b.Tween festival, 14 june 2007

Opening its doors in June 1983, the museum was originally called the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. Since then, the launch of Britain’s largest IMAX cinema screen, a visit by internationally acclaimed artist David Hockney and the development of a live broadcasting studio are among some of the Museum’s accolades.

June's event, described as a 'smorgasbord of interactivity, information and inspiration' boasted impressive speakers and keen delegates, all of which were proud to be called 'geeks'. Katz Kiely, Managing Director of Just-b Productions, opened the event with a look at how multimedia is now embedded in our everyday communications. From Facebook and Second Life to the bizarre world of Justin TV, a real life online version of The Trueman Show, Katz considered that the fact Justin decides to broadcast every mundane aspect of his life to millions of people isn’t the issue, '...the fact is, that he can.'

The first keynote was from Angel Gambino, VP of Music and Content at Bebo. Angel's mantra is, 'Recognising and grasping serendipitous opportunity is the key to achieving success.' A strong speaker and a likeable character, Angel cited inspirational stories from her own varied media career and spoke of the benefits of 'happy accidents', like Alexander Fleming forgetting to clean his Petri dish, which lead to the development of Penicillin. She said, 'Accidental discoveries have led to leaps in technology. Strategic Serendipity is about starting to adapt that accident to formulate a new strategy.' Her advice to the auditorium full of delegates was, 'Constantly analyse user behaviour while developing your strategy and you might stumble across a happy accident that could change the way we use something forever.'

Angel then joined three other experienced industry experts in a panel, helping delegates to figure out how to get their ideas onto the screens. In particular, the panel gave some good advice about how to give an effective pitch. Jonathan Jowitt, the Director of Converged Media said, 'If you want to pitch something to me, show me something that works. That will really grab my attention.'
Morgan Holt, a media consultant who has previously worked as a journalist, said that clarity was very important in a pitch, while Matt Locke, a commissioning editor at Channel 4 said, 'Remember that you are pitching to a person, not a business. Find out who they are and what they are looking for.'

The day consisted of various 'break-out' sessions, which allowed more personal conversation and interaction with speakers already established and successful in their fields. Morgan Holt encouraged delegates to pitch their ideas and discuss ongoing projects, to which he gave helpful feedback on how they could develop those ideas.

The afternoon saw the convergence of three award winning creative mavericks in the 'Returning from the Digital Wilderness' seminar. The panel's ground breaking projects blur the line between real and imaginary, allowing users to develop narratives and Tim Wright, a digital writer and interactive producer said, 'We all seem to relish the challenge of making stuff that works one day as an SMS text message and the next day as a billboard poster, or puzzle game.'

'I want to meet people who share an enthusiasm for cross media creativity and entrepreneurship.'

The rest of the day's seminars explored issues like how small technology companies should approach investment and whether mobile phones can play a cohesive part in an entertainment format, while the next day saw even more influential speakers, including MT Rainey, founder of a hugely successful advertising agency and Horsesmouth, a social networking site for universal online mentoring.

2007’s b.Tween festival had something for everyone. An electric atmosphere, interactive displays and inspirational speakers meant that everyone, from established media moguls to enthusiastic trainee film makers, could share interests and ideas, meet contacts and maybe even contribute to changing multimedia practices in the future.