Spread out

Eventually, Godric, cascades of initiatives lead to hack fatigue. At the BBC in Birmingham, Tommy Nagra, head of business development, is trying to reassure the second city that things are on the move.

This week, Director of Strategy and Digital James Purnell announced the creation of a Guerilla Group. 

From later this year, a team of storytellers and engineers in Birmingham will begin to work across the BBC with a focus on engaging younger, more diverse audiences, and will be fully up and running from 2015. The group will have the creative freedom to produce experimental new forms of content for programmes and services, using the technology and approaches of the future.

You'll note - no pounds signs or staff numbers offered. Yet presumably they're paying rent on office/studio space at the Fazeley Studios in Digbeth. And the move hardly fills up the already-rented Mailbox.

Explains Tommy, to the Birmingham Post today, "It is an experiment, but there is a three-year commitment. We want it not to feel very BBC as we know it, which is why it is not in the Mailbox, so it is released from the corporate shackles. That is quite exciting and risky, but if we get it right could be powerful and give the Birmingham digital offer a distinctive flavour.”

 “We want the Guerrilla Group to be distinctive and unique. You can get drawn into ‘corporateness’ in the BBC, and we don’t want that to happen.”

Insidious stuff, 'corporateness'. I worry that a variant may have already stretched to Digbeth.

Lettuce

Sometimes you need the strong words and help of outsiders to change things. Equality consultant Jean Farrell was on a panel at the BBC yesterday headlined entitled "The Road to 50% Women in Leadership", and many of the participants had been part of her Women's Development Initiative 15 years ago.

'In my view you can't be a good leader unless you can show real competence around diversity and inclusion, and those who don't should pay the price. There should be no difference between failing to deliver on budget and failing to meet diversity targets. But it's all flopsy bunny when it comes to diversity.'

Amanda Rice, Head of Diversity, also offered a pointed remark "Digital and Strategy is an incredibly important division in terms of shaping the BBC, but all the people at the top of that division are male". Not quite true: James Purnell is Director of Digital & Strategy, and he has one woman on his board - Natasha Adams from HR. Nonetheless, let's see what happens to Jim's £295k salary next year.

• Today is HR Director Lucy Adams' last day in the office - she's on leave till the end of the financial year. She announced her decision to leave six months ago, and there's no sign yet of a replacement. Who's in charge of recruitment, eh ?

Go East

I hope this isn't market sensitive, but John Tate, former Director of Strategy at the BBC - and Chairman of the commercial subsidiary BBC Studios and Post-production - has left the building.

There clearly wasn't long-term room for John after the appointment of James Purnell, so John was graciously given a "project" rather than payment in lieu of notice (unloved by the PAC) as he looked for new opportunities. One has emerged in the east, and John is now Chief Operating Officer at Tamkeen, an investment and project management company of the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince's Executive Affairs Authority.

But who is the new Chairman of BBC Studios and Post-production - a job which earned John £80k p.a.? The website currently shows three non-executive directors - the lovely Daniel Danker, a former BBC boss of on-demand, now with Shazam; the already-very well-paid-and-presumably-quite-busy Dominic Coles, Director of Operations; and we'll-never know-quite-how-much-he's-paid, Alan Yentob, Creative Director, presenter and pensioner.

• CEO of Tamkeen is Jason Harborow, former chief executive of the Liverpool Culture Company, a job which didn't end well. Jason is also a volunteer touch rugby coach at New York University Abu Dhabi. He has imposed style on Tamkeen, as this extract from a blog post by graphic design student Benny Lu shows...

Managing director Jason Harborow invited us to tour around Tamkeen’s working space and to breathe in their working atmosphere. The whole office shared a common set of theme colors, which was green, dark grey and white—adequately synchronized with the logo we encountered upon arrival. Mr. Harborow insisted that everything in the office had to share the fundamental elements of their brand identity; for instance, the walls, the patterns on the glass vitrines that enclosed the meeting rooms, the writing pad, the drinking glasses, the rollerball pens, their new working desk arrangements, dress codes, and the USBs that contained our brief from Tamkeen.....

