Today we got the chance to meet some people from the industry. Each professional told about his experiences in the field and how they could be relevant to us. The point of this meeting was getting acquainted with some people who work in the industry, in order for us to set up projects in the future that are both interesting and relevant to society, with their help. You can see the list of speakers here.
After this our teacher told us about the goals for the We Create Identity course, and that he doesn't like to have strict assignments, but rather wants us to use our own initiative and creativity to create something original and worthwhile. He then proceeded to ask whether we had all designed a logo for our groups and whether everybody had read the Ximpel documentation, and both of these questions were answered negatively. For our group the reason for not designing a logo was that we consider a name and a logo as a last-touch element, something you only create when you know what your final product is like and when you are ready to present it to the world. Maybe we should learn to be more like (proud) artists, and put our identity on our ideas, even when they are not finished yet. As to not reading the Ximpel documentation, this is due to the fact that the website http://create.eliens.net is not really the epitome of user-friendly and logical website design in terms of being easy to navigate. It is sometimes really difficult to find the exact content you where looking for in this maze of links. A suggestion from my side would be to use a sidebar for easy navigation, just like on the Google site. Another reason for not reading the documentation is the fact that we were focusing on using YouTube with annotations instead of Ximpel for our interactive video. In this way, the interactivity can be designed in a visual / what-you-see-is-what-you-get way instead of by typing code.
In the afternoon we had a so-called open podium where everybody is allowed to freely express his or her ideas. The problem was that nobody had prepared anything to talk about, so most people wondered what to say once they were asked to get up on the stage. I think it is easier to speak to a crowd when you have gotten a topic beforehand, so that you can look up information regarding that subject, and thus are able to speak in an informed way. Nevertheless, it was interesting to experience that out of nowhere, a discussion about the amount of friends people have listed on Facebook arose. It was also interesting to hear everybody's opinion on the Creative Technology programme so far, and everybody seemed to agree that we had a little too much Technodrama's in the Introduction to Computer Science course.
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