Thursday, December 15, 2011

How to get your copy of the book

.
I have the first copy of the book in my hand and a much bigger package has also arrived for me to pick up (34 kg). So, the books have arrived and each one of you can get your own copy of it.

Me and Åke will bring the books and sit at a pub near KTH tomorrow Friday (Dec 16) between 17 - 20 in the evening.

The pub is "Man in the Moon" on Tegnérgatan 2C. It's a 10-minute walk from KTH (see below). Drop by and pick up your copy or ask a friend to pick up your copy. Sit down and have a beer too while you're at it (or the non-alcoholic beverage of your choice).

Those who can't come tomorrow are welcome to drop by my office in January (house E top floor) and pick up your copy of the book.


/Daniel
.

Monday, December 12, 2011

How to finish the course

.
Thank you for your presentations last week. There are two more things you need to do in order to pass the course and get your points (10 hp) registered:

1) Write essay 2 (see instructions the the previous blog post)

2) Your group has to send all material to Christoffer Å for archiving purposes.

Christoffer has sent mail to all group and vice group leaders. You need to send all your stuff (movies, audio files, cartoons etc.) to him according to earlier instructions. We will make everything accessible on the course homepage.


You will not have passed the course until you have completed both 1 (as an individual) and 2 (as a group). The (first) deadline for handing in your essay is December 20 (see further information in the previous blog post).
.

Essay 2 - instructions

.
Back when the course started, in August, I wrote the following:

"You have to write an individual essay twice during the course; in the beginning and in the end. Writing these essays are compulsory and they must be written individually."

The time to write the second essay has now come and it also replaces other forms of course evaluations. Here are the instructions:

.
Please download and use the template that is available in Bilda ("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. Do note that you can only upload the file formats .doc, .docx (MS Word) or .pdf to the drop box.

The deadline for handling in the essay is Tuesday December 20 (23.59). That was the alternative date for the final presentation before we decided to go for December 9. If you miss the deadline, there will be a deadline on Saturday Jan 14 (last official day for the autumn semester). That should be plenty of time as the task is neither very comprehensive nor time-consuming.

Instructions

1A. "Instead of a course evaluation".
- What were in your opinion the three best things about the course?
- What were in your opinion the three worst things about the course?
- What are your (three) suggestions for how to change/improve the course?
- What is your most important advice to next year's students who will take the course?

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. I will not specify a set length, but you are not allowed to just enumerate stuff without also including explanations.


1B. "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 and you will get it in return).

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 radio". 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 radio changed since then or is it still the same?

Please write 400-1000 words (1 - 2.5 pages) on this topic.

Addition (Mon Dec 12 at 17.30): English or Swedish is ok since only me and Åke will read these essays!
.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Minutes from coordination meeting #4

.
We had our 4rd and last coordination meeting Wednesday this week (Nov 30). Here are the minutes from our previous coordination meeting (DO read them - important information has NOT been repeated below). Below is the most important information from this week's meeting (your project leaders might have more information).

Book
All groups delivered their drafts in time last Friday (Nov 25). The deadline for final texts AND for images is Friday this week (Dec 2). Four pictures/images per group is ok. Please write down the names of all group members (make sure you spell all names correctly). The book is slated to be delivered on Dec 16, exactly one week after the final presentation. You can get extra copies of the book (Christmas presents for your parents?), but you have to pay for them yourselves (100 SEK, send a mail to Malin).

Presentation
Deadline for sending material to Fabian (max 500 MB per group) is Tuesday next week (Dec 7). Video and all other materials should be integrated directly into the slide show. We will use one projector, special needs will be taken care of by the group itself. There will be a run-through/general rehearsal on Dec 8 from 15.00 and until whenever we are finished - please rehearse and practice delivering your presentation beforehand! Each group has no more than 10 minutes to present and the schedule is very tight so please respect these time limits!

Webpage
The webpage is up and running. Invitations have been spread to all media technology students and to other relevant groups (media management students, teachers, guest lecturers and their friends etc.). In fact, our first external attendees (from Swedish Radio) have already signed up!

Archiving
From this year and on, we will leave a Future of Media legacy on the web and Christoffer Å is responsible for collecting all your stuff and making it happen. For those groups using film/video, he wants you to send him a non-integrated version of your videos (no larger than 200 MB).

Sponsorship
Unfortunately we might not get any sponsors, but we don't know for sure yet.
.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

General rehearsal on Dec 8

.
We have gotten a few questions at the just-finished review meetings about the general rehearsal the day before the final presentation.


The final presentation is Friday Dec 9 from 13.00 to 16.00. Do note that it (officially) starts at 1 o'clock sharp. I just sent out an invitation to all (200+) students studying media technology.

The test run/general rehearsal is the the day before the final presentation (Dec 8). The lecture hall was unfortunately booked until 15.00 in the afternoon but we have booked it from 15.00 till 21.00.

You will present your projects as if it was in front of an audience in order to find problems and things that could be improved in your own and each other's presentations.
.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Upcoming book draft deadline (Nov 25)

.
Please read Malin's inctructions for the hand-in (draft) chapter you are to provide this upcoming Friday (Nov 25).

Also, please note the (draft) foreword that I have written and that is accessible in Bilda - it has some information that is relevant for your texts.

The document is called "111110 Book into.pdf" and it is located in Bilda/Documents. Please especially have a look at the text under "On the texts in this book". It is written for the readers of the book, but could equally well be seen as instructions for you about the goals/requirements of these texts.
.

Monday, November 21, 2011

2nd review meeting - seminar rooms

.
Only 8 out of 11 groups have signed up for the review meeting - the list is on my door.

I have booked the following seminar rooms for our meetings:

Fri Nov 25 13-15 seminar room 1635
Mon Nov 28 10-12 CSC library 1439 (only booked 11-12)
Mon Nov 28 15-17 CSC library 1439
Tue Nov 29 09-12 seminar room 1635

Comment: We might change the Monday morning (10-12) location if any groups sign up for the first two slots (10-11), but seminar rooms are really tight that day! If you have a Monday morning meeting, please check back here to make sure of the location - I might change/update the contents of this blog post later during the week.
.

Minutes from coordination meeting #3

.
We had our 3rd coordination meeting last Friday (Nov 18) and will have our next meeting next Wednesday (Nov 30). Here are the minutes from our previous coordination meeting. Below is the most important information from the meeting (your project leaders might have more information).

Mid-term critique - reactions
It is useful the present your ideas to "outsiders" and to get feedback, but they should have been more up-to-date about the course (definition of radio etc.). The were suggestions for the mid-crits to have been a little earlier during the term, or to have two mid-crits, making the process more iterative.

Book
Daniel has written a foreword (uploaded to Bilda) which answers some of the requirements above; what radio is to us in this project course, how you should think about product (your final idea) and process (your way there and the way you back your final idea up).

Webpage
Each group/group leader will have access to a sub-page of the whole and information about that has gone out. The deadline for going live with the webpage is Friday this week (Nov 25). Each group should upload stuff there (according to instructions that has been sent out by our webmaster (Robert). Also, for your information, there is work going on about how to archive all the material you create so that it will be accessible together with results of future courses (Christoffer).

