Integrated Media Blog

Participatory Project Summary Post

October 19, 2012

For the participatory project that I worked with Jesse Barber, Sara Robertson, Vanessa Wong and Incan Pribadi, my job was to handle the creative and design aspect.

I was to handle the design material and promotional documents such as the marketing strategy and advertising brief as I have a Public Relations background. Furthermore, as I enjoy designing, I was in charge of the design concept for the project.

However, I found myself doing much more than what was assigned to me. This is a list of what I have done for the project!

Callout

Project ID Map - ID Map Description

Platform Analysis (Twitter, Facebook, ABC Pool, Google Maps, Webpage)

Worked with Sara on the Marketing Brief

Worked with Sara on the Advertising Brief

Suggesting ideas for fostering strategies

Suggested ideas for incentives

Poster Designs

Logo Design

Other Designs – Cover Photo for FB and Background

Creating the concept: First concept draft + Concept changed

Presentation – prepared powerpoint and script with Sara

Created general points for the personas

Contract: First draft + final draft

Setting up social media platform s & email account

Insights & reflection of my own experience:

Throughout this participatory project, I have learnt a great deal through success/failures and attempts while we tried to get our project up and running!

1. There is alot of pre-production involved!

Even though we are using an instant form of communication, there were a huge amount of planning and analysis done before diving into it. We had to make sure we chose our audience right, our platforms, strategies for engagement and participation and time for when we have to get something done. I did not expect this project to have a ton of documents such as the marketing strategy, contract, advertising strategy and more involved.

2. Timing & time management – time is everything!

Time is very important in social media projects. It can be the time gap where you engage with a participant or the perfect time when you want to post something up or invite people to join your project. Waiting too long can reduce the percentage of the person replying. It can also affect the chance of the person being more interested in our project. Also, with time, if there is an issue that is related to our project or whatever we are doing, e.g. latest tv show of delicious food in melbourne (like Masterchef or Hell’s kitchen), it would be very effective as people will want to be a part of something as popular as that, thus, possibly joining us and our project.

3. Incentives – why should I join you?

Firstly, there are a ton of projects out there that people can join at any time and place. So why should they join yours? Incentives would be the answer. It is important to have incentives to get people on board. If they don’t get anything in return, why should they join and in a way, help and promote your project/cause? Incentives does not necessarily have to come in gifts or physically things, but it can be learning something new for free or getting to join a particular contest or show – however, it entirely depends on how popular the item is and how desired it is by many.

4. Learning from your/other’s success and failures

I also learnt that with social media, it is important that you learn from your mistakes and make it better the next time you try to do that same thing again. As the media industry is a fast growing area that also involves alot of people (e.g. audience and teammates), there is not much room for continuous mistakes. However, as quoted from this show I watched when I was younger: “In failure we learn. In success, not so much!” Failure is not all that bad. At least we try our best to learn and make it better. In success, we often think that we are the best and it cannot be any better – but that is wrong. In the media industry, there is always space to learn, grow and increase in your knowledge and skills, especially when the growth comes from success and failures from yourself and by others. Why only learn when the mistake is yours? Learn from others as well!

5. Documentation is key

Furthermore, I also learnt in this area, that documentation of your progression is key. It is important to document your progression to help you stay at a constant pace. Documenting your work will also mean you can look back at your work and make it better anytime.

I found this very useful for this project as I did a lot of designing and writing. It was good to read back on my old posts about how and why I did this is a certain way as things, ideas and concepts do change overtime. Sometimes, the changes are not necessarily good, but worse than before. So keeping a documentation of things is always good for you to further develop your work, ideas and reflect on what you have done!

My Re-thoughts on Contemporary Media Practice.