Mr. Harborow shared his insight into developing a successful brand by introducing projects he directed, including Liverpool: European Capital of Culture in 2008, Surrey Sports Park and Tamkeen. By presenting these projects of different scales and properties, he gave us the principles and visions a brand designer should be equipped with. I was most fascinated by the renewal of Liverpool. Mr. Harborow believed that this city required an “attractor brand” to invigorate its economic recession, and also took the initiative to revive Liverpool while competing for the European Capital of Culture in 2008. The exposure effect of the logo they designed resulted in the wide endorsement of the city. Yet the key that led to this success seemed to lie in the appropriate management of the Pareto Principle. Also called the 80/20 Rule, the Pareto Principle states that around 80% of the effect comes from approximately 20% of the cause. Instead of fine-tuning every detail of Liverpool’s specialties, Mr. Harborow’s team simply focused on Beatles, who were world renowned, and Liverpool FC, which can agglomerate the morale of the local people. This decision led to a massive success while taking into account the resources available. 

All for one

Messrs Hall and Purnell must be wondering when they can get on the front foot, with their BBC, as we mull over the DMI debacle and await the report on Savile Culture at Auntie from Dames Smith and Dobbs.

James Purnell was out and about yesterday at the Beyond 2014 Media and Telecoms conference. There's no full note of what he said, but here are some bits culled from Twitter.

He offered the stat that 13% of UK broadband users signed up in order to get access to the BBC iPlayer. The next stage is to move the iPlayer from just a catch-up tool to something that let's you discover tailored and interactive content, some of exclusive, some of it first origination, through recommendations and perhaps online "channels" - though he said broadcast channels are here to stay.

And he argued that sharing licence fee between the BBC and other broadcasters risks less effective use of the money.

• For Charter Renewal stats and worries - and the theory that we've only got 15 months to sort this out - there's a long piece by Liz Howell to digest on Open Democracy. 

Voting rights

An interesting contribution to the Charter Renewal debate from John Tate, the BBC policy and strategy chief squeezed out by the arrival of James Purnell. In a talk in Oxford last night, the guts of which have appeared as a Guardian blog, he argues for democratisation of BBC governance, with each licence fee-payer getting a sort of Co-op divi, in the form of a vote for non-executive directors, who then appoint the Director-General.

This avoids any dangerous stuff, like licence-fee payers voting direct to bring back Top of The Pops, Compact, Adam Adamant and Tales of the Para Handy, and stops short of how you decide the level of the licence fee. But, Tate argues, it must be big enough to keep the BBC in the UK's top ten of internet sites.

Whilst John told his Oxford audience it was the end of a six-year career with Auntie, it looks like he's staying as Chairman of BBC Studios and Post Production, with his last reported wedge for that put at £80k p.a.

Raw fish

How's it hanging with the BBC's digital Duracell Bunny, James Purnell ? After composing the searing strategy question of this (and any) year, "Where Next ?", you'd think he'd rest on his laurels til 2014.

Not a bit of it. Yesterday, on behalf of the BBC, he signed Memoranda of Understanding with the Europeana Foundation, the Open Data Institute, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation. The idea is to share technical standards, models, and ("where feasible") data with organisations who want to work with the BBC. Techies at the BBC are also musing whether or not Jim was behind the most recent rapprochement between Auntie and Lord Birt, onlie begetter of online at the BBC (after a trip to California and some sushi).

But has James forsaken the world of astroturf park football for the ethereal delights of mackerel nigiri and digitised cultural assets ?  I only ask because his (former ?) team Demon Eyes (shirt sponsors LabourList) has had an indifferent start to the season - and James was usually a stalwart of the defence. They've lost 8-0 to Northern Alliance, and 7-2 to the Press Association. More recently, there've been score draws against A-Wave-O and National. Perhaps he's coaching.

