Yes. After this week’s ‘unlecture’, it finally feels like this subject is properly starting.

Entitled the ‘Beta Symposium 0.1’, it was our first introduction to the ‘Q and A’ style lectures that the rest of the semester would see, and for the most part, I think it worked really well.

It was a refreshing change to be interactive and engaging with many different subjects, as well as allowing us to shape the content. It was my tute this week that developed the eventual questions, and I think, although I’m slightly bias, that they were interesting and diverse.

We were finally allowed to use laptops, and this helped me to take in many of the key points and take-away ideas, and fortunately, there were many of these.

For me, the most enlightening questions was the first one, ‘What is the practicality of design fiction for people who are not designers?.

I think the answers really solidified for me why it’s important for us to be learning about design fiction, and how it can be used in whatever our chosen profession may be. As Adrian stated, “designers have a good toolkit for dealing with complex and wicked problems”. Looking to the future and asking ‘what if’, can help to solve problems in a productive and innovative manner in the present.

Design fiction provides a simple and flexible way to deal with problems that we will all encounter in the media industry, especially in how to adapt in a media world that is changing so dramatically and so constantly.

I also found the answers to the last question especially interesting: “What do you think the future of networked media will involve, and how will it benefit us?”.

I liked the statement that we can now “make things and build a reputation in our chosen areas free and easily”. We don’t have to find an avenue to publish our content, we can publish it ourselves almost instantly, just like I’m doing now. What we publish can also be viewed by anyone and everyone, and can help to build a reputation within our chosen profession. It’s about knowledge and how to use that knowledge, rather than just rope-learning straight-up information.

Overall, I really enjoyed this format for a lecture, and I think there was a lot of interesting and engaging content that relates directly to the course. It’s good to be finally into it.