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NativeHQ wins Theatre Multiplatform award!

30 January 2013 by
NativeHQ win Multiplatform Award

Big thanks to the theatre critics of Wales for giving us an award for the best use of digital/online content at the inaugural Theatre Critics of Wales Awards in Cardiff this weekend. We won it for our work with National Theatre Wales on The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning, by Tim Price.

We designed an online project that created a native web experience of the play by embedding CCTV cameras into the set of the show, livestreamed the play and gave the online audience a chat space to communicate with each other and external links for viewers to explore the story in more depth that changed throughout the play to reflect what you were watching.

Multifplaform design awardWith Wikileaks, Anonymous and the Bradley Manning Campaign all tweeting links to the web production, nearly 10,000 people watched the play as it was beamed from Tasker Milwood school in Haverford West, Cardiff and Connah’s Quay in North Wales. On the final day of the show in North Wales, someone in the council switched off the internet for the weekend, so we were left streaming the production through a 3G phone tether!

Bradley has nearly been in prison without a full trial for 1000 days. It now seems very likely that he did indeed leak the documents that he has been accused of sending to Wikileaks and with many Americans baying for blood, it’s is likely he will face a jail sentence. But having been a catalyst for the Arab Spring and brought the truth of American action in war and foreign policy thinking to global awareness, it seems like this Welsh Geek has done more in his young life to change the world than most of us ever will.

Many thanks to everyone involved in the production – Lucy, David, Jacob and Mike, to the creative team Tim, Chloe, Natasha, Mike, the cast and crew, and special thanks to John McGrath, the artist director of National Theatre Wales, for his vision and bravery in making NTW one of the most innovative digital theatre companies in the world.

Find out more about the campaign to support him through his ordeal by visiting the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Filed Under: Company news, Multiplatform design Tagged With: , , , , ,

Your organisation and social media – taking steps in 2013

9 January 2013 by

We’ve been working on how we can best help organisations to use social media in 2013 and are launching a new service called Social Media Insights. So we want to share our thinking behind it in this post.

We have noticed big changes in how people deal with social media since 2008 when we founded our company. In NativeHQ’s early days we found ourselves introducing the potential of networked conversational media platforms in their organisations.

When we started, the term ‘social media’ was becoming more popular and there was a general sense among many that it might be worth investigating although probably a bit risky. NativeHQ received invitations to give talks of a certain kind, to shake people out of their regular routine and tell them that Something Is Coming and to try and unfold a few pairs of crossed arms by the power of presentation. We usually managed to find a balance between practicality and exuberance without straying too far into hype.

Recently we have been travelling between Cardiff, Caernarfon, London, Swansea and other places when we meet people where our clients are based. We get an impression of what people are doing with social media and the kind of questions they are asking.

Let’s just say that people don’t generally ask us for that kind of presentation anymore. Maybe you can identify with this – there is a cycle for anything new, especially in the application of technology. People no longer need convincing that social media can help them collaborate better, develop products, serve customers, promote products, services and events, and so on. They understand that it’s a revolutionary shift in communications and are looking for ways to use it effectively in their own context.

Much of the apprehension and maybe fear about social media is gone, which is good. In place is a feeling in organisations that some things are missing and that better work is possible in various departments. But there’s a sense that there’s a lack of time to learn and develop this. The situation in any company is unique but some questions recur. How could social media fit with the rest of what we do? How should we do it? What are the right platforms for us to use? Who should be doing this work? Could it be that some of our time is being spent on the wrong things? How do we realise the value of social media in our specific situation? How do we measure whether we are being successful? You can find lots of general answers on the web, but how do you make the right decisions for your own, unique organisation?

Sometimes people refer to their organisational ‘unknown unknowns’ too – that is, gaps in the field of view and what lies outside of their frameworks of assumptions brought from previous experience. It’s not as if assumptions are always a negative thing. It’s a bit difficult not to have assumptions. But these people are looking for clear reasoning in order to form a strategy – rather than a haphazard, opportunistic use of social media or an approach based on orthodoxies taken from another field.

