Following the first week’s topics EMPOWERMENT, EXPERIENCE and ENTERPRISE, this reading dives deeper into the idea of strategy and business. It is all about the media industry multi-shifting, where powerful trends (technological and social) are changing the entertainment and media industries. The main shifts within the industry are demography, competition, consumption, geography and business models. These all influence and play off each other. The main ones that stood out the most was demography and consumption. Last semester I was involved in created an augmented reality app, investigating how information will be stored and used in the future for educational benefits. It was about giving people the opportunity to learn through modern technology. It is the younger consumers that are rapidly adapting their abilities to multitask different media’s. Do they multitask well? How are they multi-tasking? They will be the future of trends, and they will determine where the future will head in terms of media and entertainment. They are influencing how we create media, how we use media and where is media is heading. Does that mean we will all be walking around with augmented reality glasses, giving us information as we walk down the street? What if you were at school and learning about the solar system and could put on glasses and be right next to the moon or orbiting around earth? We are so digitally driven, suggesting behaviours for the consumption of media. Keeping up with these trends for creators, means that you have to have the “ability to design and curate your own media diet, which is the most powerful trend emerging out of the industry“. The content that that creators decide to use will determine how their idea differentiates to the rest, and how it could have the potential to expand globally. This reading tends to lean more towards the theme enterprise, as it thinks of the entertainment and media industry as an enterprise as a whole and where it will end up and how; what makes it change; how it will grow; and what will be the future of this industry.

This reading really taps into the idea of what my group wants to do for our final assessment, that is: Developing the future of augmented reality through education and social interactivity. We really need to find out the trends, the growth and the market within this section of the industry. This is what will drive our idea – the younger generation and the trends that are expected to thrive globally in the future. Pairing the trends with the different content that would be created this would help with the sections: demography, competition and consumption.

The big question that we all ask ourselves is where is the future heading, what is in store for us and our jobs, livelihood and family. What will be be doing and how will technology and media change us. You can already see the power media and technology has on the world, and this reading picks apart the fourth industrial revolution into the megatrends that are physical, digital and biological. As this reading goes through the changes that have already occurred, it fast forwards into the future and predicts how everything might turn out. What will be happening to the physical technologies, the way we use technology through a medical standpoint, and how digital platforms have shaped the modern society?

The main points that were taken out of this reading are:

1. Innovation – which is described as a complex and social process, that should never be taken for granted. Without innovation where would we all be? Would we be walking around with mini robots in our hands, would we be able to do everything online? In today’s society we are so technologically influenced, that innovation is they key to the future. It is what will ensure new and exciting ventures to arise – and we progress into the future minimising risks.
2. Purpose – As I come to the end of the course, its a constant worry as to where I will go now. I have grown up in a world where technology has grown alongside me. I have adapted, I have learnt, and I am now the future of innovation. A quote that stuck out to me was, “technology enables greater efficiency, which most people want. Yet they also wish to feel that they are not merely part of a process but of something bigger than themselves”.

You experience what is it like to be apart of the fourth industrial revolution, when you rely so heavily on technology to get by, and by the way you have future ideas that are shared on a media platform, best suited to the favourited media platform of the time. You look at Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, and people see it as a way to communicate, however it is something much bigger than that, they are enterprises that have taken over modern society. As I am heading towards this in the future, I read the paragraph talking about the digital megatrends, and really thought about the idea that Facebook doesn’t create any content, AirBnb doesn’t own any property and Uber doesn’t own any cars. This reading has opened my mind to the endless opportunities that partner the media industry, we are surrounded by it in every direction we look. “We are at the threshold of a radical systematic change that requires human beings to adapt continuously”.