#HoodDocumentary writer/Director Tyrell Williams releases timely interactive short comedy “A Little Hungover” at Encounters Film Festival with pioneering Bristol-based interactive filmmaking creation platform Stornaway.io

Stornaway.io are incredibly proud to announce the release of Tyrell Williams’ A Little Hungover, the first independent short film to be created and delivered using our next generation interactive filmmaking platform Stornaway.io.

Directed and shot by Williams under lockdown with cast and crew in 4 remote locations, A Little Hungover is a hilariously awkward and timely interactive comedy in which naive employee Sam (Patrick Elue) takes a video work call with his boss Alex (Elizabeth Hammond) after a big night out.

By choosing how he responds, the audience get to navigate the thin line between being honest and being employed – and then to watch and replay as his boss’s mind games become increasingly toxic and unpredictable.

Should Sam fess up or keep telling lies to his boss? In 2020, the rules for young employees are more uncertain than ever.

Tyrell, famous for his viral Youtube and BBC3 mockumentary series #HoodDocumentary, had a vision of a crossover between film and game. To realise it, he partnered with Bristol based start-up Stornaway.io, whose trail-blazing interactive film-making platform aims to challenge Netflix for the ability to create highly entertaining interactive shows. The film was funded by a small grant from West of England Creative Scale Up.

“I learned about Stornaway.io at a moment when the future of storytelling was so uncertain. They’re pioneering a practical and affordable way to create exciting interactive narrative films, and importantly, they were continuing and evolving the relationship between artists and audiences.” says Tyrell.

Stornaway.io’s revolutionary drag and drop tools allowed Williams to work remotely writing and editing the interactive story collaboratively with Stornaway.io founders Ru Howe and Kate Dimbleby.

“Normally, an interactive production like this would be a hefty software development project requiring developers, large team and budget and some chunky hardware – and you wouldn’t get to test how it plays, until the very end, when it’s too late to change anything,” says Howe, Stornaway.io’s designer and co-founder.

“The really new thing about Stornaway.io is that you can do it all in a web browser without coding, and instantly edit and playtest your story from the idea stage right the way through to delivery. With interactive and immersive storytelling, that is powerful ”

Since their soft launch during lockdown in May, Stornaway.io has been working with high-end TV production companies like Plimsoll Productions (Netflix’s Night on Earth ) and Drummer TV ( Gymstars, The Boy on the Bicycle) developing programme ideas for streaming platforms.

However, one of Stornaway.io’s original aims was to put its technology in the hands of new generations of media-makers.

“We were delighted to be introduced to Tyrell, who had a topical idea that needed to be done in a fast turnaround low-budget independent way, under lockdown.” says Howe

It is fitting that Howe should open up this technology for young filmmakers. Alongside his day job working for broadcasters, Howe was one of the world’s first vloggers, whose online persona ‘Wolfie’ made Tik-Tok type videos (as far back 2003, even before YouTube) lip-synching to songs and movie scenes from his desk. His 2005-10 projects Fatgirlinohio and Twittervlog pioneered what we now recognise as the classic YouTube daily family vlog, playing with increasingly lo-fi mobile and pocket devices and the intimate connection with his audience – becoming the world’s first mobile vlogger to Twitter in 2007, and always working to enable other film and video makers to embrace affordable technology and workflows. Along the way, he created the first ever interactive film on YouTube (Indecision, 2008).

As he points out, “Until now, interactive production has been difficult and expensive. Charlie Brooker said that making Bandersnatch for Netflix was ‘like doing a Rubik’s cube inside your brain’ because there weren’t any tools aimed at professionals, so ‘everyone went a bit bananas.’ Stornaway.io changes all that.

We’re releasing discounted licenses and working with film schools to get this ground-breaking technology into the hands of the next generation while the high end market works through it’s long-lead times and post-Covid slowdown.”

Interactive trends are visible in the mainstream, Stornaway creative director Kate Dimbleby says,

“ Even in linear TV, you see this agency being given to the viewer with things like Fleabag talking to camera or I May Destroy You ’s multiple endings. This is going to be a decade of massive innovation in storytelling and narrative structure and a big blocker to that has been the lack of tools and outlets for creators.”

Having never worked on an interactive story before, Tyrell says :

“The software was easy to navigate and useful for me as a writer to have at hand. It made it easy to understand how the film would unfold in its interactive form. There’s something very immersive about doing this as a writer – an interesting relationship that forms between creatives and audience that shares qualities with immersive theatre.”

