Rethink Media 2016 Conference
The Parkside Building
City Centre Campus, Cardigan Street, B4 7BD, Birmingham
£75

#Rethinkmedia2016, Birmingham City University’s one-day conference for digital media professionals, took place on Tuesday 13 June 2016. At Parkside, the UK’s largest media production centre, attendees heard valuable talks by industry leaders, insightful panel discussions and had fantastic networking opportunities.
The conference programme made attendees rethink how you gather, generate and publish truly engaging content to meet the rapidly-changing expectations of today’s audience. Issues of representation and diversity, both on and off-screen, were debated throughout the day.
Rethink Media 2016
See the tweets and photos from the event.
The full line up of speakers is shown below.

Lizzi Michael
Lizzi is the Partner Manager at ChannelFlip, a YouTube Multichannel Network based in London. She has worked with some of the top YouTubers in the UK such as Dan and Phil and Emma Blackery.

Frank Golding
Frank Golding is a former Director at Google. As YouTube's Head of Sport for North America, he helped leagues, teams and athletes connect with YouTube's one billion monthly users.

Diane Kemp
Diane Kemp is a Professor of Broadcast Journalism at the Birmingham School of Media, teaching on our postgraduate courses. Previously Diane worked for the BBC in local radio and regional television.

Emma Mulqueeny
Emma is the founder of Rewired State and Young Rewired State, a Commissioner for the Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy and a Google Fellow.

Adam Biddle
Adam Biddle is the Managing Director of Edition and has hands on experience with online publishing strategies on behalf of global celebrities, influencers and brands.

Sadie Spooner
Sadie is Commercial Manager at Unruly, one of the UK’s most prominent ad tech companies that specialises in getting video watched, shared and tracked across the open web.

Daniel Noy
Daniel Noy is the Managing Director of the creative services division at THINK JAM. He's driving innovation across the world of interactive design, content marketing, social media and advertising.

Anthony Tattum
Anthony is the co-founder and MD of Big Cat, a Birmingham based creative communications agency that does pioneering work in a variety of sectors, including healthcare, tourism, food & drink and retail.

Matt Shaw
Matt oversees the editorial output of video content on Jamie Oliver's digital platforms, including 22 channels of engaging food content from across the globe with 4.5 million subscribers.
The host - Andy Akinwolere
Andy is a broadcaster, world record holder and BAFTA nominee. He became Blue Peter’s first black male presenter, hosting the show for five years. In 2015, he became the winner of an RTS (Royal Television Society Award) for his documentary on Extremism for the BBC's Inside Out.
Conference Agenda
Time | Session |
---|---|
9.00am |
Registration and Coffee |
10.00am |
Opening Welcome by Joanna Birch, Director of Enterprise Innovation and Business Engagement at Birmingham City University. Joanna is currently involved in developing some game changing projects for the city, working collaboratively with international, national and regional partners to drive new opportunities for Birmingham including a new concept entitled STEAMhouse. |
10.20am |
Keynote Alia will discuss how digital media teams embracing their new roles, not just as journalists but as technologists. What is the impact of this shift on the ways that these teams communicate with their colleagues and their audiences? The talk will also explore how teams from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Sky News are using collaborating in innovative ways, including how The New York Times built a bot (blossom bot) that helps journalists to predict which stories would do well on social media. |
10.40am | Industry Panel 1 A presentation by each speaker, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A on the topic of 'Shaping digital behaviour and culture'. Facilitated by Andy Akinwolere, the panellists are:
|
11.40am | Tea break |
12.05pm | Industry Panel 2 A presentation by each speaker, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A on the topic of 'Next generation – the Millennials/Gen Z - content creation and consumption '. Facilitated by Andy Akinwolere, the panelists are:
|
1.05pm | Lunch: Complimentary buffet. |
2.05pm |
Café Conversations These tracks run in parallel and are being facilitated by Andy Akinwolere. Track 1: Industry speakers each host a table in The Shell Space. Track 2: Join us in this participatory workshop as we delve into some of the current challenges facing the media sector today, exploring challenges in terms of ethnic engagement, such as:
This session is co-developed with Birmingham based Indi Deol, founder of Desi Blitz,a British Asian lifestyle web magazine. The team have identified the overarching theme of ‘what is the value of ethnic digital media’. We’d like to invite our Rethink audience and speakers to this participatory workshop, to openly discuss aspects of this topic you feel passionate about and share ideas with fellow delegates. This is a facilitated session and we'll capture ideas using the BarCamp technique, summarising the outcomes to take forward.
|
3.30pm | Tea break |
3.50pm | Industry Panel 3 A presentation by each speaker, followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A on the topic of Audience Engagement. Facilitated by Diane Kemp, Professor of Broadcast Journalism at the Birmingham School of Media, with panellists:
|
5.00pm | Q&A / Plenary Round up of thoughts and views from the day, with Q&A between the audience and all of the speakers. Facilitated by Andy Akinwolere. |
5:30pm | Networking and drinks at Parkside Gallery |