Here we are. It’s been a semester. From Ideating to Prototyping to Making, this course has filled my time teaching me about the real world process of making media. An apt subject name as that is exactly what we’ve done. But what have I actually made? After all those blogs, tweets, and endless meetings what have I actually made and how did I go about it? Lets see…
16th August
My first blog for this project was my initial pitch. At this point I had chatted with the Uni Bible Group club president about my idea to help them through my Digital Artefact. I had some basic ideas of where this would go and how I would go about it, but I was very keen to just jump in and start prototyping! (FEFO and all that…)
Following that came the meetings. I met individually with the club’s secretary, president, past comms organiser, and a uni chaplain. Each multiple times. The aim of these meetings was to finalise what and how I’d be partnering with the club, what they needed from me, and the way we hoped to set things up.
28th August
Then came my second blog: Iteration. This was initially supposed to be an ideation blog, filled with my thought processes and ideas. As I had already settled and begun working on this project, I instead focused on the development of ideas for the current project.
In it I spoke of how the meetings had changed my understanding of just how big the project was going to be. One main insight was given to me from my tutor, who suggested that I might need some kind of research to see where people’s perceptions of the Uni Bible Group’s online and on campus presence was. So I spent a week sending out a google form to different hashtags and Bible Group circles to get some feedback. This was a learning process, as I found it hard to get much data from it.
All this was happening as the set up for taking the reins of the club’s pages.
4th September
On the 2nd of September I “officially” started my role as the club’s communications operator. On the 4th I made my first post…
Every week the Uni Bible Group meet in a public place, read a chapter or section from the Bible and then spend a bit of time listening to a guest speaker unpack it. Twice a week this happens in the same place and time. Part of the public page’s duty is to advertise the time and place each week to invite people to join them.
This picture (above) was my first post. Honestly, I don’t like the aesthetic. In making it I was testing a text-on-image app, hoping that I could use it to do the posts each week, but was not impressed. I used it for the next three posts as they needed to be posted the same week and I hadn’t yet found an alternative.
18th September
I mixed up my aesthetics a bit with this post (above). Although I liked it more than the previous aesthetic, I still wasnt 100% convinced. Nevertheless, it was progress in my development and creation progress…
27th September
This week my Beta was due. In the video and blog I explian my progress and the media. More than that I focus on not just the media content that I had made but the process I had built. It was clear that my goals with the club was to build an engine. A machine that would be self-sustainable. So I wasn’t just building a club page, but an identity and system for future students and comms teams to grow and streamline.
My main gearbox for this engine is my shared google drive folders. They have been the backbone of the system and the communication between the club’s secretary and myself. My Beta talks about this in more detail…
10th October
In my last blog for this artefact I wrote about the prototype progress I had made. I wrote about my posts and system. I also focused on my feedback-loops and how that was progressing.
Between these two blogs I had started an instagram interview project with some of the members of the club (above). Of all my posts these were the biggest successes. They received consistent engagement and much excitement. In person and online I recieved comments on the project and offers to be apart of it.
Since the prototype blog, I have spent the last few weeks posting and organising. I have been posting for the many events the club wanted advertised, most of which were internal to the club. However, I also continued to iterate my engine, especially in preperation for next year.
In 2020 these two fantastic students are joining me to establish a communications team for the Uni Bible Group. I have started meeting with them, discussing plans, and setting up the 2020 drive.
So what have I made?
Posts. Blogs. Identity. Culture. And most of all, a system.
I hope you enjoyed this process. Time to let the engine run and drive the group foward into the future…
Boswell's Brain 