Another ‘unknown unknown’ is how the best use of social media will develop over time, during 2013 and beyond. There will be new start-ups and services but there will also be new displays of human creativity using familiar platforms. So that means that it could be a mistake to lock down any particular set way of doing things. It’s a rapidly developing field.

In the context of all these observations we’ve been trying to put together a way we can respond to the evolving demand. Our new service is called Social Media Insights and is based on a longer-term relationship with a client. It involves regular analysis and monthly meetings with you where we explore relevant data and facts, share insights and help you to learn and develop your practice. We are making our experience and understanding available to help clients develop strategic approach, tactics, skills and knowledge on an ongoing basis.

We still don’t ‘ghost blog’, posting on behalf of our clients, on social media because we have no desire to own their network or community and the impersonation makes it a bit fake for that community, frankly. We much prefer to train and equip them to use their own voice and participate in the relationships they develop. We believe that in time, using an outsourced model for social media conversation will seem a bit quaint. When a professional who is in an organisation goes online to share some of his or her thinking, learnings and questions with honesty and enthusiasm then other people pay attention – they respond to that authentic voice.

This is about organisational change, which takes time. It’s about iteration and application of knowledge in context.

Besides there are a whole bunch of other things happening in the organisation and use of social media has to be integrated into the work flows. Personal, individual use of social media is very different to what happens in organisations. You could liken the change process to the difference between steering a bike and navigating a ship.

So that’s a bit of background about Social Media Insights, which complements the existing services we offer and special projects we do. Contact us if you’d like to know more and we can arrange to visit you to discuss what it involves in more detail.

Filed Under: Social media insights Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Scratchr: towards an ‘open source’ for live performance

27 November 2012 by

For a few months we have been designing, developing and growing an online platform and community called Scratchr in close collaboration with the team at Battersea Arts Centre, London.

Do watch the above video as it explains more about the scratch process the BAC team have been refining for several years, in which an artist has the valuable opportunity to try out work with an audience of participants who then help shape it. As a means of making art, the scratch process is more like a conversation than a one-way broadcast. If you know NativeHQ then you’ll have guessed that this mentality of conversation-not-broadcast and process-as-product twigged our interest straightaway! The brief which led to the nascent Scratchr software platform and community started out as a question: how do we take the offline scratch process into online? In other words how can we reimagine and support the outworking of the scratch process using digital technology?

It’s still very early in the life of Scratchr. Like the artistic process, it’s a co-creation with the community of people that is forming there. I like the idea of giving people a broad description ‘it’s a platform for artistic collaboration and idea development’ and letting them work it out in wonderful ways. We do need some guidelines on what features are intended for what purpose. But we don’t want to prescribe exactly how it’s used. One never prescribes to an artist.

Check out the Scratch Blog for a couple of recent highlights. See also: the Digital R&D Fund blog post about Scratchr.

A friend recently asked us if we could have done something similar with Facebook or a pre-existing platform. I would say ‘no’. It would have been very difficult to change people’s perceptions of such a general-purpose platform and also bend the software to our will. That’s why we took the decision to build using WordPress multi-site and BuddyPress. We are not tied as a company to this software other than the fact we like it and know it to be flexible. Still, it has taken a lot of coaxing to have it perform exactly as we want it and it would be rash to say that’s it’s all there even now (the beta test group is testament to this). The decision to take this more difficult route wasn’t about picking up more development work – if we could have picked a platform which allowed us to begin even more rapidly then we would have! But we felt that the requirements of Scratchr were unique. (Thanks go to Marc Heatley for invaluable work with us on this.)

WordPress and BuddyPress are released under the GPL which is a free software licence – in other words, the software gives us freedom to copy it, modify it and use it for any purpose, independently of the software developers. The principles and licence underlying the software itself are also happily in keeping with our aim of being unrestrictive to BAC as a client and to embrace the results of good collaboration around the globe. I mean, it would seem odd to pick proprietary restrictive software for a project that celebrates collaboration, freedom and openness.

