Five Minds For the Future proposes a new approach to understanding the human intellect is needed if society is to ‘thrive in the world during the eras to come’. Gardner labels each of the following mindsets as; ‘disciplined, synthesizing, creating, respectful and ethical’, a collection of mindsets in which combine human intelligence based on knowledge, data and skill absorption and consideration of human values. Applying these mindsets to the digitally enhanced social and economic landscapes of today, this chapter addresses the outdated nature of today’s educational systems. Gardner discusses the idea of injecting these ‘five minds’ into modern education systems to enable our future leaders to ‘thrive in a world different from one ever known or even imagined before’.

Despite Gardner’s extensive experience in cognitive and neuro sciences providing a quantified scientific and scholarly spin on what is posed as ‘critical’ in the continuation global development, the ‘five minds’ outlined in this chapter sound more like embellished re-labeling of ordinary self-development goals than revolutionary tools for the future. Whilst I agree that an education system focused too heavily on science and technology could present harmful outcomes, I can confidently say Gardner has been unsuccessfully in converting me to the ‘5 minds’ approach.

Due to the rapid improvements in digital technology we have experienced in the past decade and are continuing to experience today, technology has become engrained in our personal lives, consumerist behavior, health and education and employment opportunities. As a result of this, it is essential that educational programs be continually being redeveloped to incorporate the demands for digital literacy outside of the schoolyard. Undoubtedly the ‘5 five minds’ proposed in this chapter are applicable and would be highly advantageous throughout the development of digital literacy and within digital environments, yet I feel unconvinced these concepts have not been applicable all along.

Admirably hopefully yet wildly over ambitious, it comes as no surprise that we fall miles behind the idealist expectations of 20^th century economist, John Maynard Keynes. Unfortunately the idea of a 3 hour work day is something many of us can only dream of. Discussing today’s ‘accelerated society’, this chapter explores the ways in which ‘technology reconfigures time’.

For those living in privileged societies, constant access to the Internet has become an entrenched part of everyday life. As a result of this, technology is increasingly blurring the boundary between home and work. The ability to respond to emails, receive phone calls and access digital documentation at anytime, anywhere is generating a ‘porous’ relationship between weekends and weekdays, stimulating ‘on demand’ practices in modern work culture. However, this chapter also highlights that this culture is not one being experienced by everyone, as these same advances in technology bring with them new job cuts due to global outsourcing and complete automation. Therefore, whilst some people are now working more than ever in order to maintain a modest lifestyle in a hyper-consumerism society, others are struggling to find any work at all. Most applicable to this issue is of course are, us, young graduates. As a result of this, those entering university today are facing a highly competitive job market, leaving study decisions highly influenced by expected postgraduate employability rather than personal interest and preference.

Discussing a diverse range of issues surrounding 24/7 digital temporalities, this chapter fundamentally questions how efficient society should be made to become in balancing work and leisure.

Presenting two different ways to think about your career, ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ provides a refreshing adaptation to the traditional ‘How To Guide’ for eager final year students. Discarding the systematic and painfully rigid step-by-step advice on how to embark on a prosperous career path, this week’s reading highlights the ‘crucial’ benefits of adopting ‘the craftsman mindset’, a perspective founded on valuing what you can provide to your job, rather than what your job can provide to you.

With a clear intention to inspire young readers through a mix of motivational quotes, anecdotes and a first person format, this reading suggests that passion is not a natural occurrence in the workforce but rather, is something that emerges from the satisfaction experienced when being the ‘best’. Whilst I personally found little value in the writer’s choice to exemplify this concept through the achievements of a musician due to the innate skill that provides musicians with the founding abilities for success, the reading’s core focus on working towards continuous improvement and ‘becoming so good, they can’t ignore you’ is undeniably motivating.

However, despite the obvious aim to motivate readers I myself more engaged in to the ideas surrounding ‘clarity’ and ‘fulfillment’. Obtaining a secure sense of clarity towards job choice and career pathways is something that often feels frustratingly distant. Yet it had never occurred to me until now that perhaps this sense of clarity isn’t something that is instantly present or absent, but rather generated purely through the dedication to achieve clarity despite this.