Medo flowers

The rollercoaster of BBC life sees promotion for some, and an uncertain future for others. Whilst BBC staff organ Ariel celebrates the promotion of Gautam Rangajaran as new Director of Strategy, a plaintive footnote adds "John Tate, who has been director of policy and strategy since 2007, is currently working on a project related to the BBC's centenary."

Does that keep him in employment to 2022 ?  Is he still "Group Director, Strategic Operations ?", as well as Chair of (loss-making) BBC Studios and Post Production ? How much time does he devote to Medopad ?

His profile on networking site Linkedin suggests he's really someone Lord Hall should hang on to: Results-focussed manager who has worked for the BBC, the UK Prime Minister and McKinsey & Company, with major projects including leading and securing the BBC's £23bn funding deal to 2017 and developing a new approach to 'lean' in the creative industries.

Improving tenor

Congratulations to Gautam Rangarajan, the internal candidate who's won the endorsement of James Purnell and Lord Hall as Director of Strategy.

Most expected James to look outside. There may yet be musical differences. James' taste runs through Sigur Ros, Beck, Edwyn Collins and Calvin Harris; Gautam sang tenor with King's College Choir in Cambridge, and recorded works by William Walton, Alexander Goehr, before joining the BBC as a Radio 3 producer. He produced a recording of psalms by the Temple Church Choir last year.

Aiuto

According to the Mail, James Purnell, the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital, had outside help in his construction of "Where Next?", the first stage of an expensive, if initially cagey, journey towards a new BBC Charter.

Jean-Paul Petranca, from the Boston Consulting Group (a previous refuge for Purnell), has been providing spreadsheets and edgy digital savvy for James. Jean-Paul (PPE Balliol, Oxford, Bain, Deloitte and more) likes Arsenal, fast cars and the website BarChick.

Batman

In other job creation news, James Purnell, the BBC's Director of Strategy and Digital, requires a Chief Advisor. (I've tried putting "strategy" and "BBC" into Linkedin, to assess the scale of management jobs in this new division, and whether or not there needs to be any more; I will be reporting back when I've calmed down)  From the job spec, he seems to want a combination of Miss Moneypenny, Sun Tzu and Lord Sugar.

The successful candidate will be an "Ambassador for Director of Strategy and Digital – a conduit between stakeholders and the Director in order to maintain progress against objectives and smooth operations of the division". He or she will "understand full perspective of issues or concerns raised and triage these, escalating only urgent and important issues to the Director S&D". You wouldn't want Jim dealing with BBC staff more than absolutely necessary, would you?

On the Moneypenny front, a key requirement is "ensuring that the Director S&D is fully briefed prior to meetings and that he has all the papers and information needed to make effective decision [sic] for the BBC". Avoiding documents being left on a train, say. And you'll be "organising and run the regular meetings with S&D Board, including setting agenda, recording minutes and tracking resulting actions". Creating plenty of thinking time for the Director.

Width

Just over 24 hours to go, and it looks like Tony Hall's speech on the future of the BBC will have to be renamed.

"Where next ?" has become "Whatever next ?" as a relentless cascade of announcements and initiatives tumble from the pen of Godric and the PR team.

Since Friday, we've got 20% increased spending on tv arts programming; a relaunch of the online culture initiative, The Space; a video channel for Radio 1 on the iPlayer (perhaps not unrelated to this morning's launch of Capital Xtra); a personalised BBC iPlayer app; an online potpourri of the speech programming, to be called Open Minds; Elmo and the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street to appear on CBeebies next year; a trawl for women presenter talent for local radio; and Mishal Husain making her debut on Today, featuring her Malala Yousafzai interview (a collaboration with Panorama). Surely some of all that should produce column inches ?

There's always a dark side. Steve Hewlett worries about funding models, with this clear shift towards individual (measurable) consumption from broadcast. The Mail on Sunday chose to highlight details of the NUJ dossier on bullying (now nine months old), and former BBC trusty Jennifer Saunders has gone a little off message in Glamour magazine....