Presentation
Unless there are Reasons, we will use the same order at the final presentation as in the mid-crit, but, there should be few presenters (suggestion: one or two personsl). Choose people who are good at talkning in English and who are engaging. In your 10 minute presentation, you can use no more than 5 or 6 minutes for a video (get boring). Dress sharp to make an impression an guests and sponsors. Keep the time and practice beforehand! Don't turn your back to the audience to look at the projector screen! Use PowerPoint (not Keynote etc.), integrate video into the presentation.

Sponsorship
It seems we have (some) sponsors, we at least want to be able to offer coffee and cakes of some sort.
.

Monday, November 14, 2011

General reflection after mid-crit

.
1) Some groups might want to consider changing your group names (some groups have already done that). If you have moved on, you don't need to be weighed down by a name that isn't the best any longer or that doesn't really apply to your current work.

2) Some groups presented their ideas in very general terms that made them less easy to understand. Do (also) use concrete examples because they are much easier to understand. Some groups presented a lot of stuff ("we had brainstorming sessions where...", "our original idea was that...") before the core concept/idea was presented. This makes your concept/idea difficult to understand for someone who doesn't already know some about your concept/idea.

3) Anna Swartling's (guest) lecture (number 14) was unfortunately on of the least visited lectures. That is a pity. She basically said:

- Every project with more than two member needs a project leader (perhaps with the exception of small groups of people who have successfully worked together before).

- The project leader has to have the mandate to make decisions. The project leader does not have dictatorial powers, but when group members have different ideas and these differences make it difficult to progress, decisions have to be taken. Group members has the responsibility to support their project leader and to help make the project successful (you can't just blame the project leader, you are responsible too).

- If decisions are not made or postponed indefinitely, you might have different ideas about the goal and pull in different directions. You will always get something together that you will deliver in a school project. The risk you run though is that what you turn in isn't that great, but the bigger risk is that the if the project isn't managed, the relationships between group members will suffer and you leave a project with anger bad blood between you. In worst case, friends will turn to foes (she gave an example of when she was the manager of a badly managed project, a larger amateur theatre production, and how she lost some friends when she at a very late stage had to make some heavy-handed decisions).


She also said that it's important for you to know that if you think you have a problem in the group that you can't solve by yourselves, you should bring it to Daniel and Åke so we can discuss them and help you solve them in order to go forward.
.

2nd review meeting for project groups (Nov 25-29)

.
I now realize I posted all relevant information about this topic last week (5 days ago) but had forgotten about it.

Anyway, there are 18 slots (30 minutes each) for you to sign up for. The slots are in-between now and the final presentation three and a half weeks from now:

Friday Nov 25 from 13.00-15.00
Monday Nov 28 from 10.00-12.00
Monday Nov 28 from 15.00-17.00
Tuesday Nov 29 from 09.00-12.00

I will post the physical list on my door (house E, top floor, near the kitchen) tomorrow at 09.00. Just pass by and sign up.

Also the last group will have 8 slots too choose from so there shouldn't be a problem to find a slot that suits you.
.

Post-midcrit feedback

.
We had not really prepared for it, but, some expressed interest in getting some feedback from Daniel and Åke. We did take (some) notes, but not primarily for the purpose of giving you feedback.

There is however now a folder in Bilda where you can upload your mid-term critique presentations/slides (Bilda/Contents/Mid-term critique presentations). Your slide sets are a good way for us to remember your presentations.

In fact, the act of uploading your presentation is a way to signal to us that you want some feedback from us!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

2nd review meeting for project groups (Nov 25-29)

.
We will have the mid-term critique on Monday next week. After that, only a little more than three and a half weeks remain until the final presentation.

We have planned for a second review meeting with all project groups where you have the chance to bounce ideas and get feedback from Daniel and Åke about your text and what you want to do with it, or about you presentation, or about anything else.

We have prepared 18 half-hour slots 10-14 days before the final presentation (3-7 days before the final deadline for the text). We will bring a sign-up sheet to the mid-term critique and these are the time slots you will be able to choose between:

Fri Nov 25 13.00-15.00 (4 groups)
Mon Nov 28 10.00-12.00 (4 groups) and 15.00-17.00 (4 groups)
Tue Nov 29 09.00-12.00 (6 groups)

There are 11 project groups and 18 slots so even the last group to choose will have 8 slots to choose between.
.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Minutes from coordination meeting #2

.
We had our second coordination meeting today (Daniel, Åke, the executive group and representatives from each of the 11 project groups). You can find the minutes from the previous meeting (Oct 24) here. Below is the most important information from today's meeting. You should all be aware of this information (your project leaders might have more information).

Mid-term critique
We be held on Monday Nov 14 - see separate blog post.

Book
We are aiming for texts (chapters in the book) that are between 4000 - 6000 words long (10-15 pages of text). The format will not be that of a school/academic report, you should rather aim for a more popular text. You still need references to back up your text though. Malin (responsible for the book) will distribute templates and guidelines.

Webpage
Each group/group leader should prepare a one-minute long "pitch" where you present what your project is about. These will be recorded next Monday, at/in parallel to the mid-crit event. The webpage (Wordpress) is being designed right now and every group will have access to their own subpage soon.

Presentation
The order of the final presentation will depend on different factors, but most important is probably the kind of technical equipment different groups might need (beyond a projector and sound). Fabian (responsible for the final presentation) wants each group leader to send him a list of what they want to use at the final presentation. Fabian will, based on these requirements, decide in which order the project groups will hold their presentations at the final presentation - and we will try to use this list at the mid-term critique next Monday too.
.

Mid-term critique - find your way there!

.
Architecture is nearby, on the other side of Valhallavägen and just a few hundred meters from the subway:


We start at 09 on Monday (Nov 14). Please be at Östermalmsgatan 26 at 8.50 as we don't have access to the building (our cards don't work there). We will be in "Övre ateljén" [Upper atelier] which is on the top floor (?) - there should be signs there.

If you're late and can't come in, call your project leader, or in last case Sara Lempiäinen (project leader for the executive group). Her phone number is in Bilda (Bilda/Contents/Project groups).
.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Mid-term critique instructions

.
Here is some information that is useful in order to prepare for the mid-term critique (Monday November 14).

- We are aiming for three "guest critics" at the event. The first will be our guest lecturer Charlie Gullström. The second will be professor emeritus in Human-Computer Interaction Yngve Sundblad (Swedish wikipedia entry). Our third guest critic is architect Sigrid Zenger.

- This is the first and the last time the whole class meets between the end of the guest lectures a month ago and the final presentation a month from now. It is also the one and only time you will have the opportunity to hear what the other groups are doing!

- Each group has 2o minutes and this includes time for feedback from comments from guest lecturers and discussion. This means it will take almost 4 hours for the 11 project groups to present their stuff. Together with breaks and lunch, we have booked the lecture hall from 09.00 in the morning until 14.30 in the afternoon.

- You should aim at using around half of those 20 minutes to present your project (i.e. a comparable amount of time to what you will have at the final presentation), and leave the rest of the time for discussions.