Print news is rapidly becoming a fluttering memory, a trip to movies means a weeks worth of dinner out of a can and finding a book store is just about as hard as finding a local Milk-bar for a reel of Hubba-bubba! New technology is rapidly changing the way we do the things we love, be it reading, exercising, watching a TV series, and yes, even the way we’re ‘hooking up’. For anyone under the age of 30, this is nothing new. We’ve been hearing ‘the world is changing’ for most of our lives and as a result of this, have developed into a highly adaptable and agile population group. According to this week’s reading, ‘A World of Differences’,  Entertainment and Media (E&M) companies, complacency is no longer an option if continued business growth is of any significant value.

Identifying the shifting dynamics between business and consumer into five main dimensions of the global E&M industry, Lederer and Brownlow highlight the need for companies to capitalise on our increasingly integrated world whilst understanding the primacy of localised markets. Discussing the trends emerging from new digital platforms that provide consumer generated content and omni-channel programmes, the availability of an ‘on demand’ functionality is enabling companies to pivot towards a digitised business model and consequently, tap in the the fastest growing opportunity for growth and development.

The opportunities for traditionally structured businesses to stay ‘relevant’ now lie directly in the investment of consumer knowledge and data driven marketing as business competition becomes just as much about the product as it does the delivery. Whilst the internet is rapidly eliminating the barriers caused by geographical location, companies and brands are now being challenged to assess market groups and navigate the consumer’s local and international preferences.

Kick starting the semester with a presentation from Astrid Scott, experience producer at ABC R+D,  lectorial 1 was all about future media experiences and exploring the technical innovations that are marking the beginning of an entirely new digital landscape. Despite leaving most of the lecture theatre reeling from the idea that a state funded broadcast company like the ABC were even interested in artificial intelligence or IoT (Internet of Things), let alone enlisted a whole department dedicated to developing projects that make your collection of samsung VR gear look like a Motorolla Razor, Astrid’s presentation made one thing very clear. Relevance. Relevance is critical. Whilst the concept of exponential technology and ‘Moore’s Law’, may not be anything revolutionary it is certainly something that is becoming increasingly engrained in everyday life with the ‘new’ becoming the ‘old’ faster than ever before.

Breaking off into groups to brainstorm elements of the three categories of ‘media futures’, the significance of relevance continued as my group discussed the who, what and why of ‘new media makers’. From makeup tutorials to travel bloggers, ‘insta models’ to video game masterminds, people all around the world are now making a living off the content they’re distributing online. After getting sidetracked discussing our favourite people to stalk on twitter, guilty pleasure cat snaps on Snap Chat and the highly questionable thought processing behind the videos that scatter our Facebook newsfeeds on the daily, the conversation began to move away from relevance and into something much more complex. With access to the internet, we now have the ability to produce media in our own way, access information on almost anything and everything and interact with people that we may have never have the opportunity to meet. The internet provides a space for people to express themselves and engage in pathways to improve their life socially, mentally and financially, providing a sense of empowerment in a myriad of ways.

Commencing RMAV, I had little to no experience in radio presenting or production. Fully aware of my lack of practical knowledge and experience in this field, I elected the RWAV studio in hope of presenting myself with a challenge. Now writing my final assignment for this class, if anything I can at least know with absolute certainty that I get a HD for this!

Throughout the research, planning and production our RWAV shows and our feature, Aisha, Pat, Laura, Amalina and I were able to successfully complete our shows through continuous communication and a balanced delegation of roles and responsibilities. Using Facebook as our main platform for communication, the five of us were able to easily organize meetings whilst also keep each other up to date with our individual roles. This became an essential tool for the efficient functioning of our group due to indeterminate nature of live radio in which results from the innate dependence on other people for content. Updates of tasks required for the RWAV pre-production and progress of the feature were regularly posted on Facebook, preventing any members of the group from being uniformed or feeling left out of decision making opportunities. The use of the program Google Docs also enabled the group to collaborate in an efficient manner, as we were all able to access documents both from RMIT and home whilst also providing a platform where group members were able to contribute equally.

