Quernstone.com may be long overdue an overhaul, but for the most part it does the job. Unlike the site of the number-two broadcaster in the UK, ITV. My friend Wendy and her posse were on Fortune: Million Pound Giveaway the other week, which I sadly missed by dint of being busy. And TV-less. And… in a foreign country.
They pitched for funding to take their (very likely excellent, knowing them) science shows into schools that normally can’t afford their (woefully under-priced. No, really, I’m serious) services. They didn’t get it, I gather because Duncan Bannatyne failed to appreciate that the usual business rule-of-thumb doesn’t work: ‘Who benefits? That’s your funding source’ is perfectly reasonable, unless the immediate beneficiary is a bored 12 year-old with a pocket containing 86p, a half-sucked Cola Bottle, three elastic bands, and an iPod nano. The eventual beneficiary is… theoretically… ‘society,’ which unfortunately is also rather hard to tap for a shilling. Unless you’re a wide-reaching organisation with, you know, tax-raising powers. Like a government. Or the BBC. Hence the potential significance of a Public Sector Publisher (see previous post), but I digress.
The point is: can I find out what happened to Wendy & co from the series’ execrable ITV website? Can I monkeys. The only real content there appears to be video that’s embedded as something whacko, and is throwing a 404 anyway. Pfah!
But hey – feel free to lob money at Wendy’s company Science Made Simple anyway. They’re good people.