I learnt that when dealing with social media, you always have to be on the ball. Situation, events and people change continuously and you need to be aware of that and be able to know how and when you need to approach them. Choosing your platforms is also extremely important, as Facebook may be the most popular social networking site today, but it may be the most unpopular site tomorrow. I learnt that the theories and ideas in Integrated Media may be similar when dealing with social media, however, it is important to analyze and utilize your current environment so that the people you are targeting will cross your site. (Unless of course you are not aiming for those people who use that particular site.) This is why having personas and analyzing your target audience is also extremely important. It helps you identify and choose the most suitable sites so that you can reach to those people.

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: Assessment, HiddenMelbourne, Participation

Week 12 – Participation

Link to my Assessment Criteria blog post set in Week 2!

Criteria List:

Regular blogging: minimum 3 blog entries a week

Quality of blogs (Research)

Connectivity of blog: a blog that has full of connections/links to other blogs, lecturer’s blog, other forms of social media)

Course content – documentation of my progression and learning

Grade: 92/100

HD – Writing more than 3 entries; 4 – 6 entries a week that are all about in-depth research and quality writings showing engagement and progression.

Grade: 92/100

I gave myself a HD because I met the criteria of reaching 4- 6 blog entries each week. My regular blogging amount was 5 a week, and occasionally 4. I was able to show that I have done my research in my blog posts by expanding on my ideas in my participatory project progression blogs, lectures, readings and more.

HD – Meeting the criteria and have shown outstanding research expanding the exploring the ideas further through research and putting in my own ideas and thoughts.

Grade: 85/100

In my blog posts about the readings, progression notes, feedback from Kyla and more, I have shown that I have further explored the ideas that were given to me. I was able to expand on my ideas and the feedback from the ideas given in lectures, tutorials and talks with Kyla about our progression in our project. I expanded my ideas through research and much in-depth thought about the issues that were discussed in the class. Most of these were done in my progression blog posts/notes. (Please refer to the links below in the last criteria! I didn’t want to spam this post with the same links!)

Blogs:

HD – Has links in every blog post and connections to every other social media I am using

Grade: 95/100

I have completed this task for my assessment criteria! All the social media I want to link with my blog and other accounts are all linked and feeding each other (e.g. Twitter and Instagram). As stated in my previous assessment overview in week 6, I placed links to all my other social media sites on my ‘About Page’ in my blog. These links are to my Glossi, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, LinkedIn, ABC Pool and Pinterest sites.

Moreover, my other accounts, which I have just mentioned above, are all linked to each other in some way as well. In example, my Twitter has a link to my glossi account which links to everything. My Tumblr has links to all my other sites and my glossi is linked and is receiving feeds from the other sites as well.

HD – Has writing on the course on almost every aspect of progression and learning e.g. lecture notes, tutorial notes, readings, projects and ideas (thoughts).

Grade: 95/100

I have worked hard to accomplish this goal this semester as our project is all about. I have links about my progression in the participatory project, lecture notes, feedback from Kyla and tutorial notes.

Here are some of them:

My progression was particularly something I focused on throughout this last few weeks of my semester. There were a lot of things to document and write about that I couldn’t help but write about it.

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Self-Assessment/Participation. Tags: Assessment, Criteria

Hidden Melbourne Project – Completed

It has been a fun but kinda sad and tiring semester.

I learnt much from the course. This involved the readings, lectures and tutorials and from real life experiences or encounters due to some people issues. But all is good

I hope you had as much as fun I did while I ~~spammed~~ blogged about my progression continuously throughout my 3 semesters of media studies.

Thank you for reading!

Oh, and check out our ABC Pool Hidden Melbourne Account where all our detailed information about the project is up on the site!

Time to say Good-Bye!

Have a nice life, everyone!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: ABC Pool, End of Semester, Goodbye, HiddenMelbourne

Hidden Melbourne – Final Contract

October 18, 2012

Writing up this final contract felt as though I was writing a new one all over again as we made so many drastic changes in our concept as a group!

Here is the link to my previous post about the contract!

Because we changed from Picture Melbourne to Hidden Melbourne, we had to change our overall idea and concept.