Stornaway.io’s simple creative-focused design unlocks the potential of this new form for the 2020s. It makes it really easy for creators to dream up otherwise impossible interactive ideas, to give their audiences agency and craft different paths and perspectives through their stories.

A Little Hungover will be released on September 18th at the Encounters Immersive festival, and will remain available there for a limited release this autumn. Stornaway.io will release their new version with a 30 day free trial and new features.

Stornaway.io’s second independent interactive short, founder Ru Howe’s Life Moves Pretty Fast, filmed in multiple locations across Bristol, will be released at the beginning of October, also at Immersive Encounters. For more information go to www.stornaway.io or contact [email protected]

Let’s Make 2020 The Year We Discover The True Meaning Of Innovation

By Rob Pellow, Digital Experience Director for Armadillo 

As we are coming to the end of the financial year it is important that we re-discover the true meaning of innovation for the next financial year.

Having graced the world of digital design, marketing and email for over a decade, I’ve read lots of the prediction pieces that get shared at the end of every year, but over the past few years, I’ve noticed that the bit that keeps getting forgotten is the why.

Why are certain trends being put forward? If I was an email marketer, the number of shiny things I should be using in my day-to-day life, based on predictions articles and innovation conferences, would be overwhelming. And being told I should have dynamic content; interactive carousels, hyper-personalisation and countdown timers, doesn’t actually help me define what my challenges are, or how best to solve them.

Some things remain the same for email marketers:

1. People don’t treat email as a priority channel – despite regularly being the most popular form of communication (according to the DMA 2019 consumer email tracker report) and having one of the highest ROI of all channels.

2. Unclear or non-specific channel objectives.

3. A lack of long-term investment in moving email and CRM programs forward.

So, this year, I’m not going to predict. I’m going to hope. I’m hoping that we can revive the true meaning of innovation and start using email effectively again.

Why are you sending that email?

There are a number of questions to ask yourself before sending out any email. What do you want your users to do once you’ve sent that email? Are you including ‘innovative’ elements because you can or because you are clear on the effect you think it will have? Having answers to these questions will allow you to develop a more focused and purpose driven email marketing campaign, and get results.

You will be constantly fighting for consumer inbox time. With most of us spending 21 minutes a day over-checking our email inboxes and 77% of people turning to their email in moments of boredom, there are plenty of opportunities for consumers to read your emails but also thousands of competitors that may be lying in wait.

In the email marketing world, your competitors are not necessarily the standard business competitors, but any other brands in the inbox, and the average consumer is signed up to 12 mailing lists with each individual receiving up to 121 emails per day, 51% of these being regularly deleted without being opened. Why should the consumer open your email over anyone else’s?

Emails are white noise until the customer needs it.

There’s a difference between being ignored for a while and being unsubscribed from. Zettasphere and Emailmonday’s report shows over 50% of unengaged consumers are simply waiting for the right moment or offer in which they are more emotionally engaged.

The challenge is to deliver genuine value to your audience, not have just one successful email with a high open rate. If you want to start being able to build a relationship with your users, you need to send emails that tell you something about what they engage with.

This is a great reason to use interactivity – you can use tracking pixels to record what groups or individuals click on without asking too much of them. Presenting a ‘hard’ call to action such as ‘Shop Now’ or ‘Find out more’ is asking for a level of commitment from your users. An arrow in a carousel or drop down is only encouraging them to learn a bit more without starting a new journey. This means you have the opportunity to include more content and allow people to explore your offering in fun or engaging ways without asking too much of them. You might find fewer people click the hard link but those that do will be more committed to the conversion journey. If you’re using tracking pixels to understand how and what people are doing inside the email then you can not only add that to your overall CTO rate, but also begin to personalise the types of content you show to individuals based on actual data.

Step back and if you need to, start again.

Emails can’t be a quick fix but they can be hugely effective when used correctly. Use the channel appropriately and respond to what people tell you through their behaviour. This will get you the best results when it comes to consumer engagement and satisfaction. I would love to be attending conferences next year and reading prediction pieces all centred around customers and their needs. It’s great to shout about what is possible in an email, but we need to use these as tools to complete a job, not as the goal itself.

My hope for 2020 is that brands will begin to be able to effectively articulate why they have an email program – both internally to the business AND to their potential users – and what is in it for the customer, then use all the attractive shiny tools at their disposal to live up to that promise over the long term. More importantly, they can measure more effectively whether or not it’s having the impact they expected and start to tailor the offering to what people actually tell you they are interested in.