If you’ll permit I’m going to offer some half-developed thoughts that have resulted from this project – and grown from previous work we’ve done with theatre and live performance.

Many people would agree that another valid term for free software is ‘open source’. Now, there is something in the way the artists are using Scratchr which could be described as ‘open source theatre’ or ‘open source art’. In other words, they are sharing the process, they are inviting collaboration, they are not as ‘closed’ as theatre and live performance can sometimes be. Maybe some of them wouldn’t mind if you borrowed their ideas and adapted them (but that’s a tentative observation rather than a piece of advice). But I’m still trying to resolve what it means to use the term ‘open source’ in this context.

As I’ve alluded above, the discussion as relates to software is very well advanced. For example there are four specific freedoms associated with the GPL and such licences have allowed for a galaxy of innovation from GNU/Linux to Firefox to Raspberry Pi to cloud computing. In the world of content such as text, video and images there is a parallel in Creative Commons and GFDL licences which enable reuse with conditions – leading to amazing projects like Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap.

But software and content are very different from live performance and its various offspring. In the world of theatre and live performance the conventions and rules of play for ‘open source’ are still being worked out. Sure, you could share a script or a planning document under Creative Commons BY-SA and many artists have done. But that doesn’t feel to me as if the potential for widespread collaboration has been fully realised. I appreciate that the original principle behind free software was user freedom but I think that this also changes the culture in the field and in the industry; it changes the way people and companies create.

A hallmark of success could be new forms of work that have never been seen before. We see this happening in other fields. Journalists are grappling with what the internet can do to improve their work to make reporting and analysis more collaborative – and to better serve society (hopefully). Businesses, filmmakers, musicians and other content creators are experimenting with crowd funding platforms like Kickstarter which promise to give us a wider variety of products and innovations.

What then is open source theatre? What would be the Firefox or the Wikipedia of live performance? I’m not necessarily referring to the scale of Wikipedia but to the fact that it’s living proof of newer forms of collaboration. If we believe that such a thing as open source theatre is possible and opens up new opportunities for more people to participate, what would that look like?

Filed Under: Social media strategy, Web development Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Ada Lovelace Day 2012: Dr Kelly Page

16 October 2012 by

Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in technology. You can read more on the event’s website.

This year I would like to mention someone who is very dear to us at NativeHQ and is well known among web people in Cardiff, where we live and work.

To call Dr Kelly Page an ‘academic’ would be factually correct but wouldn’t give you a full picture of the real value she brings to the projects she works on. She has a keen understanding of technology adoption and the ‘human’ factors and in a field often given to over-exuberance she never gives a simplistic answer. It is always fascinating to discuss with her how technology is really used and how digital media are being changed and in turn changing us, in education, in organisations, in companies, in politics, the arts and so on.

She is a highly versatile thinker who has no problem recasting the original question, category or definition on the basis of what happens along the way. That is a rare attitude. She has been known to remark, in one of her favourite phrases, that there are ‘a lot of learnings’ – a reflection of her curiosity and openness to new insights, however they might be found. She is a great asset to organisations, at least those that are willing to be inspired and learn with her.

Tom and I have benefited hugely from our conversations with Kelly, many of which have fundamentally changed the way we do things. As well as her flawless professionalism as a person she is generous, good at meaningful encouragement and big on laughs.

Although she maintains links to Wales, Kelly and her gigantic brain departed for a life in the USA earlier this year. And although it is a great pity for us as we don’t see her as often anymore, we know she is thriving on the new challenges and we look forward to future discussions – on whichever shore they may be.

Filed Under: Commentary Tagged With: ,

9 ways social media can benefit your business

1 October 2012 by

We were invited to speak about social media and business at the launch of Coleg Morgannwg’s new Nantgarw campus. Here are some notes.

