The medium is the message

​The first lockdown Zoom interview I did was on March 20 2020 with Stephen Engblom, the head of Global Cities at AECOM. He talked to me from his house in Twin Peaks overlooking San Francisco about the COVID situation on the west coast and what impact the pandemic might have on the future of urbanisation. That conversation has now been viewed over 16,500 times.

Until COVID came along the majority of the work that NLA did was through physical interaction, lectures, seminars round tables. All in person. Only our global city dialogues were virtual, organised at great expense with cameramen, technicians and a studio audience. These physical events would invariably fill our lecture hall, so would be seen by a satisfyingly substantial maximum of 220.
 
Since lockdown the NLA film on the history of the City of London has doubled its viewership to 200,000; videos of Don’t Move Improve! Winners have been seen by tens of thousands of people. Our programmes now boast the sort of numbers that were the preserve of social media.
 
The discussion of where and when we are going to work in the future, how much time will we spend on WFH and how we will use our newfound skills in virtual communications are subjects that are taxing organisations around the world.
 
There are many instances where zoom will remain a part of my work practice – reducing overseas travel to meetings, inviting overseas speakers to events and calling group meetings. While physical interaction is generally preferable, convenience, cost and carbon favour the virtual.
 
So I’ll continue to do Zoom interviews with interesting people but will also video physical meetings and visits to buildings. Learning from vloggers on YouTube and social media I realised how technology has enabled the relative amateur to deliver decent quality video. The amazing technical spec of the iPhone 11pro provides stabilised filming, huge memory, Bluetooth-enabled microphones and a handful of lighting rigs and gizmos from Amazon provide a level of technical support that a decade ago would have been the province of the specialised professional. Editing software is similarly accessible.
 
So new technology allows me to share things that I do as a part of my job in different ways. As a writer, I would transcribe interviews with architects, developers and clients. Now I can video them. I would have the pleasure of being shown around a new building by the architect. Now, with my iPhone, microphones and LED lighting, I can film them as I follow them around and share them with NLA’s now international audience.
 
Once printing was the province protective unionisation, then along came offset litho and opened the world of magazines to a new generation of publishers. The internet did the same a couple of decades later and magazines that on paper were seen by tens of thousands of readers were soon being viewed by hundreds of thousands.
 
While the technology for video conferencing has been around for some time, it took COVID to get everyone onto Zoom or Teams.
 
Physical interaction and presence will remain an essential part of our relationship with workmates, clients and connections. I have been encouraged by the number of people now visiting the NLA model during its residency at Coal Drops Yard at Kings Cross. During the COVID recovery period, we decided to be more agile, to move to different parts of the city and help activate places and spaces. At Coal Drops Yard we are more accessible to a wider audience than we have ever been. Ten times the number of the general public visit us than did before to find out more about how London is changing and developing.
 
COVID has been horrible, but it has accelerated change and created new opportunities for expression. It has changed the mediums we use as well as the messages they carry.