Article originally published on Digital Doughnut on 9/01/2020

Join us and BIMA as the Head of Immersive Tech Council, Nicola Rosa, delivers a masterclass on Immersive Tech. Nicola will help attendees understand the possibilities of immersive technologies in this 2 hour masterclass.

This event is free for Bristol Media or BIMA members.

Who?

Nicola Rosa, Product Strategist, Accenture. Chair, BIMA Immersive Tech Council

Nicola is a Product strategist, experience designer, and digital transformation expert, Nicola is currently part of the Accenture Digital UKI where he is the Go-To Market Lead for XR (AR,VR, and MR). With more than 15 years of experience in the media and entertainment industry, Nicola worked for companies like Atari, Google, Spotify, Yahoo!, Virgin Radio and IBM iX designing B2E, B2B and B2C digital products and numerous App Store hits.

Where & When?

The mastercalss takes place on Wednesday 12th February, 3-5pm in the auditorium at Prophecy Unlimited, Glass Wharf, Bristol.

Tickets are free if you are a Bristol Media member or BIMA member, or £15 + VAT for non-members. To get your Member discount code email  [email protected]

If you’re not a member, please BOOK HERE

A new user research and user experience (UX) lab has opened at Bristol’s Harbourside arts centre, the Arnolfini. It has been purpose-built for conducting and observing qualitative research and usability testing by UX and service design specialists Mace & Menter.

The lab consists of an interview room and a large observation room linked with high-quality audio and video streaming. Omnidirectional Shure studio microphones and speakers as well as 4k cameras, 65” screens help make up the comfortable and relaxed, researcher-designed environment.

Using a lab to observe how people use a digital product or service means companies can base decisions around future strategy and development on evidence rather than guesswork so the product has a higher chance of succeeding.

The space is available for use to Bristol’s growing technology sector. Mace & Menter will also use the space to run its own research – carrying out face-to-face depth interviews and usability tests – exploring a problem or a design concept with the people they are designing for.

Mace & Menter are specialists in service design and user experience for complex services. The team work with organisations, including the Government Cabinet Office, DCMS, Policy Lab, Scope, and V&A, that want to significantly improve the way people experience their services.

Bristol was also named the most important and productive tech cluster in the UK in Technation’s 2018 report with 225 start-ups and 35,924 digital jobs in the city.

Sam Menter, Mace & Menter’s Co-founder and Managing Director, says: “Our work is all about the experience of the people we design for, but also of the people we are working with. Experience is about so much more than what we deliver, it’s also about the journey. When we were designing and building the lab, we thought carefully about both the participant and the observer experience.”

He adds: “User research is fundamental to the way we work. We involve the users of a service in discovery and throughout the design process. Running research in a space where a wider group can observe means you get much more out of the work.

Charities are starting to innovate digitally. Innovation teams are spluttering into life, and some charities are building new digital products and services that will reach new audiences, create new potential income streams and increase their impact. But it’s slow, hard going. Why is this?

Do charities have the desire, the imagination? Do they have the vision at board level? Is risk-aversion the big blocker? Do funding models stymie innovation? Or do previous failed attempts mean they’re once burned, twice shy? Frankly, do they have the guts?

All of the above and more is probably the answer. But, here, I’ll focus on overcoming the barriers to charities adapting the type of modern, agile product development process that drives digital product innovation from the civil service to Silicon Valley.

The money issue

Let’s kick this off with money. In charities, procurement teams and budget holders like to know what they’re buying. They like big specs, clear outcomes and fixed costs. They’re less keen on Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), iterative development, testing learning and pivoting – uncertainty. Unfortunately, that difficult stuff is at the heart of agile project development.

If you aren’t ready to totally change the way you procure, a starting point is to break projects into small, affordable chunks. Assuming you are working with an agency partner: start with an innovation workshop; if that works take an idea forward in a ‘design sprint’ (roughly £15k to £25k); iterate on it; run story mapping to build a roadmap. Make each stage a micro-tollgate like a mini government service standards assessment. This way projects actually get started so they can gather momentum, and they ‘fail fast’ if they aren’t worth pursuing.