At the time of the mid-term critique ten days from now, almost six weeks will have passed since you were divided into project groups (on Oct 4) and only three and half weeks will remain until the final presentation (on Dec 9). You should thus have come quite far in your projects! We expect you to be able to:

- Present your group/concept/core idea (Who is it for? How does it work? How will they use it? What is the business/operational model? - or other similar questions that are more adapted to your project).
- How did you arrive at this concept? (i.e. what did the design process look like, what choices did you make - perhaps exemplified by concepts or ideas you choose not to proceed with)
- What is the status of your project today? What results do you expect to be able to present on Dec 9 (and how do you work in order to get to those results)?
- What concrete, practical design representation will you develop/showcase at the final presentation? (If possible, don't just talk about it, but show as much as you can at the mid-term critique event.)
- What remains to do in your group, in your "research project" and in designing and making your design representation come alive?

The event is "friendly" and guest critics will do their very best to give you relevant feedback and constructive criticism so as to help your projects reach their full potential. The mid-term critique is however also an activity that is part of the examination of the course. Both guest critics as well as Daniel and Åke will judge your contributions based on criteria that will also be used at the final presentation:

Relevance

  • Relevance for business, academic world, individuals, society?
  • Good, suitable, appropriately size of the question being explored by the project group?

Innovation hight

  • To what extent are the project group results innovative, original and surprising?
  • What are the merits, do the results have an engineering, scientific, commercial or artistic height?
  • Does the underlying idea raise the pulse?

Credibility

  • To what extent are the project group results credible?
  • Is the scenario/solution presented believable, could it happen?

Integration

  • To what extent can the project group results be regarded as a well-integrated whole?
  • Is the final results and the presentation based on a well-developed line of reasoning?

Finish

  • Finish, surface, packaging, professionalism of content and delivery?


Good luck!

Daniel and Åke

.

Mid-term critique date set for Nov 14

.
We now have a date for the mid-term critique and that date is Monday November 14, i.e. Monday exactly two weeks from now. I already murmured something about that date in the previous blog post with the minutes from the first coordination meeting a week ago.

I will get back with information and instructions for you as soon as possible (hopefully by the middle of this week at the latest).

Meanwhile, please book this date in your calendars. This is the only time during period 2 that the whole class will meet until the final presentation on December 9, and it is thus the only opportunity we will have to see what other groups are doing and comment on it! We will use the better part of that day (09.00 - 14.30) for your presentations and for feedback/critique from our invited "guest critics".

Do note that the date is not chosen taking any of your other courses into account, so I expect there to be some problems with collisions. Therefore please tell me (in the form of a comment to this blog post) which courses you study where I need to get in touch with the teacher and ask them to try to move their activities.

- Please don't bother to comment if you read a course that no-one else (of very few others) take
- Please don't bother if you read DM2578 (my course) as my seminar on Nov 14 will obviously be changed anyway


We will be visiting KTH School of Architecture and do our presentations there. That's across Valhallavägen and the address is Östermalmsgatan 26. I believe we will be in a room called "Övre Ateljén" [Upper Atelier].
.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Minutes from coordination meeting #1

.
We had our first meeting today with the coordination group (Daniel, Åke, the executive group and representatives from each of the 11 project groups - but one group was missing). Here is the most important information that you all should be aware of (your project leaders might have more information).

- Due to Armada/meet-your-future-employers day on Nov 15, the mid-term critique will be moved. Preferred dates are either Fri Nov 11 or Mon Nov 14, depending what is best for our friends over at Architecture (we'll be in their house). I'll publish more info here as soon as I know what day it will be. I'll do my very best to get other stuff (courses) moved - this is the only time we meet as a whole class before the final presentation.

Date for final presentation is Friday Dec 9 from 13-16. We will be in lecture hall F2 (238 seats). The lecture hall is booked 09.00-18.00 on the day of the presentation and 15.00-21.00 the day before. There will be a test run/general rehearsal on Thu Dec 9 (the lecture hall was unfortunately booked until 15.00). Deadline for handing in material for the final presentation is Tue Dec 6 at midnight. Everything will be on a single computer/hard drive (PC). We will send out invitation at least 3 weeks in advance, when we launch the website.

Due to the early date for the final presentation, the book will (for the first time) not be printed on the day of the final presentation - the schedule would be too hurried to manage that feat. Preliminary deadline for draft versions of texts will be Fri Nov 25. Texts will be read and you will get feedback, deadline for the final version of the text is Fri Dec 2. The manuscript will be sent to the printer around Dec 9 and the book should be printed around Dec 16. An occasion to celebrate at a pub (also the end of the exam period) and hand out the books to all course participants? Daniel and Åke will write an introduction that will also functions as a framework about what radio is (to us, in this course/project and based on discussions and guest lectures).

The website will have a front page (news, countdown). Each group will have a page of their own. The idea is to do a short video with each group leader talking about their project. The website can be up and running soon and groups can work on their own pages (with some common guidelines for all groups). The goal is to launch the webside right after the mid-term critique (i.e. around three weeks from now and at least three weeks in advance of the final presentation).

.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Mail addresses for all the important people

.
The information about who is responsible for what in the executive group as well as in the project groups is now available in Bilda (Bilda/Contents/Project groups). This is useful information if you need to get hold of someone/some group.

Do also note that you can find out any course participant's KTH mail address in Bilda too if you need to get in touch with any other person in the course.
.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Your revised project plans

.
We met all the project groups. Some groups got more feedback, other were already right on track.

Your should now revise you project plans based on the feedback you got and your discussions within the group after our meeting.

Please post your revised project plans on the companion blog ("Future of radio / Radio of the future") so that all groups will have the chance to get an idea of what all the other groups are doing. Please also state your project group name - especially if you have changed it!

You don't have to publish the whole (revised) project plan (2-3 pages). Just choose the "best" parts so that it is around 400 words long (1 page of text).

This blog post is published after we met the last groups. Please publish your revised and "compressed" project plans within a week from now, i.e. next Tuesday at the latest (Oct 25).
.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Date for final presentation

.
The final presentation of the course will be done in front of an audience (200+ persons). We need to decide on the date.

There is an exam period from Monday Dec 12 until Monday 19 so these are less-optimal days. Our choice is thus to have the final presentation right before (Friday Dec 9) or right after (Tuesday Dec 20) the exam period.

Both days have different things going for them. Our audience might hesitate to come on Dec 9 because they have to study for their exams. Some might on the other hand have left Stockholm on Dec 20. Dec 20 would give us 11 extra days to complete the project. And so on.

In order to resolve this issue, I have created another Doodle. Please vote on the day you prefer. It's ok to vote on both if it's all the same to you. Here's the Doodle.

We will make a decision before the end of this week - please don't postpone voting!
.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Seminar rooms for review meetings

.
I forgot to book seminar rooms for the review meetings and this was something we only discovered today, when the review meetings started. Which you all know since you all got an e-mail about it.

Anyway, the review meetings in the beginning of next week will be held in the following rooms:

- Monday meetings - Seminar room 1625 (house E floor 6)
- Tuesday meetings - Seminar room 1439 (house E floor 4)

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Lecture notes/slides from our guests

.
I have uploaded all the PowerPoint slides that our guest lecturers have provided me with. They are all in the Bilda/Documents/Guest lectures folder.

