Six months at the BBC
By this time tomorrow, I will have been working for the BBC for a full six months. First, the trivial stuff.
While wandering around the buildings, I’ve come within spitting distance of the Prime Minister, David Coulthard, Blue, Graham Norton, a Nolan sister (I have no idea which one), Spencer Kelly, Andrew Marr, Huw Edwards, Dr Yan, Anne Robinson, Cerrie Burnell and Katrina Bryan. In no particular order. I’ve also stood in what is now the “old” Blue Peter Garden, been up close and personal with The Quattro, and heard the Doughnut portion of the TV Centre tour more times than I care to count. Just yesterday, I had a conversation with the Director of Future Media about Barry Manilow. In my first few weeks, I helped to get the BBC’s travel policy changed so that staff were able to travel first class if it was cheaper than standard, instead of (what I can only assume was an afraid-of-the-FOI policy) requiring it to be standard across the board.
I work for Archive Development, which is a small team headed up the Controller of Archive Development, Tony Ageh. I’m based mainly at Pacific Quay, but Archive Development itself is based on the seventh floor of Television Centre. At PQ (as it tends to be known), I sit with the team who look after the Bitesize website, which is handy for keeping tabs on what’s going on in “Future Media” land — that is, the ecosystem mostly surrounding BBC Online (amongst other things).
Archive Development is part of the BBC Archives, which itself is part of BBC Vision — i.e., the telly bit — and although my work does revolve around the future, media and the Web, it’s not really a Future Media “thing”.
BBC Research and Development, who co-sponsor the project and I work very closely with is part of Future Media, but by nature of the kind of work it does has its own infrastructure and so on.
And so, in Tony’s words, this is what I work on. You’re possibly more interested in my words about it, though.
Aside from Tony, I work mostly with Jake — my line (and project) manager — and Radio’s (and TV’s and Internet’s) very own Bill Thompson.
In the course of my work I’ve been to the Houses of Parliament, backstage at the Royal Opera House, and behind the scenes at the British Library. I’m rapidly becoming an expert on the Caledonian Sleeper between Glasgow and Euston (it’s usually cheaper than flying, and doesn’t involve getting up at 4am), and get to play with Redux.
I’ve also, finally, met many of the BBC folk that I previously only knew via Twitter, and who gave me an insight into the inner workings of the corporation long before I started. Some of them have now gone on to bigger and better things, sadly — but in one case it actually meant I had an opportunity to work with somebody I wouldn’t have if they’d stuck around, which is grand. I’ve also met a load of other people who are equally brilliant.
I’ve learned quite a bit about the way the BBC works while I’ve been here. I think if I hadn’t been quite so nosey and vocal for a year or so before starting, it would have been a huge culture shock, but instead it was a set of mild surprises, some of them quite pleasant.
First, I underestimated quite how much everybody believes in what the BBC is meant to be for — even the people who you fundamentally disagree with on a whole range of issues is still trying to do the right thing for the licence-fee payer (even if what you and they think are “the right thing” happens to be quite different).
Reading what’re known as the “audience logs” gave me a fresh insight into how a vocal but persistent minority tend to view what the BBC does, and how nice it is when something is praised (complaints, comments and appreciations are collated daily).
I seriously underestimated the sense of collective responsiblity: it takes hold fast. When talking about something the BBC hasn’t done well, or something the corporation should be doing and isn’t, it’s “we”. On the other hand, if you’re talking about something that the BBC has done brilliantly at, it’s “the corporation”, “the BBC”, or — quite often — “the team involved in it”. It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just something you find yourself doing.
People who work for the BBC bitch and moan about infrastructure. About decisions which make no sense. About wheels which turn painfully slowly. Often, a lot of the criticism is entirely justified (although much of it can boil down to not having enough information to understand why something is the way it is), but for the most part everyone just gets on with the job.
Generally, it’s great. It’s a lot like being at a university in some respects: lots of focussed committed people working within their own area of expertise, many of them doing mind-blowing work which you just know you could never match, and almost all of them more than happy to talk to you about it. The work I do is interesting and varied, and gives me opportunities to collaborate with colleagues across many different parts of the BBC and beyond.
You may have noticed that this blog has a been a lot quieter since I started this job. Part of it is because I’m so busy, but part of it is that a lot of my blog was centered around highlighting things the BBC was doing (in my opinion) wrong or badly. Now that I’m part of the evil corporate machine, I do get the internal perspective on things. The knots people have tied themselves into. Those who need to make a decision but are on leave for a few days. The contracts people have inherited from predecessors. Even in the case of simple mistakes, actually bringing about change is often easier using internal channels (and, indeed, moaning about it publicly isn’t going to facilitate that).
Of course, there are issues. A corporation this large is organised, like most, along divisional lines, so you end up relying on “social networking” (in the classical sense: i.e., it’s who you know) to track down the people responsible for things, and for organising things which span departments. I know a lot of things I care personally about are steadily improving (although it never happens as quickly as you’d like), but equally it’s difficult not to take the cuts and attacks by parliamentarians and journalists personally — especially when they seem to be simultaneously gleeful and destructive. But you still get on with it. We’ve all got a job to do. And trust me, if everything I’m involved with goes to plan, you’ll like it. Here’s to the next six months…