An example of this in practice is MQ Mental Health who are building a new product to engage the public in mental health research. MQ leveraged the prototype we built with them in a design sprint – to attract funding to build an MVP. MQ have funded this whole product development one step at a time, using the quality outputs of each phase to help engage the funders of the next. This can be slow, but at least it’s moving.

Think outside the box

Be creative with the process too. We recently ran a Design Sprint with Sue Ryder (who are building a new in-browser video service to provide bereavement counselling and support ) with a ‘money back guarantee ’ – if they weren’t completely satisfied with the design sprint, they wouldn’t pay a penny. This gave the procurement team the confidence to sign off the initial phases of the project, while both teams got stuck into it with extra enthusiasm.

Creating a product culture in the charity space is tough. There’s not much experience about, yet experience is a really valuable component. We believe that the critical piece of the puzzle, is an engaged, skilled, empowered, client-side product manager. A good product manager keeps development aligned to business objectives and holds delivery teams to account, whether internal or external (this is particularly important when working ‘agile-ly’.)

So what can charities do?

This may all sound challenging for most charities – accepting more risk, changing funding and procurement models, developing an effective product culture – so let’s make it simple.

Here is a formula that might help you kick start innovation in your organisation:

  1. Identify a project or service to innovate on, or a well-shaped challenge (make it one your CEO is interested in).
  2. Start with a design sprint. Make sure people know about it, getting people excited is often enough to knock down the other barriers.
  3. If there’s enough enthusiasm to move it forward after the sprint, find a good Product Manager or get some training and a mentor.
  4. Work out what an MVP looks like, and get it done (try and limit an initial build to six weeks – three two week sprints).
  5. If creating a product culture seems a step too far, develop a KPI dashboard you believe in for your website, and take a genuine, iterative approach to developing it, as that can be a great stepping stone to creating a truly embedded product culture in the future.

Finally, try to remember agile projects can (and do) fail. Particularly, if you don’t have the right processes, people and culture in place. And failure is scary in the charity sector; especially if it threatens your public image. Nevertheless, ‘fixed scope’ innovation is an oxymoron. Leaders need to be brave enough to be prepared to fail.

Well-run product development processes, as outlined above, fail early, which helps. Something that doesn’t help is annual budgets. Ben Holt said in his valedictory post about the Disruptive Innovation Lab at Cancer Research UK, “disruptive ideas need to impact strategy with an eye on the future, not the annual planning cycle” and that is something we should all try to keep in mind.

Innovation products need a new, flexible ‘as and when’ funding approach, one where funding is aligned to goals or outcomes, rather than ‘project scope’ and that is something the sector will have to keep working towards.

Torchbox run a free Charity Digital Innovation Series of breakfast events. Here you can see the details and video of their last one, for Heads and Directors of Digital – where the discussions were on this same topic of challenges and success of Digital Innovation. Keep up to date on all Torchbox events on Twitter. 

This article first appeared in Charity Comms. 

Margaret was among the 30 speakers who spoke at Bristol Media’s 2016 Vision conference, and we’re thrilled to welcome her back for another insightful event. Whether you’re an aspiring leader, an ambitious manager, or have directed teams for decades, join us and Margaret Heffernan for the Vision Keynote: Why is Leadership so Difficult?

BOOK YOUR TICKET

Leadership in today’s age is becoming increasingly difficult due a range of causes from the rate of change, generational differences and a shift in social mores to name but a few. The reality is more subtle. The environment in which we operate is now full of ineradicable uncertainties, which in turn, has caused the traditional 3-legged stool of management – forecast, plan, execute – to lose its first leg. Forecasters are now wary of anything more than 400 days out, so kiss goodbye to your 5-year plan and embrace modern leadership.

So, in an age replete with ambiguity and uncertainty, is leadership even possible? If so, what does it look like?

These questions will be explored during Heffernan’s keynote, where she will share her invaluable knowledge on modern leadership in a session not to be missed.

Tickets & Entry

Join Bristol Media and Margaret Heffernan on Tuesday 22nd October (12.30 – 14.15) at Foot Anstey, 2 Glass Wharf, Bristol BS2 0FR.

Tickets are £40 for Bristol Media members, £60 for non-members and include a networking lunch. A limited number of £10 tickets are available for Bristol Media freelance members.

