Week 4 is here, and it’s time for feedback! 

There are very few things that I hate and love at the same time, and feedback is one of them. Love it because it’s meant to shine a light on my shortcomings and lead my way forward, and hate it because having my work placed in the public limelight for error-picking is as unassuming as it is hard to stomach. Nevertheless, or say, love it or hate it, feedback was utterly necessary.

Monday’s Making Media session was solely focused on listening to first-draft podcasts. Mr. Felix, along with Dr. [name], devoted the better part of the class to playing these rough-cut, first-version products to everyone. With each podcast came a round of feedback. Our group’s was second in line to be listened to.

This was a rollercoaster of emotions for me, as it went from suspense, as our podcast was playing in front of the entire class, to disappointment, as Mr. Felix voiced some honest remarks about what we did not get right, to hopefulness and a renewed excitement, as my group finally worked out the next action steps to improve our podcast’s quality.

The main problem we were having was the length of the podcast, which came in at around double the required length. This was a problem that every group member was aware of, yet we did not have time to amend our content to fit within the time constraints. Mr. Felix pointed out that, since our topic of ‘Sustainable Tourism’ was rather complex, our listeners could not follow everything. He suggested that we simplify the content and make better use of repetitions to keep listeners engaged and allow them to catch up with our presentation.

This was a crucial moment of epiphany for all members. As it turned out, we were all too passionate with delving deep into the intricacies of our topic, so much so that we had forgotten that our listeners only had 5 minutes to process all the information, not hours of research.

Another problem that was mentioned was the inconsistency in the sound quality and the tones and voices of the speakers. In short, the podcast felt stitched-up and unnatural. This was because we decided to record it session-by-session, not as a coherent podcast. Mr. Felix pointed us to a solution: turn on the recorder and just record the whole podcast start-to-finish, leaving errors or slip-ups to be taken care of in the editing stage. Based on his suggestion, we organized a re-record on Thursday, which turns out to be much more successful than our previous recording session. 

So what’s the biggest takeaway from this feedback session? For me, while the technical improvements to our podcast proved highly valuable, it was the sheer realization of the limitations that creative professionals have to face that made me think deeply about what is expected of me in my future career. As Mr. Felix put it, 'being a creative professional means learning to work within constraints.'