Continues will789gb on Posterous
Previously I have tried the # tag - #EX1to4 - as a way to define the area around Exeter. So far not much interest but I find out more about Chromecast and similar projects. So local media is a filter on the web. Everything is local somewhere. I will try again with #EX1to4 and see if more happens this time.
Also LA1to5 . I will be near there next week.
I am still looking at Styles of Organizing, by Gibson Burrell. I find the examples don't fit always with the theory but maybe this is just me. The basic diagram is beginning to make sense. I still think it is rational for the BBC to cull Radio 1 djs every so often. Recently Tim Westwood has had to go. Maybe he will turn up on Radio 2. The paperback should be updated beyond Dave Lee Travis. This is not just sensibility from a management point of view. There has to be a new audience though I can't imagine how the music could improve much, having failed to move much into this century. But on the Wild Show, Phonic FM Thursday mornings we will continue to look at the studio as a 3D space, putting labels on the ceiling etc.
Another book I found through the Critical Management website is unfortunately hardback only at this time. Rhthyms of Labour is also promoted through Youtube talks but the hardback is a bit expensive. I was hoping to have a look at a copy ahead of the Sidmouth Folk Festival. There is a section on radio and I wonder how this updates as the public have more control, within what is available. I may find this in a library or it will have to wait till next year.
Last year I went to the London College of Communication Futures Conference and posted some photos to the website. One was selected as a possibility for the forthcoming book -
The Fundamentals of Digital Advertising
By: Chris Linford, Jo Hodges
I thought it was out this year but the current date is not till 2014. I will be interested in the Futures conference this year. My guess is things move quite quickly so they may have to rewrite the book. Paperback within a few months of a conference should not be impossible.
The Education Guardian today is only a couple of pages. Not much about universities. I guess they are not providing much news over the summer break. So if that was the first part of the year there was nothing positive about the MOOC in general or any detailed reporting on Futurelearn. the new term might have some sudden developments but then again maybe not in print.
Yesterday in Media, David Hepworth wrote about magazines. He looked back on a meeting at the London College of Communications about moving print magazines to tablets and has concluded there is no obvious way forward-
Simply reproducing your magazine via a cheap page-turner app is unsatisfactory for the editorial team and not very thrilling for advertisers, but it may prove good enough for the small percentage of readers who take you up on the offer. On the other hand, those memory-devouring, all bells and whistles apps try so hard to burst the constraints of the magazine format that you wonder why they aren't websites.
Then again, maybe the people who buy a tablet are happy looking at websites and don't feel a need for what was once a magazine. Probably some borders will break down. This could happen fastest with Business to Business magazines where the social media are well accepted.
The London College of Communication has a Futures conference usually in the autumn. I don't know how the dates fit with the Cross Media event in October. But a blog can make some links. Cross Media is mostly about advertising but could include academic publishing. There has not been much disruption in journals yet but the technical issues are even less restrictive than for magazines in general. Interest in open online courses will require open online content.
Sometimes this blog is local, sometimes more general. I am thinking about how to do more about this, somehow the summer has slowed me down in terms of movement. but I am going to Lancaster next month and maybe to London at some time after. So I am planning a look at FutureLearn and the idea of a MOOC as it works out in Exeter and Lancaster. Both have been announced as part of FutureLearn but no sign yet in Exeter of any changes.
The British Library is also part of Futurelearn so King's Cross is another locality to look at. There may be more change in Yorkshire where I think the most storage is based.
Looking at blogs it appears there is already some concern about how open the FutureLearn approach will be. Lorna has had a good look at the terms and conditions. I think we should wait and see what the full effect turns out to be. There may be more open links than on the official site. If it is all free then people can find it even if not reused somewhere else. The MOOC is interesting as an idea that is taken as real by people in universities. There can be variations around it. I am still thinking about Creative Commons in relation to public relations and promotion. I'm sure the "drop-out rate" is accepted as some of the intention is just to build awareness of what is available. People build their own course from various elements.
I have found some sites online ahead of my actual visit. Lancaster University Open Learning has some content but I think you may need a token to get to some of it. Open Exeter has a page on JISC but the link to the project is broken. search finds this blog but the project seems to have just ended. I will definitely check the library soon and find out what happens next. The British Library shows up quickly through OER Resources with some poetry readings. I don't think they welcome remix but it is easy enough to link to.
This blog can have draft bits that are revised later. Some of it will turn up on the Wild Show or be expanded. The installation at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum opens this week. We already have some sound that can be repeated. The idea on the Wild Show and the blog is that some content related to the original can be used to be extended as part of comment. As it happens we have also been allowed to broadcast sound from an early performance and put it on Soundcloud. But the general idea is to extend the sound conversation.
So far on the radio we have started to talk about toilets as part of our map. The official map is about a space within ten minutes of the cathedral. Our scope is for about half an hour but we have yet to get much further than the Phoenix. Next week maybe as far as the RAMM. Check the extracts on Soundcloud for JD on the toilet size required by a carer for max relax.
https://soundcloud.com/will789gb/this-citys-centre-extract-from
Later I want to ask about art theory around walking. I know that there is some but where to find it? Through radio we can describe locations. Apparently there can be site theatre. I think what is emerging may be a site chat show. This involves walking between occasions for talk, probably over a drink or refreshment. The edit may be actually over several time events but probably the location could be recognised and repeated by the viewers/ listeners. So what sort of content or context is thought to associate a walk with art?
Later I want to get on to Sidwell Street as a centre for film study. I started on about this when asked to think about how to change the area as part of the window travelling along. Maybe the original sound still exists. My basic thought is that now the cloud is everywhere there is less need for a campus and the university could go back to the city centre. I now realise that there is so much student accommodation because it comes from various sources. There is no plan as such. The block next to the Odeon may still be empty. There is one new project, the Printworks, where Townsends used to be. Students who fail to study Exeter may be surprised that the Picture House site is next to the Odeon and near the Vue, not near the cinema closer to the river. But the base for film studies is there. Room hire in the St Sidwells Centre is very good value. There is no need for yet more buildings out of town.
More later, there are a couple of months to go.
