Essay 2 - instruction

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

"You have to write an individual essay twice during the course; in the beginning and in the end. 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 handling in the essay is Monday December 17 (23.59), 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 Friday Jan 4 at 12.00 (officially last day of the autumn semester). The task is neither very comprehensive nor time-consuming.

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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 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 do not just enumerate stuff without also including (a brief) explanation.

1B. "The project"

Taking into account that this is a project course, I am 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. What is your own evaluation of your project group's work effort? Did you reach the quality you aimed/wished for in the allotted time and with the resources available? Did group members have similar priorities, or did you have different opinions about some things? Knowing what you know now, what could/should you have done differently?

NOTE: I ask this question because 1) I have little insights into the work processes of individual project groups during the last two months and 2) I want to improve the course for 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 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 magazines". 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 magazines 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 half a dozen 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 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 17 (depending on how early or late you classmates submit their essay 2's).

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Final presentation jury members

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There will be no less then five 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, I believe that perhaps two members of the jury will be able to comment on each group's presentation and these will for the most part be feedback and an opinion/review rather than questions (there is no time for that).

These are the member of the jury:

- Jonas Olofsson, Business development manager at Bonnier Research & Development
- Björn Thuresson, Senior researcher at KTH/CSC
- Kristina Sabelström Möller, Technical Doctor (KTH) and Senior project manager at Expressen
- Milad Hosseinzadeh, Architect, Entrepreneur and guest teacher at KTH/Architecture
- Anders Malmström, CEO for Bonnier International Magazines

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About: Jonas Olofsson is a business development manager at Bonnier Research & Development and has spent the last three years working with digital media innovation there. Projects he has worked on include News+, a publishing concept for Bonnier's morning and business papers on tablets; Filmnet, a subscription streaming service for movies and tv series, and the I Am Zlatan Biography App, a storytelling concept/new reading experience of Zlatan Ibrahimovic's autobiography designed for the Ipad, which was launched together with Zlatan in Milano this spring. Jonas starts each year with a deep-dive into the latest developments in consumer behavior and emerging technologies, leading up to and indeed becoming the annual trend report "Media Map" which is distributed internally to all Bonnier companies. Originally from Kalmar in southern Sweden, he has a cross-disciplinary degree in business, design and technology. 

Links:

https://twitter.com/jonas_o

http://delicious.com/jonaso/

http://www.bonnier.com/rd

Projects:

http://www.filmnet.se/

http://www.iamzlatan.com/

http://vimeo.com/17148146 (News+)

About: Björn Thuresson is a senior researcher at the School of Computer Science and Communication (CSC) at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm. He has a BA in Film Studies and Journalism and an MA in Film Studies and Media and Communication. Björn has been the research coordinator for the MDI Department and project manager for a number of national and international projects. Björn is currently running the meeting place VIC Sthlm with more than forty member companies and organizations, including almost all computer game companies in the Stockholm region. Björn has been instrumental in starting up and arranging Game Developer Forum in Stockholm (GDF Sthlm) in 2010, 2011 as well as the upcoming 2013 event. Björn is responsible for the KTH courses "Computer Game Design" (DH2650) and "Cooperative IT design" (DH2655) and is also a member of the management team for the vocational training program "Future Games". Björn is also responsible for the Visualization Studio at KTH - a lab environment with extremely high performance technologies for visualization, interaction, presentation, distribution and production. The studio is used for activities within research, teaching as well as various types of collaborations with companies.

About: Dr Kristina Sabelström Möller has a long background working with publishing in digital media. With a starting point as a researcher focusing on organization, content handling and technology for multiple channel publishing at KTH, she moved on to working internationally for the publishing association WAN-IFRA. Her work for WAN-IFRA included management consulting for international news organizations, trend spotting and project management within the area of digital media. Between 2010 and 2012 Kristina worked as a senior project manager at one of Sweden's largest evening newspapers, Expressen, coordinating the complex project of starting to charge money for digital content. Kristina gave the lecture "Stunning technology is not enough - There's more to the future of magazines" in our course on Sept 25.

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and has lived in London where he graduated 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 the recent startup of BLINK - a transnational think tank for responsive ideas of changes in lifestyles, cities, cultures and economies. Milad gave the lecture "Thinking inside the box from outside!" in our course on Oct 10.

