Category: Uncategorised

What’s the connection between Father Christmas and a Korean War helicopter?

We didn’t see one, until we started to explore the BBC’s Northern Ireland archive in an attempt to show how random links like this, could unlock the content to 16–34 year olds through an Augmented Reality game.

The media archive dates back to 1953, detailing the history of a small and historically troubled country. From the headline events to the weird and the wonderful, how can this archive be brought to life for a demographic whose attention is getting harder to attract? And how can AR be used to enhance the experience?

This was the criteria set to challenge and extend our thinking, as part of a Creative Studio event we were invited to take part in with BBC Rewind, based in Northern Ireland.

The BBC Rewind team wants to unlock thousands of pieces of video content reflecting life and events in Northern Ireland for well over half a century. Aiming to attract those in the 16–34 age group, they asked for a ‘search via emotion’ solution, which uses AR ‘to bring content from the portal into their homes’ or allows audiences to find content based on factors such as their location.

The audience

The 16–34 age group is getting harder and harder to sustain engagement with; attention spans are short (eight seconds) and decreasing as more content is consumed. The solution had to be attention grabbing, tapping into this age group’s desire for emotional stimulus and thought provocation, ultimately encouraging them to search the archives.

The content

Looking through the archive, we found a lot of interesting and unique content. However, much of it was without sound, so audiences would need a compelling reason to view it. The categorisation of the footage has the potential to be fairly limited and it struck us that having only these tags (such as the type of shot used and the length of the footage) as the searchable metadata, would limit how engaging the archive will appear.

Some stories were pretty strange, and these were where we felt the ‘hook’ could be. We started to map out consistencies between the pieces; exploring people, places and themes. We explored connections between themes; connections that were far from obvious and in some cases, hard to believe.

Could we use these bizarre links to show the scope to find interesting and strange content in the archives?

The AR

Our challenge was to find a way for the audience to make the connections, and as result, link through to content in the archive.

The content has geolocation data assigned to the archive, so we also wanted to find a scalable idea that is location agnostic, appealing to those beyond the Northern Ireland locations.

Considering our user demographic, we decided to gamify our idea of ‘making connections’. Using an AR concept for a mobile device, we designed a game to find connections between the story themes. Players would see visual representations of story themes drop into their world, for example, on the floor or onto a table in front of them.

Themes could be 3D objects, or symbols, with snippets of content from the archive. As the user moved around the objects they could start to explore which are connected, and when connections were found they had the choice to read the article or save it to a personal collection.

To design this solution, extra contextual metadata would be created during the curation and tagging of the content from the BBC and placing it into the archives, to pull out the themes and quirks of each piece of footage. Broader themes might include politics, sports, animals, celebrations or cars, with many more specific details attached to each story. Our solution would give the user the freedom to explore footage within their area of interest (i.e. animals) and, using the AR application, they could find the strange and unusual stories within that category; for example, a story relating to a tiger and a telephone.

This solution demands little of the user but taps into our natural need to question the unlikely. It delivers an intriguing journey into the archives, impelled by curiosity to discover how two seemingly unrelated themes tie together.

Longevity

By adding extra contextual metadata at the start within the new BBC archive, our solution future-proofs the data for services that are yet to be conceived. Themed ‘content packs’ could be curated and promoted in line with current affairs. Tailored viewing experiences, based on birthplace or birth date of the user, could be delivered to further engage the 16–34 demographic, who have become accustomed to personalised digital experiences.

This was a great event to be involved in. It was a perfect opportunity to get the team thinking around the use of AR for a defined target audience, with a very clear purpose in mind.

Augmented reality has been picked up, played with, dropped and picked up again. Each time it comes back looking a bit slicker, promising that this time, it will stick. Is AR any closer to finding its place?

In a recent Share the Joi session — when we edge away from our desks, order in pizza and share the things that make us smile (and frown) — we focussed on AR. We demoed platforms and apps that are leading AR beyond novelty, towards useful and usable digital experiences, and we aired our frustrations with the limitations that still exist.

Here’s a few examples that we looked at, with the pros and cons:

Barriers to engagement?

The IKEA Place app has got purpose and usefulness nailed down, just as Pokemon GO gives us a convincing reason to return. Both offer longevity and ongoing value to the user, in the form of either usefulness (depending how often you buy furniture, of course) or entertainment. For both though, you need an app. Is this off putting? Can people be bothered?

