“EDG honors the people in the room and works to bring out their genius.”
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Challenge:
The BBC faced profound changes as digital devices increasingly pulled people away from traditional broadcast programming. The world was changing fast; it would require rapid and radical shift of emphasis to keep up. The company’s challenge was to find new ways of delivering valued content to fragmenting and increasingly demanding audiences while keeping the faith with loyal customers who cherished its core services; its mission was to become the most creative organization in the world.
Solution:
The EDG-BBC collaboration began in early 2003, when BBC executives and managers came to Silicon Valley for The Discipline of Innovation workshop at SRI. Following the workshops, EDG helped disseminate these innovation practices throughout the BBC. In addition, as part of its ten-year review process, the BBC was developing a manifesto for the future entitled “Building Public Value: Renewing the BBC for the Digital World.” EDG participated in a number of strategic thinking events to help increase awareness of and engagement with the profound changes involved in shifting from a “Public Service” broadcaster in the analog world to becoming a “Public Value” content delivery platform in the mobile-digital world. Hundreds of employees from throughout the company participated to grasp the impact of this monumental industry transformation on their own work.
EDG also helped BBC executives and managers understand the concrete implications of change for the leadership in their divisions and departments in order to more effectively drive the transformation throughout the organization.
Results:
In April 2006, Director-General Mark Thompson published his strategy for a creative future. At its heart were radical new services like the BBC's on-demand console the I-Player, a new web 2.0 strategy and an emphasis on "martini media" - anytime, anywhere, any place. The vital importance of search and navigation in the on demand world were recognized, as was the importance of commissioning content for use on multiple platforms and in perpetuity. This strategy built on an existing plan that had already seen the launch of BBC Jam, a digital curriculum, and work on the Creative Archive. And citizen journalism is now an accepted part of the BBC's I News operation
The May 2005 issue of Wired magazine hailed the BBC as a story US media outlets would do well to study: “America's entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe's biggest broadcasters--the BBC--is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it. Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its audience.