About: Anders Malmsten started his career in media as a journalist in the early 1980's, working as a reporter and editor in several daily newspapers in Sweden. In 1993 he was appointed project leader for developing Dagens Medicin (Medicine Today), a newsweekly aimed at the medical profession. Dagens Medicin became a success in Sweden and Anders Malmsten headed the launch in Denmark, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands and Poland in the 1990's. In 1999, Anders was awarded The Great Journalist Award, Sweden's most prestigious journalistic award, for the launch of Dagens Medicin. In 2002, Malmsten left Dagens Medicin to start his own consultancy and worked for several Nordic magazine publishers as well as governmental organizations and corporations. After Bonnier's acquisition of two groups of magazines in the US in 2006 and 2007, Malmsten was recruited back to Bonnier to start Bonnier International Magazines, focusing on licensing Bonnier's magazine titles and the development of new markets. Anders gave the lecture "Digital and global magazines will change the future for magazines publishers" in our course on Sept 7.

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Invitation to the final presentation

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Above and beyond all the other ways of spreading information about the final presentation, you might want to direct people to a blog post of mine on my blog:

Future of Magazines - invitation to final presentation & book intro

/Daniel
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Important info about book, deadlines

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We have a tight schedule for the book. These are the official deadlines + other info that have been decided upon in the coordination group:

- Sun Nov 18 at 18.00. Deadline for suggesting trends you want to offload to Daniel/book introduction. No less than 10 groups have suggested (at least) one trend they want to upload up until this point in time. NOTE: I'm away for the weekend, you have an extra day for suggesting trends you want to offload from you chapters compared to earlier info, i.e. Sunday instead of Saturday.
- Mon Nov 19. Daniel will publish info about what trends he will take care of. He might push some trends back to the project groups to take care of in their respective chapters.
- Wed Nov 21. Daniel will have (at least a draft) for the book intro written so you can see what is taken care of in the intro and how to shape the "interface" between Daniel's book into and your individual chapters.
- Fri Nov 23. Deadline for chapters, all texts should be sent (together with pictures) to Hanna.
- Tue Nov 27 between 10-13. Writing workshop in seminar room 4523. Send two persons from each group catching the last spelling errors, for fixing the final touches on the texts etc. These two persons should preferably be the persons most involved (i.e. responsible) for your texts and they can make on-the-spot decision.

New info (never before communicated - IMPORTANT).
I have read your weekly report (week 46). Many groups have internal deadlines for their texts in the beginning/middle of next week. Sometimes you become almost blind to you own errors and assumptions, so I hereby mandate that each group should read the text of two other groups and provide feedback to these two groups. That also means that your text will be read by two other groups and that these groups will provide feedback to you. I have organized this as follows:

I have created a Google document. Do note that anyone with the link can access and edit this document. Please follow the instructions in the document!
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Offload trends to the book introduction

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It will be boring and perhaps also redundant if each groups starts their respective chapter by writing a page about different trends they assume will happen during the next 10-20 years. Especially if several group assume the same trends will happen (more tablets, death of paper, paper still going strong etc.).

You can therefore "offload" this work to Daniel who will write the introduction to the book. I have created a form where you can suggest trends (etc.) that you assume will happen and that you would like Daniel to write about instead of taking valuable space in your own chapter to write about these things. You find it here. Do note that there are also group- or project-specific trends/scenarios that you should keep and write about in your group - what we are talking about here is more general "background" societal trends that you might suspect also other groups assume will happen...

We have a tight schedule for writing the texts for the book, but you will still have until Saturday (Nov 17) to submit your suggestions. Daniel will review them in the beginning of next week and will get back to you mid-week (next week) at the latest with info you will need in order to make a good "transition" 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 can but does not have to be the same person as your project leader. This is also the person who should come to the "work seminar"/"writer's workshop" (one representative per group) on Tue Nov 27 (10-13) - we talked about this at the latest coordination meeting (Nov 6), see further this document (search for "workshop").
- Please have only this person be the representative of your group and the only person from your group who uses the form to suggest topics to offload.

Good luck with your texts!
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Mid-crit schedule

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We had a meeting in the coordination group today (consisting of me, the executive groups and all project group leaders - although three were absent). Here is some important info that is of interest to all of you regarding the upcoming mid-crit event (this coming Friday).

- The mid-crit will be held in B1 between 10.15-17.00. We will have outside guest critics - please impress them by being on time!
- Each group has 20 minutes for presentation + questions and discussion. Please use a maximum of 10 minutes for your presentation so that there is plenty of time left.
- Send all presentation material (Powerpoint/Keynote slides) to Christian Croona (christiancroona@gmail.com) in advance. The deadline for sending your material to Christian is Thursday Nov 8 at 19.00. 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 Christian Croona is responsible for the final presentation as well as the mid-crit (he will for example be the master of ceremonies on Friday - Daniel will concentrate on being a guest guest critic). Christian has put together a schedule for the mid-crit presentation as follows:

