Week 3 - FIT2001

Ahh yes, Week 3. This week's tutorial took a change of pace from the usual analysis exercises. We were told to find out what podcast really stands for and why it really matters. Also,we watched a rather insightful video presentation by Malcolm Gladwell about how psychology affects our preferences.

Honestly, I have never really given much thought on podcasts before this. The last podcast I saw was Totally Rad Show, a podcast that primarily reviews pop-culture phenomena such as movies, games and tv shows. This tutorial gave me a jolt going to start watching podcasts again. From my understanding, podcasting is an up-and-coming and increasingly popular medium for communication. It is quickly becoming a buzz among tech-heads. According to the tutor, a growing number of organizations are turning to podcasting as a training tool for new employees in an organization. I find this a very interesting approach for knowledge management as well. Many people liken podcasting to radio on demand as podcasting gives far more options in terms of content and programming than radio does.

Okay, as for the second thing in the tutorial, Malcolm Gladwell's video presentation. He mentioned that the human mind is notoriously fickle-minded and completely unpredictable when it comes to choosing what we like. He told us stories about office chairs getting bombarded with criticisms and how ugly it looked at the beginning of the product life cycle. However, the perception towards that product changed over the years and eventually became one of the most ergonomical chair in the market. So what looked weird in the past can actually be something really awesome in the present. We humans are dodgy like that hehe..

Another issue he mentioned was how big companies like Coke and Pepsi utilized psychological warfare to manipulate the consumer's minds. The fact that a single sip can make such a huge difference in sales is amazing. Personally, the only big difference between Coke and Pepsi is all in the people's psychological mind. People who prefers one brand to the other are most likely brainwashed by commercials.