Do get in touch with me if something is missing from that folder and I will get in touch with the culprit lecturer and ask for his/her slides again!


Please also note that Fredrik Stiernstedt has graciously provided us with a write-up (2 pages) of radio references that could be an excellent resource for your projects. One-third refer to Swedish-language stuff and two-thirds are in English and he has even divided his references into different categories for your convenience;
- Radio production
- Regulation and deregulation
- Digitalization
- Radio as a cultural form

Enjoy! (His references are of course also to be found in Bilda/Documents.)
.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Thursday lecture cancelled

.
It seems like we unfortunately can't get our previously cancelled guest lecturer and leader of the Swedish Pirate Party to visit us this week on Thursday, and, you have all been living up to the attendance requirements diligently so there is no need for "extra" mini-lectures.

That means we will instead meet on Friday, Monday or Tuesday for a 30-minute review meeting with each project group. Don't forget to hand in your project plans in advance.

The next time we will meet after the review meetings is one month later, in mid-November, for our mid-term critique (more info will follow).
.

Monday, October 10, 2011

Guest Lecture 18 - Oct 11 (13-15) - Valerie Geller

.
Time and place: Tuesday October 11, 13-15 in lecture hall V3

Title: "Becoming a more powerful communicator"
Guest: Valerie Geller, President, Geller Media International Broadcast Consultants/Training - "Helping Communicators Become More Powerful in 30 Countries"

Talk: Join International Broadcast Consultant, author and trainer Valerie Geller to learn proven "Powerful Radio" techniques that will allow you to get, keep and grow audiences. These techniques are in use by top broadcasters and communicators throughout the world based on material from her 2011 book "Beyond Powerful Radio - A Communicator's Guide to the Internet Age".

Radio is changing and there now exists a broader landscape with more "canvases", including interactive media. Working with digital and online media opens a world of new ways to reach radio audiences. Today it is not longer about radio specifically, but what remains important is to inform and entertain, inspire and connect with audiences. Audiences leave when it is boring. Never Be Boring!

About: Valerie Geller travels around the world training radio professionals become more powerful communicators and she has worked with both Swedish Radio and SBS in Sweden from the early 1990's and on. See her 3-minute YouTube short talk after receiving the Rockwell Lifetime Achievement Award for broadcasting last year. Her most recent book, "Beyond Powerful Radio" (2011) is primarily written for radio professionals, but is also a great resource for anyone who considers "getting into" radio and it is for sale at Kårbokhandeln (on campus) for 295 SEK. Valerie has promised to sign copies of her book to students who buy it before her lecture!

Literature: Please read/look at Valeries 4 checklists as well as chapter 28 of her book, "Audio communication across multiple delivery platforms: Broadcasting, streaming, video, social media, podcasting & beyond..." (available in Bilda/Documents/Literature).
.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Project plan

.
10 out of 11 groups have booked a 30-minute time slot for your review meeting (next Friday or in the beginning of the following week).

Each project group needs to hand in a Project plan before that meeting. A template for that project plan is now available in Bilda (Documents/111007 Project plan.doc). Do note that further instructions about what we expect form your project plan (including the deadline for handing it in etc.) are inside that document.
.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

1st review meeting for all project groups

.
----
"Your first tasks are to get to know each other better in the group and start to discuss your topic among each other. Each group has to write a project plan (further instructions will follow) and hand it in before you have a review meeting (also referred to as a "group tutoring session" in the course PM) with Daniel and Åke either in the end of next week (week 41) or the beginning of week 42 (further instructions will follow)."
-----

Each group has to book at time slot (30 minutes) for a meeting with Åke and Daniel to review your initial project ideas. We have blocked 18 slots and will bring a physical sheet where you can book/write your group name to the lecture today. This sheet of paper will afterwards be found on Daniel Pargman's door (house E, 6th floor, near the lunch room) so if you can't book a time today you can pass by whenever and book a time.

The dates/time you can choose between are:
- Friday Oct 14 sometime between 13-16
- Monday Oct 17 sometime between 13-16
- Tuesday Oct 18 sometime between 9-12

It's really important that as many as possible in each project group (preferably all) comes to this meeting!

Further instructions about how to prepare for these meetings will be posted on the blog later today or tomorrow. A "Project plan" will play a prominent role in these instructions.
.

Date for final presentation

.
A few have asked about the date. I don't know yet. I don't want to dictate, but rather discuss the date. Me and Åke will have our first meeting with the executive group a week from now, on Friday. The date for the final presentation is on the agenda, hopefully we will be able to decide on a date at that meeting. It will be posted here!
.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Our project groups

.
After today's exercise, we have 11 project groups as well as an "executive group".

Who is in which group? See Bilda/Contents/Project Groups. Do note that you can also find each other's email addresses through Bilda.

Your first tasks are to get to know each other better in the group and start to discuss your topic among each other. Each group has to write a project plan (further instructions will follow) and hand it in before you have a review meeting (also referred to as a "group tutoring session" in the course PM) with Daniel and Åke either in the end of next week (week 41) or the beginning of week 42 (further instructions will follow).


The 11 project groups are:

1. School radio/podcasts

2. HCI challenges: always-present radio

3. The audio pool

5. Economic models of (future) radio

6. Important message to the public - handling crises in a post-radio age

12. Listening habits of the young generation

13. The death of radio

15. Pay for performances

18. Bringing the Internet to radio

19. Social networks and radio

21. Public service of the future


Monday, October 3, 2011

SR visit - who we will meet today

.
I just got some information about who we will meet at our visit to Swedish Radio today (an hour from now!). For more information about our visit, see this blog post from last week.

  • Erik Karlälv, Business intelligence [Omvärld] about listener habits
  • Mats Åkerblan about radio strategies at large (broadcast, Internet)
  • Mikael Zachrisson about embedding SR content and SR links in external webpages
  • Henrik Tornberg about digital media and about SR in mobile phones
.

Friday, September 30, 2011

IMPORTANT: Project group formation info

.
As I told you at the seminar today, we will form the project groups next week, on Tuesday.

I have asked our guest lecturer to shorten his talk, so we will form the project groups that you will work in from October to December immediately following his (shortened) lecture.

I hope we can do this quickly, but please take into account that there is a high chance that we will not be finished by 15.00 but rather a bit later. If you can't come to this lecture, please ask a friend of yours to represent you and your interests at the group formation exercise.

After the last two seminars (seminars 3 & 4), we now have 23 suggestions for topics for the project group. I would once again like you to VOTE on Doodle and indicated which three ideas/project groups (listed below) you could consider working with for the rest of the term!

We do this vote for several reasons, but the main benefit is not primarily for me, but rather for you to learn which topics seem more likely to attract enough interest to form groups around. It will also help us to speed up the process on Tuesday by not bothering to try to form groups around less popular topics. DO NOTE that you can go back to the Doodle page and edit your selections after you see what other people have voted for. Also please note that you are not bound by your Doodle-selections - this is just a way to reveal and coordinate your interests and preferences.

