WalesCymru.com

Recently VisitWales invited students and graduate film-makers from Welsh Universities to submit a short film of 3 minutes or less that celebrates Wales as a contemporary holiday destination.

On 22 July the winning films were upload to VisitWales’ YouTube account and can now be viewed by anyone who’s interested in checking out some great holiday ideas and the early work of a future Spielberg, Jackson or Attenborough.

The winner of the first prize was Rhiannon Tate from St Davids, who is studying film at the International Film School Wales at Newport. Rhiannon won a £2000 career development fund and one week’s work experience at advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy (nice).

Rhiannon’s film is about how a family run ice-cream van at Abereiddi beach in Pembrokeshire, which sounds like a great place visit.

The runners up were Jim Birket, for his film on Llangorse Activity Centre, Aaron McKeene and Laurie Cameron for their film on Lloysey Farm, and Ewan Jones Morris for his film on the Green Man Festival. The runners up each receive a £500 career development fund.

Well done guys, let’s hope this is just the start of a great career.

The Welsh Assembly Government are about to invest £m’s in ‘DBEs’ (Digital Business Ecosystems). So what, you may ask, are DBEs and why is this money being invested?

At this juncture DBEs are in the early stage of their development, so these views are likely to change. Some see DBEs as a Web2.0 version of the Business Portals and eMarketplaces of the late 90’s, while others hold a different view, seeing them more as a set of P2P Web2.0 applications for business. WAG envisages DBEs as “Internet-delivered communities, populated with content and services developed or commissioned by their users, supporting one or more business sectors.”

One possible description of a DBE is that it is a “social networking site for business” where content is owned by its contributors and where no single organisation owns the network, meaning there should be no single point of failure (hence the P2P applications model).

Why is this money being invested?

WAG suggests that “DBEs will greatly assist participants, providing an online place to do business - where they can develop and coordinate collaborations and where joint product and service offerings can be assembled and offered to customers”. I.e. they’re hoping to create digital market spaces that both facilitate and lower the cost of day-to-day Welsh business activities.

What can we expect from a DBE?

If a DBE is little more than online business network and a digital market space; what will they actually deliver?

This is an area I’ve given some consideration and am happy to share my thoughts. As I see it DBEs are:

• a tool to manage your business contacts - except most of my contacts are still not on these networks. A web resource that provides single sign-on and access to up-to-date details for all my business contacts would be very useful, regardless of which site they’re on. The question is, Is this going to be a Web2.0 CRM tool like SalesForce & Highrise, a website liked LinkedIn, or a Plugin that synchronizes my address book contacts with their up-to-date online profiles?
• a knowledge resource - If an exchange of knowledge is the main function of Discussion Forum within Groups, where’s the DBE’s knowledge centre? E.g. there’s more knowledge stored on Slideshare (the world’s largest presentation sharing community), than on LinkedIn
• a collaboration tool - but most business networks are too open for many of the sensitive project discussions, so where does the confidential work actually take place?
• a business events resource - but most business events I attend are absent from these sites. Eventbrite and Upcoming have a better selection than LinkedIn, but still list fewer than 10% of local business events. Will the DBE be an events aggregator?
• a networking resource for local businesses. E.g. many Xing users have a strong European (German) connection, which is great if you’re a German business man/women. But what about everyone else? How many DBEs will we have to join?
• an eMarketplace - based on Web2.0 principles and content aggregation, e.g. the way Kayak works for the Travel industry
• a software platform - In which case, should the main players offer a white label service to local networking groups?

Since the majority of established online network providers do not as yet provide this range of services (although here LinkedIn is probably the market leader in this space); the first to do so could well become the platform of choice. At this stage the battle is far from won.

In truth, eBusiness has been with us for more than 40 years and is constantly evolving. New systems and applications are being developed by the day, with new networks replacing old every decade or so. If you want to test my theory, simply check how many eMarketplaces from the ‘dot com’ decade are still operational today, and this despite the $Ms that were invested in them at the time.

DBEs could well be the flavour of the next decade, if sufficiently funded and if sufficient businesses sign-up. If not, they will provide a few dozen consultancy companies with a nice income stream for the next five years or so; while delivering little in the way of social or structural change. Let’s hope I’m proved wrong on this last point.