Incidentally, research that influenced our work on Channel 4’s The Circle (platform and app) indicated that people will download an app if the subject matter interests them and indeed, they expect to do so.

For the purpose of this blog, let’s assume not everyone is so keen.

Resn’s Little HelpAR tackles this head on, delivering an AR experience for the web, which can be accessed through browsers on mobile phones and tablets. Ultimately though, it is a game and a festive one at that. As a piece of marketing, to show what can be done with AR and to get the conversation going, we think it’s great. Will we be going home and visiting Little HelpAR again? Probably not. Are we excited to see other developers experimenting with AR for the web? Absolutely.

Creating purpose

In seeking out ‘usefulness’, we saw two great examples. Pixelcase’s AR portals are immersive, impressive and it’s easy to see what value they add to location-based marketing campaigns. augment.tv uses AR to help users understand what they are watching on TV, in a very attractive and visually engaging way.

Whilst useful, we had questions about what is asked of the user. In the latter example, users are required to watch their TV screen through a smartphone or tablet. Will this get annoying / tiring? Smart glasses will solve this problem but in the meantime, we think there are still a few usability issues.

The BBC’s Civilisations AR supplements its BBC Two series, Civilisations, and whilst the restrictions of the technology soon reveal themselves, we had fun playing around with it. Designed to make the art and culture of the UK more accessible, it meets the brief. It’s simple and fun and allows you to look at 3D models of over 40 historical artefacts. You can zoom in and out, ‘walk around’ the items and shine a torch on them. Just don’t wave your hand in front of the object because Civilisations AR doesn’t support occlusion.

6D.AI on the other hand is a really smart platform, offering ‘depth, occlusion and physics’. The demo video shows virtual objects responding to the real environment; disappearing behind tables and around corners, addressing the restrictions that limit the effectiveness of Civilisations AR.

What to do with all this Joi?

With bellies full of pizza and heads full of AR, there’s only one thing to do following our Share the Joi session: a hackathon.

Over two days later this month, we’ll be thinking about two things: AR and museums. How can augmented reality be used to provide solutions to the museum sector’s biggest and most restrictive problems?

Our work with the country’s leading museums has exposed us to the many challenges faced in curating, presenting, archiving and storing historic and modern day artefacts.

Our museums deserve better solutions, and we intend to find them.

Watch this space.

A Mini-Hackathon to help cultural institutions

A few weeks ago, I was asked to participate in a mini-hackathon as part of the Arts Marketing Association’s annual conference in Liverpool. Working together with a group of delegates, we were given the challenge: “How can a tech solution improve accessibility within cultural organisations?”.

Now, that’s a very big question, with many different approaches, and we wanted to find a practical, workable solution that would slot into existing set ups. We split into two groups and my group took a user-centric approach, focussing on, “How can we encourage more people with accessibility needs to come to venues?”.

Typically, a venue will have a ‘Visit’ page on its website which details the facilities and services available for people with accessibility needs. The venue is saying to the visitor, “We can offer you this.” The “this” can read like an amazing description of all the accessible features a visitor might need: lifts, step free access, hearing induction loops. However, when someone comes to visit they find that though these facilities exist, they may not be available throughout the institution. For example, there may well be a lift, but there’s no step free access to it. Or perhaps the induction loop is not available throughout. The venue (with the best intentions) is presenting a catalogue of features for a visitor to choose from, rather than thinking about what a visitor’s particular circumstances might be and what factors they need to take into account when deciding whether to visit.

One of the main difficulties is that access requirements are unique to people, and often people don’t just have one disability, they may have several. For example someone who uses a wheelchair is as likely to have autism as someone who doesn’t use a wheelchair. If the lift access takes them through a gallery filled with loud noise then they will have a problem. It may be impossible for an institution to completely cater for every need (though there’s a lot that can be done) but it would make a big difference to potential visitors if an honest appraisal were available. This is not simply to help people plan their visit but also to enable them to visit venues which they would have previously thought off limits due to ‘that type of place’ not being suitable.

Our approach was therefore to turn traditional thinking on its head and open up the review of a venue’s accessibility features to those who know best — its visitors. By creating a forum (a kind of ‘TripAdvisor without the subjectivity’), our online system, called ‘Honest Access’, would ask a visitor a series of questions designed to atomise their experience into a set of different categories. There responses would not be based upon their feelings about their experience, but simply on the practicalities of accessing the facilities available. Other users could then visit the site, select the categories which apply to their accessibility requirements and be given a bespoke guide for their visit. As well as including yes/no details, users could describe workarounds or ‘hacks’ to improving their visit. Of course, one of the key secrets to success for an idea like this would be defining a consistent user friendly language (the categories) around accessibility.

