Career Prediction Mistakes

Chris Norton 0:00

What mistakes have you made then in your career , spencer ? How long have you got ? Is there anything that you've learned a lot from ? So I told you assuming it makes the edit about the time I predicted that Apple would never launch the iPads and Spotify would never get off the ground . Yeah , quite right . So there's that On this podcast . I predicted that you'll never get your shopping delivered by drone . So that's something that we can keep On the technical side . So that's something that we can keep the on the technical side .

Chris Norton 0:27

There's um , there's all sorts . I mean you guys will know although mainly our hero over here off camera will know how never got so much praise every under . Yeah , I feel his pain , I've

The Shattered Tape Incident

Chris Norton 0:37

been there . Um , how organized you have to be with um , with making tv or radio or anything like that , and so simple things like we used to shoot on little tapes , mini TV tapes , how , once , once you've been away on a foreign shoot and it's cost you 10,000 pounds to you know , fly everyone there and film the stuff . That's the value of that tape . After that , it's 10,000 pounds . And although it wasn't a foreign shoot , I was walking up the staircase at tv center once , balancing on top of my books . I was on the sixth floor . I took a left turn and the thing sailed off my books and down through the stairwell and shattered on the floor six floors below .

Chris Norton 1:16

I've done other stupid things like and there are really stupid things like yeah , I know , and it happened in still happening in my mind what did you ? What did you have to ? Did you have to tell your boss , yeah , I just had to do that thing again , whatever it was , or not include it in the finished piece . So if I interviewed you and your interview didn't turn up on click about 15 years ago sorry , it was probably that , but you'll know as well , it still happens today . We shoot on little cards these days rather than tapes .

Press Trips Gone Wrong

Chris Norton 1:45

You know , know , you filled up a tape or a card . You take it out , you pop it down on the desk I'll deal with that in a minute . I'll label it up in a second . You get distracted , forget about it and then , sooner or later , that tape has just been absorbed into all the other tapes and again you can't find it .

Chris Norton 1:56

Stupid things , stupid things like that I've seen . I've seen marketing mistakes being made as well . Go on . By the way , none of these are from Prohibition . So there's a company I was working with called Prohibition something .

Chris Norton 2:17

So one thing I learned sometimes companies will put on press trips yeah , so they'll fly out a load of journalists somewhere , they'll pay for it . The deal is that you cover them , and only them while you're there . Okay , now we're the BBC , so we wouldn't do that . But we would sometimes take part in a press trip . We pay our own way there . So , weirdly , all these journalists are flying first class to wherever and getting free food , and we're there in economy on BBC Tech . It's going on the same trip , but that means we can keep our impartiality . But that's how we get access to things . And what I learned is , if the PR that promises you particular access isn't on the plane with you , boom , be afraid .

Chris Norton 3:05

Um , because on two different occasions I won't name the company , but one was many thousands of miles to the west and one was many thousands of miles to the east we were promised amazing access and we got there and the prs

The Nonexistent Motion-Sensitive TV

Chris Norton 3:22

on the ground didn't know anything about it and their phones are mysteriously turned off when you ring them . It was you know . Oh , we're really sorry . We went , for we , we were told we were going to go to one company on the west coast of america where we get access to their r&d labs . They've got whiteboards on the walls . They write all their stuff up there . It's going to be great visuals . You're going to meet yeah , you can go anywhere on our fab campus that you want and we get there . And it's basically a powerpoint presentation in a room for a new thing .

Chris Norton 3:48

Um , and we're starting to think , okay , when's the ? When's the r&d lab ? When's the ? And we try and take the , the head of . I think he's about number three in the company . We wanted to take him out onto the campus to an interview . We got moved on by the security guard because we no one had got any permission for it . He's the number three in this multi-billion mental yeah , um , we turned up at the r&d lab , um , and the boss of the r&d lab didn't know we were coming and so we can't come in here . There's loads of secret stuff written all over the walls on the promise that in the end they wiped the white bonds down so we went in there . It's just yeah , yeah . So that's one company .

Chris Norton 4:23

And then the company on the other side of the world we were promising this will date it . They had a whole three-day schedule for us . You're going to interview this exec on this day , this exec on that day . And we said , no , we're not , we'll do it in one day and then we'll go on and do other things in the country that we're in and do other stories . That was agreed and we turned up and they have the three day itinerary is still in effects and we pushed back and said no , and we've been promised that we were going to see their motion sensitive TV . So again , this will date it when you think about what you can do now . It's a TV which you can gesture at and control . It , which at the time was a , was a big deal and it was locked away in the r&d labs .

Chris Norton 5:10

We eventually persuaded them to let us go to the r&d labs to film it . And there's me and marches , like my um colleague who's filming me . We go there , we sit down behind those glass doors . There is a motion sensitive tv . Yeah , we're just getting it ready . The research is just getting it ready . In the meantime , would you like to film our new bamboo pc that we've got here ? Um , all right , we'll film that . But the the motion sensitive tv , yeah , uh , yeah . Yeah , we're just getting it ready . We sat there for ages and ages and ages . Uh , any any news on the motion sensitive tv ? Oh , no , it's still . It's not quite ready yet . Um , tell you it didn't exist . But it's a lovely bamboo .

Chris Norton 5:46

They had the audacity to invite you to a different country . Get an inside . This is a UK-based PR who wasn't on the trip with us . Okay , so I don't know whether it works that they get commissioned to get us on the plane . I don't know . That was my word of the day at the start . That is shocking , right , okay , anything to get us on the plane , maybe .

Chris Norton 6:09

And world , there is a yes culture which I understand and respect . It's like , yes , what , what they ? When they say yes , what they mean is we will do our best for you . Yeah , I've heard what you say and we're going to do our very best . And we're saying motion sensitive pc . We've been promised oh , yeah , yeah , yes , yes , yes , um , and I would imagine there was that they came out . It doesn't exist . I've just got visions of them in the back . They're going . Have we got a motion sense ? No , we haven't . We've got an entire bbc film crew in there saying that

The Bamboo Laptop Diversion

Chris Norton 6:29

now we haven't got one . Just show them the bamboo . Show them the bamboo laptop . Soldering some things together . I want to make one right I want a bamboo laptop now . Wow , there's some good mistakes . Yeah , wide ranging , brilliant .