There has recently been much discussion at the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) about its role at the heart of our industry. BIMA’s been going for longer than any other interactive trade body, and although it had a bad start out in the provinces (and still has a fairly dire website), it now has a leadership that genuinely wants to help support – and challenge – Britain’s new media sector. One of the key planks of this is its desire to get involved in education, in counterpoint to its involvement with advising both inward-looking regulators and outward advocates of British excellence. Education is critical to the future of the credibility of this more ‘official’ role.

However, I’m not entirely sure the direction of this ambition to define what gets taught and how is the whole story, and I think it might be worth putting up for discussion, even outright rejection, a slightly different way of looking at this issue. After all, this is about encouraging people to want to join in and excel to become a new generation of innovators.

As an outside observer (and a long-time critic) of BIMA I must say I do think its ambitions to represent our industry (in terms of helping guide education of those who will become our industry’s future) are laudable. However, this must in my view be done in such a way that it inspires. This means not just setting standards, or circumscribing the arts that go into interactive. Nor, importantly, should it be about describing the needs, somehow, of the future industry by endless discussion in committees of worthies – some of whom will be trying to look at the outside view of the game from the middle ranks of companies that have a vested interest in guiding the directions the business takes, and can afford to donate their time in order to do so. Providing an educational hub for the British industry must not, must not become just another expression of the needs of the vested interests.

Instead, I believe we must simply provide inspiration. D&AD always did this extraordinarily successfully, providing inspiration through access to established talent, providing an open door rather than a long corridor. This inspiration-not-proscription approach should open company doors to students from the earliest possible vocational stages of the curriculum, so they can see what’s possible today and dream of what’s possible tomorrow. BIMA should organise, perhaps even use its subscription fees to pay for, exposure to the very best interactive work that’s being done now, nationally. Workshops, educational days and open access to production studios, museums and galleries, media companies and so on would actually showcase our industry and demonstrate our commitment to its future. Even at the most basic level, providing a variety of sub-sector student awards (at all grades of education) gets kids and undergraduates thinking aspirationally. It might even drive a raised game at the grown-up BIMA awards, still languishing in unfocused and under-committed limbo.

It is imperative that when BIMA does finally achieve its ambitions to become the facilitator of our next generation, it does so simply by providing access to the best of today, to give students something to build on, not be constrained by. And I think that if this were genuinely the policy, and if BIMA were really to champion such an approach, the doors would open. Many of us have been inviting students from our old schools and colleges to see what we do for years, because it gives something back and the very best students keep in touch. I cannot think of a single agency or interactive media organisation that would not welcome the chance to show off the best of its work and the best efforts of its people and provide inspiration for the next generation.

Felix Velarde, on the BIMA Blog