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Saturday 11th February 2012

Northern Life: Daily Mail Headlines, Shipping Containers and Technology Innovation

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Northern Life: Daily Mail Headlines, Shipping Containers and Technology Innovation

Posted by Guest Blogger 27 August 2010 Business |  Careers |  Guest blogger |  Technology Written by Mercedes Clark-Smith.

In recent weeks the Daily Mail has been outraged about injustices inflicted upon BBC stars having to move to the new northern home of the BBC, MediaCityUK in Salford. TV presenter Sian Williams has even quit BBC Breakfast rather than move her family near the Pennines. Given the hysteria, you might be forgiven for thinking Salford is somewhere north of the Balkans and the BBC is moving to a tin shack on the edge of the badlands.

Aside from a few relatives in Leeds, I don’t have any northern credentials, I look like an idiot in a flat cap and whippets creep me out but a year ago I faced the same dilemma as BBC staff when I saw a technology project director job advertised by the north west’s digital and creative industries agency, Vision+Media. I’ve lived on a Deptford council estate so how scary can Salford actually be? Well not at all as it turns out and the transformation happening in the digital and creative sector in the North makes it the place to be for anyone interested in being at the heart of ‘digital Britain’.

The BBC is the anchor tenant of the vast £500m MediaCityUK development in Salford Quays. They will move around 2,500 staff, relocate five London-based departments and all local and network broadcasting currently operating out of Manchester city centre. MediaCityUK isn’t just a home for the BBC, a host of other digital companies are also taking up residence and it is claimed that the development will create up to 10,000 jobs and add £1bn to the regional economy over five years.

Over in east Manchester, the Sharp Project has an enormous variety of space available within a converted factory complex ranging from large-scale studio production space to small-scale office accommodation which are actually old shipping containers.

Not only is all this development going on but there’s also great stuff being invented – as a frequent train traveller I can’t live without my MoviePeg – a little do-dah that holds your iPhone or iPad up so you can watch videos without getting hand cramp. It was invented in Manchester by design agency magneticNorth.

And that’s just Greater Manchester. There’s a whole lot more ‘North’ to be had.

12% of the UK’s electronic games developers work in Yorkshire. The digital and creative sector employs over 123,000 people in more than 13,000 businesses. In November Sheffield hosts Doc/Fest which “brings the international documentary family together” to watch films, discuss issues and pitch to buyers from across the globe. The organisers say an enormous amount of international business is done at the festival.

The North East is host to Thinking Digital, arguably the UK’s answer to the TED conferences, which describes itself as "an annual conference where some of the world's greatest thinkers and innovators gather to discuss the latest ideas and technologies and to inspire new thinking about our businesses and lives".

The North has super-fast broadband, University of the Year (Teeside), ITV, BBC, MediaCityUK and thousands of creative and technology companies. What does the northern digital industry need more of? Skills, capacity, collaboration, mature talent and diversity. In return there is a quality of life you can’t match in London, some of the best people in the UK to work with and every type of weather in a single day. If BBC stars don’t want to move, well that just leaves a space for home-grown northern talent.

Mercedes Clark-Smith is Project Director at NorthernNet

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