"They went corporate instead of being what they should be which is a national resource which trains people and curates the best programmes, encourages talent and provides great news. They just became an executive run place for idiots."

"It's just so weird that they could put people off coming into the building the way they do now. How is Alan Yentob still allowed in the building? There are questions that need to be answered!" 

"I remember when it was fun to be there and everybody in the building looked like they really knew something and were good at something. Now they have things like massive workshops on decision making and you think: 'If you're a head of department at the BBC and you don't know how to make a decision, why are you in that job? That's the only thing that you have to do!"

Stand and deliver

That James Purnell, BBC Director of Strategy and Digital, speaks a language I don't always get.

This is the first slide in a presentation to Civil Service Live, in July. Apart from the split infinitive, and his reference to an (officer ?) cadre, there seems to be a spare verb or two, and the creation of a new role - BBC Director General Strategy and Digital.

Notwithstanding, I've watched the video for you, and James reveals that he's still in touch with Lord Birt, and that we all increasingly love the licence-fee. Watch from 21.05 for three minutes for the guts.

BBC essentials

Getting bums on seats at the Royal Opera House has taught Lord Hall a few things about price points. There's a "just under" similarity in the first two BBC salaries he's set: James Purnell, on £295,000 and Anne Bulford, on £395,000.  A mere coincidence, I'm sure, and HR boss Lucy Adams will have looked at Towers Perrin manuals, the Hutton Review of Fair Pay, the likely median multiples and much more, before giving in.

There's one piece of BBC spin that defeats me. It is apparently ok for Ms Bulford to get close to £400k, because she's replacing both Zarin Patel (CFO) and Caroline Thomson. Caroline's job as COO was abolished, wasn't it, BEFORE Ms Bulford's arrival ? The BBC has teetered on for nearly six months without her...  Skipping over that, and assuming that Ms Bulford isn't actually doing two full-time jobs simultaneously, we need real assurance that savings are made in management posts directly below her new role - rather than more being spent, to cover the workload in different ways.

Elsewhere in money, as they say on BBC Breakfast, Director of Policy and Strategy John Tate seems to be beavering away to make savings. January saw a range of jobs advertised in a new wing of the thinker's empire - The Efficiency Service Team.  The pitch ? "You’ll be part of a growing, dynamic team of individuals – including programme-makers, strategists and external experts. Working on a series of projects across the BBC reinventing the way we work – typically as part of a team of up to 10 people per project – aimed at helping the BBC focus on the future and make better output and smarter decisions".

Will the incoming Director of Strategy and Digital like this re-invention of Mr Tate's role ?

There's still time...

In May 2008, The Spectator's Fraser Nelson said that James Purnell, then Work and Pensions Secretary, was the best person to succeed Gordon Brown. "Already surging ahead at his department, he has the gift of sounding like an ordinary human being — and he understands the Cameron Conservative party".

Later that year US focus group guru Frank Luntz tested how he might go down with voters. This video, below, looks to have come from a British tv programme and has been edited to suit the poster's view of Jim - but it's still quite fun....

Users win...

BBC Chief Technology Officer John Linwood has been explaining his "journey" over the past for years at a conference of IT leaders, reported by Computing.  He's been responding to the pressure to “allow more and more” office services on employee-owned devices - giving rise to the ugly acronym BYOD: Bring Your Own Device.

“When I joined the BBC four years ago, the desktop was locked down as it is in most corporates, and you couldn’t do anything with it except run applications already on it,” said Linwood. “So journalists went out, they bought their own laptop and put Gmail and Skype on it, they forwarded their BBC email to Gmail, and suddenly you had completely unsecured, unencrypted laptops with confidential information being left on planes and trains and buses.

“It was all because we tried to be too secure,” said Linwood. “So you have to take the pragmatic line that recognises that your users will fight their way around it, so you have to find an answer.” Linwood says the BBC goes to great lengths to educate employees about the value of data - and they need to be constantly reminded that using a service like Dropbox does not involve simply “moving data from a PC to tablet or phone, but that that data is now sitting in a datacentre on the other side of the world, under the jurisdiction of another government”.

