MAD Bradford

Not riots! Not the decaying Odeon. Not the massive building site in the city centre. But Media and Digital Bradford which held its inaugural meeting at Gumption Centres on 12 Jan 2012.  I was there as were folk from the arts, the Council, the media, the Media Museum, the University and more geeks tham you can shake a USB stick at.

Before it closed last year Bmedia had done a lot of good things for the media and digital industries in Bradford:
:

• the alternate third Thursday meetings with a guest speaker and pizza;
• Bradford OpenCoffee in Shipley;
• a very good Bar Camp in Nov 2009;
• my regular intellectual property clinic at Gumption every third Thursday; 
• the courses and seminars that it arranged;
• the information on bids and tenders that it circulated; and
• its contacts with other groups in the city such as FABRIC and FabLab..

The end of Bmedia was a bit of a blow for Bradford.

MAD Bradford is a very different sort of grouping. Although the proposed format for regular monthly meetings and networking is very similar it is much less structured. Before the meeting we were welcomed with a pot of vegetable chili prepared by Mrs. David Robertson Brown (for which many thanks) and a voucher for a free cup of tea or coffee. 

The meeting followed the BarCamp formula. Members of the audience were invited to propose topics for discussion. These ranged from the local authority's super-fast broadband "Connected Cities" bid presented by Dave Melling, rural programmes co-ordinator of Bradford MDC, the image of Bradford, what the University can do for us and we for the University, html5 and even the future of the internet. Matt Fielding divided us into three groups to discuss those topics and sent us away to different parts of the building. These groups quickly coalesced into two which I would loosely describe as the developers and the creatives.   I tagged on to the "creatives" group in the reception area which discussed a number of interesting proposals for future activities.

These ideas are likely to be developed further in the "MAD Bradford" Linkedin group which has recently been formed. 

One thing is for certain. Any new product created by members of the group will require design right, registered design or patent protection, Every new brand will require legal protection whether under the law of passing off or the registration of a trade mark. There will be demand for advice and representation on IP and technology law which members of IP Yorkshire will continue to supply.

TEDx Bradford - This is Where We Live

Whenever Imran Ali organizes something it is usually very good. He has brought us Open Coffee, Girl Geek Dinners and more good stuff. His latest initiative is TEDx Bradford.

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design. It started from a conference in 1984 and has now become an international institution.

There are annual conferences in the USA and UK to which leaders in any field with something to say are invited to speak. Last Wednesday afternoon for example, we heard from cyber security expert Mikko Hypponen, lie detector Pamela Meyer, anti-torture campaigner, Helen Tse and some really lovely settings of Burn's verse by Eddi Reader. Each of those presentations is videotaped and can be viewed on the TED website. It is also possible to subscribe to the TED website free of charge and I have done just that.

TEDx is an extension of the TED formula. It enables local movers and shakers around the world such as Imran to organize their own events in the TED format. The event that Imran organized took place in the Cubby Broccoli cinema of the National Media Museum in Bradford. Its title was "This is Where We Live". The event stretched over the whole day. In the morning and afternoon we were connected by video link to TED Global Edinburgh.

From 17:00 we had our own programme with live speakers in the auditorium. They were all good but I particularly liked Mohammed Ali who has melded Western street art with Islamic calligraphy. His presentation went much further than that however. He showed photos from Australia, Germany and other countries of buildings that showed the influence of Islamic architecture long before those countries had significant Muslim communities. But what pulled me up with a jerk was something his father said. "Son, one day people like us may be forced out of the country". One of my other friends had also said something like this. I find it very sad that people who are my friends and neighbours have this threat at the back of their minds. I don't think it will ever happen but a slide of the English Defence League has made me start to worry.

But there were happier topics. Tom Wooley talked about the internet museum that he is planning for the Media museum. Emily Kecic spoke with passion about her pride in Bradford and at her disappointment at Bradfordians who claim to come from Leeds. The one talk I really wish I could have heard was historian and anthropologist Irna Qureshi's as I have also travelled a few kilometres along the Grand Trunk Road. Alas, I had tickets for Hull Truck's production of the "Lady in the Van" at the Alhambra, another great Bradford institution.

It probably takes an outsider to say this but Bradford is a great city. In my humble opinion it's as least as good as Leeds. Though my maternal family comes from Leeds I think I like Bradford even better.

Links

16 July 2011 Jane Wakefield TEDGlobal: Worshipping at the Church of TED BBC website