We are aiming for project groups with 5-6 persons in each group. It is possible to form two groups working on the same topic, but it is then crucial that these group find a way to divide the topic up and coordinate their work (loosely) so that that they don't overlap too much!

-----------

Here are the suggested topics in order of popularity (number of votes) and with those topics that attracted two groups first.

1. School radio/podcasts
Some teachers have made experiments with using podcasts in education (for example Björn Hedin, some of you have taken his (Swedish-language) course on "Interactive media technology"). What is state of the art and what is the (future) role of radio broadcasts (in different countries) and/or of podcasts (or "enhanced podcasts" with powerpoint slides?) in (higher) education?

2. HCI challenges: always-present radio
How could technological/human-computer interaction (HCI) solutions allow us to always bring radio with us? How about tapping the phone against the computer to continue to play the podcast when you leave the office and tapping it against the car stereo to switch to the speakers when you sit down in the car and later to your home stereo? Sharing a podcast by tapping on someone else's phone? What other HCI ideas and challenges could make radio more useful in and fun?

3. The audio pool
Intelligent algorithms monitor your choices and add (similar) stuff to your "audio pool" based on your previous selections and feedback ("I like this", tags etc.) You can affect and alter the flow with a few "dials" and "buttons" (?); the proportion of talk/music, different "modes" (at-work, in-the-car, walking-the-dog, moods etc.). Perhaps people will subscribe to your audio pool or you to theirs?

4. Radio advertising of the future
Single advertisers (companies) could "own" whole shows at the birth of commercial radio, now they just buy time on popular channels. What is the history, the present and the future of radio ad formats, radio ad trends and the radio ad business? What kind of ads, or ad for what kind of products "work" on the radio? Could we see the return (development) of older radio ad practices with single advertisers owning or sponsoring a web radio channel or a podcast show?

5. Economic models of (future) radio
Skip the part about defining what radio is and what it will become (above) and jump right in to a discussion of how economic factors affect current and future changes in (the business of) radio! What new business models could/are arising? What formats will thrive in the future and which will be in decline (due to economic pressures of varying kinds)? What is the future of public service (license fees)?

6. Important message to the public - handling crises in a post-radio age
Radio/broadcast has and still does play an important role in times of crisis. How can the government reach citizens and a whole nation in a post-radio age? The hurricane "Gudrun" hit Sweden in January 2005. Around 75 million cubic meters of trees were felled by the storm and 100 000 persons had no electricity four days later (it took 40 days to restore electricity to everyone and it was fortunately a relatively warm winter). What is the role of radio in times of crisis and what will happen if radio itself will go through crises in the coming decades?

-----

7. Finding a balance between active and passive listening
Some people want to have total control and might spend a lot of time deciding content they will listen to on the radio. Others prefer to press one button once and then lean back and let others do the selection (filtering). How can these two modes of listening to radio be combined; what are the ways of finding a "balance" between "active" and "passive" listening?

8. Glocal radio
Mass radio mixed with extremely local content, for example customized/personalized information about the traffic flow on the road or the subway line you use when you travel to work (but not other roads or subway lines), about the weather where you are /will be during the day (but not other parts of the country), about stuff that has happened nearby where you live, or related to the sports team you cheer for (etc.). How would such radio come true?

9. Radio channels in an age of abundance
If there is an infinite number of radio channels (or an infinite number of podcast shows), how do listeners find their favorites and how do radio channels (or podcasts) find their listeners? How can you create meaning and find/form a taste of your own in the flood of content that washes over us? Can radio channels or podcasts be "tamed", classified, organized, clustered, tied to specific interests ("user who like this podcast usually also listen to...")?

10. Niche podcasts
What is the future of (amateur, zero-budget) producers of niche podcasts and their audiences? Who spends their leisure time doing weekly 90 minute long podcasts about recent events in World of Warcraft or about the Electric Vehicle scene (and why)? Who listens and how does producers and audiences find each other? What are the options to commercialize such podcasts as a supplement to or as a main source of income for producers? What does the world of (niche, amateur) podcasts look like, and what will the future bring?

11. Music radio and talk radio
What is the relationship between music and talk on the radio? What is the role of talkaboutmusic (for example in-between songs) on radio? Is it a nuisance, or is the talk, the point of view and the contextualization of music ("that was a great song from X and here is the latest from upcoming Norwegian trash metal band Y...") something that adds value (and that makes radio different (better?) than Spotify playlists)? Does talk about music bridge music and talk radio? Is there a role for music on the radio in the future? If so, which?

12. Listening habits of the young generation
Commercial radio forces public service to mind their quality, to not lean back and take it easy. Commercial radio also fosters a new generation of radio listeners to develop radio habits. These radio listeners might at a later point develop public service habits - so public service "loves" commercial radio. But what happens if/when young people stop listening to radio? Is that, or how is that a loss for society, democracy etc.? Could (or how could) radio become more popular among young listeners in today's saturated media landscape?

13. The death of radio
Radio is dead, long live radio! Radio as we know it (broadcast of electromagnetic signals through the ether - be they analog or digital) will soon be dead and it will be replaced by [please specify]. What will a post-radio world look like? Where (how) will we listen to music and talk formats (news, weather, documentaries, radio theater, sports etc)?

14. The comeback of the radio set
Radio was one furniture and later smaller (portable) radio sets. Now radio is everywhere, in our cell phones, in our iPods and in our cars. But could the radio set as a stand-alone gadget be revived, perhaps combing super-easy and convenient access to "long audio" podcasts, web radio and other sorts of "non-traditional" radio content and distribution channels (preset/programmable buttons? automatic subscriptions to favorite podcasts? - think of the audio equivalent of a digital photo frame)? Could it be customized in the manufacturing process according to different users' varying needs? What would such a radio set look like and what functionality would it encompass?

15. Pay for performances
Daniel Johansson indicated a shift when it comes to music from paying for recordings (a CD) to paying for performances or actual music "use" (concert, Spotify). In Spotify, a flat fee is divided into small pieces and sent off to the artists you listen to (although, as we have heard, most of the money stops at the record company). Flatter ("flatter" + "flat rate") allows you to donate an amount of money that you decide and divide it evenly among all the great content providers on the Internet that you like. What would a payment model that rewards "performances" on the radio (or podcasts or web radio) look like? This topic is related to the seminar 3 topic "economic models of (future) radio".

16. Future radio defined?
What is radio today? What will radio be in the future? A combination of distributions channels (FM, podcast, streaming, satellite etc.) and formats/genres (sport, news, weather, music, documentaries)? Is an editor (a filter) that/who chooses content for you important (excludes Spotify)? Does it make sense to talk about "radio" any longer, or should more fine-grained and specialized terms be used? Which distribution channels (transmission of signals through the air and/or Internet convergence) and formats will thrive in the future and which are doomed?

17. The future of digital radio
Is digital radio broadcasting dead before arrival? DAB+ (ongoing experiments being conducted in Sweden) is technically superior to both DAB and FM, but will that matter? Will digital radio make inroads and eventually take over, will FM broadcasting be terminated, or will we just stay with FM and go for Internet radio instead?