I wonder if the additional costs of training can be set against savings in hardwired computer security.

Keep on moving

A range of announcements today, from the BBC Asian Network, includes one that is unstated. There are to be editors responsible for output based in London and Birmingham, and the news team will be moved to London. No mention of anyone in Leicester, where in a puff of publicity, the Asian Network established its headquarters in a new building in June 2005.

The Go To Guys

The polymaths of Deloitte seem to be the biggest beneficiary of the latest BBC spend on consultants. In 2010/11, the total spend was £8.2m; the amount that went to Deloitte was £3,002,334. The company's services were required in Management Consultancy, Strategy, IT, HR, Finance and Change Management.

Studio manager

The BBC's Strategy supremo, John Tate, has turned to Strategy colleague, Dr Anna Mallett, to be the new boss of BBC Studios and Post-Production. John gets £180k a year for the day job, and an additional £80k a year for chairing SPP. Anna Mallett is currently on a package of £127k as Controller Business Strategy - she also doubled as strategist for Future Media & Technology, until the arrival of Kieran Clifton from Channel 5.

Anna has a first in Geography from Durham, a Ph.D in social sciences from Oxford, and an MBA from Harvard; her previous employers were the Boston Consulting Group. She'll need to demonstrate strategic flair as the BBC works out if there's a financial case for keeping studios going at Television Centre, with the rest of the business moving out.

• Meanwhile as BBC network tv production at Birmingham hesitantly prepares suitcases for the move to Bristol (a planned strike today was called off as management and BECTU continue talks), there seems to be quite a lot of churn at the Whiteladies Road campus. Andrew Jackson (Head of the Natural History Unit since 2009 - current package £155k) is leaving, as is Ben Gale, who has managed to run "Bristol Factual" for three years without moving from London (current package £155k; £1,750 in rail, taxi and hotel bills in the last published quarter, plus at bottle of water at £1.49).  

Strategy coming good

The onward march of "Policy and Strategy" continues unabated at the BBC. John Tate, Director of the whole caboodle, and rarely seen in the same room as Leonardo Di Caprio or Henry VIII, has acquired the chairmanship of BBC Studios and Post Production, from BBC Worldwide boss John Smith.  Mr Tate keeps the day job, but there's no word of a salary adjustment for either him (current package £187,700) or Mr Smith (this year's package £898,000).

Meanwhile on Monday, Rhodri Talfan Davies, formerly BBC Wales Head of Strategy and Communications, formally becomes, Director, BBC Cymru Wales. Menna Richards left the role on a package of £192,800. Rhodri is the third generation of Talfan Davies' to take a top role in the BBC's fortunes in the Principality.

One strategist who has moved on from Auntie's nurturing bosom is Will Jackson, who ran thinking at Broadcasting House during the heady days of plans to close 6Music and The Asian Network.  He came via Merton College, Oxford, McKinsey, Insead and Telewest Broadband; he's now Director of Strategy for Intel's Digital Home Group - following a route ploughed by the BBC's former boss of Future Media and Technology, Erik Huggers, who is Vice President and General Manager of the Digital Home Group, which Erik has based in London rather than Santa Clara.

• Students of office design at the BBC will enjoy this interview with Huggers, discussing the contrasts between W12 and Intel HQ.

Under control

Methinks strategy must be back under control at the BBC.  John Tate, Director of that stuff for Auntie, allowed himself a Monday off to participate in the 23rd Medienforum.nrw in Cologne ("Of Media, Might and Mankind").

It's not clear whether or not there was an overnight involved, but there was evening entertainment on offer for delegates....

Be part of the Medienforum@Night after an eventful congress day, get acquainted with interesting guests and spend a relaxed summer evening aboard the MS RheinEnergie. Enjoy fine culinary delicacies and a well-stocked bar, whilst seeing Cologne’s impressive evening atmosphere on our mini cruise along the Rhine.