MA Media Suite - Production Lab

Production Lab

Towards the MA by Practice

Example of a Lab project

How we will organise ourselves

About Me

Prince2 Practitioner (till 2013)

Project Manager

- Digital Central £1.3m / KTP

Bid writer

- Project Management Plans

MA by Practice

Plan and implement an appropriate production project.

Utilise a knowledge and critical understanding of professional conventions and possible innovations.

Solve contemporary problems of professional practice.

Deal creatively with complex issues.

MA by Practice

Critically evaluate project products and processes

Communicate their conclusions clearly to specialist and non-specialist audiences

Reflect and evaluate

Towards the MA by Practice

Production Lab

… a stepping stone to MA by Practice

– Testing stuff out

– Space to get things wrong

– Emphasis on process and critical reflection

Organising yourself

Undertake a placement– spend time in an organisation

Work on a ‘live’ brief– produce professional work for a client

Work on an industry-focused project– Create a project related to your sector

Organising yourself

Group work:

Collaborate across awards

Managing collaboration offers rich area for discussion

Phase 1: Audit

What have you learnt so far on the course?

How can you apply that to a new project?

Submit an idea for a project

Phase 2: Experiment

How can I use my skills to innovate?

How can I create a lab for myself?

It shouldn’t matter if things go wrong.

Phase 3: Consolidation

How can I learn from what I did?

How can I apply it in a bigger project context?

How can I articulate this to my peers and to industry?

Timetable

Feb 7th – Phase 1

Feb 21st – Phase 2

3rd May – Phase 3

May 18th – Lab conference

Tutorials

Meetings

Lectures

Workshops

Assessment

Lab report and evaluation (60% 20th May 2011)

– Project Initiation Document– Highlight reports– Blog posts– Poster– Evaluation

Proposal for a MA by Production (40% 3rd June 2011)

What’s your lab?

Bournville is my lab

http://bournvillevillage.com

Bournville is my lab

Undertake an industry placement

Work on a live brief from an industry client

Develop an industry-focused project

Project summary

“Edit a local website for a period of time; try to innovate around content; shape an editorial stance; consider how to make the blog sustainable”

Context

Lots of debate about ‘hyperlocal’ (research)

Different Models (examples)

Objectives

Experiment with different media

Make an attempt to get readers more involved

Create a clear editorial stance for the blog

Project Approach

Create a small team to help me work on the blog (especially as Cadbury story is about to go HUGE)

Create ‘packages’ of work with clear deliverables

Partners

Yes. Two undergraduate students.

Risks

1. My day job gets in the way.

2. A stronger editorial style puts readers off.

Mitigation:

1. Work as a team.

2. Consult locals before publication.

Experimenting & reflecting

Use bournvillevillage.com for experimenting

Use daveharte.com for reflecting

SUCCES

S

Gritty Bournville

Applied new skills (Google maps)

Innovated around user needs

Took a current issue (data re-use)

Reflection and discussion with peershttp://daveharte.com/bournville/data-is-the-new-grit/

10 comments

Wide-ranging debate

Linked from other blogs

FAI

L

Cadbury takover

Applied new skills (aggregating content, covering ‘live’ event)

Identified gap (no-one else ‘live-blogging’)

Failed to understand event-blogging

Failed to understand the story

Failed to engage readers (stats)

Overall:

Reflect on my success/failure and consider:

– How do I make this blog a sustainable hyperlocal news blog for Bournville?

– How do I ensure that it continues to innovate going forward? (examples + strategy)

– How do I get it noticed by industry?

How we’re organised

You’re responsible for each others’ projects

How we’re organised:

Project Board

Project Manager(s)

Programme Management me and tutors

other students

you

How we’re organised:

Purple

Red

Yellow

Brown

Green Blue

Black

Orange

Responsible for 5 or 6

Students each

How we’re organised:

Issue Log

Highlight Reports progress

concerns

Highlight report

Let project board know what’s happening with the project. What’s changing on it:

Project status:

Produced x amount of stories. Cadbury takeover increasing attention.

Highlight report

What you’re going to do nextTry using videoAvoid standard news reporting style

Issue LogFailing to engage a team - out of scopeDifficulty in identifying an editorial

stance - need tutor support

Reporting

Student progress reported to me through project boards

Project boards there to help and support individual students

Tutors available to shape ideas and give advice

Next steps

Project boards meet and organise

Get in touch with students

Decide on how you will deal with submissions

Summary

Module is project based

You decide the context

Your fellow students are in charge

They report about you to me

Room to innovate, room to fail

But lots of learning along the way

Task

In your Project Board groups:

Look at last year’s posters

Feedback to class on useful points

For next week

Project boards to audit your students’ skills

Decide on a suitable form for the audit

Email or meet with them to ask for the audit

Student to report back to Project Board by Friday 3pm

dave.harte@bcu.ac.uk