Historical models of media creation, delivery and experience are breaking down and being remade in a dizzying variety of combinations, as the convergence of broadcast, online and physical media meets the referral, distribution and value models of a completely online, socially networked world. Richard helps Two Worlds' clients to plot a path through this maze of possibilities, identifying and defining the business models, technology architectures and service environments that create viable, flexible and scaleable businesses.

Richard has a history of combining his business, creative and technical experience to create successful, innovative and award-winning products and online services for corporate environments, in consumer entertainment and in public social networks. He works with other entrepreneurs, think tanks and strategic consultancies in the area of disruptive thinking and organisational transformation, bringing to bear his particular focus on combining innovative thought models with ubiquitous technologies.

Richard helped instigate and develop the first major online presence for Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day in 1999 (which took £500,000 in online donations) and was one of the organisers of the second of the seminal Digital Biota conferences on emergence, artificial life and social organisation. He developed the Ubiquity model of identity, trust, value and interaction in connected communities – Two Worlds is now turning that model into a tool for the rapid development of integrated online content and collaboration services. In Rwanda, DR Congo and Uganda, Richard has created technology and media services and training for the conservation of the endangered Mountain Gorilla population. For the EU, Richard has consulted on Research programmes in Emotional Computing, Ubiquitous Systems and Information Ecologies. He has also developed an intelligent news aggregator, whose first beta application is in the news element of the BlueGlo.be Climate Change awareness site.

Most recently, RIchard has been working with Russia's leading film and television distributor to design a integrated media distribution service that addresses the very specific needs and demands of the Russian market and to build the technology and service relationships needed to deliver the initial service.

Since late 2007, he has worked with BIOSS, the global management consultancy, designing the overall knowledge architecture, business intelligence and service extension models that will help position and support BIOSS as it extends and enhances its unique intellectual capital in organisational and personal flow.

In March 2008, he submitted his ideas on the future of media delivery and interaction to the BBC's 2008 Innovation Labs competition. This emerged as winner of the Labs and has evolved into SlipStream, an architecture for Social Media. SlipStream facilitates the integration, delivery and sharing of broadcast and online programming with social network services. SlipStream was presented at IBC 2008, with the BBC now funding prototype development.

After studying at the University of Strathclyde, Jon worked with Glasgow-based consultancy Neil Baxter Associates from the early 1990s as a graphic, multimedia and web designer. His work included designs for many major clients, including Glasgow City Council, Greater Glasgow Health Board, Glasgow Building Preservation Trust, The Lighthouse, Scottish Enterprise and Sunderland Arc. The range of projects included major exhibitions, interactive touchscreen kiosks, promotional material and trail guides for festivals and events, books, websites and feasibility studies.

Most recently, Jon has taken the ideas of Ubiquity and turned them into a social media development system, also called Ubiquity, which now forms the basis of Two Worlds' development services. He is responsible for the interfaces and core development of the architecture for SlipStream.

Jon lives at the heart of Europe in Berlin, where the beer is good, plentiful and cheap!

We now have some major, and majorly innovative, developments under way, in both business and technology. Watch this space – there's more to come.

And that's now triggered another change: since 1999, Two Worlds has been my personal vehicle, and both the company and this web site have reflected that. The latter has been a news site, intermittent blog, occasional soapbox and generally reflective of my personal interests and opinions. Two Worlds is now expanding, enhancing our strategic consultancy and product and service design with the capability to prototype and develop the ideas that emerge from these exercises. More soon.

Jonathan rejoined the BBC in 1996, working firstly on DAB and then Digital Television for the Research and Development department at Kingswood Warren. It was here that he developed the world's first interactive TV broadcasts in MHEG. In 1999 he joined the newly-created BBC Interactive TV department at Bush House, where he worked with the technical team to deliver a whole raft of services, including the ground-breaking Wimbledon Interactive service and Digital Text (the first version of the BBC's 24/7 services) on the Sky platform. This work cemented his reputation as one of the key technical strategists in the interactive TV field. Jonathan went on to become BBC Interactive TV's technical liaison for all third party software providers, testing and appraising their products, and giving him an unrivaled knowledge of the interactive TV tools market.

Jonathan now works in Scotland, where he works as a composer and Technical Development Producer, concentrating on technical developments that enable companies to deliver world class interactive services. Jonathan was a winner of the BBC Innovation Labs 2008 and has now joined forces with Two Worlds to develop the next generation of interactive TV platform.

Dear Mr Gunter,
I'm having a little trouble with this: you're part of a business where customer demand for your services is rising on the back of demand driven, in part, by a national broadcaster who is finally taking an enlightened and increasingly energetic view of their own relationship with their market. You're in the enviable position of being able to satisfy that demand and all you need to remember is that, if people want more, they'll pay more: surely an entrepreneur's dream?

All winners of the first round process of the 2008 BBC Innovation Labs, we're pitching a range of projects that cover pretty much everything from speech-synthesized news (of the undeserving, delivered by the unconscious to the uncaring) through collaborative drama and onwards to a concept design for a black hole-powered, Wi-Max enabled, social-networking soup tureen. It's just possible that one of those may not actually be on the list, but similar ideas abound.

I actually submitted two ideas to the Labs: the first was carefully considered, structured, drafted, honed, reviewed, re-written, polished and buffed – it of course vanished without trace. The second was the product of a bottle of wine, frustration with my Sky+ Box and the consequent resurrection of an idea I'd had for interactive TV about a decade ago, all written and dumped on the Labs web site in the last forty minutes before the deadline. That idea, for a semantic video system now called Slipstream, is what won the day.

To complement my arm-waving, I devised a simple model to help demonstrate and explain the accelerating curve of hype, bubble, bust and disillusion that typically accompanies the development of new technologies and services. With tongue only slightly in cheek, I called this the Hype Cycle, and it's proved a useful way of helping people understand the interplay between capability and perception in investment, marketing and strategic decision-making.

Date: Thursday 15 March 2007, 7:30pm
Venue: The Royal Geographic Society, 1 Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR
Price: £12.00 - You'll find more information and ticket information here.

Richard Leakey is a paleontologist, archaeologist, conservationist an author of several books including the acclaimed wildlife management book Wildlife Wars: My Battle to Save Kenya's Elephants. In this talk Dr Leakey will draw on his own experiences in Kenya as founder and Director of the Kenya Wildlife Service and as the Head of Kenya's Civil Service to reflect on the successes, current problems and future challenges facing wildlife management in East Africa.

Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a Founder Patron of Save the Rhino International, actively involved in conservation and interested in exploration, science, comedy and music. Douglas developed his deep-seated interest in wildlife conservation during a 1985 visit to Madagascar, which eventually resulted in a book (Last Chance to See) about the plight of species facing extinction. Douglas Adams died unexpectedly in 2001 at the age of 49. These Memorial Lectures continue to explore the themes in which Douglas was so interested.

The proceeds of the evening will be split between Save the Rhino International and the Environmental Investigation Agency, two charities supported by Douglas Adams.