• 10.15-10.25 Mini-lecture/independent research project 1 (Ted S on never-chosen topic 12 "The future of paid digital content")
• 10.25-10.35 Mini-lecture/independent research project 2 (Havva G on never-chosen topic 5, "Children's and youth's reading habits/relationship to magazines")
• 10.35-10.55 MAGnify
• 10.55-11.15 Future of collecting
• 11.15-11.30 BREAK
• 11.30-11.50 Digital lenses
• 11.50-12.10 Augmented reality and magazines
• 12.10-13.30 LUNCH BREAK
• 13.30-13.50 Readly
• 13.50-14.10 MAGi
• 14-10-14.30 An audience of one
• 14.30-14.45 BREAK
• 14.45-15.05 Future of interactive ads
• 15.05-15.25 MagZone
• 15.25-15.45 BREAK
• 15.45-16.05 Future of distribution
• 16.05-16.25 Journalists as rockstars
• 16.25-16.45 Magazine for several senses
• 16.25-16.45 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 Christian (christiancroona@gmail.com) with a cc to Daniel.
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Mid-crit

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

I have booked the lecture hall B1 the whole day, i.e. Friday Nov 9 between 10.15-17.00. A detailed schedule will be announce mid-week (sometime after the coordination meeting with the executive group and project group leaders on Tuesday Nov 6).

As has been mentioned several times before (for example during one or indeed several of the very last activities in the start-up phase of the course, at the two coordination meetings that your project leader has attended, as well as in blog posts last month (for example here and here)), we require your personal individual presence at this event - all day (not just part of the day, for example when your group is presenting). 

I have also, at several occasions (see the two blog post above), asked you to notify me if there are collisions with other courses. I have offered to personally get in touch with other teaches and negotiate/ask them to move their activities if a sizable number of students take that other course - but no one has gotten in touch with me and asked me to do that.

If only you (or perhaps just a few more students) take another course which collides with this event, you should prioritize this course over the other course on this one occasion. Do note that Nov 9 is the only scheduled event and indeed the one and only occasion between Oct 11 and Dec 5 when the course Future of Media requires you to be someplace special sometime special.


As to the event itself, each group will have a maximum of 10 minutes to pitch their basic ideas and also 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, created a storyboard for a movie etc). Each group will altogether have a guaranteed 20 minutes reserved for the presentation and for discussion of their work (or perhaps a few more minutes if time allows for it).

Do note that the emphasis at the event 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).


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


Do note that this is also the premier occasion for you to get an idea about what (all) other groups are doing in the course. Perhaps you will realize that there is a need to coordinate your work with 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 will for example also have implications for the order in which we will schedule groups to present their projects at the final presentation (Dec 7).

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


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.

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and has lived in London where he graduated 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 the recent startup of BLINK - a transnational think tank for responsive ideas of changes in lifestyles, cities, cultures and economies. Milad gave the lecture "Thinking inside the box from outside!" in our course on Oct 10.

About: Anders Malmsten started his career in media as a journalist in the early 1980's, working as a reporter and editor in several daily newspapers in Sweden. In 1993 he was appointed project leader for developing Dagens Medicin (Medicine Today), a newsweekly aimed at the medical profession. Dagens Medicin became a success in Sweden and Anders Malmsten headed the launch in Denmark, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands and Poland in the 1990's. In 1999, Anders was awarded The Great Journalist Award, Sweden's most prestigious journalistic award, for the launch of Dagens Medicin. In 2002, Malmsten left Dagens Medicin to start his own consultancy and worked for several Nordic magazine publishers as well as governmental organizations and corporations. After Bonnier's acquisition of two groups of magazines in the US in 2006 and 2007, Malmsten was recruited back to Bonnier to start Bonnier International Magazines, focusing on licensing Bonnier's magazine titles and the development of new markets. Anders gave the lecture "Digital and global magazines will change the future for magazines publishers" in our course on Sept 7.

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Request for project summary/promotion material!

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Beyond the weekly status report, we would like you to put together a one-time only presentation/sum-up of your respective projects. This information will be used by the executive group to to present the course and the project groups on the soon-to-be-created public face of the course - the homepage futureofmedia.se. It can also be interesting for intra-course communication - what do other groups work on, whose work are you close to and should confer with?

Together with the executive group (esp. webmaster Johan L), we would thus like each group to provide:

• The (new?) name of your group
• An inspiring question/statement/proposal; "What if...", "In the future,...", "We will...", "Our dream is..."
• A short summary/pitch (around 40-100 words) about your project. What will you do, what is your big idea, what will you look into, how will you do it? 
• A picture (width 960 * height 480 pixels) of "something"; a logotype for your project, a photo that tries to capture a feeling etc. (see example below).

