In this week reading, Howard Gardner describes five kinds of minds we will need to thrive in the world during the era to come in ‘Five Minds For the Future’. He brings out a point possessing these 5 minds will well-equipped a person to deal with what is expected, as well as what cannot be anticipated. Without these minds, a person will be at the mercy of forces that he or she cannot understand, let alone control.

This is my understanding of the five minds and how I can apply it.

1. Disciplined mind : Honing and training to perfect my skill sets, so that I can utilise these skills to help me in my career. To not be lazy and to constantly have that readiness to learn mindset in everything that I do.
2. Synthesizing mind : To be able to absorb and apply knowledge that I’ve learnt throughout many sources. To also have that ability to be flexible in learning skills and applying that to my career.
3. Creating mind : To have that learning mindset, as well as a try-everything mindset. To not get comfortable in my current state, but to be open to constantly explore different ideas.
4. Respectful mind / Ethical mind : Learning to work with different people who have different mindsets. I’ve come to a realisation that teamwork is important in many things that we do, and if we don’t learn how to work with each other, we cannot grow.

I felt that this week’s reading reminded me of some important aspects that may have slipped off my mind. One important skill that we should always have is to constantly place ourself in a position to learn and try new things, new skills. To constantly challenge ourselves, to push ourselves to achieve our goals. Working life will be very different to uni life, and it’s something that I will experience once I graduate this semester. This will definitely be 5 reminders that I will take away.

Today’s reading “The Clarity of the Craftsman” from Cal Newport’s book was a little different from our usual readings, which came as a surprise. It was as if Brian and Rachel knew we needed a little morale booster, considering how this is an issue that most of us final year students are considering. In this reading, he outlines two kinds of approach to thinking about work. The Craftsman mindset and The Passion mindset.

The craftsman mindset is an output centric approach to work, whereby you focus on what value you’re producing in your job. Newport states that the craftsman mindset is crucial for building a career you love, and he defines this by introducing us to Jordan, a professional guitar musician.

The passion mindset is one that most people adopt while approaching their working lives. This focuses on what the world can offer you, and in turn makes you hyperaware of what you don’t like about your work, leading to chronic unhappiness.

While I may not fully agree with everything that he has said, this statement “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” really resonates with me. Most of the times we let really small details hinder our progress, or limit our potential. However, I feel like I should stop worrying about how I’m lacking in different areas, but instead look at the bigger picture and put myself out there to experience new things. I believe that this is also another way where I can improve myself. Another statement that resonates wth me is that regardless of how you feel about your job right now, adopting the craftsman mindset will be the foundation on which you’ll build a compelling career.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with another graduating friend, and we were discussing about how we should not be picky with our first job and to embrace the experience that we can get. I guess perspective really does influence your outlook, and this reading gave me another perspective on the way I view working in the future.

Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas, 2015, ‘Work’ in The Informal Media Economy,Polity Press, Cambridge UK, ch.3.

In this week’s reading, Ramon Lobato and Julian Thomas talks about the informal media economy. They explain how in actual media production and distribution, many of it is actually repetitive and lowly paid.

The question posed in the reading was “Do content farms and freelancers sites exploit writers and erode the working standards of writing professions? Or do they provide a previously non-existent opportunity for amateurs to get paid- albeit modestly- doing what they love?

I have to say that this reading was really relevant to me. Having worked as a freelancer, I could relate to the concerns that were brought up in the readings. The unpredictable and insecure aspects of work in the cultural, creative and media industries can be a challenge for upcoming media practitioners, such as ourselves. While the reading focused more on the writing aspect, I believe it expands to other areas of media as well.

I thought it was interesting that the Hesmond-halgh and Baker (2011) placed a strong emphasis on formal measures like unionization and a basic guaranteed income as a mean of reform, as well as individual commitment not to self-exploit as a solution to the creative labour problem. How much are we willing to sacrifice in order to gain experience? The media industry places much emphasis on experience, without a proper platform or system there is simply no other choice for future media practitioners to gain relevant industry experience.

This brings us back to the original question posted, does it exploit or are there more benefits? In my opinion, it really has to depend on which perspective you are looking at. Ethics are equally important for both the producers and writers.

(1) Guttentag, D. 2010, Virtual reality: Applications and implications for tourism. Tourism Management, 31(5), pp.637-651.

The article explores the primary uses for virtual reality within tourism, as well as analyses several factors that influence the possibility of tourism substitution. The article also explores the questions and challenges that have arose with virtual reality being associated with tourism. The article illustrates current and future virtual reality technologies, as well as analyzing the application of virtual reality within six principle areas of tourism: planning and management, marketing, entertainment, education, accessibility, and heritage preservation.

The article provides a detailed explanation of the six principles mentioned. While virtual reality is set to influence additional areas of tourism, the six principle areas were chosen because they were more suited to benefit from virtual reality. It is interesting to note that the ability of virtual reality experience is not to provide an acceptable tourism substitute, but the virtual experience must simply be perceived as a satisfactory substitute in the mind of the user.

A further interesting insight in this article also discusses about how virtual reality can go beyond tourism and become an efficient mean of communicating large amount of information in the learning process. The article states that virtual reality allows great potential of interactivity. Research has shown that the feeling of presence that virtual reality induces can assist the learning process.

While the article does not provide much research about the future of virtual reality, it examines examples of ongoing virtual reality research and development. This article is useful for my research because it proves that virtual reality is becoming a part of our daily life. In the near future, virtual reality experience could change how we traditionally see or do things in our lives.

(2) Farra, S., Miller, E., Timm, N. and Schafer, J, 2013, Improved Training for Disasters Using 3-D Virtual Reality Simulation. Western Journal of Nursing Research, 35(5), pp.655-671.

This article explores the effects of virtual reality simulation (VRS) on learning outcomes and retention of disaster training on two different groups of people. A study was conducted on a group of nursing students enrolled in a disaster course. The article suggests that there is a lack of disaster training opportunities, as a real live exercise will be too expensive and labor-intensive to conduct. However, virtual reality simulations offer an accessible and cost-effective alternative to meet such training needs.

The results of the study prove that there was a significant difference found in the knowledge scores of the two different groups over time. The VRS group that had been participating in the simulation was found to have higher knowledge, and it was reported that the virtual reality simulation was a realistic and positive learning experience for them. It is also interesting to note that virtual reality simulation could develop into a multiplayer simulation, which further allows interactions between participants.

While the article does not explore any future uses of virtual reality, it is interesting to note that virtual reality is being developed into different platforms. While one would have associated virtual reality with gaming or media in the past, this study has proved that virtual reality could go in many different directions. This article is useful for my research as it explores one effect of virtual reality that has been used outside the media industry, which has been most commonly associated with all the while. This also shows that virtual reality is slowly becoming more common in our reality, which is significant in our research question.

(3) Chan, Melanie 2014, Virtual Reality : Representations in Contemporary Media

(4) Weisel, A, 2015, Virtual reality and the psyche. Some psychoanalytic approaches to media addiction. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 60(2), pp.198-219.