BOOK YOUR PLACE

About Margaret Heffernan

Dr. Margaret Heffernan produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of five books, Margaret’s third book, Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. Her TED talks have been seen by over nine million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. She is Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Programme and, through Merryck & Co., mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organisations. She holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and continues to write for the Financial Times and the Huffington Post.

www.mheffernan.com

In recent years, Bristol Media’s Chair Chris Thurling has led a very successful delegation to SXSW, the world’s largest interactive festival in Austin, Texas. For five days in March, it’s the only place to be to hear from the world’s leading creative and tech companies about forthcoming trends in our sector.

We’re now starting to think about SXSW 2020. With tickets going on sale on 1st August, we’re trying to gauge how many of our members may like to be part of the Bristol Media delegation next year? The interactive festival will run from 13-17th March (flying from Heathrow on 12th and returning on 18th). The flights are considerably cheaper at the moment (£473 economy & £827 premium economy) so if you’re thinking about going, you might be wise to book your flights now whilst the prices are so low! To give you an idea, the cost of the flights, accommodation and SXSW pass is in the region of £2,750 (travelling economy) – £3,050 (premium economy) plus subsistence.

Email [email protected] asap to register your interest for next year’s trip.

You are currently viewing a placeholder content from YouTube. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.

More Information

We caught up with Marissa Lewis-Peart, winner of the Bristol Media Ben Martin Apprentice Award, two months after her trip to SXSW in Austin, Texas to find out more about her experiences of the festival. Read on to hear Marissa’s story and how she ended up at the world’s largest annual celebration of the interactive industries.

“During Easter 2018 I attended a two-week placement at Epoch Design, after presenting a leave behind in the form of a personalised water bottle label to the CEO at a 3rd year university talk. Later that year, one of the managers told me about the Ben Martin Apprentice Award opportunity and encouraged me to apply for it. I was asked to submit a short video and/or 500 word paragraph about my design strengths. After speaking with studio staff from Epoch, one of them asked me what my ‘why’ was which prompted me to spend the next couple of weeks filming and editing a 40 second video about why I wake up every morning excited to design. One face-to-face interview and a few weeks later, I was announced as the 2019 Ben Martin Apprentice Winner! As part of the opportunity I was able to attend the world’s largest Tech, Media, Music and Film conference festival: SXSW 2019 in Austin, Texas.

My first day at SXSW was International Women’s Day and so it was only right to begin the day with a women’s led panel talk about how adaptive design is transforming brands. The physical ability and racially diverse panel of four women spoke about how brands are becoming more inclusive to cater to all audiences and the possible downsides such as diversity being a ‘trend’ rather than a genuine brand value. I attended 4 more conferences throughout my first day ranging from a Black Women in Tech conference through to a talk by author Laura Otting about Becoming Limitless – How to Live Your Best Life.

That evening I attended the IPA welcome drinks at a local hotel with Chris Thurling, Chair of Bristol Media and my mentor, and a couple of others where I had the chance to network with many people who are established in their industries. By the end of the day, I was shattered!

I attended many more talks over the course of the next few days however one that stood out to me was ‘An Ad Guy and a Psychologist Walk Into an Ad Agency’ where an ad guy and a psychologist deconstructed a few of the most iconic TV advertisements and explained why they were so successful through behaviour economics. I found it really interesting to see how psychology can have a real impact on how an audience engages with creative media and how I can introduce some of the tactics in my own work. Later that day, Chris introduced me to Ann Hiatt who worked in executive positions for both Amazon and Google for 15 years at her talk; Grit, Reinvention & Pivoting for Success, which was inspiring as she spoke about how she grew to end up in her executive positions. On the final evening at SXSW, Ann hosted an open invite dinner where attendees who work in the tech, media, music or film industries could network and build connections, which was interesting as everyone had such diverse experiences.

“Having this experience and the support has really helped me to feel more confident in getting ready to start my career.”

There were a few pop up buildings scattered around the local area from brands such as Amazon, Sony, Samsung, LG, Snapchat and Twitter, where I could get interactive with their latest tech prototypes like robots and sensory gaming as well as network or listen to smaller talks. As a graphic design student I’m aware of how artificial intelligence and augmented reality are changing how brands communicate with consumers however, before this trip I was feeling confused as to how I can harness this new technology and take my work to the next level. Having the chance to play around with new tech helped to open my eyes to the possibilities and I ended up including augmented reality in a D&AD submission back at university.

Aside from the overall SXSW experience and opportunities to network being huge highlights within themselves, a smaller highlight of SXSW19 was seeing one of my favourite rappers, A$AP Rocky, talking about ‘Using Design Differently to Make a Difference’ with the Chief Design Officer of Mercedes Benz. As A$AP Rocky is an artist and general creative that I’ve loved for both his music and style for years, it was exciting to see him on stage and for once not rapping but talking about something that I’m also passionate about; design.