You might feel that it is slightly premature to state/pitch what you will do, but the goal is to get a wealth of materials 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!

Each group should "hand in" this material in the form of a blog post on the companion blog. Deadline in Tuesday October 30!

For inspiration, see this TED talk by Simon Sinek, "How great leaders inspire action" about the importance of answering the questions "why", "who" and "how".

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Instructions for the weekly status report!

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Each group should post a weekly status report on the course companion blog. Every course participant has previously gotten an invitation to contribute to the blog, but only around 25% have accepted the invitation and have the right to post stuff there - send me (Daniel) a mail if you want a new invitation and send it from the email address you want the invitation sent to.

Do note that except for the weekly status report, you will in a short while be asked to provide some extra information about your group. This info will be used to present the course and the project groups on the course's soon-to-be-created public face - the homepage futureofmedia.se. More info will follow in a separate blog post soon.


Here are the instructions for the weekly status report.

Deadline: Please submit your weekly status report every Friday starting this coming Friday (Oct 26), e.g. Nov 2, Nov 16, Nov 23, Nov 30. You don't need to provide a status report on Nov 9 (mid-term critique) or on Dec 7 (final presentation).

Content of each weekly report:

• Group name. You have the option to change your group name right now. If so, please choose a rather "boring" but descriptive name - you can rename your project for the final presentation if you want a more funny, flashy, cryptic or cool name. We have two "hybrid magazines" groups right now - at least one group has to change it's name. 
• What we have done. What you (your group) have done during the previous week (since the previous weekly report)
• What we will do. What you will do next (next step(s) in your project)
• Problems encountered. Either within the group or in relation to you plans and "external" entities. 
• Changes in the project. "Evolution"/change of direction of your project (optional). If you have altered or changed the direction of your project (compared to the project plan or to previous status report) - please tell us why. Please specify why.
• Other. Whatever you feel is important or necessary to add to the status report. 

• Tag each blog post with your group name (or an abbreviation). 

You are welcome to add pictures, drawing, links etc. to your blog posts!

Comment: As stated before, not just the final results, but also the process is important in the course. Please see the weekly status reports not only as us (teachers) examining you (students), but as your opportunity to tell us (and impress us with) what you have lately done in your project group, as well as a backchannel to point out obstacles and problems you have encountered. It is also a good way to improve intra-course communication (between groups) - perhaps some groups partly do the same thing and should get in touch with each other?
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Coordination meeting #1

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We had the first meeting with the coordination group today. Here are those parts of the notes that should be of interest to everyone who takes the course:

- The final presentation will be held at 13-16 on Dec 7 in lecture hall F1 (500 seats!)
- There will be a general rehearsal the day before, Thu Dec 6. I have booked F1 from 13-20
- After the final presentation, I would like you to stay behind for a final summary & wrap-up

- Last year's projects are documented here if you want to have a look at The Future of Radio / Radio of the Future.

- Mid-term critique is scheduled for Nov 9 between 10-17 in lecture hall B1
- If you have any collisions with other courses, I would be very interested in knowing about them (to hopefully persuade other teachers to move stuff away from Nov 9). This is only interesting if not just one, but rather a group of students has this problem. Leave a comment here, or tell your project leader so we can discuss this at the next meeting with the coordination group.

- Next two meetings in the coordination group is Friday Oct 26 and Tuesday November 6 - both times in the seminar room 4523 (house D, 5th floor).

- Each group will write weekly status reports and post them to the companion blog. Deadlines will be on Fridays at 18.00. Since next week is exam week, the first deadlines will be Fri Oct 26, Fri Nov 2, Fri Nov 16 and so on. Remember that it is possible to include links, pictures, photos, movies on the blog! You will get more specific instructions next week (perhaps a template where you can see the categories you should fill out).
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Project groups contact info

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If you are unsure about which project group you are in, or who is in your project group (a few persons were missing on Monday), there is now a list in Bilda that you can check it out (/Contents/Project groups). Those who did not attend the seminar (Monday) have hopefully already been contacted by the other group members.

I will update that list with info about who the project leaders are as soon as I get your project plans. That way you can get hold of each other if the need arises later.
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Meetings with project groups Thu-Fri Oct 11-12

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All groups booked meetings (30 minutes) with Daniel and Leif on Thursday or Friday this week. We will primarily discuss your 2-3 pages long Project plans (please use the template in Bilda).

Do note that each groups must appoint a project leader (and a back-up). We have scheduled our first lunch meeting with the coordination group (Daniel, Leif, executive group + 12 project leaders) this coming Friday (Oct 12). Bring your own lunch and please show up in seminar room 1537 (house E floor 5) between 12-13 on Friday!