Serve your customers

Three, the mobile service provider, are particularly good at customer service (as far as we’ve experienced). Look at the Three Twitter account which they use to respond to queries and post service updates. Note how they identify the people who are running the account on behalf of the company. Giffgaff are another mobile service provider service making use of social media tools and principles. They are networking their customers so they can help each other, earn points which are added to their credit and ultimately keep costs down. There is a Volkswagen cult-like feel to the brand. It’s a bit of an experiment but the idea of allowing customers to talk to each other is a recurring one.

Develop your products

Again, in a different field but still in technology, Dell computers have a platform called IdeaStorm. So far they have incorporated over 515 ideas from the community into various products. You can see some examples of ideas in the screenshot. The ethos: your customers, when connected meaningfully, know more about your company than even you do.

Starbucks have My Starbucks Idea, a similar platform.

Tŷ Siriol are famed in Swansea and surrounds for their high quality pork sausages. In conversation with them recently they told us they’d saved a lot of money and effort by asking their customers which products they would favour. In response, rather than develop a range of different flavoured sausages they are focusing on one traditional sausage. Ask people what they want through social media, use polls etc. Nowadays, market research can be more affordable and quicker than ever before.

Inform yourself

The screenshot depicts Netvibes for a National Theatre Wales production called The Passion. Social media can be used to monitor mentions of the company, brands and products (maybe competitors?).

You probably should also monitor keywords from your industry and news from relevant sources.

Netvibes is still a decent tool, as is a feed reader like Google Reader for persistent searches.

It’s not egotistical to monitor your own name, it’s just taking an interest in your media profile.

Share your stories

A big part of Bulmers’ brand is their long history. They are telling the stories on their Facebook timeline. It’s consistent with their advertising and other publicity.

Often people want to hear about the process and the history behind your company. Illustrate it.

Promote your products

Rachel’s organic dairy products also come from Wales. They are using a Facebook app to offer recipes, ideas, competitions, offers, cross-promotions with other related firms and so on. They have a big following and can go direct. These days, every company is a media company.

There are questions about relying on Facebook for this in the long term. It seems to be working for them now though.

Find your team

This is about recruitment and being recruited.

We focus on LinkedIn here as a means of getting work opportunities. It is particularly good for freelancers.

Your web presence more generally is probably more important than ever before (e.g. introducing ideas on a blog or regular videos).

If you’re planning a career there is a new definition of literacy which includes digital. If you can express your ideas and converse with visualisations, video, images, audio and multimedia, then that is bona fide literacy. It’s important that we develop this in Wales, from early on.

Work smarter

Wikipedia is the supreme example of collaboration using social media. Wikipedia‘s project is to produce an encyclopaedia, it’s the example of the biggest wiki in terms of users and content. But there are many other collaborative applications of wikis.

At NativeHQ we have tools which we use every day: Trello (for our to-do lists) and Google Drive (for all kinds of documents, including reports and presentations).

Fund new initiatives

Gwilym Deudraeth’s 1929 book of poetry, depicted in the slide, is a superb example of ‘crowdfunding’ in Wales before the web. More details about Gwilym here.

Now we are observing the growth of Kickstarter, Indiegogo and other crowdfunding platforms which help you propose a project and raise money from a number of contributors. Very often the most successful attempts use social media, especially video, to make the case and promote the project. This is a social media phenomenon – it’s much cheaper to form groups than it was before.

Redefine your business

What could you offer now that you can network your customers? In a bold move for an airline KLM are introducing people on their planes. They have a scheme called ‘Meet and Seat’ where you can share a certain amount of info from your LinkedIn or Facebook profile – and then meet other people who are interested in meeting you. They are keen to emphasise that it’s networking rather than dating.

BBC and other broadcasters do this with their Twitter hashtags, to varying levels of success. Question Time has been successful with #bbcqt and the accompanying account for the show @bbcquestiontime. The key realisation was that audiences don’t respond to ‘have your say’ (with its connotations of centralised broadcasting, using only one account) nearly as much as the offer to ‘talk to your peers’ (one hashtag which is used by thousands of decentralised participants).