Thank you to the companies and organisations that came together to give me this opportunity, I’ve learnt so much and now have a clearer vision of the direction I would like to take my career in. As I’m currently completing my final months at university, having this experience and the support has really helped me to feel more confident in getting ready to start my career.”

Tickets for SXSW2020 go on sale 1st August 2019. If you’d like to find out more about joining Chris Thurling and the Bristol & Bath delegation at next year’s event, please email: [email protected]

Read on for more highlights from SXSW >>>

If you missed our latest Bristol Media event, fear not! Izzy, our Junior Content Apprentice, has compressed all the best bits into this quick blog, read on to hear about the SXSW 2019 experience…

Bristol Media Chair, Chris Thurling, attended South by Southwest Conference & Festival (SXSW) for his 5th year in a row last week. Held in Austin, Texas, SXSW celebrates the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries. It is hugely successful and was attended by over 280,000 people in 2018!

On Tuesday, Bristol Media hosted a ‘lunchtime digest’ where Chris shared his highlights from the event along with Ann Hiatt (former chief of staff for Google and Amazon and SXSW speaker) and Nicholas Blake (Head of Data and Digital Operations at Armadillo). Here’s what we took away:

The user to the used

After Chris’s first SXSW visit back in 2015, he left the event in a happy tech bubble, excited and optimistic for the future of technology. Fast forward to 2019, and it seems a dominant theme throughout the conference was the ethical concerns now surrounding this industry, and it has people anxious. An eye-opening talk for Chris was Douglas Rushkoff’s, ‘Team Human’. In his talk, Douglas spoke about how the internet was ‘idealistic’ in the beginning, but it now serves the stock market more than us. We have gone from being the user to the used and are close to automating ourselves out of existence.

Nothing extraordinary comes from your comfort zone

Ann on the other hand is encouraged by the opportunities AI and machine learning offer and the overarching message she took away from her time at SXSW was to remember the human aspect of technology. In other words, we still need good, thoughtful people to harness all that potential for the better.

As well as a run-down of her own SXSW talk ‘Grit, Reinvention, and Pivoting for Success’, Ann shared with us some of the tips she took from a talk by Susan Fowler, former employee of Uber. You might recognise Susan as the woman who influenced how Uber and other Silicon Valley companies now treat sexual harassment in the workplace. Susan wanted to remind us all of a few things:

  1. There is still more good in the world than bad
  2. Change needs to be exemplified from the top
  3. You don’t need to be an activist to change the world
  4. Change happens over a lifetime
  5. The power held by a story.

Ann then prompted us to ponder on the idea that ‘nothing extraordinary comes from your comfort zone’ and that we need to ask ourselves the right questions when it comes to machine learning and AI.

AI is a tool

Nicholas Blake thought it was really interesting to hear what the experts were saying about artificial intelligence and machine learning, now that it is no longer science fiction and is becoming seamlessly integrated in our lives. A talk by Cassie Kozyrkov, Chief Decision Scientist at Google, inspired a different outlook on AI; that it is just a tool, it is as safe as the people who design and monetise it. Nick explains it in an analogy: if you work on something with another person, is that collaboration? If you use a ruler to draw a straight line, is that collaboration? AI is more similar to the ruler than the person, because without us to input the data, it can’t function.

What did you think about our lunchtime digest, are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of technology? If you missed it, follow us on Twitter and Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter to hear about future events!

Bristol Media’s Chair, Chris Thurling, has just arrived back from Austin, Texas where he’s been attending SXSW 2019 – the world’s largest annual celebration of the interactive industries. On Tuesday 19 March, Chris will be joined by Ann Hiatt (former Amazon and Google Chief of Staff, SXSW speaker and one of our Keynote speakers last year) for a ‘hot off the press’ lunchtime digest to share their highlights and latest trends emerging from this year’s festival.

Following the 40-minute talk, there’ll be an opportunity to ask questions in a 20-minute Q&A.

The talk starts at 12.30pm on Tuesday 19th March at Zone, The Brew House, Tower Hill, Bristol BS2 0EQ. There’s a small fee of £10+VAT for Bristol Media members (£15+VAT for non-members), light refreshments will be provided.

We have very few places remaining for the talk so book now!