In fact, I wrote a blog post about what should happen in your projects this week already last week. Do read it now as a reminder!


Here is the schedule:

Thu Oct 11 - seminar room 1625 (house E top floor)
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08.30 Hybrid magazines
09.00 Future of journalism
09.30 Future of collecting
10.00 Future of magazine distribution
10.30 Spotify
11.00 Upping the revenue

Fri Oct 12 - seminar room 1635 (house E top floor)

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09.00 Usability issues

09.30 Audience of one

10.00 Senses

11.00 Hybrid magazines

15.00 Social recommendations

15.30 Dynamic ads

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Guest lecture 18 - Oct 10 (10-12) - Skagermark & Gylje

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Time and place: Wednesday October 10 at 10-12 in lecture hall K2.

Title: "Swimming against the tide? Glossy magazines in a digital world"

Guest lecturer: Pia Skagermark, Foreign Editor at Dagens Nyheter

Talk: Media consumption habits have changed - but have people changes? Or do they still want well-written stories, in-depth and investigative journalism? When publishers all over the world are mourning the decline in print publishing, we launch a glossy magazine with content that reflects one of Dagens Nyheters' core strengths: foreign journalism

About: Pia Skagermark is Foreign Editor at Dagens Nyheter, Sweden's largest morning newspaper with a daily circulation of some 380 000 copies. Pia is a journalist since 25 years and she was awarded "Stora Journalistpriset" [The Great Journalist Award] for investigative journalism in 1997. She is former Managing Editor at DN, is married to journalist Peter, 56 and has children Karl, 21, Alice, 15 and Viggo, 9.

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Title: "Visual journalism in a digital age"

Guest lecturer: Magnus Gylje, Editor K magazine, Svenska Dagbladet

Talk: Digital platforms create unique opportunities for visual storytelling and in-depth journalism. I will talk about the creation and production of Svenska Dagbladet's Ipad magazine SvD Insikt, awarded best tablet experience by the Society for News Design alongside The Guardian and National Geographic. I will also tell you why we decided to quit publishing Insikt in September this year, after having published 12 issues as well as the key learnings from working with tablets and what I think the future holds for visual journalism.

About: Magnus Gylje is the editor of K magazine, the weekend culture magazine of Swedish morning newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. He was also the editor of the Ipad magazine SvD Insikt. Magnus has worked in journalism for 15 years, focusing on culture, but also covering foreign and domestic affairs. He holds a masters degree in Psychology from Uppsala University and Edinburgh University. He lives in Stockholm with his family.

Preparations: Ipad owners can buy a digital issue of SvD Insikt. Number 7 is recommended. Non-Ipad owners: pick up a copy of K magazine - published together with Svenska Dagbladet every Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

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Guest Lecture 17 - Oct 10 (8-10) - Milad Hossainzadeh

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Time and place: Wednesday October 10 at 8-10 in lecture hall K2.

Title: "Thinking inside the box from outside!"

Guest lecturer: Milad Hossainzadeh, Ba(h) Dip.M.Arch

Talk: What happens to an idea when approached from different angles and different cultural views? Is there a limit on how radical an idea can be? What then are the social, cultural, behavioral, economical, political, technical and ecological consequences?

This lecture will explore how lateral thinking can highlight the exception in an idea, and expand our perception of bringing playfulness into a concept. In order to push forward, we will expose the consequences and create temporary realities where we allow for a critical discussion to take place.

About: Milad Hossainzadeh is a young architect and entrepreneur who was born in Iran. He grew up in Sweden and has lived in London where he graduated 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 the recent startup of BLINK - a transnational think tank for responsive ideas of changes in lifestyles, cities, cultures and economies.

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Cancelled/changed lecture Monday Oct 8

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Our Monday guest lecturer (13-15) unfortunately cancelled with short notice.

As an effect of this, we will switch the time slot for the Monday seminar. It was supposed to be at 8-10, but we now move it to the 13-15 time slot.

So, to summarize:
- No lecture on Monday
- The Monday morning seminar is switched from early morning (8-10) to right after lunch (13-15).

I have booked the seminar room Q34 for the Monday 13-15 seminar.

It is at this seminar that you will find out which project group you are in and who you will work together with for the rest of the term.

We will also use the seminar to work on a project-related task (also a good way to get to know the other people in your project group). Do note that we start the seminar off with some instructions about the task, so please be there in time!
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Dates for mid-crit and final presentation

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I and Leif met the executive group Friday last week. As I said (at the seminar this past Monday Oct 1), we decided upon the dates for:

- Mid-term critique (whole-day event): Fri Nov 9

- General rehearsal: Fri Dec 6

- Final presentation: Fri Dec 7

Note: the course will end earlier than I expected, and you will thus have only have nine weeks to complete your projects (starting next week). You might thus have to work a little harder during these two months, but will also be finished with the whole course a little earlier (right before the exam period starts).

Note: I would like to be notified about Nov 9 collisions with other courses. If many students take that other course, I could have a chat with the teacher in question and ask him/her to move those other activities to another date. You can for example notify me about collisions by commenting on this blog post (much preferred to sending e-mail...).
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After you have been allocated a project group

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This information is a little "premature" since you haven't been divided into project groups yet. If we on the other hand wait until you have been divided into project groups, you might feel that a lot of information and tasks arrive very suddenly at the beginning of next week.

So, beyond our three final guest lecturers, this is what will happen next week (Mon Oct 8 - Fri Oct 12):

- Monday Oct 8: You will get to know which group you are part of at the Monday morning seminar (at the latest, it might be earlier, but as of this very moment only 25% have specified their preferences). NOTE: at the end of this week I will have to divide you into groups (at the latest). It's very much in your interest to have specified you interests at that point - I don't know exactly how to treat late-comers/absent-choice students, but however I choose to do it, it probably won't be to your liking...

- Monday Oct 8: Download the project plan template from Bilda (it is already available there now). The project plan can be compared to a project specification or a bachelor's/master's thesis specification. Use the headers and the instructions that are provided in the document as a starting point for discussions within your project group. NOTE: The Wed Oct 10 morning (8-10) guest lecture might be helpful in the brainstorming process, in thinking "outside the box" and in terms of scenarios and disruptive changes.

- Thursday-Friday Oct 11-12: Each project group will meet Daniel and Leif at a 30 minutes long review meeting where we will discuss and give feedback on your projects - based on your project plans. At the review meeting, you will in turn try to impress us with your project plans (see excerpt from the course PM below).

- Monday Oct 8: Your group will be able to sign up for a review meeting slot (at the afternoon lecture, 13-15).

- You can choose either to send you project plan to Daniel and Leif by mail before the review meeting, or you can bring two copies on paper to the meeting. We would naturally prefer to have the chance to glance at your project plan before the meeting - but it totally ok to instead bring it directly to the meeting.

- Monday October 15: If necessary, you can hand in a revised project plan, i.e. you do have the option of handing in an updated project plan based on feedback you got at the review meeting.

- Friday Oct 12: First work/lunch meeting with the "coordination group", i.e. Daniel, Leif, the executive group (6 persons) and the project leader from each group (≈12 persons). I have booked the 1537 seminar room (house E, 5th floor) between 12-13. Bring your own lunch.


The reason for this relatively hurried schedule is that the following week is exam week and we really want all project groups to get a boost and to start to work on the projects before the exam week instead of letting it slide and picking it up later.



----- excerpt from the course PM -----

Therefore, not only the result, but also the process will be examined – much like with a bachelor’s or a master’s thesis. Many of the items listed below are thus a way to make the work of the individual and the project group visible for the teachers.

[...]

Each group shall (as part of the examination):

• Write a project plan for what that group will do; what topic or problem is to be examined/explored, how the group plans to go about doing that, suggestions/plans for where to look, what to read, who to talk to, when to do it, and what the group wants to or expects to achieve
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Guest lecture 16 - Oct 5 (10-12) - Tobias Lindberg

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Time and place: Friday October 5 at 10-12 in lecture hall H1.

Title: "Why We Read Magazines - A Mystery?"

Guest lecturer: Tobias Lindberg, Business Intelligence Analyst as Sveriges Tidskrifter (The Swedish Magazine Publishers' Association)

Talk: Tobias will cover the questions of why we read magazines, how we read, how we use magazines, and what the history can tell us about the future. The main focus will be on women and Scandinavian women's magazines:

- How and why do women read women's magazines?

- How do regular readers of women's magazines experience (and understand) their publications?

- How are their experiences with women's magazines related to their everyday lives and to their sense of identity?

About: Tobias has a Ph.D. in Comparative Journalism and is working with business intelligence at the trade organization Sveriges Tidskrifter. Before that he worked as a teacher at Lund University.

Literature: The two articles below have in fact not been recommended by Tobias, but by previous guest lecturers Ulrika Facht - but after she gave her lecture. They do however neatly fit Tobias' lecture too as well as Hans Althin's Oct 2 talk:

Ytre-Arne, Brita. (2011a) Women’s magazines and their readers: The relationship between textual features and practices of reading. European Journal of Cultural Studies 14(2): 213-228, April 2011.
Note: The article is available in Bilda

Ytre-Arne, Brita. (2011b) ‘I want to hold it in my hands’: Readers’ experiences of the phenomenological differences between women’s magazines online and in print. Media, Culture & Society 33(3): 467-477, April 2011. 
Note: The article is available in Bilda

Both articles are included in Brita Ytre-Arne's Ph.D. thesis, "Women's magazines and their readers. Experiences, identity and everyday life". The University of Bergen, Norway (2012).

