Class Time: Weekly, Thursday @ 9am-12noon
Classroom: RM 1021
Terry Pratchett, author of the bestselling Discworld series, writes about “the Trousers of Time” and what happens when you travel down one leg rather than the other. Futurology might be a way of predicting which leg is best – in fact, as Wikipedia states, “Futurology is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures... what is likely to continue, what is likely to change, and what is novel.”
The applicability of Futurology in our field is to help us make better predictions about the kinds of things people are likely to want to do and why, how brands can help them do it, and which mediating technologies are likely to be good choices to connect and enable these interactions.
A typical class will consist of a visit (virtual, video, or in-person) by someone with a unique or informative POV on the future or tools for developing for the future, in-class discussion, lecture/in-class project, and a student-led presentation and discussion on both the current state of a mediating technology or cultural condition, and the implications for the future.
You will develop a personal tool-box of techniques and approaches to developing valuable and actionable insights, which you will use in a number of “design-thinking” oriented projects, working individually, in small groups, and in concert with 2nd year students in the Communication Strategy track. It’s important to have these tools at your disposal – as Jack London said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
By approaching Futurology in this way, we will address our objectives of process, practicality, skill building and design.
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All software you need is on the Brandcenter Computer and Video Lab workstations.
Some sort of backup storage device. You’ll be taking a lot of time to create your projects, and you really, really, REALLY don’t want the only copy of your project to be on a computer that crashed. And you don't want it to be living only on a Brandcenter computer, either. Get a few USB jump drives or something. Just remember that 1) things always crash, and 2) you will have been ABOUT to make a backup just before they do. Be smart and be prepared. Back up often to different places.
Also, make sure that each member of your team ends up with the entire project, including all the procedural artifacts – each of you may want to be able to use these projects for your portfolio, and that’s a challenge if you only have parts, or you only have pdf or jpg versions of the final.
There will be readings of various texts to be distributed or found on the Web. You will be expected to contribute to in-class discussions of the reading and to apply what you’ve learned in your work.
In the course of the course you’ll work on one large team project with 2nd year CS students, one individual project with BBH-Labs, a group POV presentation/whitepaper, a final project, and a few small individual assignments. You are expected to contribute professionally and equally to any group work, and your peers will be evaluating your participation, as you will be evaluating theirs. 20% of your grade for any project will come from a combination of my observations of your participation in that project and from your peer evaluations. As a result, it’s important that you do more than just show up – and it also means that your grade for a group project may differ from your teammates. Details on the projects and requirements will be distributed in class.
On the successful completion of this course, students are expected to be able to: