Last Thursday (November 15th) I went along to the BBC Innovation Labs Launch Day in Edinburgh. I was resigned to a day of polite PowerPoint consumption punctuated by tea, coffee, biscuits, lunch and occasional questions. But that’s not what Matthew Cashmore, Ian Forrester and Frank Boyd had in mind. Yes, there was PowePoint, but Matthew effortlessly kept the show rolling along, providing useful context for the briefs. Working with corporate tech guys, you get used to being told why you can’t do things. In contrast Ian’s message was “don’t worry about whether your idea is possible, we’ll find a way. The words “rod” and “back” come to mind. I wonder whether he ever regrets saying things like that. Frank Boyd ran an afternoon workshop on user centred design based around the construction of personas. The ideas may not be new - Frank cited many of the sources - but the point is that they were distilled into a coherent, effective package capable of dissemination within an afternoon. It was fairly apparent from the resulting presentations which groups had actually the methodology: an observation that Calico Jack has taken on board by actively adopting the ideas into our development process. I guess this makes us third party beneficaries of Greg Dyke’s vision for an ultra-creative BBC. Incredibly, the room was half empty. If you get the chance to go to one of these event, go. By the way, though I can’t vouch for the coffee, the rest of the catering was excellent.