This meant changes in the Marketing strategy and advertising brief. This also meant changes to my design!! (OH NO!!)

But eventually, we made through it and was able to get all the work done!

The major changes made from the previous contract was the roles and the callout. We changed everyone’s roles!

Here are the changes:

Production Manager – Jesse Barber

Involves managing everyone

Assuring everything gets done

Delegates work

Platform Manager - Vanessa Wong

savvy to the platforms and online environments

have trouble with meetings so managing our online presence is convenient for her

Creative team - Sara Robertson and Emelia Wong

design: logo, poster and any form of design or graphics needed

marketing element

involves call out, marketing brief, advertising brief, contract and any other related documents

Content Creator – Incan Pribadi

Take and upload photos

Create seeding content

The final contract is uploaded onto our ABC Pool account! For the full contract, download it here!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: Changes, Contract, HiddenMelbourne, Roles

IM2 Presentation: Participatory Project

October 15, 2012

You can find our presentation with slides and audio here (Do check it out!)

My teammate Karina recorded the audio!

So our presentation is finally over! My teammates Sara and Karina did a great job in presenting our work! I hope we’ll get a good mark for it as we really worked hard for it to work!

Enjoy our presentation and have a great day!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: Participatory project, Presentation, Slideshare

Script for our Presentation tomorrow! GOOD LUCK TO US!

Because some of our teammates were not as informed about the project as Sara and I was. Both Sara and I were in charge of preparing the presentation while the rest presented – as we also wanted them to fulfill their participation needed to pass this course.

Anyhoos, here was Sara’s bit. She did the first part about the overall concept and idea of the project in detail.

Sara’s Part One

Our Participation project: Hidden Melbourne

The concept:
Melbourne’s combination of aesthetics, amenities and resources has ranked it number one as ‘Most livable city in the world’ (The Economist) for the second year running.

So much of what makes Melbourne unique and beautiful lies Hidden in the maze of alleyways. Hidden Melbourne is a project designed to generate and feature a crowd-sourced archive of The hidden restaurants and food experiences of Melbourne. Be they the creamy perfect coffees, the amazing food, or just overall beautiful experience you receive at the restaurant from atmosphere or staff. Our service provides a community experience as it operates as both a platform for conversation (Face book, Twitter) and as a resource for Melbourne explorers and citizens.

Eventually we aim to only be the moderators to the websites, ensuring any images or locations posted contain all the correct information, and that no flaming of personal opinions happens. We plan to generate the interactive map over a period of 12 months.

The Interactive Map
The generation of a Crowd-sourced, Interactive Map will be created through the participation of the public, as they provide to our Twitter and Face book accounts the images, personal opinions, and location details. We will primarily be using ‘Google Maps’ – embedding the map with the interactive elements (Locations + Picture + Additional details). Once the project has been approved we will optimise the experience so that it can be viewed through mobile and desktop computers or phones.

But what is the incentive to garner participation:
The incentive can be separated into two parts.

PART 1
To gather participation of those over the age of 18, Hidden Melbourne with sponsorship with Secret Stone Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, will provide winners of the monthly competition will a case containing 6 bottles. The winner of the monthly competition will be of completed the following criteria;
That they must post a image (with location, and opinion of why the restaurant is worth entering and eating at, onto their the facebook or twitter pages). At the end of every month the 10 with the most comments will enter a draw to win.

PART 2
Part two concerns the sponsorship of the Secret stone and the restaurants. The Hidden restaurants of Melbourne will be encouraged to participate and gather “likes” as the winners will get more publicity and advertising for their restaurant as it becomes known. The second aspect relates to the Secret Stone which as it is a New Zealand wine, are happy to participate as it will get more people familiar with the imported product and hopefully increase sales.

This is our final product: (image of google maps)

I did the second part of the presentation, which is meant to be 4 mins long! I focused on how and why we used the specific platforms we chosen and what we have learnt throughout our project.

Here it is! Karina, my teammate was meant to present my bit, so in other words, I call this “Karina’s part” while I was writing it up!

