Some of my favourite bits and pieces from the Integrated Media Association conference in Seattle last week, in no particular order:

Being on a panel with Robert Lyons, Director of Radio and New Media Initiatives at WGBH Boston. They have some awesome stuff on line.

Finding out that NPR’s podcast project has had 16 million downloads since it started 6 months ago.

John Hagel, the business analyst NPR is working with, stressing that everyone, not just broadcasters, has to shift from a product mindset to an audience/consumer mindset. That the real issue isn’t ‘how much to create and how many people see/use it’ but instead, ‘how much it costs to find and retain audience/consumers’. He calls it ‘return on attention’ and even has a nice graph to go with it.

Terry Heaton, quoting Gordon Borrell, in reference to user generated content and what it means for broadcasters… “the deer now have guns”. Time to get into the ammo business.

Adam Berrey’s demo of Brightcove. Putting video on line was never so easy. This totally rocks.

Hanging with Tony Walker of ABC’s DiG in Melbourne. Not only is he one of the nicest guys in the world, he seems to always find the best food in the world. Thanks for the sushi.

Listening to Mark Fuerst, Executive Director of IMA, with my eyes closed. He doesn’t look anything like him, but he sounds just like Dick Cavett.

BBC plans to put more content online on Monday (Feb 27) as part of their Creative Archive Project. Speaking in Seattle today at the Integrated Media Association conference, BBC’s Creative Archive project director Paul Gerhardt walked through plans for more content and even a simple on-line video editor so users can remix the content as they see fit.

Asked how BBC producers feel about having their content ‘mashed up’, Gerhard replied “We try not to use that word … we prefer to call it personalization”, which got a big laugh from the room of mostly public broadcasters.

This project has required some interesting rights negotiations, and BBC is using its a purpose built rights agreement based in large part on the Creative Commons license.

It is an 18 month pilot project, exploring ways of getting BBC archive content online. It is billed a public service for the UK public, and is currently only available to people in the UK, or who can spoof a UK location. I asked Gerhardt if the intent is to open this up to the rest of the world, he said that once the trail period is over, and if BBC decides to move forward with it, the intention is to partner to bring the archive to the rest of the world.

For more on the license and the project, go here.

Chris Pirillo caught some knitting action during our presentation at Northern Voice.

I don’t know about Mark or Michael, but I take ‘knitting while panelling’ as the highest of compliments.

Arrived in Seattle on the AC shuttle from Vancouver. Sitting behind me were two people from Wisconsin, on their way to a conference else where in the US.

They have a 5 hour layover in Seattle, and since they’d never been here before, decided to make a dash to the cab stand and see as many things as they can in the time they have.

With 30 minutes travel time downtown from SeaTac, and give them a slim 30 minute check-in, that leaves them about 3.5 hours.

Got me thinking. What would I do if I only had 3.5 hours in my city, Vancouver.

More on this later…

An open letter to Ricky Gervais.

Ricky. I know you’re about to visit Canada for the first time. I heard you say so on CBC Radio’s Saturday Afternoon show.

Despite what the host of the show said, Vancouver is a wonderful place. You’ll love it. And it will love you.

Speaking of that show, it’s too bad that after all these years they still haven’t figured out their guests are far more interesting than they are. On behalf of all Canadians, we apologize.

You, on the other hand, were brilliant, as always.

PS: My wife was born in London Ontario – maybe you’re related ? She says since you’re going to be in Vancouver, you should come for dinner.