Millennialise The Way We Televise!

There's one great thing about all of this talk about the much-desired Millennial workforce and that is, that I am one!

theodysseyonline.com

Born in 1992, I am supposedly among the 30% of millennials who declare themselves to have no religion. We have on average, the highest number of Facebook friends and send a median of 50 texts a day. We are selfie-taking, sexting, self-promoting and self-sufficient bright young things - we are human version 2.0... and everybody wants us - or so they say.

I LOVE working in Television, as it means that all of my Millennialist skills are called upon every day in a fast-moving and content-hungry industry that stimulates and satisfies me.

The bad thing, is that TV can't help but wrap itself into a hedgehog shaped ball when someone mentions Netflix or the word 'multi-platform'. For most production companies, that just means 'Dorothy throw in a twitter hashtag and be done with it', but it's wayyyy more than that! We Millennials are not only hungry to absorb information, we're hungry to create it. And we do both of those things, tens, sometimes hundreds of times a day. We text, we snapchat, we blog, we vlog, we gram and regram, we Facebook, we tweet and we retweet. Youtube, news updates, TV in the form of video, image, text and live events...the list goes on! I thrive on being thrown into a new job every few months, exploring new places and busying my evenings with a variety of activities to stimulate my body and mind. To some it sounds exhausting, but to me - I live for it. And this seemingly chaotic and exhausting under-web lifestyle informs every aspect of a Millennial's daily existence!

salesforce.com

We are home-grown content-creators and although this might scare longer-serving TV professionals, who schedule boardroom meetings to brainstorm Bake-Off, the synapses of ultra-social Millennials are firing on all cannons as they build their brand and their content, wherever, whenever, and 10 times at once. Millennials and their closest genetic descendants Centennials, no longer enjoy television in the traditional way. TV to us is a World Wide Web of giving and receiving, of content-absorbing and content-creating. It exists in the moments between our chaotic social engagements, during the glimpses at the Metro news in between our tube stops, and the breaths in between the sips of my caramel frapp.

divx.com

We're heading in the right direction, but is it fast enough? On Demand services should now be the norm. We want everything we've ever seen before, and every bit of new content available in a central location - and we want it at a time that suits us, not the schedulers. So digitising archives needs to happen NOW, the development of storage solutions for HUGE amounts of content needs to happen NOW. The hiring of Millennials - needs to happen NOW.

We ourselves are a diverse brand, and we push that brand every single day on social media. We champion individuality, don't like to be defined by traditional terms or binary social systems and naturally immerse ourselves in the world around us both physically and mentally. We absorb, we ideate, we create. It's in our nature. We're adaptable, tolerant of change and welcoming of difference, and we want TV to be too. We're ready and waiting to be asked!

unikaz.asia

Netflix has proven that new and exciting platforms CAN still be 'thunk-up' and we don't need the confidence of a grammatically correct blurb to make it successful (no seriously, Netflix blurbs are awful) - but it's about originality and adaptability - it's about Millennialism. Netflix might be ahead of the game, but there's plenty more to come. We need platforms, we need infrastructure, we need ideas. We need a new auto-updating World Wide Web of Television, with machine learning capabilities and an inter-disciplinary collaborative remit. The multi-talented and multi-tasking Millennials are waiting to immerse themselves in rich cultural experiences and the time has come to work WITH them and deliver the best they've ever had.

So whether you are media professionals, mathematicians, retail reps or stay-at-home parents - the time has come to Millennialise the way we televise!


Follow Me!
Twitter: @KatMace11
Insta: KatMace1103
Website: www.katmace.co.uk

EdTalks with UKTV

geitf.com

#EdTalks was a lively and inspiring event held at the Overseas League on Thursday evening, where enthusiastic telly people came together to listen to four inspirational speakers, with proceeds going towards The Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival's various talent schemes. The evening began with an hour of networking, where I was delighted to find myself mixing amongst a cocktail of many talents and experiences - from floor managers, to development researchers, from presenters, to office assistants, from festival organisers, to director/journalists. And that was before the event began!

Hosted by TV comedian Ben Miller we were treated to inspirational talks from future mayoral candidate Ivan Massow, enthusiastic space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock, controversial BBC3 presenter Stacey Dooley and TV inventor and family man Tom Lawton. There was also a great live freestyle performance from Soweto who took 5 words, 'women, galaxy, social, (points for the forth - I blame the wine) and EdTalks' and worked them into a rap/saxophone extravaganza.