On Tuesday 14th July Google and VisitBritain announced the winners of the online poll in which over 35,000 Brits voted for the first tourist attractions to be photographed by the Street View Trike. The 16 finalists, which included Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, had been previously narrowed from a starting field of over 10,000+ suggestions. The 6 winners, plus a special ‘wildcard’ location, will get a visit from the specially adapted Trike (an 18 stone mechanical masterpiece) over the summer, while the images it collects will appear in Street View on Google Maps later in the year.

The 6 winners are spread throughout the UK and demonstrate the public’s passion for their local landmarks; or maybe just their preference for landmarks that are easy to cycle around in a day.

THE WINNERS ARE: Stonehenge, the Angel of the North, Loch Ness, the Eden Project, Warwick Castle and Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland was chosen by VisitBritain as the ‘wildcard’ and was selected because “it represents a hidden gem, off the beaten track”. The same could have also been said of Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, or am I being to parochial?

Once photographed and the 360 deg images ‘processed’ these tourist attractions will be put right onto Google’s virtual map, “tempting people at home and abroad to explore Britain’s historic and culture landmarks in an exciting new way” and hopefully encouraging a few more to actually visit in person.

So there you have it, and it’s now official, Cardiff has one of the UK’s TOP 6 tourist attractions by public vote!

In the interest of further public participation, if you spot Google’s Street View Trike in or around the Millennium Stadium over the coming weeks please let us know - we’d love to add this photo to our website.

The National Eisteddfod of Wales is the nations largest festival and provides an opportunity for both residents and visitors alike to engage with and take part in this annual celebration of the Welsh language, heritage and culture. But it’s also much more than this. With attendances typically around 160,000 for two weeks in August the site becomes a vibrant and living Welsh community and includes all manor of things to see, do, try and buy.

This year the festival take place from 1-8 August and will be located on the Rhiwlas Estate near Bala, Gwynedd. If you’re in the area, or would like to experience Welsh culture first hand, this is a must visit event.

Both the on-site camping and nearby hotels will now be fully booked, but there’s still plenty of accommodation within easy driving. Contact the Eisteddfod Office on 0845 122 2003 for an up-to-date list of available accommodation.

While Welsh is the official language of the festival, translation equipment is widely available for those who (like me) require the simultaneous translation services provided during the main pavilion ceremonies; although there are always loads of people who are happy to tell you what’s happening if you care to ask.

For more details on the festival, or to buy tickets to the main events or for the world class evening concerts, please check out the official website http://www.eisteddfod.org.uk. And this year, for the first time, you can now follow the Eisteddfod on Twitter @eisteddfod (the official account) or @maes_b - the Youth event (although these postings are mostly in Welsh).

There’s always a warm welcome for everyone at the Eisteddfod and it’s great fun; so if you haven’t been why not come this year?

Background (lifted from the Eisteddfod website and slightly edited)

The Eisteddfod is one of the world’s greatest festivals, and one of the oldest manifestations of Welsh culture and heritage that attracts around 160,000 visitors annually. It also plays an important role in the life of a nation by promoting the Welsh language and the arts. The Eisteddfod is also a launch pad for Wales’ most talented performers - the famous Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel is a former Eisteddfod winner!

The Pavilion (one of the biggest tents you’ll ever see) is the focus of the Eisteddfod and is difficult to miss - it’s bright pink and it’s massive! The Pavilion is where the ceremonies, competitions and the concerts take place, and can be hot and crowded if the weather is fine and there’s something interesting happening on stage (which usually there is).

On the field there’s also a theatre, an art and crafts exhibition, a literary tent, a Welsh learners pavilion (Maes D), a science and technology exhibition and a pulsating youth tent (Maes B) as well as over 300 stands - so if you go, your time is going to be fully occupied finding things to buy and eat and interesting people to talk with.

The evenings are full of entertainment too - on the field and in the local area: pop, folk, rock and hip hop concerts, classical plays, comedy shows and lots of parties for people of all ages!

The Order of the Bards (Gorsedd) consists of bards of course, but also people who have made a distinguished contribution to the Welsh nation, language and culture. Members of the Order are dressed in white, blue or green robes according to their rank or order. The people in white are the most important! The Order is responsible for three main events held in the main Eisteddfod pavilion: the Crowning of the Bard, the Prose Medal and the Chairing of the Bard ceremonies.

The festival costs around £3.1 million to stage every year, with local communities responsible for raising a large proportion of the money through fund-raising activities. This has the benefit of bringing the local people together to enjoy a whole calendar of social activities and probably explains why the Eisteddfod still so popular today - 833 years after it started.