Thanks

That’s it. We had so much we had to cut out – this was intended to be a general presentation.

(Video of our presentation to come soon.)

Coleg Morgannwg panoramic pic by Tom and his new iPhone

Filed Under: Presentations and workshops Tagged With: , , , ,

Engaging theatre audiences through the internet: presentation

18 June 2012 by
Theatre and the Internet

I was recently invited to speak to an audience of theatre makers at Somerset House – a wonderful venue in London that looks out across the River Thames to the National Theatre (England’s, that is…). The presentation looks at some of the work Native has been doing with National Theatre Wales.

As well as developing the National Theatre Wales Community, we’ve been using the internet as part of a multiplatform theatre design for a number of productions, including the Passion of Port Talbot and The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning.

You can view the presentation file (I used Prezi) and listen to the presentation below (my presentation starts 32.20 minutes into the SoundCloud file):

Engaging audiences through the internet on Prezi

Filed Under: Case studies, Multiplatform design, Presentations and workshops Tagged With: , , ,

Eight things we’re learning about social media training

7 June 2012 by

This year NativeHQ have been running social media training courses in collaboration with Cyfle and also running workshops with our clients, who ask for training as a bundle with other services like strategy and campaigns. Here are some provisional thoughts we’ve had about the training experience. Some might be useful to trainers in other disciplines.

There are eight of them because I thought of eight.

1. Practices and platforms

When an organisation asks us for YouTube training (say) or Platform X, then they already know about that platform and they’re looking for relevant ways they can use it. Usually they don’t need us to tell them how to set up an account or that posting video or whatever is possible. They are looking for creative practices, inspiration, guidance, mentoring, feedback and the benefit of our experience. They want to know how it meshes with other activities. They want to know if it’s actually relevant for them or just a time sink and are relying on us to give them honest answers not hype. All this can get lost in the discussions of the role of social media in organisations and the role of the experienced trainer. A lot of people are using Platform X now but exactly HOW are you using it? These are the things that are worth talking about – practices as well as platforms.

2. Publicness

Usually, for social media training to work, real things have to be posted on the public web. Although there are good examples of social software that are not on the public web, e.g. a private collaboration wiki for a team, many of the joys of social media learning happen without such restrictions – or safeguards, depending on your point of view. If you’re wondering then there are ways of managing the reputational risks of that – for example, using a pseudonym or an individual person’s account/identity with appropriate disclaimers instead of a company account.

3. Group dynamics

In our experience there is a group dynamic for hands-on training with one trainer which can be sustained with up to eight to ten participants. After that it starts to break down – the session becomes less of a hands-on practical session and more of a presentation.

4. Shared note taking

We approach training workshops like mini-conferences with a ‘backchannel’. In practice I mean that at the beginning we invite everyone to a Google Doc for sharing of notes and links. This is suggested as a potential replacement for eight (say) separate sets of notes and thus reduces repetition, allowing more time for learning. It’s a snap to share links within the group. We are also trying to illustrate how shared notetaking can be amazing for collaboration with colleagues for other kinds of work beyond training. Sometimes people like to take additional private notes on paper or on a device, which is fine, but once they’ve tried shared notes they often tend to like it. One day maybe all training courses will adopt this – from video production to healthcare.

5. Skill levels

It’s obviously good to have a diversity of participants. An exception to this guideline: we prefer that the skill level of everyone is roughly level. This is to avoid causing frustration for the confident and for those less experienced on social media. This can be managed with clear publicity before the course.

6. Language

We distinguish between language as medium of instruction (a training course offered through the medium of Welsh or English) and language as content (discussing and exploring multilingual use of video, blogging, WordPress, etc). In practice the two are distinct but related because we are talking about the Internet, where content, communities and networks converge in particular ways. We are based in Wales which is a country with two official languages. For people who normally work in Welsh it’s important that they do training in that language where possible. In an organisation if you are planning to offer both Welsh and English medium training then both should be clearly publicised as equally valid choices from the beginning. Oh and a single session labelled as ‘bilingual’ tends to please nobody!