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Guest lecture 15 - Oct 4 (10-12) - Johanna Ögren

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Time and place: Thursday October 4 at 10-12 in lecture hall B1.

Title: "Who is a publisher in the digital future?"

Guest lecturer: Johanna Ögren, blogger and entrepreneur

Talk: Can anyone publish a magazine and what is a magazine these days? What do you need in order to create a magazine and how can you get publishers on board - if you need them at all? Can a blog be a magazine and vice versa?

About: Johanna is a well-known Swedish blogger and entrepreneur, founder of several websites that one way or another have turned into magazines. The most well-known is Bokhora (on literature) and Gadgette (on tech from a female perspective). She has experience working with well-known publishing houses and on how to mix traditional magazine births with more untraditional ways to start them up

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Shortlist for project topics!

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These are the topics you can choose to form project groups around. There are 20 topics in the list below and 54 students taking the course (excluding the executive group). I expect 12 groups to come out of this process (with 4 or 5 members in each group). Go here to specify what your 1st, 2nd and 3rd hand choice for project topics is!

DO NOTE: It is possible to form two project groups around the same topic if there is overwhelming interest in a specific topic. These two groups would initially have to work together to carve out two different and separate directions in which to take your respective projects.

Do also note that the topics below are only to be seen as starting points - the project groups can develop, change and bend the descriptions below in the direction you think is interesting as well as pick up aspects of topics that were left behind during the two brainstorming seminars.

/Daniel

1. The future of journalism (and journalists)

With so much free content available on the Internet, how is it possible to "protect good journalism", quality articles (content), and uphold journalistic standards? Will current developments make many journalists redundant? Will journaists be outcompeted (outbid) by unpaid amateurs (blogs) and technological innovations (Pocket, Instapaper, Flipboard etc.) that “de-commoditize” texts and great (and not-so-great) content? Will journalists go from stable jobs and freelancing to having to be jack-of-all-trades with multiple income streams.

2. The future of interactive dynamic advertising

Digital magazines can encompass interactive, dynamic content; hyperlinks and clickable ads, audio or video clips. Anders Malmsten mentioned several ways that advertising could be developed on digital platforms. Perhaps advertisements in your magazines from last year could be changed retroactively, or a company could by time slots for ads in magazines (whole-page ads being displayed only between 7-9 in the morning, or only before the concert but not after)?

·      3. The future of magazines is Spotify! 

What would a Spotified solution for magazines look like?

·      4. The future of radically new revenue sources

Perhaps the magazine publisher will have to find totally new sources of revenue; create events (meet the journalists), pop-up stores in shopping malls (Teen Vogue), apps (“The closet”, Teen Vogue), appology (an anthology-in-an-app with carefully selected texts from an archive spanning decades of great writing in The New Yorker). These examples all come from Olle Lidboms’s lecture.

5. Children's and youths' reading habits/relationship to magazines

What is the relationship to physical (and digital) magazines of those that are, say, a decade younger than you are? What is the state of comics and childrens' magazines (Donald Duck, Kamratposten) today? How do they engage and interact with their readers? What can be discerned about the future by talking to the people who produce today's youth-oriented magazines and those who will be your age a decade from now?

6. The future of paper magazines

Many students prefer paper to digital magazines (for aesthetic, sensory, health, overview etc. reasons; strained eyes, the smell of a new magazine, “sometimes it is very relaxing to take a break from the world of buttons, screens and displays”). So what is the future of paper magazines? Niche luxury product for the rich? Given away for free in the subway? Independently produced local hobby projects (think Composite K and beyond – anyone can do a magazine today!)? Other?

·      7. The future of magazine distribution. 

Distributions of paper magazines is a bottleneck and a large part of the edition comes back in the form of returns.  Can the distributions chain be digital, the magazine available in a newsstand (but digital) and the content be loaded (temporarily?) onto a reader?

·      8. The future of reading is discussions! 

The relative importance of learning about a topic through reading “defining texts” decreases and the activity of discussing and debating topics increases. The text (a result of a journalist’s craftwork) itself is not the end point but just the beginning; consuming facts is replaced by discussions and debate with knowledgeable people. Magazines are replaced by a multitude of peoples’ voices (democracy) and expert rule (meritocracy).