Karina’s Part Two:

SLIDE

In our Hidden Melbourne project, we chose 5 social media platforms including our ABC Pool site as well. These sites are used to inform our target publics of our hidden Melbourne project and gather people in to join and participate in it.

ID Map Index

This is our ID map index. The 5 different social media platforms we have chosen are: our own webpage, facebook, twitter, google maps and our ABC pool. I will be explaining how each of our platforms are used in further detail in the next slides.

ID Map

This is our ID map index. The arrows are feeds in this image. We only showed you the feeds in this image as all our platforms are linked to each other. Each platform has all the other 4 remaining links to the platform. We thought it might be clearer and simpler if we were to explain that and focus on the feeds.

(refer to image on ppt to explain the feeds – which platforms links to which platform)

SLIDE- Our home page. (professional)

* Our home page is webpage we built from scratch. This is used as the main site where anyone can go wherever they needed to go just from this page.

* Our website has links to all our other social media platforms and our custom made google maps embedded in the website for others to see.

* The reason why we decided to create our own webpage was because the other sites like glossi and flavors.me restricted us to what and how we wanted to design our site. It was particularly impossible for us to embed our map there, so we created our own webpage.

* Furthermore, by creating a webpage for our project, we are able to showcase our expertise and knowledge in the online environment. It helps us show others what we can offer to possible employees or clients who might be interested in a project like ours.

SLIDE – Twitter (intimate)

*We use twitter as one of our platform so that we are able to communicate with people who follows the account. – we can answer any questions they have with our project and or where the restaurants and food in the photos are located.

*We use Twitter as a more intimate and close space for us to interact more with our participants.

*We are able to tweet others, reply to tweets and retweet what others have written about our project to showcase that people are participating.

*with twitter, people will also able to upload their images, and add our hashtag #himelb if they want us to use their photos for our custom made map.

* Retweeting is important for us to do on our Twitter site because it helps us:

- connect with people

- helps break the ice: as it helps us get connected with people with a simple retweet of what they tweeted

- Build relationships

- give credit where it is due – which is part of our incentive

And most importantly, boost our searchability and online presence. By retweeting we increase our presence to other people and search engines as we are more connected and seen by others on other accounts.

*Our twitter account is also used to promote our website and our FB page where we aim to have all our contributions posted there.

SLIDE – Facebook Page (intimate – professional level)

*Most people in our society is into Facebook nowadays. Despite differences with time and location, we can all keep in touch and share different information half way around the world anytime and anywhere.

*Similar to twitter, we use our Facebook page as a space for people to interact with us and post up their contributions to our project.

*Our facebook page will also act as a way to introduce who we are and what we do.

*It is one of our main social media platforms that people go to for more information about us. we decided on using our FB page because Facebook has a higher chance for us to be known by others as FB always shows up on search engines.

* it is also a good source to collect feedback on our project.

*Other than that, Facebook allows others and us to share our thoughts and dive deeper into our project while having all our information for others to read about in it.

SLIDE – Google maps (professional)

*Our google maps is very important in our project. It is one of our main hub as well as our end result or destination for our project.

*We customized our own map and embedded and linked it to our other platforms to show others a map of all the places we recommend to go in Melbourne CBD.

*our map also shows the recommendations from others to other people and why they like it

*through our other social media platforms, we will be gathering the photos there and uploading it up here on our end result site for everyone to see and explore.

SLIDE – ABC Pool (professional)

Our ABC Pool site is meant to be a place where people such as ABC employees and or potential clients to learn more about our project in detail. As our marketing strategy, contracts, links, ideas and more are posted in this space, people who have an interest in picking up our project or possibly using it will have the chance to do so through this space.