7. Initiatives vs. projects

It’s important that participants gain practical hands-on experience. We have heard of social media training courses which are actually just presentations. We love presentations but would question the effectiveness of these if billed as training. A big part of some of our courses is the practical initiative. We try to avoid ‘mock’ projects as much as possible. There is only limited relevance in something which is worked on for a few hours then abandoned, especially online where things take time. If each participant can work on a real initiative then that is much better. The word ‘initiative’ allows for things that don’t have a definitive ending; ideally they continue beyond the end of the course. If you can think of a better word than ‘initiative’ to capture this meaning, let us know.

8. Principles vs. platforms

We hold each service lightly because they in turn hold us lightly. What I mean is, there is no guarantee of the long-term future of many social media platforms. What we try to impart are principles. We can use WordPress to illustrate the main features of blogging. But from that if we can help people to really understand blogging in its essence then that will be useful on the web in the long-term, whether they are using WordPress, Tumblr or blog-like services and post-blogging services (as it were) such as Pinterest, Google+, Facebook or Twitter. Beware of the “Google+” training being offered by some at the moment. Why? Well, will your community be using it in the future? Is your community there now?! It’s far better to discern the principles that underlie the social web. Right now I’m not sure that these principles change radically with the arrival of each new platform pretender. That’s a topic for another post.

Filed Under: Presentations and workshops, Social media training Tagged With: , , ,

The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning – using the internet with theatre

6 June 2012 by

During April 2012, National Theatre Wales produced an important new play about Bradley Manning, the alleged Wikileaker who spent some of his early teenage years living in Haverfordwest in West Wales. NativeHQ designed and ran the multiplatform element of the production, in which we produced a global live stream of the play during every one of the live performances.

NTW’s Artistic Director, John McGrath, got NativeHQ involved very early in the development of the production, as writer Tim Price was developing his early drafts. We had a chance to think through the various options for placing the play into online spaces and settled on the live streaming concept, using surveillance cameras built into the set.

Tim wanted whatever we did to point to Bradley Manning, so we conceived of a web page which would go beyond simple live streaming to include live chat among virtual audience members and links that connected what was happening on the live stream with source material such as new stories, weblogs, interviews and even an archive of the website that Bradley created during his time in Wales.

Being integrated into the creative team provided us with an important opportunity to work with the very talented team putting together the show. Kudos should go to Producer Lucy Davies, Production Manager David Evans and Assistant Producer Michael Salmon , designer Chloe Lamford, Lighting Designer Natasha Chivers, sound guys Mike Beer and Matt Gibson, techie Jacob Gough, Stage Managers Fiona Curtis and Gemma Thomas, Costume supervisor Jo Nichols and AV designer Dan Trenchard. And of course Hoffi, who co-ordinated the website build, and Kinura who managed the live streaming infrastructure. Wales is lucky to have an impressive theatre community and tradition emerging here under John’s guidance.

Learning about theatre and multiplatform

There was a huge amount of learning about the process of theatre co-creation and how multiplatform production can find a place within this process. The big lessons are around time, budget and working closely with all those who are affected by the multiplatform work – it’s often new to theatre practitioners and going through the implications for their work can often take time and careful explanation.

The live streaming wasn’t without its technical problems – the last performances in Connah’s Quay, which were run by Carl, faced the challenge of a complete shut down of internet accessibility by the council, which seemed to have closed for the weekend. Carl and Michael Salmon stepped up to this by livestreaming the show to the world via a 3G connection through  Mike’s smartphone – impressive stuff, that hopefully none of the audience noticed.