This would be a relatively low-cost option to implement. The driver lies in the user’s motivation to knowledge share with the community, helping other people with needs similar to their own. By tapping into the knowledge of the crowd, the information is kept current and also provides venues with insight into how to improve their venues in a practical way.

In addition, many people with disabilities have already customised their mobile devices to suit their particular needs. It would be great to work with these to deliver a solution that could even guide users during their actual visit, and respond to their needs in real-time!

The mini-hack was only a half day, which only gave us enough time to explore some ideas without getting into the technicalities of the solution. But what struck me was how powerful it can be to turn a problem inside out and look out how technology can be used to remove barriers from the user’s point of view.

The day has arrived for Joi Polloi to take a leap into the future and move into our beautiful renovated premises.

When we first set eyes on Wharncliffe Works, we knew that there was a huge task ahead of us. Electricity, water and waste systems were non-existent and, with a target completion date just 2 months away, the worry was that we’d bitten off more than we could chew. However, after 9 weeks of solid work and determination, from what started as a daunting and seemingly impossible task, we’ve arrived at a truly inspiring destination.

Although we are still putting in the finishing touches, the Grade II listed building is stunning, with many of its original features still in place. We are pleased to have worked with Henry Halls, who have worked alongside us to help realise our vision for this wonderful old space.

Originally used for iron and steel works, it’s a perfect example of Sheffield’s heritage. Wharncliffe Works was built in the 1860s for Steel & Garland, manufacturers of iron stoves, grates and fenders and wood and marble chimney pieces. The company was extremely successful, with a large, elegant showroom in London and exports to the United States. The Works continued to be used for iron and steel working right up until the late 1980s.

The Kelham Island area has been described as “Sheffield’s answer to Shoreditch”. It’s becoming a thriving, mixed-used community, where new eco-friendly housing rubs shoulders with state-of-the-art office space created in centuries-old workshops. It’s home to two of Sheffield’s most famous real ale pubs and a growing number of cafes and eateries ranging from the not-so-humble burger to gourmet tasting menus.

As I explained in my earlier post A place to call our own — part 1, we were looking for a space with a creative legacy and tangible purpose, where we could shape an environment that gave us more room to think, collaborate, explore, build and share. I think we’ve really made it happen.

The restored hardwood windows brighten up the entire workspace, creating a vibrant area for the team to work together. The desks have been custom-made for us by Chop Shop, a “digital fabrication business” based in Sheffield and Berlin. You can check out their work at www.chopshopcnc.com.

The bare brick walls, wooden beams and metal pillars all add personality to the space. Despite suggestions to cover these features up, we decided to hold on to as many original characteristics as possible, in order to remind us of the building’s history and maintain the link between the work that we do and the makers of the past.

Wharncliffe Works also provides us with plenty of additional space, offering more room and opportunities for client collaboration, generating ideas and hosting events.

The move has arrived at the perfect time and allows both physical and mental space for Joi Polloi to grow and develop. With many new and exciting creative projects to work on, the new office will provide a great environment for creative thinking. There are many more updates to come, watch this space for further developments.

We love talking all things digital with like-minded people. If you would like to come and check out the new office and discuss a project with the team, please contact info@joipolloi.com.

An office move that is a physical manifestation of change. A declaration of Joi Polloi’s intent for future plans, hopes and ambitions.

Change

The volume and timing of changes here at Joi Polloi are both exciting and challenging.

We have recently taken the step to outwardly express our love for and specialism in digital services to the television, media and cultural industries. This is a milestone in our progression as a company, allowing us to be far more focused in our pursuit of like minded partners and collaborators. Our new micro site, reflects this positioning and will continue to be developed over the coming months.

Personnel changes have seen an influx of talented individuals. Amongst the additions are Liz Wheat and Shay Moradi who join the producer team. We have also bolstered the development team with superb additional Front End, React Native and PHP developers.

It’s a really busy time for Joi Polloi, there’s myriad things happening in terms of internal structure and organisation. Some extremely exciting projects are in production which we absolutely can’t wait to share news on (more about those to come…).

So, we need space where we can continue to change and evolve into what we want to become. A force to be reckoned with in the digital landscape, the obvious first choice for television, media and cultural industries to partner, collaborate and build relationships with. Not just here, but internationally.

