a risk. It is like taking out one big Ocean Finance loan. And then not telling your partner).

Then there was the ridiculous non-election. The usual blame game was trotted out: it was the media’s fault for cooking up the fire-storm, ignoring the fact that the Labour party had spent nearly £1m in preparation, including booking advertising space.

There was the excruciatingly terrible Prime Minister’s Questions, where even Osborne could lay punches and Gordon sat there like a big dumb bear, wondering why people are goading and poking him with sticks. Cringeworthy.

And now, from mates working in the lobby, it seems the policy is “no news is good news”. The government media machine has gone into shutdown mode. The news beast had got used to the previous decade long conveyor belt of stories, and to stop feeding news outlets created a huge amount of frustration. It is a very naive, panicked and short termist approach to media management: news channels are still on air, column inches and newspaper websites still need to be filled. And a pissed-off lobby with no stories is certainly going to start coming up with their own (arguably, what they should have been doing in the first place). None of which will be controlled or favourable to the current government, and therefore their media machine will quickly have to switch to fire-fighting mode.

After a while of having switched off the constant chuntering of announcements of new policy initiatives or new spending, Gordon managed to keep his head down. But now he’s back with a vengance – first with the amoral abolition of the 10p tax rate, while the economic downturn is shining new light onto Gordon’s off-balance sheet accounting practices.

At a party celebrating my graduation (yay me!), many friends and family from all over the political spectrum were saying the same thing. Members (and ex-members) of the Labour party, a former Blairite MP (he’s no longer an MP, but I have a feeling he still considers himself a Blairite), small c conservative a-political types. Lefties who loathe the NuLab project. People who have zero interest in politics unless it impacts their wallet.

They said, well, Gordon Brown is a rubbish Prime Minister. Really rubbish. But even more depressing. There isn’t anyone else.

The new Spitting Image

After seemingly forever in gestation, the new Spitting Image hits the screen on April 6th. Called Headcases, it uses CGI instead of the old puppets, and is being made by Henry Naylor. And Rory Bremner, but who cares about him.

Having seen a few preview clips, it looks bloody hilarious and deserves to get killer viewing figures.

The Vicky Beckham portrayal is so close to my imagination of the reality.

Tedious (and chauvinistic) as it is that Jacqui Smith’s cleavage gets more media coverage than consideration about how well she does her job, it is very funny that she’s portrayed in Headcases as having a massive bust that increases and decreases depending on the threat of terrorism.

David Cameron is an sneering Etonian toff. So pretty close to the truth. Henry said that he used my rantings about David Cameron to help shape the character. I have no doubt that this is complete rubbish and he said it to make me feel special. It worked.

This is it

So this is it. A new blog. Finally, I’ve heaved out the old one, as it was rubbish. So much to do on the new one. A new header image, play about with the CSS, create a blog roll. Think of something to write about. Maybe the last one should come first.