Essay 2 - instruction

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Back when the course started, in the beginning of September, I wrote:

"You have to write an individual essay twice during the course; one in the beginning and one more right when the course ends. Writing these essays are compulsory."

The time to write the concluding second essay has now come. This essay replaces other forms of course evaluations. Do note that it is compulsory to write this essay and you will not get your course credits registered if you haven't written both essays (for those who for some reasons did not write the first essay, see further instructions below).

/Daniel

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Please download and use the template that is available in Bilda ("Documents/FoM essay 2") when you write your text. Use your family name when you name your file ("Pargman essay 2") and upload it to the "drop box" that has been created exclusively for this purpose in Bilda ("Contents/Essay 2"). Do note that you can only upload the file formats .doc, .docx (MS Word) or .pdf to the drop box.

The deadline for handing in the essay is Sunday December 22 (16.00), i.e. ten days after the final presentation. Do note that English or Swedish is ok. If you miss the deadline, there is a new deadline on Saturday Jan 18 at 12.00 (officially last day of the autumn semester). The task below is neither very comprehensive nor time-consuming, but please do set some time off to sit down and reflect upon the course when you write the essay!

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The essay consists of three parts:

1A. "Instead of a course evaluation".

- What were in your opinion the two (or three) best things about the course?

- What were in your opinion the two (or three) worst things about the course?

- What are your (perhaps two or three) suggestions for how to change/improve the course?

- What is the most important advice you can give to the students who will take the course next year?

You are of course allowed to posit more than three suggestions (etc.), but plese don't answer each question with just a few words or a sentence each. State your opinions and then exemplify, explain and back them up. We will not specify a set length, but do not just enumerate stuff without also including (at least a brief) explanation of each.

1B. "The project"

Taking into account that this is a project course, we are interested in creating structures for the project phase (Oct-Dec) that help project groups work with limited resources (primarily time) and still deliver high-quality results. Here are some questions to help you think about these issues (use the list below for inspiration, not as a checklist):
- How would you evaluate your project group's work effort? Are you happy with it?
- Was the work effort in the group more or less well distributed among group members or did some group members work a lot more or a lot less than others?
- Did you reach the quality you aimed/wished for in the allotted time and with the resources available? Why/why not?
- Did group members have similar priorities, or did you have different opinions about some (important) things? How did you resolve them?
- How much (or little) have you enjoyed working with your project group?
- Knowing what you know now, what could/should you have done differently during the project phase of the course?

NOTE: we ask this question because 1) we have little insights into the work processes of individual project groups during the last few months and 2) we want to learn more so as to be able to improve instructions and advice for project groups next year. Your comments might thus refer to "mistakes" or unfortunate decisions you made in your group as well as aspects of the course that could be improved in order to clarify and support the work of the project groups better.

1C. "Closing the circle"

Go back and re-read the essay you handed in at the beginning of the term (if you absolutely can't locate it, send a mail to Daniel Pargman who will find it and return it to you).

In that first essay (the instructions are here) you wrote about A) your "expectations and apprehensions" regarding the course and B) about your "relationship to news". What has changed and what hasn't since you wrote that first essay? Did the course live up to your expectations or did you apprehensions come true? Has your relationship to news changed since then or is it still the same?

Please write no less than 400 words (1 page) and no more than 1000 words (2.5 pages) on topic 1B and 1C together.


For those (few) who did not hand in essay 1:
I will anonymize and distribute eight different essays to you (making sure that none of them comes from any members of your own project group). Instead of 1C above, you will summarize these essays and furthermore see if you can find patterns that several students agree on (or important stuff people disagree on). I will send further instructions together with the essays. It might be the case that you will not be able to complete this task before Dec 23 (depending on how early or late you classmates submit their second essays and taking into account that I am on vacation in Argentina right now).

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Final presentation jury members

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We have four members of the jury for the final presentation. There will not be time for all members of the jury to express opinions about every group's presentation. In fact, my guess is that perhaps two members of the jury will be able to comment on each group's presentation and the comments might for the most part be feedback and opinions/reviews rather than questions (there is unfortunately not so much time for that).