A new space, one fitting for such ambition is what we seek.

Challenge

Sheffield isn’t brimming with commercial office space. The two universities have a ferocious appetite for development, collectively pouring vast amounts of funds into central areas in the pursuit for more educational, recreational and residential infrastructure.

Investment has been both positive and negative; improved university infrastructure a given, architectural merit less so. Nothing epitomises this juxtaposition more than the loss of the stunning Jessop Hospital to the University of Sheffield’s The Diamond. The former a Victorian and Edwardian building of notable merit, the latter a nominee as Worst UK Building. A permanent loss for the city and an inditement of the planning office.

Along with private investment (and seemingly endless student accommodation) and the occasional huge office (you’ll find the likes of SkyBet, Jet2 and the Home Office occupying those); buildings that have history, a narrative and character are in decline.

There are of course business centres, nondescript boxes and soulless new builds but they don’t align with who we are or what we strive to be.

And so the challenge was as clear as it was difficult; we needed to find a diamond (not the one above) in the rough.

Criteria

A sense of work being done, creative legacy and tangible purpose are characteristics that align with the work we do and how we do it. To be amongst these would be all the more satisfying.

Whilst high growth is not on our radar (better, not bigger), more space would certainly help us be better. We long for bespoke and varied work spaces. Areas to collaborate or find solace, public and private, loud and quiet. Places to do and places to think, we require both. And a vibrant location that has life, energy and diversity reflective of our own.

Months of searching, discussing and plotting (with some good fortune), we found one building that may just fit the bill.

The building that time forgot

Lost and abandoned — Grade II listed Wharncliffe Works stands in and amongst ruin and regeneration. The building was raised in 1861 for Steel & Garland, manufacturers of stoves, grates and fenders until 1901. However, more recent occupiers have been limited to pigeons, rodents and urban explorers.

For years we’ve passed the works in Kelham Island (home to famous pubs, industrial museums, makers and creators, in an up-and-coming former industrial area just within central Sheffield.

Council, heritage and ‘anarchist’ intervention were seemingly the saving grace that forced the previous owner to sell the property. And there it stood for tender, unwanted for many years until last 2017.

Established some 70 years ago in Sheffield, space creators Henry Halls are deploying their considerable expertise to sympathetically redevelop the building into commercial and residential units, all of which is being overseen by the conservation officer. This redevelopment, in particular by Henry Halls, should come as a relief for those that value the heritage of our buildings. Wharncliffe Works will be saved and with us for many more years to come.

Entering the building 4 months ago with Tim of Colloco, the task before us was evident. The work required was huge, daunting and required investment and vision in equal measure.

It’s difficult to envisage a finished office when the environment is in such disrepair — let alone invest in it — but you could just about see the potential. It could be amazing and act as a catalyst for Joi Polloi to fulfil its potential.

For the last few months we have been progressing, plotting and planning a space within Wharncliffe Works. As of a few weeks ago we agree the purchase and fit out costs. We are now in the hands of solicitors and fully committed to claiming Wharncliffe Works as a place to call our own.

We have just a few weeks remaining of fit out and finishing before we complete our move. I’ll be sure to share images of the new office, A place to call our own, when we are in.

Last year I wrote a post about why mass citizen science projects are the perfect match for TV. In the past few months, Joi Polloi has worked on three new and exciting citizen science projects for the BBC and Channel 4, to help the public find out something about themselves, and for scientists to find out more about the public.

What is citizen science?

Citizen science is scientific research conducted in whole or in part, by amateur scientists, or ‘the public’. The first recorded use of the term ‘citizen science’ was in 1989, and involved 225 Americans collecting rain samples for an acid-rain awareness raising campaign. Fast forward almost 30 years later to 2018 and citizen science is being used to analyse millions of data samples, images and more using millions of participants. With the advent of broadcast media, and the internet, you can conduct citizen science on an enormous scale.

Joi Polloi & Citizen Science

This isn’t the first time we’ve collaborated on projects like this — we’ve worked on several mass participation citizen science projects over the past five years which have used TV audiences to gather huge numbers of participants for academic researchers, including Embarrassing Bodies: My Mindchecker, and Psychopath Night. This gives researchers a far larger body of data to work with than is normally possible.

Recent news stories have highlighted how some companies have used data gathered in personality test and quizzes to deduce personality traits without consent, and deliver highly targeted advertising and other messages on that basis. Because the tests we have delivered sometimes reveal sensitive personal information, at every stage, security and data protection is actively considered and great lengths are taken to design anonymity into the process of collecting this information. Strict controls are in place to ensure that data is not personally identifiable, and only shared with researchers by secure means.