9. Business models for monetizing leechers

The big challenge; how can magazines “squeeze” money out of all the (digital) “leechers” who want to read for free without paying? What constitutes "value" to people? How much are people willing to pay for content/magazines on paper or for digital content/channels? Who is willing to pay (how much) and who isn't? What do we know already today and what are the trends and implications for the future of magazines? Are there clear difference between genres (womens' vs mens' magazines, gardening vs home improvement vs cooking vs ...)? If so, why and what does this mean (for the future)?

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·      10. The future of reading 

Deep reading of longer, in-depth articles on particular subjects is replaced by browsing a zillion headlines to keep track of breaking news in your areas of interests and following up the browsing with reading a selected few texts. While these behaviors to some extent are an effect of previous changes in technology and business models, what are the implications of such new behaviors on technology, revenue and business models? (This question can be repeated for all topics relating to behavior below!)

11. A magazine for all senses

Three senses can be stimulated by paper, but not by digital media (computer, tablet or smartphone screens); taste, smell and touch. It is also possible to distribute (small) physical objects in a paper magazine. How could extravagant magazines capitalize on this with samples of materials and fabrics (fashion magazines), smell or taste (cooking magazines), small in deodorant ads, seeds (garden magazines) or a joint (High times)?

12. The future of paid digital content

Some newspapers (Financial Times, New York Times) and news services (Bloomberg) successfully sells their digital content to readers. What can be learned from these "market leaders"? Who pays today and what are they prepared to pay for? What are the implications for tomorrow? Is it/will it be possible to charge (more) per article, per issue or for a digital subscription?

13. Upping the revenue from digital channels

We have heard that going from print to digital is like changing dollars (print advertising revenue) to cents (digital advertising revenue). How publishers change digital cents into dimes (10¢) or quarters (25¢)? What are people willing to pay for? How much advertising compared to editorial content are people willing to put up with if advertising has to take up the slack from absent revenue from consumers? Are there other incomes to be made in digital channels? Can magazines have sponsors (like old American TV shows)? Is it possible to charge people (a little) for forwarding or showing their friends what to read?

·      14. An audience of one. 

Nifty apps like Pocket, Instapaper, Flipboard in combination with services like Reddit, Buzzfeed, discussion forums and social media platforms make it possible to earmark and later integrate and present texts that come from a variety of different sources into a nicely formatted, advertisement-free experience on your smartphone. Is the future of the magazine an infinitely personalized and customized magazine that is different for each (brands and magazine titles are replaced by My Magazine)? What are the implications for…XXX. Or could a publisher potentially have all the information about user/reader behavior and be able to customize and sell a magazine to you and the masses? 

15. Social recommendations

Would it be possible to create a magazine that dynamically polls different people so that you get to read what your friends seem to be reading at the moment, what famous people read right now (starlets or members of the Swedish academy), the most popular articles right now, the fastest rising articles etc.? Think of different recommendation systems (Amazon: "people who like this book has also bought the following books:").

16. Usability issues

An in-depth examination of usability issues in print and different digital channels (tablets, e-readers, web). Portability, reliability, batteries, sunlight, image/font quality, searchability, "commentability" etc.

17. Magazines and identity

We subscribe to and read magazines not just for the content, but also as identity markers. I'm the kind of person who reads X, I'm the kind of person who have magazines X, Y and Z on my coffee table (to impress, so that people can appreciate my exquisite taste, to indicate topics I like to discuss etc.). And it's not just the covers, it's also the contents; I'm the kind of person who is updated on futuristic implications of technology (because I read Wired magazine) or about this autumn's fashion (because I read Elle magazine) or about the next version of iPad (because I read Macworld). Magazines say something about who you are - or about who you want to be. How can this function be incorporated into tablet and digital channels?

18. Hybrid magazines

Is there a space for paper magazines with digital features/multimedia/augmented reality content that works together with a smartphone (QR codes, RFID chips etc.)? 

19. Non-text magazines

Do magazines of the future have to mean static paper or text-based reading on a computer screen? How about "video magazines" (see crane.tv) with short 3-minute videos introducing people, shops, trends etc. Would it be possible to develop video magazines in fields such as economy or politics? Perhaps the videos link to further (text) material? Could it be possible to create "podcast/audio magazines"?

20. The future of collecting

What is the future of collecting and collections? Authentic student quote: "I used to collect my past PC gamer magazines, I have over ten years' worth of magazines and sometimes it was fun to go back and read some old articles again". What need does collecting (must have all magazines!) satisfy and what is the future of collecting? A must-do for a group formed around this topic is to interview collectors. And what about scrapbooking, and tearing out an article from a magazine to save it? Why do we do those things and how can we continue to fulfill the same needs when magazines go digital?

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