In my role as presenter for our first show, I had no reservations about my ability to talk but rather in how exactly those words came out. I was very conscious both in our run through’s and live on air that I have a tendency to talk too fast. However, in listening back to our first show, I felt as if I struggled to find the balance in my pace. Whilst I do understand this is something that is strongly attributed to experience, this is something I hope to work on throughout my future shows. Throughout my experience as a presenter, I was also exposed to situations in which I had to ‘think on my feet’ and act quickly. This occurred during the interview with Keren Dando when she recited the Lupus Foundation phone number live on air, almost as if she was reciting the number to us privately to write down. This wasn’t something that we had planned for and was also quite awkward on air. However, despite this we Pat and I had no choice but to mould it into the show as if we saw it coming a mile away. A similar situation occurred when we realized that 45 minutes into the show, we had almost wrapped up all the content we had planned. Due to a miscalculation of the running sheet, this left us with 15 minutes that needed to be filled. At this point in the semester, Pat and I did not know each other too well and were not confident in having a ‘chat’ for a few minutes or in coming up with an alternative segment. However, we tried to drag out our outro by adding in more information for listeners yet for most of this time we had little option but to fill it with songs.

Now wrapping up the twelfth week of the semester, two shows, one feature and probably close to 200 Facebook chats later, if we were presented with this situation again, I now feel confident we would be able to produce a more relaxed resolution. Furthermore, I have also came to realize that cross checking of the running sheet between presenters and the producer is a very good habit to get into.

Throughout my experiences in RWAV, I have also significantly developed my interview skills both in the delivery of my questions and in the type of questions asked. In conducting the live interviews on our first show, I was amazed at just how quickly time flies when you’re interviewing a subject. As a result of this I have learnt to eliminate ‘fluffy’ questions that lack depth or investigation into the topic at hand. From this I summaries two reasons, first and for-most, you simply do not have the time to be asking 101 different questions and secondly, with the sea radio and music options now available to listeners, be it through radio stations or digital streaming services, you cannot afford to be discussing content that will no substantially engage listeners. Furthermore, I realized that this is the whole point of introductions! Rather than jumping straight into the interview, next time I would like to provide listeners with a few sentences about what exactly the topic is and why it is necessary to be discussed on community radio in order to give listeners more context to the interview.

During both our RWAV show and our feature, each group member’s strengths were embraced to not only advantage the outcome of our final pieces but to also provide new skills to others in the group. Throughout the production of the feature, the presence of all five group members was not always necessary. During this time, the workload was balanced by arranging alternating days for tasks to get done whilst accommodating everyone’s busy schedules. The collaboration on the RWAV shows and the feature not only enabled an efficient working environment but also provided a useful opportunity to consolidate my own knowledge by teaching new skills in addition to learning new skills along the way.

Upon reflecting on my experiences in the RWAV studio I have been able to identify my mistakes but also consolidate my strengths. I can now acknowledge the growth I have experienced since I began in week 1 and feel confident that I have established fundamental industry relevant skills in research, interviewing and production.

This afternoon was the last symposium for the semester and the year! Shout out to Betty, Adrian, Elliot and Jason for all their efforts, ideas, support and patience with the subtly diminishing attendance…

This weeks symposium we discussed the protocols that cushions the way in which we engage with each other online. Giving a simple and concise explanation, Elliot defines protocol ‘as a rule or governing principle regarding how to connect with others online’. Touching on both technical and social protocol, the guidelines of which govern which websites can be accessed by who and how, and how people generally should and shouldn’t behave online. However, although there is a broad grouping between the technical and social protocols that exists online, it was summarised today that the two are both deeply interrelated and do not function independently. The discussion on social protocols then moved into the questioning of how we develop social protocols with new social software. What social protocol does this new website invites us to adhere by? After the lecture, Monique and I discussed this in relation to the new social website ‘Ello’. As a new member of this emerging social networking site, Monique along with many others,  is currently trying to work out what kind of etiquette is required. Is the crediting of all images necessary? Or is it something that one can just let slide like thousands do on tumblr? Is it a site with a more ‘professional’ or ‘formal’ touch or is ok to make posts that are a bit random and humorous?

Finally we discussed the technicalities of an email address, which was some very insightful new information for me as Adrian very helpfully likened an email address to a mobile phone number. Learning some new terms such as DNS: Domain Name System and IP: Internet Protocol of which relate to the respective ‘human readable labels’ for the identification numbering systems for all internet devices.

Informative and interesting, the content of this symposium provided a great end note for the semester!