I’m not religious but the point touched on in this week’s symposium was nothing short of epiphanic for me. I’m dead set on one of two scenarios when I graduate in 2015, both however involve producing online media. These are to either start my own business, or to work in a small tightly knit team of like-minded people to work toward the same goal (I have trouble working to full potential with most people, only a few seem to follow the same eccentric trains of thought I engage with). My dilemma was, “Precisely what do I want to make, and what will make it unique?

It’s a question I’ve been turning over for months as I’ve been going through the machinations of University learning new techniques, histories, contexts etc. to try an uncover what I want to do with my skills and how I might make it successful. Plenty of times I’ve heard the saying “Content is king” but in this week’s symposium it was immediately debunked and Adrian explained that it is not the content of a media business that makes it successful in this day in age (ie. Google, Apple etc.) but it is the experiences that they off; the platforms, services, and communication. With social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn etc.) dominating our interpersonal lives, this was not entirely evident to me, having grown up with it. These networks seemed a natural occurrence, as if they evolved into our lives rather than having been invented (a topic we’re currently looking at it Comm. History and Technology, massively fascinating to me).

They capitalised on humanity’s innate desire to socialise and they bloomed because of it, providing the communication we now, honestly, take for granted. The ability – as Adrian also touched on – to communicate with our idols through only several mouse clicks has deeply profound implications for the way we communicate now. Again, as Adrian said, years ago to be able to do this would have been hearsay and nothing more.

This ties in with speculative thinking too, being able to imagine how the near future might operate and being able to pinpoint that to create a new experience. With this in mind a whole heap of dilemmas have been resolved, and I know now I can better approach building my ideas as entities existing in a future world.

What will make my ideas – or rather, ideas of mine and those I work with – unique? The way in which they are delivered to the end user, and most likely, how they themselves can propel their own ideas within.

It seems – to answer a question we were asked a couple of weeks back – that this is why I wanted to study at University. It is an institution of express, double loop learning encouraged by experienced minds. For this my thanks to the tutors for helping me thus far, this sharing of ideas is why I love learning! It’s like crack to me (I can’t get enough) and moments where threads of ideas come together so neatly (so very rare as they are) is the pure stuff. I think now I can look at the world in a very fresh way.