Reflective Essay - MDD410
Over the course of the last 8 weeks, William from Web Blueprint Design has been taking the class MDD410 Emerging Multimedia Technologies. This course explored emerging technology and advanced topics in multimedia. William explored advances in technology and their implications for design and development of multimedia. Areas covered throughout the weeks varied and are as follows:
Creating favorite spots on a map and creating a story-like adventure through Google Maps
Creating augmented reality photos which was presented as an example of an app that would be useful using that technology
Creating a QR code or Quick Response Code that when scanned resulted in showing a specific Internet Archive
Researching how Kickstarter projects are formed and function in relation to business
Creating 3D printable objects in Photoshop
Creating games via Google Draw
Creating a smartphone UI mock-up for a social media app
William was expecting to learn the required assignments located in his syllabus however he was surprised in knowing that the course offered much more than expected. As the examples of the topics covered above, William received a vast amount of knowledge every week during the course and it helped provide input on how he could implement some of this technology into Web Blueprint Design (WBD). The areas focused on social media were a huge help in understanding the importance and the amount of attention this can obtain especially in a business sense.
As a student, he learned how social media has influenced society in today’s age. How we have come from having no media to everyone living on their mobile device and expect to follow a company that they could trust. Trust is earned if the company is on social media being presented as a person or company rather than a robot. For instance, a company would not do well if their profile is not complete or if they entered the same information across various social media platforms. Having a unique identity and connecting with people on a personal and professional manner is how a business can succeed and earn the people’s trust.
William also learned how businesses can use data for analytics. This was very important as it touched on bases such as privacy issues, spamming, security breaches, personal invasion, and even tracking systems. The pros and cons of data collection for example is extremely important for a business and how they can better help themselves in promotions or even for their marketing department. The downside is people tend to feel violated or concerned with how businesses take this data and how secure it is. Tracking on a Facebook app can allow businesses to start sending promotions to you however some people do not find it comfortable. This data collection allows media and markets to better handle and deal with customers by viewing patterns and sales of what is wanted and what is not. Data such as credit card, phone numbers or home addresses are some of the few biggest fears that people have losing to these companies using tracking.
The key takeaway from this course is to implement social media for a larger customer base in relation to WBD, to continue exploring new emerging technology and how it could benefit WBD and to use all of the technology around to better the company as a whole. The use of the QR code is being implemented on the WBD business cards, the 3D printable object is great for creating custom logo designs for the company or even as fun as a habit, and creating mock-ups is always useful since practicing that will help in creating mock-ups for other designs such as web pages or web apps that could be created within the company.
