42 years ago I started my career as a jackaroo. Now apparently I’m an ‘Influencer’.
I was forced to review my long and winding journey when I was refused a Press/Media Pass for BETT 2025. I had also been refused back in 2006 (I published the first edition of The Assignment Report in May 2005). That year I sat outside the press room at Olympia, where the keynote was soon to start. Five minutes before, a PR person came out to invite me and several other press pass rejects inside – no-one from the mainstream media (BBC, The Times, etc) had turned up. We’d been rounded up to make it look as if the organisers and PR company had done their job.
I can’t recall who the keynote was but my takeaway stories were about the soft launch of BBC Jam and the BETT Award winners, several of whom are still in the edtech game:
- TTS – for Bee-Bots the programmable robot that has just celebrated its 20th birthday
- Pearson
- 2Simple
- Longman
- Maths-Whizz (now Whizz Education)
- Education City (largest UK edtech startup sale pre 2011 at US$87m to Archipelago Learning)
- Truancy Call (now IRIOS Absence Call).
BETT remained at Olympia for another six years and I had a press/media pass from 2007. I loved Olympia and loathe Excel where it moved in 2013. What a great story if Hyve decide to return BETT to Olympia when it reopens in 2026 after its £600m redevelopment.
Fast forward to 2025. The reason for my rejection was that I didn’t have the right credentials, which are:
‘For 2025, Media and Press passes are reserved for representatives of accredited media organisations. Applications are reviewed based on the provided credentials, which include proof of press accreditation, such as a UK Press Pass, NUJ membership, or NMA card.’
In education and edtech there are only a few outlets who send a representative (SchoolsWeek, TES, etc) with the bulk of coverage in the mainstream media (print and online, satellite TV and similar) being a rehash of the press release of the Ministerial Keynote speech. Most content is now via social media particularly X, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. These appear to fall outside BETT’s new media specification. When queried, I was told I might get accreditation if I showed BETT the usage stats for my blog, Linkedin and X. Fair enough, but as the saying goes, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”.
I’m sure this won’t happen and the paucity of coverage and PR from 2024 is why Duncan Verry fired BETT’s last PR company. As I said last year, I think Verry is already providing the sort of thinking BETT needs to stay relevant. However, I disagree with reverting press accreditation to a 1970s’ model and not replacing bad external PR with something better internally (there are a lot of talented and affordable UK media studies graduates out there who would love the opportunity).
I can probably get all the stories and information I need without even registering by cruising the entrance hall for a few hours (drinking a gallon of overpriced coffee) to meet contacts and friends. Looking back at my time at BETT I found (via the Internet Wayback Machine) the sort of innovation that made BETT so great in the first place. It was Virtual BETT, started in 2002, an idea run by a company called VIRTEX; ‘a 3D virtual exhibition, the virtual show is designed to greatly extend the accessibility of the BETT event and will be open for a full 12 months’.
Yes it didn’t last, but arguably there is even more room for the enormous amount of content BETT generates to have a serious 21C version of Virtual BETT. Tech lives and dies by innovation and edtech and the industry that exists around it is no different. Should we be pleased or worried that something that won a BETT award for innovation 20 years ago is still selling strongly in schools? Does it show the enduring pedagogical strength of Bee-Bot or that edtech hasn’t come very far (with the recent exception of AI) in 20+ years?
My 20 year cycle of rejection by BETT feels like deja vu but please don’t call me an ‘influencer’! Anyone who does may not get an invitation to my Australian wine tasting during BETT, not in Excel but at a more convenient and convivial central London location.