twitter.com

Ivan talked about how he wanted to encourage diversity in the capital and bring economic and cultural diversity back into the centre. He says at the moment we are heading towards becoming like Geneva, with the elite owning the centre and the less well-off, inhabit the outer realms 'the doughnut' as he calls it. I'm all for bringing affordable housing back into London's centre just as long as he sticks by his other promise of protecting the green belt! Myself and my peers have all been pushed out to live in London's suburbs, feeling pushed out from the big city and it was nice to hear that someone at the top was recognising the need to change this! Ivan didn't shy away from the politically shadier moments of his past either, growing up in care, turning to alcoholism, being gay - things that politicians usually leave in the closet. Instead Ivan embraced it, made it part of his campaign and he championed the need to support entrepreneurship, innovation and ambition which, with the subjects that followed, could come in very handy for his vote count.

telegraph.co.uk

Next up was the absolutely wonderful Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock - probably one of the most energetic and genuinely funny women (I am a woman) I've ever heard speak. It was like coming home to the kitchen tap after a long holiday and turning the water back on - being faced with that un-hindered power as the air pockets are forced out. She was an absolute delight. Maggie tells us of how excited she is by science. She showed us a picture of a space we have only ever seen as black. Through image enhancement, she shares the reveal that in fact, there are hundreds/thousands of lights in that black space and each one of them is a galaxy in our universe. She tells us that she believes that there must be other life out there - not necessarily the little green men we all expect - not the daleks we all have nightmares about - but there must be life. The universe is so huge! I want Maggie to have her own science show. She made us laugh and her enthusiasm for science and its place in our world, and for encouraging young girls to follow their dreams, was just infectious. She's definitely made it to my hypothetical celeb dinner party scenario from now on.

sarahailan.wordpress.com

Next was Luton's own Stacey Dooley. I hadn't even heard of Stacey before and at first I wasn't really sure which side of the fence to sit on when it came to her journalistic style. Faced with genuine high-risk problems she is often placed in situations where producers know she'll give an emotive response. A clip she showed us at the event threw me even more towards the fence, an extremist march in Luton, where I was waiting to hear both sides go at it. It came, but it just wasn't the intellectual battle I wanted, I didn't LEARN from the encounter - only that maybe 'I can do what I want' isn't the most intellectual/argument-winning phrase. I think it was unfortunate that the line made it to the final cut but then I enjoyed the honesty of that. Upon getting home I watched the rest of the episode and it actually changed my opinion of the piece completely. I want to watch more of her work now, and with her upcoming 6min features online, I'll be sure to. Presenting aside, her talk was just as inspiring as the rest - encouraging us all to go out there and try new things and say things. She is humble about her journey into the industry and her go-get-it attitude really was infectious. She is friendly, funny and charming to listen to, which I suppose stands her in good stead for the relationships she builds up quickly with contributors. I particularly enjoyed the third clip she showed us, referring to the main contributor as 'my mate brown' a teenage girl and young offender who shares an emotional encounter with Stacey. Another episode I'll have to watch in full - ok, maybe I'm not on the fence after all. I might just be swaying towards enjoying it! Another great talk!

telegraph.co.uk

Finally, we heard Tom Lawton, who spoke of the advancement in Virtual Reality technology and his place in its journey. He also shared his philosophy on how he thinks TV SHOULD work, and what it might perhaps be like someday. He shared that TV will inevitably become more immersive and 3D isn't immersive enough for our audience - which might explain its inability to maintain interest - we need more! Tom has created a 360 degree camera called Bubblescope, that allows us all to capture a unique moment as an experience, rather than just a framed image, and the app that comes with it, 'Bubblepix' allows us to share it instantly. Framed images, Tom believes are cutting out the beauty of neutrality and empathy and forcing our hand at telling a particular story. He tells of a friend's comment on the fall of Sadame Hussain's statue, when he realised that all of the TV cameras were filming from the same direction, to show one side of the story. Only Al Jazeera filmed it differently, before being shut down by the Americans. He also told us about how he believes that TVs in our living rooms will need to be more than a VR headset. We enjoy the social aspect of television, and VR needs to embrace that. We'll have 360 experiences just like Bubblecam, in our own living rooms, not so far in the future, with projections surrounding us on all four walls. He was fascinating to listen to and with youtube and facebook opening up their outputs to include 360degree shareable video, Tom got me thinking about how my content in the future will have to live up to this new, emerging immersive culture.

thedrum.com

Television is changing. It is adapting to the world around it. Ivan told us of the importance of entrepreneurship and diversity. Maggie told us of family, of reaching for the stars (literally) and of women needing role models. Stacey told us of how BBC3 is moving online and how her presenting style and aptitude for dividing opinion isn't necessarily a thing to shy away from, in fact it's helped her career (perhaps something our commissioners could note). Tom told us of how we are venturing into a new immersive world, where TV will need to adapt to reflect the honesty/empathy of its content, in more ways than we can imagine. 

EdTalks was a fantastic event, and one where we can take away the messages of its speakers and apply it to our industry. Edinburgh TV Festival embraces this growing immersive and diversified culture and it will be people like those that attend GEITF, who will emerge as the real game-changers. I can't wait for the festival later this year. A great evening with huge thanks to UKTV and GEITF.