Inspired by media

May 19-25^th Egyesek hosted Reactor conference and workshops on social and audio-visual media in youth work with disadvantaged groups. It was a closing event of VIVO project which lasted for a year and a half. I assisted in communication with participants, registration and guiding during the field study.

I have been afraid of a technical part of media and I thought that it is simply not my thing. I am not using Smartphone, I do not know how to edit movies or use Photoshop. Most often I take a piece of paper to take down the notes instead of using an electronic device. Moreover, I am not following the newest technology trends. However, the fact that media is a tool for visual arts, delivering the message and involving crowds always admired me.  For the sake of curiosity I joined Reactor plenary lectures and workshops. I should admit that I found new things for myself. I hooked on media topics and I got some ideas how it is applied in youth work. I learned about useful media tools like Pintrest, Piratepad and how to use Twitter. In a workshop about Twitter I heard a story about John Wray, a writer who writes fiction on Twitter. Following this example we had to create a 10-tweet story in a workshop. I found it as a great idea because I could have written my volunteering experience on Twitter rather than traditional blogging. Living in Budapest so many small things happen unexpectedly and short real time messages could have been the best to express spontaneity in EVS. I was inspired by Twitter story example. It gave me new understanding how big the range is to use social networks. It is all about looking for new forms of expression. The newest media tools can inspire to improvise and do things differently or simply easier.

The highlight of the conference to me was the session about youth work and social media led by Ludo Keizer, Dutch inspirational speaker. His street style language was very convincing and triggering questions in my head. He pointed out what has change and what to expect in youth work in upcoming years. I was convinced that cloud technologies make communication easier. It is not necessary any more to sit in the office and reply emails. The physical office is not necessary any more. It is possible to do ordinary office tasks in a park or a bus stop. Crowd sourcing is an innovative way to raise funds and become independent from governmental allowances. Cloud technologies and crowd sourcing made me think about different ways of organizing things and running companies. It also triggered some ideas that I could actually implement them in my activities. Also, I stared to read the book 'Pirate's Dilema' which suggest not to fight technology but learn to live with it.