18. Bringing the Internet to radio
There is a lot of talk about bringing radio to the Internet, but little talk about bringing the Internet to radio. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter create "waves" of information cascading across the Internet. How can dispersed and potentially unreliable information be vetted/audited and broadcasted, bringing the latest Arabian spring news or the latest political chatter to a truly mass media channel by monitoring, summarizing and reporting on what is happening on the Internet right now?

19. Social networks and radio
Radio reached the masses (before). Today social networks reaches the masses. How can/might social networks + radio become a hit in the future?

20. Place-bound glocal radio
There was a glocal radio topic last week, but what if glocal radio was not something that just customized the radio content according to where you are at the moment and your personal habits, but rather tied to "places" that you could actively subscribe to? Perhaps people could subscribe to different geographic places or areas in different parts of the world to follow what is happening there?

21. Public service of the future
What is the role of public service in the future? More important than ever? A relic, a dinosaur looming towards its extinction? What is public service? Radio and TV, or, using available media/tools (including blogs and the Internet) in order to do [something important]?

22. Radiotwitter
Should they be 10 seconds long, or 20? Who should manage them (if not SR)? What connections to other existing networks, big or/and small, could attract meaningful soundbites? What kind of limitations would help keep quality high?

23. Radio for the deaf?
People who are deaf should not be excluded. Also deaf people want objective news and information about a crisis. Is there some way of bringing, or creating radio for people who can't hear? How can everyone be part of the community of radio listeners?
.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Guest Lecture 17 - Oct 6 (10-12) - Fredrik Stiernstedt

.
Time and place: Thursday October 6, 10-12 in seminar room Q31

Title: "The 'future of radio' as a discourse in radio production"
Guest: Fredrik Stiernstedt, Ph.D. candidate in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University"

Talk: Music radio, especially formatted background radio, has faced new competition during the last decade. Digital distribution of music (filesharing and audio-streaming) have made music in general more available. Actors such as Spotify and Last FM have challenged the role previously played by music format radio: delivering playlists for background consumption. At the same time, social media in general, such as Facebook and Twitter, has been perceived as challenges to music radio. The ways in which they facilitate sociality, presence and "being-togetherness" is seen as posing a threat to the one of the central social functions of music format radio. How have these new forms of competition been handled by actors in the Swedish music radio industry? In my talk, I will give some examples drawing on ongoing fieldwork, of how the producers of MTG-radio (Rix FM, Lugna Favioriter, Bandit Rock, NRJ) have made sense of this new competitive situation. More generally, how has the organization and labour processes been transformed and challenged by new digital and social media? I will also give a brief history of Swedish music radio and a short overview of the current situation of Swedish music radio in relation to industry structure, production practices and audiences.

About: Fredrik Stiernstedt has a long experience as a broadcaster and DJ. He is currently working on a dissertation about creative labor and new media technologies in the Swedish music radio industry.

Literature: Fredrik suggests you have a look at (the Swedish-language) Sveriges Radios Framtidsutredning [Swedish Radio's Future Inquiry]. It projects different scenarios for the future for public service radio 5-10 years into the future (2015-2020).
.

Guest Lecture 16 - Oct 4 (13-15) - Lars Jonsson

.
Time and place: Tuesday October 4, 13-15 in lecture hall L1

Title: "Digital radio - future trends"
Guest: Lars Jonsson, Technical strategist at Swedish Radio (SR)

Talk: This presentation covers the alternatives for Digital Radio now used in Europe and world wide. Streaming live services - web radio over the Internet to cell phones and PCs are now gaining momentum as compared to Digital Radio via transmitters. Different options and technical systems such as DAB, DAB+ etc. will be examined. Radio DNS is a new international standardization initiative which can link FM, DAB+ and web radio to for the benefit of listeners, irrespective of which technical system they use. The current situation in Sweden for the roll-out of Digital Radio is wait and see from politicians, Public Service and commercial radio. Other countries, such as the UK, Norway and Denmark have millions of DAB receivers and now consider the time scale for the close-down of their FM services.

About: Lars Jonsson was born in 1949 and received an M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in 1972. He has worked with developments in Swedish Public Service TV and Radio broadcasting since then. During the last decades, Lars has worked on digital radio, archiving, audio computer infrastructure and network projects within Swedish Radio. He has been active in many standards working groups with the Audio Engineering Society and European Broadcasting Union (EBU). He currently chairs the EBU Audio Contribution over IP working group, and is also the vice chair of the EBU strategic group of Future Networks and Storage.
.

The executive group

.
I usually don't publish reminders here, but I do notice that so much has happened and so much has been published on the blog since last week that some of you might need a reminder about the executive group. Today is the last day to hand in an application (1 page) if you want to be in the executive group!

Read more about it in the previous blog post.
.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Doodle-vote for seminar 4 topics

.
I think we are all tired after a long afternoon of lectures. I did add only one more suggestion for a topic. See all 23 topic here and VOTE for your three favorites here today (Wednesday) or tomorrow!


-----------------------

23. Radio as the master storyteller medium
Nancy Updike passionately argued that human being are hardwired to listen to stories, and that radio isn't old-fashioned, but rather a timeless medium for telling stories. Radio is intimate; the reporter is right next the person being interviewed in the sofa and radio is right in the listeners ear. Radio is also inexpensive both in terms of time and money, so you can afford to throw out and redo something, or try something that would be much more expensive on TV. This group will describe the future of radio and why radio rules!

Visit to Swedish Radio Mon Oct 3

.
The "lecture" on Monday is not really a lecture, but rather a visit to Swedish Radio.

Our contact person at SR is very busy with organizing the Radio Day (Thursday), so I don't have a lot of info about our visit at the moment beyond the fact that will probably meet someone who will talk about "future strategies", someone else who will talk about "business intelligence" [omvärldsbevakning] and perhaps someone who will talk about SR's presence in mobile phones.

I do have some practical information though:

- The program starts at 13.00 for a duration of two hours (at the most).
- We will be in the "Radio House" [Radiohuset] - Oxenstiernsgatan 20. You can walk there in 30 minutes at a brisk pace (see map below) or you can take bus number 4 from KTH to the bus station "Radiohuset". The trip takes 10 minutes and there are buses every 5 minutes.
- We don't have to go to the reception, but will rather go directly to "Studio 5". This studio is the studio furtherest away from the entrance/near the reception.

That's the practical information you need, I will get back with some supplementary info (probably on Friday) when I know more about our visit.


.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

On attendance

.
As you all hopefully know, what is primarily examined during the start-up phase of the course is attendance - presence at lectures and at seminars. The requirement is 75% attendance (see further below).

Me and Åke are a little bit unhappy about many students' habits of dropping in 5, 10 or 15 minutes after a lecture has begun, or sometimes even after the break. Some of you probably have really good reasons at times, but for others it seems to be a bad habit. As a direct consequence, if you turn up after half the lecture you'll only get credit for half the lecture and we'll give you a harder time in general when you turn up late.

Just as mass media is selling eyeballs to advertisers, your eyeballs (or rather your attention) is what we "sell" (offer) to our guest who have graciously taken time off their busy schedules to come visit us. This week we will have the opportunity to hear lectures by four International "superstars" who have been flown in to Sweden for the Radio Day event. Be on time and do remember that you are KTH in the eyes of our guests.