SLIDE – Insights

People only want to be involved when it is convenient or there is an incentive.
In today’s society everything is expected to be fast paced and at everyone’s fingertips. In terms of participatory media, people are only willing to participate when it is convenient enough that it can be done in seconds and not take up much time. For example, we realized that people are more willing to post up photos without a caption because it is convenient and very fast. However, if asked to provide details, even details like an exact address, it is seen to be too much hassle.
Another way to lure participants would be incentives. If it is not convenient – or in a lot of cases, even if it is – people want something in return. If they don’t get anything in return, why would anyone want to blindly participate in a project when it takes their time and energy and they don’t benefit?

There is a lot of pre-production involved.
It is an unexpectedly huge part of participatory media to very carefully choose your target audience and make this extremely clear by then very carefully choosing the platforms that a project will span over. Moreover, once these things are chosen and implemented, even if they work hand in hand, the content and the concept must be appealing enough and unique yet convenient enough for participants to even consider taking time out of their day to participate. For example, the callout and concept must be very accurately worded to capture the attention and be inviting enough for your target audience. Not to mention what everyone wants these days is accessibility, so interlinking between platforms is important, because it is up to the group to promote the project in the most accessible and appealing way possible.

Timing & time management – time is everything.
It can be the time gap where you engage with a participant. Waiting too long can reduce the percentage of the person replying. It can also affect the chance of the person being more interested in our project. And if there is an issue that is related to our project or whatever we are doing, e.g. latest TV show of delicious food in Melbourne (like Masterchef or Hell’s kitchen), it would be very effective as people will want to be a part of something as popular as that, thus, possibly joining us and our project.

SLIDE – Thank you

That is all the time we have left today. Thank everyone for your time. Please visit any of our sites and participate in our project! Thank you.

So this is all for now. I hope I did not bombard you with my script. However, it looks like we have to cut it down! It definitely looks like it is going for more than 5 mins in total! Looks like 10 to be honest. Anyways, thanks for reading!

Have a great day! Or night, wherever you are!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: HiddenMelbourne, Participation, Presentation, Script

Our NEW Call-out!

October 13, 2012

Alright, so after our talk with Kyla, we had to change or touch up our callout to make it the best it can be. I will be breaking it down into parts while I explain the changes we made for our callout
So here was our FIRST callout.

Think you know the Melbourne CBD? Prove it! Submit your photo of Melbourne’s coolest hangout, funkiest feature or most stunning location! Be part of an interactive crowd-sourced map, for city bound explorers. Hidden Melbourne – Share YOUR secret!

So after some feedback from Kyla, we found out our callout was too aggressive. The part about the ‘Prove it!’ and the questioning of the knowledge the reader has on Melbourne provokes them! And we don’t want that kind of emotion when we are aiming for participation!

So after much thought, we changed it to this: (I hope you guys like it since I was the one who changed it!!)

Do you know the Melbourne CBD? Tell us about it!…

Even though our callout was provoking and aggressive, we wanted to stick with our main idea and meaning/sense of what we wanted to say. So I thought changing the words to ‘unprovoking ‘ (if there is such a word) words might be better and something everyone would be happy to have!

So instead of ‘Think you know the…”, I thought of going old-school and polite and ask in the most polite way as possible, which was ‘Do you know…” And instead of “Prove it!”, I went with “Tell us about it!” because ultimately we wanted the people to tell us about it!

Other than the aggressive introduction, Kyla also said we should have a specific focus. Instead of ‘coolest hangouts or funkiest feature or most stunning location’, she wanted us to narrow it down and be more specific! So we decided to focus on Melbourne’s Hidden food/restaurants that people have not discovered because of its location. So, we were aiming for alleyways like Hardware lane after Elizabeth St and University Lane that is a small alleyway along Lygon St. However, common and popular food along Swanston St and Lygon St are acceptable to create more seeding content and participation. Afterall, we want people to participate and not feel left out if they do not know any ‘hidden’ places in Melbourne.

