The final symposium for the year, and potentially the final symposium for Network Media (emphasis on potentially because I still don’t really understand what’s happening with Media and Communications next year and whether or not subjects will still run).

Adrian spoke a lot about protocols. The difference between technological protocols and social protocols, how they overlap and Tim Berners-Lee’s protocol for the World Wide Web.

Online etiquette was also discussed, yet unfortunately as much as I tried to stay focused my mind started to drift to thinking about other things and what I was having for lunch so I didn’t get much from that discussion.

DATABASE 

That was the main focal point of this weeks symposium. At least that’s what I think it was. I tried so hard to stay attentive the whole way through but after about twenty minutes I realised that my mind had wandered somewhere completely off topic and I hadn’t been listening to much of the past discussion.

However, when Adrian began speaking about Design Thinking, I switched on again. He said that he believed we, as media students, should start looking at ourselves as designers. The  importance of designers is readily growing, demonstrating the effect they have on our surroundings. Designers make, learn and engage with things that exist in the world. Designers are prepped to make things that will have an impact on the future. Designers have the ability to look forward.

In today’s symposium Adrian used the website ‘The Oracle of Bacon’ to demonstrate that we live in a very small world, especially the online world.

After the lecture I tried putting in names of older/less popular actors and actresses, not expecting to have many results yet each one was no more than four, just as Giorgia had stated in her post about the symposium!