In total, about 9000 people from over 70 countries around the world accessed the livestream, and it got wide coverage – it was tweeted by Wikileaks as well as the Bradley Manning Campaign, and a couple of theatre reviewers took the time to review the online experience, as distinct from the corporeal show. Dylan Moore from the ArtsDesk called it the ‘cutting edge of theatre’, while Daniel B Yates for Exeunt magazine used the opportunity to discuss the use of the internet in theatre and the nature of ‘Liveness’. Both reviewed gave the online experience four stars.

Reflections on live streaming theatre and immersion in web storytelling

Unlike physically live theatre, the use of live stream displaces the viewed by physical location and interaction. We become voyeurs. We played on this, and the themes of the story, by using the aesthetics of surveillance cameras. We also wanted to deepen the viewers immersion in Bradley’s story by offering them places to go through the links that were put onto the site during the show.

This was also important as it gave the viewed some measure of control over their own experience while keeping them in Bradley’s story – the web is a user centric, active medium, with that google search bar sitting at the top of the web page, making it easy to leave if the viewer is bored or distracted. In a theatre space, they are physically constrained, making it easier to hold attention. Adapting the story effectively to the web meant thinking carefully about the nature of the web medium and working to take advantage of its character in the multiplatform design.

The web offers new interactive possibilities to theatre makers, and we chose to take full advantage of the liveness in time that streaming offers, while thinking carefully about the way context collapses – viewers encountered it in offices, cafes, living rooms, kitchens or bedrooms. It was important to enable people to not only follow along, but share, comment, speak back, write and create themselves.

NTW18 was the latest in our journey of experimentation with multiplatform technology and John McGrath’s National Theatre Wales. It’s a journey that has taught everyone involved invaluable lessons on what is possible, what is involved in creating virtual spaces that work together with physical spaces, and the potential of the internet as a vehicle for storytelling and live multiplatform experiences.

Filed Under: Digital content production, Multiplatform design Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Online experience of The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning #ntw18

11 April 2012 by

Right now we’re working with National Theatre Wales on a production called The Radicalisation of Bradley Manning. This is a fictional dramatised account based on true events. Writer Tim Price contributed a piece to the Guardian about why he wrote the play and here’s a brief intro:

Bradley Manning is the 24-year-old US soldier accused of the release of thousands of US embassy emails to Wikileaks. On Friday 16th December 2011, his pre-trial hearing opened in Fort Meade in Maryland. Manning faces a maximum sentence of life in custody with no chance of parole. But just a few years ago, he was a teenager in west Wales. How does his story impact on the people he left behind, and who is responsible for his ‘radicalisation’?

From very early in the production process it was obvious that the interest in the play and the questions it raises would be much wider than the venues around Wales – at schools in Haverfordwest, Cardiff and Connah’s Quay – and indeed wider than Wales itself.

Therefore as part of the online experience we had some discussions with the director John McGrath and decided together that a live stream was needed, to cater for this international interest and allow people worldwide to watch and take part. If you’d like to watch the live stream it’s free and you can book to receive a reminder to make sure you don’t miss it.

Unlike some other theatre companies which are within walls, National Theatre Wales’ primary presence has always been digital through its online Community. There is an expectation that the digital life of the production will receive attention and care. While this will raise the profile of the production this is not predominantly a marketing channel for the theatre but a bona fide way to appreciate the story, the ‘content’.

The artistic questions then become: what kind of online experience can we offer? How can we make appropriate use of the distinctives of online? How can we encourage people to participate in this and ‘sit forward’ rather than just consuming the stream like TV?

Photos by Tom Beardshaw

In truth we are navigating our way through these questions but we do prefer to regard this is a standalone online experience – rather than an attempt to replicate the live corporeal theatre in a screen. The online view is different – it will depend on microphones at the venues and cameras which feed into what’s effectively a vison mixer and streaming software. This is not pre-recorded video either, everything will be happening live. (Thanks to Kinura and Pilot Theatre for their hard work on the live stream.)