So here is how we changed it:

…Submit your photo of Melbourne’s most delicious or stunning restaurants…

Moreover, she also said that she did not like the word ‘crowd-sourced’ and that we should just stick with out ‘interactive’ bit and just make it ‘interactive map for city-bound explorers’. I thought this was fantastic as now we would have less words and well, it sounds more catchy when you say it!
So here is it ndafter editing. This makes up our final callout!

Do you know the Melbourne CBD? Tell us about it! Submit your photo of Melbourne’s most delicious or stunning restaurants and be part of an interactive map for city-bound explorers. Hidden Melbourne – Share YOUR secret!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: Callout, Feedback, HiddenMelbourne, Participatory project

Incentives – What incentives do we have?

From our talk with Kyla this week, she asked us ‘What incentives do you have? Why do people want to join you in your project?’. We could not answer her as we have not thought about incentives.

The only thing we could come up with was: they will be recognized for their recommendations and contribution to the project. But I mean, who would want just that? If I was a participant who could join any project, why should I join yours out of the hundreds that can probably give me a free camera or a new job?

So, I started brain storming and brought out my Public Relations thinking where I know I have to sell this product/project!

I began to think of sponsorships as we are not restricted to the type of incentives we can get.

Immediately *boom* I thought of it! – Voucher/coupons from the restaurants that we are promoting in our site!

I’m not sure if my team will go with it, but it is an idea!

The incentive I thought about was to provide the ‘winner’ of the competition will receive a stack of vouchers from the places we took photos of and placed in our map.

We can ask for sponsorship from the restaurants and tell them we are promoting you on our project. Because we are promoting them and that it is a school project, they are more likely to provide us with a voucher that provides people with 20% off their food or a $19.90 meal. We could possibly get a couple of coupons to eat at a restaurant and ultimately make a stack if we approach a ton of restaurants.

The incentive would be the ‘winner’ would get that stack of vouchers so that he/she could try out all the places we promoted on our project.

So in order to have a higher chance of being chosen for the lucky draw or winning the competition, they must post a ton of photos on our sites. Each photo will be placed in the lucky draw with their names. So more photos means more of their names in the lucky draw which will mean higher chance of winning.

I hope this incentive will work! Or maybe we could do another one with sponsorship with a gift bag or basket with a ton of goodies inside?

Till more ideas come,

Emelia out!

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: HiddenMelbourne, Incentives, Promote, Restaurants, Sponsorship

Hidden Melbourne: Social Media Platform Analysis ABC Pool

Professional –
Used as a site for people who are interested in our work. Details of our project are listed in this space

ABC Pool was originally set up in Radio National by people who were involved in all sorts of experimental radio programs. However, it went on for a few years and only a small community was built. People couldn’t get the idea of using ABC. Some had problems with the perception they might have towards their image – ruining their professional image. 2 years back, Jeremy Yuille and Marius Foley redesigned the website to make it open to all.

It is now a social media platform for everywhere to share and engage with creative work and collaborate with the people who make it. This gives you many opportunities to gain recognition for your great work and get criticism if it can be better – both ways, it is beneficial.

Pool is now a training ground and promotional website for professional or non-professional individuals who are looking for a space to showcase their work. The public can connect with each other as well as the staff from the ABC – which include the producers and people with the authority to bring your work in.

Starting ABC POOL

Create your profile – show your work, tell others about yourself (be clear!)
Build opportunities to connect with others – participate regularly throughout the site
Set profile settings to public and transparent
Redesign your site to attract others – experience counts
Join other projects and share your projects with others

Our ABC Pool site is a place where people such as ABC employees and or potential clients to learn more about our project in detail. As our marketing strategy, contracts, links, ideas and more are posted in this space, people who have an interest in picking up our project or possibly using it will have the chance to do so through this space.

Furthermore, it is another space where people who are working on other projects on ABC Pool can learn about us. This can possibly create joint projects in the future and expand and increase the awareness of our project.

Posted, by admin in Integrated Media 2, Participatory Project: Hidden Melbourne. Tags: ABC Pool, analysis, HiddenMelbourne, Social Media Platforms

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