These are the member of the jury:

- Ola Henriksson, Editorial project manager at Svenska Dagbladet (SvD)

- Kristina Bürén, Consultant in Digital Strategy & Management at Connecta

- Milad Hosseinzadeh, Ba(h) Dip.M.Arch - Architect, Entrepreneur and ex-guest teacher at KTH/Architecture

- Pedro Hernandez, KTH Media Technology master's student and STIMDI board member

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About: Ola Henriksson is Editorial project manager at Svenska Dagbladet. He has been working as editor and news editor almost since the launch of digital news operations at Svenska Dagbladet. He has been deeply involved in several projects regarding the development of the news site SvD.se during the last seven years

About: Kristina Bürén is a Consultant in Digital Strategy & Management at Connecta - helping companies develop and implement digital strategies and build digital business. Kristina is also a board member at GotaMedia. She is specialized in mobile and digital media, digital media publishing strategies and media business development. She has nine years of professional experience from the Media Industry, and was up until this spring Managing Director at WAN-IFRA Nordic (World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers). Kristina has studied Media Technology at KTH (me00).

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is an architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and partly in London where he received his Masters from UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is currently based in Stockholm, working at the leading Scandinavian architectural firm White. He shares his time as a member of Urban Land Institute and working strategically with international relations within the field s architecture, urban design, business development and start-ups. As an architect, he has an interest in optimizing the power of cultural innovation and systematic root thinking.

About: Pedro Hernandez started his studies at KTH in the media technology program.  He is now a second year student of the Human Computer Interaction masters where he focuses on interaction design.  He was born in Colombia and has previously studied in USA and Japan.  He is a member of the board at STIMDI, a non profit organization where people interested in usability are gathered.  His next project is his master thesis which will be done at SVT (the swedish public service broadcaster), where he also works at the moment.

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Grading - criteria for judging project groups' performance

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We have updated the criteria for judging and grading project groups' work this year. This blog post will tell you what we are looking for. You can use the criteria below as a checklist of sorts.

This might also be a very good point in time to have a look at the course PM again since there is information about examination etc there.

Please note that the course formally consists of two parts:
- LIT1 (3 credits, pass/fail) - based on individual performance primarily during the start-up phase, BUT, don't forget that you will need to hand in a second essay at the very end of the course in order to get your grade reported (instructions will follow later).
- PRO1 (7 credits, A-E) - project work, see further below.

According to the course PM, each group SHALL at the end of the course:

- write a text/book chapter

- develop a design representation - "gestaltning" (the form most often chosen is a short movie, but other forms are also possible or positively encouraged!).
- present you project at the final presentation

Some of the criteria below are more relevant to the text, some to the design representation and some to the final presentation. Do also note that not just the results (see above) of your work will be judged, but also the process - "much like a bachelor's or a master's thesis" (course PM).

Criteria 1 - Process. Running work that you have done since you were divided into groups and starting with the project plan and finishing with your last weekly status report on Friday next week.

Criteria 2 - High quality text. The text (book chapter) should be correct and easy to read (worst-case scenario: a text that requires a lot of effort to be understood). The text should furthermore have a well-developed line of reasoning and analyze, reflect and argue for whatever it is you want to say (and it's a much better to say a few things clearly than to raise too many different issues that point in different directions). The text should be coherent and with no internal contradictions. To explain and exemplify is fine. To identify, categorize, differentiate, contrast, combine, modify, conclude (etc.) is better.

Criteria 3 - Creativity. Your project (your Big Idea) will hopefully have a lot of "innovative potential" ("idéhöjd"). To what extent is the results of your work innovative, original and perhaps surprising? Are you onto something interesting and have worked in a creative way to "solving" the problem/challenge of your choice? Does your solution meet real needs? Does the underlying idea raise the pulse?

Criteria 4 - Grounding. To what extent are the project group's results credible? Are your solutions backed up and strengthened by literature you relate to, empirical material you have collected or own experiences that are relevant?

Criteria 5 - Professional design representation. Your design representation (most often a film but other forms are also possible) should be characterized by a high level of professionalism and craftsmanship. Does you design representation communicate the concept (your Big Idea) well?

Criteria 6 - Professional presentation. Your presentation should be characterized by a high level of professionalism; you have to be able to clearly communicate your message (your Big Idea) to the audience. Was the presentation well structured, was it fun and did the presenter(s) do a good job? You should also be able to provide good answers to potential questions you get from the jury.

Criteria 7 - Credibility. How easy is it to understand your solution? Are your conclusions/solution believable and convincing? NOTE: your conclusions/solution doesn't have to be probable or even desirable, but it has to be believable!

Criteria 8 - Coherence. Does the text, the design representation and the presentation cohere and interlink? Do they support each other (or do they instead pull in different directions)? Can the results be regarded as a well-integrated whole where the sum is more than the sum of the parts?


Good luck!

