Week 4: Picking a Lane

This week felt different. The tech demo is behind us, the reflective warm-up period of the course is done, and now things are getting real. We had to pick a stream for the capstone. Four options on the table: Emerging Technologies, Business and Climate, Placemaking, and Ageing and Community. I did not know much about any of them going in, so the first thing I did was actually read through each one properly before forming any opinion.

I went in with one clear instinct though: I wanted to work with a new technology, whatever shape that took. That felt non-negotiable from the start. Beyond that, I was trying to keep an open mind.

The community stream seemed to be the most popular choice among the group. I noticed that early on, and I made a deliberate decision not to let it influence me. Popularity is not a reason to pick something. If anything it made me more careful about doing my own thinking rather than drifting toward what everyone else was gravitating to. I wanted to be able to look back at my choice and know it came from me, not from the room.

The business stream was the obvious first candidate given what I do every day. Running The Next Something, and previously NDLEMVRS, means I live and breathe that world. I went in expecting it to resonate and honestly I came out a little frustrated. When I actually read through the brief it did not feel like business in any way that connected to what I actually do or care about. It leaned heavily into environmental strategy, community stakeholder engagement, that kind of territory. There was nothing wrong with it, it just was not mine. I had expected to feel something when I read it and I did not, which told me everything I needed to know.

Something Jed, one of my lecturers and someone whose perspective I genuinely value in this course, said stayed with me going into this decision. He told me that when looking at the briefs, find the one that interests you most but also gives you the most freedom to pursue what you are already good at or genuinely passionate about. If a brief fully resonates, go for it. If not, find the one with the most open space and make it yours. That framing helped me stop trying to force a connection that was not there and start looking for a brief that had room to move in.

The Emerging Technologies was the one that interested me the most out of all of them. A few words jumped out immediately when I read through it: digital media, emerging technologies, creativity. And then a sentence that basically sealed it for me: outcomes might include media artefacts. Media is exactly what I am in. It is what I spend most of my time thinking about, making, and building businesses around. The brief also introduces the concept of a diegetic prototype, which means an artefact that looks and feels like it genuinely came from a future world. A product, a video, a piece of content that makes speculative ideas feel real and tangible rather than theoretical. That framing clicked immediately because it is essentially high-quality, intentional content creation with an academic and critical frame around it. It took what I already do and gave it a new context to operate in.

After deliberating myself, honestly, the Emerging Tech brief turned out to be better than I could have imagined. The frustration about the business one faded pretty quickly once I actually got into this one and started to see the possibilities.

The three lenses in the brief are Connect, Collaborate, and Create. Create is the obvious fit for me. It is fundamentally about how emerging technology changes what it means to make things, be a creator, and own your work. I already sit inside that question every single day through The Next Something. Founders come to me because they need to tell a story, and increasingly that story exists in a world where AI is reshaping what creation even means. The research for this project almost writes itself when you think about it that way.

There are still some open questions I am sitting with going into next week. Media is a genuinely loose term. What specifically about media? What tools can I actually use? How experimental can I get with the output format? These feel important to nail down before I go too deep in any one direction.

Before I started trying to answer any of that though, I let myself go completely wide. No filter, no judgment, just free thinking and free writing. Some ideas were half-formed, some were throwaway, some might turn into something. The point was just to get them out.

A fake influencer who does not exist. Build out the world of a fully AI-generated content creator set in 2040 Aotearoa. Their profile, their content, their brand deals, their comments section. The whole thing. A comment on authenticity, parasocial relationships, and what real even means online anymore. Output could be a mockumentary or a fake social media feed pulled together well enough that you have to look twice.

A retirement video from a human creator. A short film set in 2038 where a NZ creator posts their final video because AI has fully replaced what they do. Emotional, quiet, simple to film. The whole thing is their last upload and you feel the weight of that. This one hit me as I was writing it because it is not that far from conversations that are already happening right now.

From there I started narrowing into concepts that felt more specific, more developed, and more filmable as a product launch video. A tool where your AI collaborator co-owns your content and gets paid alongside you. An app that certifies content was made by a human, something that becomes genuinely valuable in a world completely flooded with AI output. An AI that pitches creative ideas to you instead of the other way around, flipping the assumption of who is actually the creative in the room. A talent agency that represents AI-generated artists and negotiates on their behalf.

I just know that I wanted to make the video meaningful and inspiring / thought provoking. A great example of that is this video I come back to from time to time.

I have not fully committed to one yet and I am okay with that for now. The direction is clear and the brief is chosen. What I am conscious of though, coming from a media and startup background, is that I am naturally drawn to ideas that already make sense in the world I operate in. That is a real advantage because I know how to execute in that space, but it is also something worth watching. Part of what I want from this project is genuine creative risk, not just a polished version of something I already know how to do. The brief is pushing me to think speculatively about the future, and I want to actually do that rather than just dress up familiar work in new language.

The next step is picking one concept and fully committing to it. Then building out the world it lives in: what Aotearoa looks like in that future, why this product exists, who is using it and why they need it. Then develop the concept further, name it, figure out the tone and feel of the video. Then make the thing.

Still deciding between the three strongest ideas. But for the first time this semester, I can actually see what I am building toward, and that feels good.