Are You Autistic — Channel 4

Tonight (28th March 2018), at 10pm, Channel 4 are broadcasting a one hour special called Are You Autistic?, to coincide with Autism Awareness Week. It’s presented by Anna Richardson and campaigners Georgia Harper and Sam Ahern, who both have autism themselves. It aims to challenge common perceptions of the disability and help people identify autism within themselves.

Last year we helped design and build an online test for the show to allow the public to measure certain traits of autism within themselves. Autism is a complex condition, and the test has numerous questions, so it had to be designed to be compelling to complete, and provide feedback to participants about themselves in a scientifically accurate and sensitive way.

A huge amount of data was collected, and the results were analysed by Prof Simon Baron-Cohen (Director, Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge). Watch tonight to find out full details about the scale of participation and conclusions which will be revealed as part of the show…

Secrets of Happiness — BBC

As part of their Tomorrow’s World campaign, we worked with the BBC and Dr Peter Kinderman from the University of Liverpool to create a digital survey aimed to help scientists understand how wellbeing, mental health and happiness are linked. Happiness is not a clinical term, which phrases things in terms of lack of anxiety & depression — but it is a well known public term.

Participants are asked questions about factors that influence wellbeing and mental health, and provided personalised feedback on how to beat the blues and boost happiness levels. This is a great motivation for participants — not only are they helping boost research, they also get something meaningful in return.

In a unique piece of research participants are then invited back six weeks later to take a follow-up ‘round 2’ test. This gives researchers an insight into how factors change over time.

The launch of the test gained coverage including a feature on BBC Breakfast, and on Radio 4.

The test is still open at secretsofhappiness.co.uk . Full details of the results will be published when all the responses have been analysed by researchers. It has gained far more submissions than normally accessible this kind of research, currently ~37k.

What do you do to express yourself, does this improve your health, and how do you compare to the rest of the nation? This are the questions that BBc New Generation Thinker Dr Daisy Fancourt from University College London is studying, exploring potential connections between creativity and mental wellbeing. This is ahead of the larger Get Creative BBC Arts Campaign.

By taking a ten-minute online test, which mixes questions about which creative activities you do with questions about your well being, participants are able to provide vital data for researchers. In turn the participant receives information about how their creativity compares to the nation, and given inspirational links and advice.

The test is open at creativitytest.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk and full details of the results will be published at a later date during the campaign.

The great thing about citizen science tests such as those above is that they generate huge traction, and much more focus from the participant.

If you’re interested learning more about citizen science, what it can do for research, or just generally about our projects, get in touch.

If you’re someone in or amongst the digital, tech or marketing industry you’ve probably seen the term ‘GDPR’ being circulated at the moment. If you don’t know what it is, first of all, it stands for ‘general data protection regulation’ and it’s replacing the 1995/1998 Data Protection Act. It’s standardising, expanding and essentially modernising a wide range of privacy legislation into one central set of regulations to help further protect EU citizens from privacy and data breaches. It’s being put into place on the 25th of May, 2018. Before you ask, yes; we’ll all still have to adhere to these regulations once we leave the EU as the UK has already stated that compliance with GDPR will not be affected by Brexit.

As a company that places a high value on user privacy and data protection, our view is that GDPR is, frankly, a long time coming. In a world where technology is racing ahead with things like super targeted ads and the threat of AI-led security threats being bandied around, the need to protect how organisations use customer or user data is becoming increasingly important and the current DPA is simply getting out of date.

What are the key changes?

Consent

Organisations must now be extremely clear when asking for a user’s consent by communicating exactly how they will be using someone’s personal data. Consent from a user must be documented and it must be verifiable. Pre-ticked boxes or inactivity, which are prevalent within charity websites registration forms, do not count as consent under GDPR and therefore only an affirmative action such as ticking a box will act as clear demonstration of consent. Furthermore, when processing consent for multiple purposes, each must be clearly specified and distinguishable. For example, when a user ticks a box to register with an organisation’s website this doesn’t necessarily mean they consent to the organisation’s email marketing. Therefore a separate indication of consent would be needed in an equally intelligible and accessible way before sending them a newsletter.

This also means that organisations will have to go back through their mailing lists and ensure that everyone on there has previously explicitly consented to receiving their company newsletter. If they can’t prove this consent then the organisation will have to remove them.