Certain things become possible such as a live text-based chat with other viewer-participants (terminology decision pending) from around the world. I’m very curious about the kinds of conversations that people will have while the show is in progress and what links they will share. In practice there will be other forms of conversation around the wider web too, not just our spaces. (Incidentally if you are a blogger or social media devotee and you can get to Cardiff, Wales then you have the chance to take photos, record video and interview cast and crew at a sneak preview on 18th April 2012.)

Of course the story itself includes the theme of technology and its use by Bradley and others. I’d rather not say anymore right now – if you’re curious you can book to receive a reminder of the live stream.

You can also read updates on National Theatre Wales Community blogs under the show tag which is ntw18.

Filed Under: Multiplatform design Tagged With: , , , ,

Background to the NativeHQ website rejig

8 March 2012 by

Tom and I have been busy rejigging the NativeHQ website of late. We’re still working on some aspects of the content but decided to follow the Cult of Done philosophy and just get it online.

I wanted to blog about how relatively painless this process has been from a system point of view. This is the kind of long-term freedom from pain we like to offer clients of our website development services too.

Since the beginning of NativeHQ around three years ago our website has run on the WordPress system and this is turning out to have been a wise decision. One huge advantage of WordPress is the freedom we get from its open source licence (the WordPress code is licensed under a licence known as GPL). In other words, we are independent of any other company and completely free to change bits of it. We are certainly not locked in to any suppliers, licence costs, ‘bespoke’ systems and so on.

In the case of our own website we kept the core system and the old posts. We mainly needed to work on the cosmetic level of the visual theme: we got rid of the old theme and developed a new theme in keeping with our visual identity.

There are some functional changes as well. For example we wanted each service page to begin with an introduction and have a live portfolio of related projects underneath. If you visit, say, Social media strategy or Multiplatform design, you’ll see what I mean. The list of links in each case is generated automatically from the blog maintained by Tom and me, based on categories.

Again these functional changes are modular – just a matter of patching in a new template or two, not a serious overhaul.

Something is seriously wrong if you have to spend loads of money to overhaul your entire website including the core CMS just to give it a fresh look and emphasis every three or so years. But some website suppliers can force you to do this by making you rely on their bespoke, proprietary systems. As a rough analogy, it wouldn’t make sense to put your body under general anaesthetic and have surgery every time you simply want to change your outfit or make-up.

Rydyn ni wrthi’n datblygu’r ochr Cymraeg o ein gwefan ni. Bydd y cynnwys yn wahanol i’r Saesneg i fanteisio ar y cyfle i siarad am y we Gymraeg a phethau sydd yn addas i ein cymuned sydd yn defnyddio Cymraeg. Gawn ni weld. Mae’r ddwy iaith gyda statws cyfartal ond mae modd gwneud pethau unigryw i’r Gymraeg hefyd er mwyn cryfhau’r gronfa o sgyrsiau sydd ar gael yn yr iaith hon. Mae’n broses dysgu hefyd. Mae mwy nag un ffordd i wneud pethau a dyma’r ffordd rydyn ni’n bwriadu dewis. Fyddan ni ddim eisiau cyfieithu yn uniongyrchol rhwng y ddwy iaith.

Os wyt ti’n chwilfrydig, rydyn ni’n defnyddio ategyn WordPress o’r enw WPML er mwyn rhedeg system ddwyieithog. Mae rhaid gosod tri neu mwy o gyfieithiadau: system graidd WordPress, y thema, y cynnwys ac ambell i ategyn. Dyw WPML ddim yn berffaith ond dw i wedi trio sawl ategyn ac mae’n well na’r gweddill sydd ar gael ar hyn o bryd – yn fy marn i.

Gyda llaw dw i’n casáu ymddiheuriadau am ddiffyg darpariaeth Cymraeg ar wefannau ond nawr dw i’n wneud yr un peth. Cymraeg yw fy ail iaith ac mae’r iaith ysgrifenedig yn her fach i fi felly diolch am fod yn amyneddgar.

Filed Under: Company news, Web development
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