/Daniel & Malin
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Offload trends to the book introduction

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It will be boring if each groups start their respective chapter by writing a page or two about different trends they assume will happen during the next 10-20 years - especially if several group assume the same trends will happen (the rise of the mobile platform, crowdsourcing, filter bubbles, shorter attention span, something about serendipity etc.). 

You can thus "offload" these trends and this work to Daniel and Malin who will write the introduction to the book. See this blog post with info about trends that were picked up in the introductory chapter in last year's course ("The Future of Magazines / Magazines of the Future").

We have created a Google form where you can suggest trends that you assume will happen and that you would like Daniel and Malin to write about - instead of taking valuable space in your own chapter to write about these things.

The form for offloading trends is available here. 

Do note that there are also group- or project-specific trends that you should hold on to and write about in your text - what we are talking about here is more general "background" societal/economic/technological trends that you have reason to suspect that also other groups will assume.

We have a tight schedule for writing the texts for the book, so you will unfortunately only have until Thursday midnight (Nov 21) to submit your suggestions. Daniel and Malin will review them on Friday and hope to be able to get back to you on Friday with information about which trends we will "pick up" for the introductory chapter. That will hopefully make it possible for you to write good "transitions" between the book intro and your own chapter. 

Do note:

- For the sake of simplicity, please designate one person who is responsible for your group's text. 

- This is the person who should have the final say in all matters relation to your text. This person should probably not be the person who is already your project leader.
- This is also the person who should come to the "work seminar"/"writer's workshop" (send one representative per group) in the beginning on next week. We have preliminarily decided upon Mon 25 or Tue 26 - the exact date will be decided upon at tomorrow's lunch meeting with the coordination group.

- Please have this person be the only person from your group who uses the form to suggest topics to offload (so there will not be mix-ups and confusions).

Good luck with your texts!

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Mid-crit schedule

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- The mid-crit will be held in Q1 between 09.00-16.00. We will have outside guest critics - please impress them by being on time!

- Each group has 30 minutes for their presentation + questions and discussion. Please use 10 minutes for your presentation so that there is plenty of time left for discussions.

- Send all presentation material (Powerpoint/Keynote slides) to Victor Olsson (vaiov@kth.se) in advance. The deadline for sending your material to Victor is Thursday Nov 7 at 20.00. Large files can be shared through a public dropbox instead of by mail.

- Please also bring your presentation on a USB memory stick and/or a laptop computer (as backup).

Executive group member Victor Olsson is responsible for the mid-crit (he will be the master of ceremonies on Friday - Daniel will concentrate on being a critic). 

We have put together a schedule for the mid-crit presentation as follows:

Block 1

• 09.00-09.30 GISMO - Geographical Information Systems for Media Orientation (was Interactive visualization of news) ("Get a grip on global news")
• 09.30-10.00 You've got bias (was Manipulation and bias online and offline) ("Everything is biased - we show you how")
• 10.00-10.30 Responsive news (was Individualized news) ("Have it your way")
• 10.30-10.45 BREAK
• 10.45-11.15 Newsify (was The future of audio) ("Get serious - Get Newsified")
• 11.15-11.45 Future of Ads ("Not intrusive but exclusive")
• 11.45-11.50 Wrap-up/concluding words (Daniel)
• 11.50-13.00 LUNCH BREAK

Block 2

• 13.00-13.30 Gossip (was News aggregators) ("Emotional news")
• 13.30-14.00 ScreenWorld - Rise of the Second Screen ("Breaking into the future")
• 14-00-14.30 Crowdopolis (was Citizen journalism & crowdsourcing news) ("We live it, we watch it, we report it")
• 14.30-14.45 BREAK
• 14.45-15.15 DEAFining news (was Broadcast new/public news) ("DEAFining the future of news")
• 15.15-15.45 The Morticians (was Death of Reading) ("Quality news beyond the written word")
• 15.45-15.50 Wrap-up/concluding words (Daniel)

If you have any questions about the schedule or other practical aspects around the Friday mid-crit event, please pose them to Victor (vaiov@kth.se) with a cc to Daniel.

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Mid-crit information

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The mid-crit is getting nearer. Here is some important information.

The lecture hall Q2 is booked for the whole day, i.e. Friday Nov 8 between 9.00-16.00. A detailed schedule will follow immediately after this blog post.

As has been mentioned before, we require your personal individual presence for half the day at this event. 

We have divided the 10 project groups into two blocks with 5 groups each and you should listen to all the presentation in your block. For further information, see the detailed schedule in the following blog post.

If you take another course which collides with this event, it is my firm belief that you should prioritize this course over the other course on this one occasion. Do note that Nov 8 is the one and only occasion between Oct 18 and Dec 11 when you are required to be someplace special at sometime special in this course.