Penalties

There’s been a lot of talk of GDPR fines worth €20 million or the equivalent of 4% of annual turnover, but don’t panic. It’s important to note that these are the absolute maximum figures that would be issued and supervisory authorities can instead take a range of actions including warnings and reprimands before issuing fines.

It’s not clear-cut how much a fine would be for breaching regulations. However, what will be taken into account is how the organisation in question has actively tried to take steps towards data privacy and promoting a culture of compliance internally. In other words, intentions and attitudes towards breaches and GDPR as a whole will likely be taken into account.

Increased territorial scope

Essentially, the consequence of GDPR for any organisation that handles personal data outside of the EU is that they will also have to comply with European Data Protection Obligations if they either handle, monitor or process personal data belonging to anyone within the EU. This includes organisations based outside of the EU selling goods and services to any EU citizens, and also includes social networks that want to monitor and offer their service to EU citizens. It is important, for example, that UK and EU based broadcasters and media companies check with international vendors and third party suppliers, including cloud vendors, that they are GDPR compliant.

New data subject rights

Right of access

Anyone is now entitled to contact organisations to which they have given any personal data and request the information on where and why their data is being processed. This would also include transparency in the way that an organisation’s algorithms work to serve up personalised content, for example, how exactly an on-demand TV service generates suggestions to its users. The organisation then has to provide a copy of this data in its entirety and for free in an electronic format. It is therefore highly recommended that data is extremely well internally documented in an audit and part of the reason why data protection officers will be required in most cases, but more on them later. In the case of nonprofit organisations, volunteers will need to be kept just as up to speed on new data regulations as employees to ensure compliance across the entire organisation.

Right to data portability

This is the right for anyone to receive all of their own personal data stored by an organisation in a ‘commonly used and readable format’.

Right to erasure (or the ‘right to be forgotten’)

Anyone has the right to have their personal data held by a organisation erased permanently upon request.

Breach notification

If an organisation handling people’s personal data becomes aware of a data breach within their system they must notify their data subjects (everyone they store personal data on) within 72 hours.

Privacy by design

Privacy and data protection compliance should be considered from start to finish when designing systems rather than bolted on down the line. By approaching a project from the standpoint of privacy by design you can minimise risks of breaches and eliminate potential problems at an early stage. Data minimisation will become a legal requirement within GDPR, meaning organisations should only store and process data that is absolutely necessary for the completion of its duties. This includes limiting access to personal data to only those needing to carry out the processing.

Data protection officers

At the moment, organisations have to register their data processing activities with local data protection authorities. Instead, under GDPR, organisations will be required to keep internal records and an appointment of a data protection officer will become mandatory for organisations that regularly monitor or process personal data on a large scale. They must have thorough knowledge of data protection law and practices and cannot carry out tasks that may result in a conflict of interest.

So, should you be worrying?

No, but you should prepare. GDPR is indeed a fairly big subject which will undoubtedly require some additional research if these regulations are a concern to you or relate to your job responsibilities. There are plenty of online resources designed to educate you on the specific regulations and rules that will come into play at the end of May, so go ahead and do some reading if needed.

Cookies are not considered personally sensitive information therefore organisations can still utilise this form of customer data to provide a tailored experience. It’s the personal information about the individual that is sensitive; for example, names, religious background, sexual orientation and addresses.

How is GDPR a good opportunity?

As an example, newsletters should have much higher engagement rates since everyone receiving them will have explicitly consented to them, rather than receiving something they never wanted in the first place and therefore will never open. As a result of this need for explicit consent, levels of accuracy within segmentation should improve and organisations should ultimately gain much better insights into their audiences and consumer behaviour, allowing organisations to provide better quality content and customer service.

How has Joi Polloi prepared?

Even though we have always viewed privacy and data security as a priority within our work, we will be taking any necessary steps to comply with GDPR. We understand how important it is to help our clients adhere to GDPR and will ensure that the design, development and most importantly the handling of data within what we make is compliant and of the highest security standards.

If you feel your organisation needs a helping hand in preparing for GDPR then feel free to get in touch — info@joipolloi.com.

A new home for Channel 4

In 2017, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) began consulting on whether Channel 4 should move out of London, and relocate to elsewhere in the UK. Many cities across the nations and regions threw their hats into the ring in order to attract the economic benefits and prestige associated with being home to one of our national broadcasters. As home to a burgeoning creative and digital cluster, Sheffield City Council (and their inward investment department Creative Sheffield) were keen to make the case for why Sheffield would make a great home to the channel.