There have been 14 activities this far (1 introductory lecture, 10 guest lectures and 3 seminars). Two of these were Swedish-speaking guests so we discount these. Almost all of you have met the requirements this far (75% of 12 activities = 9).

When I look at the schedule, I see 6 activities planned for this week, 3 activities next week and 2 activities the week after that for a total of 23 activities. That means you should attend a total of (at least) 17 activities in order to fulfill the requirements. Some of you are almost there after tomorrow, others have a longer way to go.

If you fail to meet the 75% attendance requirement, you will have a second chance by meeting two other requirements;
- Meeting a 60% attendance requirement (14 activities) and
- Giving a mini-lecture in front of the class at the very last occasion (Thu Oct 13).

The mini-lecture will consist of a 15-minute and will require you to do some independent research on a radio-related topic. Which topic? Well, after the last seminar this Friday, the class will have worked on ~25 topics during the last two seminars. Half of these will be picked by project groups. You can select any of the "remaining" topics that we leave behind. By looking into one of these topics, you learn more yourself and by presenting it you do the class a favor.


Post questions about this or any other blog post in the form of comments if you think your question and the answer is of interest to the class in general.
.

Guest Lecture 15 - Sept 29 (15-16) - Simon Redican & Mark Barber

.
Time and place: Thursday September 29 at 15.00-16.00 in lecture hall D2.
DO NOTE: This is a 60-minuter lecture - please be in time!
EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, please note that we had to move the lecture one hour from 14 to 15 due to the fact that there was not a single KTH lecture hall or seminar room free at the earlier time.

Title: "Media and the mood of the nation"
Guest: Simon Redican, Managing Director and Radio Advertising Bureau and Mark Barber, Planning Director at Radio Advertising Bureau

Talk: The recent on "Media and the mood of the nation" chimes with the UK Government's attempts to measure the happiness of UK citizens with its index focusing on general wellbeing and not just GDP - and this research illustrates how powerful a boost media, and radio in particular, can have on the nation's welfare. It generated headlines around the world; "perfect research with perfect findings" according to BBC Radio 2's Vanessa Feltz.
Research carried out by Sparkler Research for the RAB (Radio Advertising Bureau), demonstrated that people who regularly use media are happier, with both higher levels of energy and happiness.
This presentation explores why, in the age of HD wide-screen TV and access to anything and everything online, radio continues to have such enduring appeal, and retrains that crucial ability to form a powerful emotional connections with its listeners.

About: Simon Redican began his career as a Media Planner and Buyer, working at Full service agencies LRC and DMB&B and then at media specialists Carat and Starcom MediaVest, where he was the UK Head of Planning. He made the move to the media owner side where he was Head of Sales at Classic FM and Planet Rock and then Head of Partnership for Times Media at News International. He has been Managing Director of the RAB since June 2007. Simon is married with 3 children and is a fan of Liverpool's original and best football club, Everton FC.

Mark Barber is, in his role as Planning Director at RAB UK, responsible for developing the company's research strategy. He is the architect of the UK's highly successful RadioGAUGE research project, which was developed in response to advertiser and agency demands for improved accountability and creativity in radio advertising, and is the co-author of the book "An advertiser's guide to better radio advertising" published by Wiley. Before joining RAB, Mark spent 18 years as a strategic media planner on blue-chip clients across a number of agencies, most recently as Communication Planning Director at Universal McCann where, amongst others, he ran the Bacardi Martini, Nestle, MasterCard and Microsoft accounts. Mark is married, and at the weekends operates a free mini-cab service exclusively for his two teenage children.
.

Administrative: Attendance & photos

.
I have uploaded two new documents into Bilda:

"110923 Attendance.pdf". Please check this document to verify that I have correct information about your track record. The vast majority of students are OK. A few students have to improve their attendance from now on in order to pass the requirements (Marco S, Kristoffer T, Fahad W). A few students are in the "danger zone" and have to improve considerably (Yashar M, Pontus W). A separate blog post will follow later about attendance and the consequences of not reaching the set goals during the start-up phase of the course (75% attendance).

"110923 FoM-photos.pdf" - photos of the class as of the end of last week. There are 73 students taking the course. For those 6 who have managed to avoid being photographed (perhaps believing in animism and refusing to be "captured" on photo?) - you are from now on safe! I will stop hounding and hunting you with my camera ("the law of diminishing return" is at play here).
.


Literature for tomrrow

.
I have updated two seminar invitations on the blog with some literature and copy it to this blog post as I believe many of you would not see it otherwise.

------


Claire Wardle (lecture 15-17 tomorrow) directs you to a report she wrote about user-generated content at the BBC a few years back:

Literature: Claire Wardle and Andrew Williams, "ugc@thebbc: Understanding its impact upon contributors, non-contributors and BBC News". On user-generated content and the BBC.



I also recommend you listen to a This American Life podcast in preparation for Nancy Updike's lecture tomorrow (17-19):

Literature: Daniel suggests you listen to an episode of Nancy's radio show This American Life:
- You being media technology students, I would suggest the recent (July 22) show, "When patents attack!" about "patent trolls" who hinder technological innovations by suing companies that violate their tenuous broad-and-very-fuzzy intellectual property rights.
- Something else that might be of interest is the last episode (18 minutes) of the even more recent (Aug 26) show on "Gossip". It gives you an insider's perspective on how reality television shows create drama out of thin air and how the events we see on the television screen bears only a tenuous relationship to reality. ...Or maybe not, since this episode in itself is a work of fiction...
.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Seminar 4 topics

.
1. The human need for radio
What basic human needs do/can radio satisfy? Objective information (news, weather, traffic etc.)? Entertainment (sports, gossip)? Music (decreasing?)? How would those needs be satisfied if there for example was no public service radio, or if broadcast radio was dead? What makes radio - someone (intimately) talking right in your ear - special? How can those needs and those experiences be emulated or replaced by other media? Are, or how are these needs changing in modern society?

2. Displaydio
Radio as a social marker. How do you integrate your (non-music?) radio listening into your public presentation, i.e. how do you show other people what you listen to and who you are as a person? We know how to do this through clothes when it comes to music, but how could this be extended to radio and radio shows?

3. Radio for the deaf?
People who are deaf should not be excluded. Also deaf people want objective news and information about a crisis. Is there some way of bringing, or creating radio for people who can't hear? How can everyone be part of the community of radio listeners?

4. Bringing the Internet to radio
There is a lot of talk about bringing radio to the Internet, but little talk about bringing the Internet to radio. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter create "waves" of information cascading across the Internet. How can dispersed and potentially unreliable information be vetted/audited and broadcasted, bringing the latest Arabian spring news or the latest political chatter to a truly mass media channel by monitoring, summarizing and reporting on what is happening on the Internet right now?

5. On the synergy of old and new media
Competition is a point of view, synergy is another. Old and new media do not only exist in parallel, but depend on and strengthen each other! Radio and the Internet complement and blend into each other! New developments forces "old" media to find its unique strengths, to refine these strenghts, and ultimately strengthens its form and expression - just as the arrival of commercial radio in Sweden (1990's-) forced public service radio to improve. How will radio be strengthened by recent developments in media technology?

