Everyone just sit tight, I’m getting there. I’ve got this phone-deal sorted, and I’m revelling in the idea that me just messing around with my iPhone on the bus counts as work. I love you, networked media.

On such a note, let’s do something tangible for this course.

Something a bit unkempt, even dishevelled. Smart, a lot – too many – of ideas. A sea indeed of ideas. An ocean of ideas. And there’s networked media. A boat. Certainly not a big one. Doesn’t really have a sail but there is some sort of mast to pin something on, against, to. Or a motor. Not adrift. It bobs, floats, weaves. Seeks and follows eddies of the breeze, currents, a wave. Sometimes it gets blown and washed around, other times darting along with deliberate intent revelling in its boat knowledge of breeze, current, wave. There is no shore. Not at least to be seen. Anywhere. All ocean, and because it is all water one place is as well as close enough, or further away, than any other. Each wave is different. Different enough to have a difference, a difference that matters. This gives this ocean contour, currents, eddies and tides. You dip an oar, seeking something over there, enjoying the whirl and whorl of water around the oar.

Behold an attempt at poetry by lecturer/course coordinator Adrian Miles. That isn’t patronizing. Maybe I’ll post MY attempt at poetry, and you’ll see I have no right to patronize people on their poetic ability. You can meet Dan the Duck! Or not.

Anyway, how does this lovely bit of lyricism correspond to Networked Media, other than referencing the subject by name? Lots of stuff, surely. It establishes our subject as something that has a symbiotic – if temperamental – relationship with the ‘ocean’ of ideas. Networked Media is an entity of itself, but it exists on a basis of other concepts, and is both affected by them and influential on its own terms, though only slightly in the grand scheme of things.

If I were to further deconstruct the metaphor, a boat provides a sense of constant movement. Evolution. Growth. To borrow our former Prime Minister’s phrase of choice, ‘moving forward’. Though really we could be moving in any direction; forward, preferably, but also backward, sidewards, or if we have a really bad semester, down. But we’re always moving, and that’s what counts. Well, until we hit the ocean floor and become another wreck, but then we wouldn’t be a boat anymore so the metaphor still holds.

What is a ‘wave’ in the ocean of ideas? I don’t really know, it could be anything. A specific idea, or maybe it is someone who comes up with these ideas, I.e. us. ‘Different enough to have a difference, a difference that matters.’ Yeah it sounds like us. I don’t want to be a wave, at least it isn’t my great aspiration – I’d much rather be a volcano – but Networked Media seems dependent on the waves it rides. I mean, it doesn’t have a sail. Not yet, anyway. It’s the waves that rock it and drive it and make it a boat.

One issue I have is that this metaphor really describes any subject. Why can’t Control Systems in the engineering course construct some grand boat symbol to represent them as well? Truth be told there’s nothing stopping them. They too, can be a boat exploring the endless idea-sea of wave-students. They just might be engineered better. Get it? Sorry. Regardless, the concept is clean, the reading is beautiful. Is it relevant? I guess, if you make it so.