The City Council’s bid has the support of the many cultural and media organisations within the city, including Warp Films, Doc/Fest & both Universities.

Here at Joi Polloi we’ve worked extensively with Channel 4 over the past 7 years, delivering over 60 digital projects ranging from programme support to corporate, so have a really good understanding of the organisation, its people and values.

The online campaign

Our brief from Creative Sheffield was to inspire residents, challenge industry preconceptions, and demonstrate the variety of creative work already being produced in the city to dispel the perception that it lacks an existing cluster of film, TV and digital production.

While the financial and economic benefits of the move to the city and the nation are important, we wanted to tell a bit more of a human story.

We picked up the idea that if Channel 4 was a city, it would be like Sheffield. Being audacious; standing up and making trouble; championing super humans; and being a distinctive voice were key aspects of the Channel 4 brand personality which resonated with those who live and work in the city.

And we thought the best way to tell this story would be to involve the filmmakers and TV production companies already created amazing stuff in the city.

So in November 2017 we put out an open call for any creatives, technologists and filmmakers to submit work they have created which demonstrated the themes. Within a couple of weeks, we have received nearly 300 pieces of video from over 50 individuals and companies, ranging from animation, to comedy, music and drama.

We added to this footage by featuring well-known people from the city who embodied Channel 4 values, including Helen Sharman, Michael Palin, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Kell Brook, Seb Coe and Jarvis Cocker. We also challenged stereotypes of the city head on — reimagining snooker and the Full Monty as embodiments of the Channel 4 brand personality.

The whole package was edited into a fast-paced, punchy, 60 second TV-trail-like video. We used the city’s creative talents as much as possible — the soundtrack was generously provided by Sheffield band Bring Me the Horizon; editing was done locally; and the voiceover was recorded by local up-and-coming actress Lois Pearson.

We also built a funky single page microsite to host the video, and provide further details about the actual bid.

What we learnt

Part of the purpose of this project was to raise awareness that Sheffield is about more than snooker, steel and male strippers — that there is a thriving creative, digital, film and TV industry, which is on the verge of something big.

From Sumo Digital making games played by millions; to Sheffield Live running a full time local TV channel; to Warp Films making innovative award winning films and TV; to one of the most respected annual global gatherings of documentary film and TV makers; to Sheffield Hallam University’s biggest Playstation teaching lab in the world, — we found new inspiration in the rich creativity, optimism and world-class skills within the city and area around us.

What do you think? https://www.c4sheffield.com/

As we’ve been redesigning our website, it’s given us an opportunity to look back over some of our recent work. We asked the team to pick out some of their favourite projects we’ve worked on over the last 12 months…

My Glasto Lineup for BBC Creative

We worked with BBC Creative to create a microsite to promote BBC Music’s coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. It let viewers and listeners create their own personalised Glasto lineup poster to share with friends, and then add reminders to their phone’s calendar so they wouldn’t miss any of their favourite artists’ performances. Over 120,000 people created their own posters.

John, one of our senior developers says: “Favourite project for me was Glastonbury; we created something really funky using my favourite framework React. Perhaps best of all it was used by loads of peeps and got lots of traction on the social medias.”

See the microsite here:
www.myglastolineup.co.uk

Watch a case study video here:
www.bbccreative.co.uk/projects/bbc-music-glasto-lineup/

Animal Rescue Live

Last summer Channel 4 launched a new show, Animal Rescue Live: Supervet Special, which aimed to draw attention to the many animals in charity shelters in need of rehoming. Broadcast live for a week from Newcastle Cats and Dogs home, we created a vital online component for their new live show, a website which allowed viewers to apply to adopt the featured animals, and behind-the-scenes, for applicants to be properly vetted (pun intended).

We created a system which stood up to the sudden traffic of a live show, handling hundreds of thousands of users over the course of the week. Most importantly there was an amazing response from the audience wanting to adopt the pets from show; we received almost 2,000 applications and helped find homes for Cedric the pig, Sausage the parrot, four shy goats, and many others.

Andy, our MD says: “Of all the work we do here at Joi Polloi, perhaps the most rewarding for me are those that have real world impact. In this project we did just that, directly re-homed many pets, enriched countless lives and indirectly realised a huge national boost in animal adoption throughout the campaign and beyond.”

