What I've learned about engagement while listening to creatives

I remember vividly teaching digital natives like the ones in the photos. Now that I’ve moved on from timetabled university courses that I taught for 25 years in Ireland, I’m recalling several things I noticed that changed during this decade.

More than before, today’s most creative students are walking on grass at live music venues. They have set up fourth spaces in real life, like on the first floor of Books Upstairs in Dublin where their laptops stay in bags.

Today’s creatives prefer journalisim from people, not institutions. But they are often unaware that they’re seeing those trustworthy people because that’s what their social network algorithms serve to them.

When verifying authenticity of journalists, the most acclaimed standard revolved around the level of engagement the students enjoyed from the presenters and writers whose bylines they knew. As Mark Little shares in his book “The Last Good Day on the Internet” our most-viewed media is now on a two-way street. I bought the copy above in O’Mahony’s on O’Connell Street in Limerick, Ireland.