6. Finding a balance between active and passive listening
Some people want to have total control and might spend a lot of time deciding content they will listen to on the radio. Others prefer to press one button once and then lean back and let others do the selection (filtering). How can these two modes of listening to radio be combined; what are the ways of finding a "balance" between "active" and "passive" listening?

7. The ratings industries
Michael Forsman mentioned the ratings companies that measure who, what and where and then sell their results back to the radio channels. What is the history of measuring ratings and the specialized companies that do these measurements. What is the impact and implications of their activities - how does feedback affect the radio industries (content, economic decisions, radio personalities etc.)? What role will measurements, ratings and the rating industries play in the future and for the future of radio? This proposal can be linked to, or compared to last week's "Radio advertising of the future" proposal.

8. Language radio/podcasts
Some of you mentioned listening to radio to uphold language skills or when you learn a new language, for example foreign students listening to Swedish radio to hear more spoken Swedish and train their faculties of understanding spoken Swedish. What is state of the art and what is the (future) role of radio broadcasts and/or podcasts in language learning?

9. School radio/podcasts
Some teachers have made experiments with using podcasts in education (for example Björn Hedin, some of you have taken his (Swedish-language) course on "Interactive media technology"). What is state of the art and what is the (future) role of radio broadcasts (in different countries) and/or of podcasts (or "enhanced podcasts" with powerpoint slides?) in (higher) education?

10. Place-bound glocal radio
There was a glocal radio topic last week, but what if glocal radio was not something that just customized the radio content according to where you are at the moment and your personal habits, but rather tied to "places" that you could actively subscribe to? Perhaps people could subscribe to different geographic places or areas in different parts of the world to follow what is happening there?

11. HCI challenges: always-present radio
How could technological/human-computer interaction (HCI) solutions allow us to always bring radio with us? How about tapping the phone against the computer to continue to play the podcasst when you leave the office and tapping it against the car stereo to switch to the speakers when you sit down in the car and later to your home stereo? Sharing a podcast by tapping on someone else's phone? What other HCI ideas and challenges could make radio more useful and fun?

12. The audio pool
Intelligent algorithms monitor your choices and add (similar) stuff to your "audio pool" based on your previous selections and feedback ("I like this", tags etc.). You can affect and alter the flow with a few "dials" and "buttons" (?); the proportion of talk/music, different "modes" (at-work, in-the-car, walking-the-dog, moods etc.). Perhaps people with subscribe to your audio pool or you to theirs?

13. Pay for performances
Daniel Johansson indicated a shift when it comes to music from paying for recordings (a CD) to paying for performances or actual music "use" (concert, Spotify). In Spotify, a flat fee is divided into small pieces and sent off to the artists you listen to (although, as we have heard, most of the money stops at the record company). Flattr ("flatter" + flat rate") allows you to donate an amount of money that you decide and divide it evenly among all the great content providers on the Internet that you like. What would a payment model that rewards "performances" on the radio (or podcasts or web radio) look like? This topic is related to the seminar 3 topic "economic models of (future) radio".

14. The competition channel
Also traditional "one-way" (broadcast) radio has experimented with listener feedback through call-in talk radio ("Ring så spelar vi"). How can listeners become more involved through radio events and competitions? Could we imagine "user-generated content" where listeners create the entertainment value themselves? How is this done today, what could be done tomorrow? Is it possible to imagine a dedicated "competition channel"?

15. Changing conditions for radio workers
Gunnar Bolin mentioned the generous conditions and the expensive costs for Swedish Radio of maintaining 16 foreign correspondents abroad. He also mentioned the increased use of "stringers" or freelancers. Will increased use of freelancers lead to decreases in quality? Or, could it be possible to improve radio and widen the "intake" by using an extensive network of freelances or even "natives" who cover events and produce content that are later utilized/bought/payed/summarized and edited by editors creating great radio?

16. Radio/audio blogger
Is there a space somewhere between radio, pocasts and radiotwitter for audio bloggers? Some blogs, notably young women writing about fashion, have become among the most popular of blogs in Sweden. Could blogging go audio in the future? Could audio blog posts, perhaps automatically downloaded to you iPod/cell phone become a trend? Could the best, funniest and most popular audio blogger make it to broadcast radio much the same way that some bloggers start to write chronicles for newspapers and some radio personalities start to make TV?

17. Listening habits of the young generation
Commercial radio forces public service to mind their quality, to not lean back and take it easy. Commercial radio also fosters a new generation of radio listeners to develop radio habits. These radio listeners might at a later point develop public service habits - so public service "loves" commercial radio. But what happens if/when young people stop listening to radio? Is that, or how is that a loss for society, democracy etc.? Could (or how could) radio become more popular among young listeners in today's saturated media landscape?

18. The future of digital radio
Is digital radio broadcasting dead before arrival? DAB+ (ongoing experiments being conducted in Sweden) is technically superior to both DAB and FM, but will that matter? Will digital radio make inroads and eventually take over, will FM broadcasting be terminated, or will we just stay with FM and go for Internet radio instead?

19. Future of the electromagnetic spectrum
If the death of (broadcast) radio or the transfer from analog (FM) to digital radio frees up a lot of frequencies in the spectrum, what would the future of radio communications look like? The electromagnetic spectrum is used for many different things, of which radio is only one. What is the spectrum used for today, which uses are "on the rise" and how could the "frequency pie" of the future be divided up (and why) if radio exits the scene?

20. Future of copyrights
With abundant, niche (web) radio channels and an infinite number of podcasts, how will music copyright practices and laws adapt? Will there be no money in music, or is it possible to imagine systems that balance revenue for artists and composers on the one hand with listeners/consumers on the other hand in a "fair" way? What are the laws today? How have they developed and what are possible futures in this area?

21. Public service of the future
What is the role of public service in the future? More important than ever? A relic, a dinosaur looming towards its extinction? What is public service? Radio and TV, or, using available media/tools (including blogs and the Internet) in order to do [something important]?

22. The end of broadcast is the end of democracy and the balkanization of society.
Everyone should have access to the reliable and inexpensive news and high-quality information. Public service radio fertilizes the public sphere. A lively public sphere is crucial for a democratic society. What are the risks to Western democratic and to other societies if radio declines in power and scope? Is there a value to many people or even a whole nation listening to the same thing at the same time? Is radio (and limited choice) good for you, or, at least good for society? If so, how should societies work to "restrict" (?) diversity and choice (encourage mass audiences) for a better future together?

23. Radio as the master storyteller medium
Nancy Updike passionately argued that human being are hardwired to listen to stories, and that radio isn't old-fashioned, but rather a timeless medium for telling stories. Radio is intimate; the reporter is right next the person being interviewed in the sofa and radio is right in the listeners ear. Radio is also inexpensive both in terms of time and money, so you can afford to throw out and redo something, or try something that would be much more expensive on TV. This group will describe the future of radio and why radio rules!

------------------

There were several more suggestions given, but while some ideas seemed promising they were sometimes also hard for me to (re-)formulate into topics (for example Maryam's far-out "Radio as religion" concept).
.