Rewatch the series here:
www.channel4.com/programmes/animal-rescue-live-supervet-special

BBC Tomorrow’s World: Global Change Calculator

The BBC has brought back the Tomorrow’s World brand! We were hugely excited to create an interactive experience to give you an insight into how dramatically the world has changed in your lifetime, and in that of your relatives.

The aim was to illustrate the huge advances in science and technology, and global changes over the years, by showing them in a context which is very personal to the user.

A huge amount of data is contained within the site, in order to create a unique and personal journey for every visitor.

Karen, our senior designer: “The Global Change Calculator stood out for me; it was a really interesting project and we had a lot of creative input. The BBC were superb to work with, they’re really knowledgeable and also trusted us creatively. It was challenging to make the experience impactful on mobile, tablet and desktop, but we achieved it.”

Try it for yourself:
the-global-change-calculator.pilots.bbcconnectedstudio.co.uk

Recently we’ve done a couple of projects with Shopify, which is becoming our small-to-medium eCommerce solution of choice. This short post is going to focus on Shopify from Joi Polloi’s perspective, and some things we’ve done with it to squeeze the most out of the stores we’ve made. I’ve got some views on other general platform-free improvements we’ve made to web stores, which can be seen here.

The big sell for clients to go with Shopify is the cost. It comes in three plans; ‘Basic Shopify’ and ‘Shopify’ are affordable — whilst the ‘Advanced Shopify’ is a big jump up. Our clients are normally on the medium ‘Shopify’ plan, and we do a few things to get the most from it — everything I’ve written below is for this plan.

The interface for Shopify is very friendly for both the customers and staff. As it is a dedicated eCommerce platform (not a plugin for another CMS, as in the case of WooCommerce) everything you see is purpose built to make selling and managing stock as simple as possible. For us, the codebase is good and it’s easier to build and customise it without running into odd problems — so we can deliver more for the project.

A fantastic feature is the Shopify’s Polaris interface for creating great looking shops, and it works well with our design tool of choice Sketch.

Versatile ways of arranging your shop

Shopify has a somewhat flat collection structure — there is no nesting or hierarchy to the collections. When we approached laying out Pete Mckee’s online shop, we had to take on board the requirements for an artist and his work, who sells individual paintings/objects, and also arranges their work into thematic ‘art collections’. For a fashion clothing analogy, a Winter collection will include tops, trousers, shoes and scarves. Ordinarily these also live in different collections according to their product type (shoes from all collections, all tops etc.). Shopify can handle this easily, products can be in 2 collections at once easily enough. But what if you want a general overview page which lists all the collections?

By default Shopify will try and list the collections like Winter alongside the category type collections (Shoes, Tops etc.). Not a very pretty site. Switching back to our Mckee shop it meant that our artist’s latest range of ‘6 Weeks to Eternity’ was listed alongside a category called Accessories. To make matters worse the collections were arranged by view of the page shows everything in date, or alphabetical order.

We worked around this by making a new menu called ‘Art Collection’. Normally used for page navigation — here we create it and order the ‘art collections’ the way we want. Then we make another page with a custom template to show the items in this menu — and magic, a beautiful page to showcase art by editorial choice — not just by type.

Click and Collect

A feature we developed for the University of Sheffield Student’s Union shop was Click and Collect. This is a feature of the higher tiered version of Shopify but not the standard version. By default Shopify will apply the cheapest value shipping to an item, defined by weight of the product. This means if there is a click and collect option — when the customer collects the item from the shop, which is usually free — then it becomes the default option. This quickly can mean that shops end up out of pocket, as the customer doesn’t notice and pays for the product only and not postage.

For the customer our solution is a painless ‘Collect this order for free’ check box on the basket page. In the background it secretly adds a zero-value, but very heavy item to the basket. This very heavy items put the entire order into a special heavy postage category, setup to have zero value — so the whole order becomes postage free!

Displaying products on other sites

The last novel things we’ve played around with is pulling Shopify products to other sites purely through the API. Our work on Mckee actually created two different platforms, made to appear to be one. The front of the site is actually a different back end system, that leads to the shop area. We found it easy and simple to set up a ‘featured’ collection on the webstore, and then automatically pull all the items from this into the promotion site, creating a slick and striking way of promoting your products, without looking too sales focussed.

Thereotically you could built the entire store this way, which’d be interesting to try out.

That’s all for now, but if we have any more Shopify hints and tricks, we’ll update this, and if you have any thoughts, or want to see how this could work for you, please get in touch!

Thanks.