As to the event itself, each group will have around 10 minutes to pitch their basic ideas and also to brag about all the work you have done this far (read literature, interviewed hotshots or ordinary people, done focus groups, surveys, drawn sketches, built mock-ups or prototypes, brainstormed a storyboard for a movie etc.). Each group will, after their presentation, have another 20 minutes reserved for feedback and discussions about their work.

At the mid-crit, you should thus concentrate on presenting:

- Your group's fundamental ideas, concepts, logic, business models, scenarios, vision etc.

- Describe work you have done in the group to support your ideas, concepts, vision (etc.) in terms of reading literature, collect materials etc.

- Please also say a few worlds about your ideas for a "design representation" that demos/visualizes your concept and that you will use during the final presentation (see further the course PM) 

Do note that the emphasis is on the soundness of your concept and your ideas. A successful presentation and a benign reception can be seen as a go-ahead to continue your work on the path you have (already) taken. Another alternative is of course that you get feedback that encourages you to veer some from the direction you are heading in (ranging from timid suggestions and fun ideas to forceful "recommendations" that you most certainly should take into account after the mid-crit).

We have invited three external guests ("guest critics") for this event - see below. They will listen to each group's presentation/pitch and then ask questions and discuss your work. Students from other groups are of course also welcome to chip in to comment or ask questions!

Do note that this is the premier occasion for you to get an idea about what other groups are doing in the course. Perhaps you will realize that there is a need to coordinate your work with the work of another group (for example if you overlap, or if there is a "natural" progression or fit (or contradiction) between your topic and that of the other group). This might also have implications for the order in which we will schedule groups to present their projects at the final presentation (Dec 12).

Our three external guest critics for this occasion are Åke Walldius, Milad Hossainzadeh and Ola Henriksson:

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and partly in London where he received his Masters from UCL The Bartlett School of Architecture. He is currently based in Stockholm, working at the leading Scandinavian architectural firm White. He shares his time as a member of Urban Land Institute and working strategically with international relations within the field s architecture, urban design, business development and start-ups. As an architect, he has an interest in optimizing the power of cultural innovation and systematic root thinking.

About: Ola Henriksson is Editorial project manager at Svenska Dagbladet. He has been working as editor and news editor almost since the launch of digital news operations at Svenska Dagbladet. He as been deeply involved in several projects regarding the development of the news site SvD.se during the last seven years 

About: Åke Walldius is a researcher in Human Computer Interaction at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). He earned his Ph.D. in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University after having worked for 20 years in video production and information visualization. He is team leader for the Socio-technical Practices team at the Media technology an Interaction design Group and is an appointed expert in standardization. His main interests are socio-technical visualization, genre analysis and design pattern composition and use. Åke has been responsible (2008) and co-responsible (2007, 2009, 2011) for the course Future of Media at the Media technology programme at KTH.

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One time only extra hand-in for all groups

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As was discussed in last week's meeting with the project leaders, and as has been announced on this blog, each group has to provide some extra information this week only. We need this to be able to set up a website that will look as good as last year's Future of Magazines website.

On top of the ordinary weekly status report that you should upload on the course companion blog on Friday, you should thus also hand in/post a separate blog post with the following information:

1) The name that you have finally chosen for your group.

2) A short tagline, a phrase that suits your project theme and that adds meaning to it. It could also be an inspiring question/statement/proposal such as "What if...", "In the future...", "We will...", "Our dream is...". Some catchy examples from last year (The Future of Magazines) were "As long as it makes sense", "Discovering magazines has never been easier", "The future is made by you, not for you". Here is some more info about last year's projects (click on the images for info about individual projects).

3) A short summary/pitch (around 40-100 words) about your project. See examples from last year's projects here.

4) A large picture - choose a picture that you think represents your group and the subject you will explore (for example a logotype or a photo that captures a feeling of relevance to your project). The image should be 2000 * 1125 pixels (breadth, height). It's possible to provide a larger picture but the proportions have to be the same (16:9). See examples from last year's projects here.

5) A small picture (500 * 500 pixels). It's possible to provide a larger picture but the proportions have to be the same.

You might feel it is slightly premature to state/pitch what you will do, but the goal is to get a wealth of materials handed in so as to be able to mix and mash something up that can convey a theme and a feeling for promotion/ad/elevator pitch purposes - for example in an attempt to get sponsors to the final presentation!

The deadline for this "extra" hand-in is the same as for the next weekly status report, i.e. Friday Nov 1! 

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