By Fenton Saward

Today’s Learnings (29/3/17)

After another day packed full of intrigue I was hit with some potentially good news. As of writing I’m yet to know the outcome.

First thing this morning we had Alex Johnston in to speak to us about his new app Soundcircles. Really interesting platform of social media that I’m looking forward to having a play with and giving feedback on. Cool to look for new ways of which we could potentially innovate it and have our say. This was also a very interesting masterclass in creating an app and all the things you have to consider in doing so.

We were also blessed by a second visit from Steve Harrison! He shared a documentary he made on the life of Howard Luck Gossage. This film had only been shown a handful of times before. I’ve read up briefly on him but this documentary left me in awe of Gossage. One thing that stuck with me is his legacy and attitude to his work. On his deathbed he was worried that people would only remember him for something trivial instead of actually making a difference in the world with the power he had. He had done many amazing things but wasn’t satisfied unless he achieved his main goal. Here’s a quote from him that’s relevant now more than ever – “Changing the world is the only fit work for a grown man.”

Not too sure when and if the documentary is being released publicly but would highly recommend looking into Gossage either way. Check out the book Steve Harrison wrote on him that goes by the title of the aforementioned quote.

Now onto the potentially good news. We were all told that we would be going on placement over this coming Easter break. That soon changed to only being six teams. That’s twelve people from a class of thirty-six. I think attitudes swiftly changed once we were told that the highest scoring books would be getting those six placements. Today we received a shortlist for seven placements. Only six guaranteed unless one of the agencies can offer two placements. If there is not seven placements then it will be decided on our attendance record and one team will lose out. I made it into the shortlist but who knows how it will pan out over the next few days. The learning I’ve taken from this is that every part of your work ethic should be taken into consideration as you never know when it could hinder an opportunity. This is something I’ve known before, but today has really hammered it home for me.