Courses

This course identifies issues posed by the evolving new media sphere, answering questions about privacy, entrepreneurship and emergent technologies and services. From overnight Youtube sensations to Twitter inspired social revolutions, digital media plays an increasingly important role in how people connect to one another and understand the world.

This course provides students with opportunities to identify and address new media trends; students also receive guest lectures from leaders and innovators in the digital media field.

This course provides study in the entrepreneurial process for the creative industries. Students learn effectuation, the five types of new ventures and the basics of startup culture and media product development. Woven into this class, students will learn about media innovation by doing via in-class activities and major assignments, while debunking the myths of entrepreneurship.

Students will also meet a diverse group of founders and leaders in creative enterprises, including new media startups, innovators inside established media companies, social impact media leaders, as well as freelancers, independent contractors, social media influencers and others recreating the entertainment and media industry. This class will also have a major project where students will either:

Build and launch a basic version of their own business idea/concept
OR
Build a working demo (or wireframe) and test launch a media product or business created with the media productizing process.

New Media Venture Launch enables innovative students to explore, validate and prepare new business concepts to launch as start-up companies. Students work in teams to develop their ideas into new media products and services and learn the process of growing a digital media business from the ground up.

The class is divided into three parts:

Part I: Ideation, idea pitching, team building – Class discussions and activities focus on principles of entrepreneurship, team development and learning the basic types of startups and entrepreneurs.

Part II: Business model generation as teams – Lectures and class discussions focus on turning rough ideas into functional concepts and then into business models. Students learn about building a customer base, infrastructure and finance elements.

Part III: Pitch preparation and coaching of teams – The last part of the course features mini-lectures about pitching business models to high-scale digital media startups. Students also will interact with guest lecturers from the digital startup community, including founders, entrepreneurs and angel investors.

This class is recommended for students with digital media business ideas or is interested in launching a startup. It also is for students who hope to work or intern at digital media startups and other emerging companies.

Most people believe that entrepreneurs are born and act as lone rangers with a vision for the future with unquantifiable skills and charms. The work of Saras Saravathy (professor at UVA) has debunked that myth and developed a model of entrepreneurial thinking that can be learned. Her work shows how successful entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson and others act to achieve and create innovations in business and our world.

This class gives an overview of the five elements of Saravathy’s Effectuation and Entrepreneurial Thinking, focused on what media professionals need to know. The class will expose students to these concepts, give examples and conduct hands-on exercises (in class and outside) to help develop skills in entrepreneurial thinking and effectuation. These are the skills that new business founders possess and that young growth companies, as well as established businesses, seek- especially in new employees. In the face of media changes and disruption, these skills have more interest than ever before.

New businesses are started all the time, but startups are not all the same. Startups differ in their growth rates, with some remaining small and others expanding to a larger scale.  Some are lifestyle businesses driven by the founder’s interests, while others are formed to address a market need. Most new ventures are officially defined as Small Businesses, and some new ventures are spin-outs from larger, established businesses and may take the form of a new business unit, subsidiary or separate entity. Plus, there are new kinds of “Social” ventures emerging: for-profit and not-for-profit organizations designed to fulfill a social mission. Only a few new businesses are high-tech, high-growth ventures – the ones we usually hear about in popular culture, such as Twitter and Google.

This class will introduce students to each of the five types of startups and delve into examples and topics related to each. We will consider Lifestyle and Small Business media opportunities – especially ones made possible by pervasive digital media. We will look at why established companies seek entrepreneurially-minded employees who can help them break into new markets, and what opportunities exist for new media spin-outs. The class will also consider Social Ventures in Media that open up new possibilities for sustainable operations, particularly in media that serve a public good.

Lean Media Startups is a one-credit course covering the “Lean Startups” movement-an emerging approach to launching new business ventures, particularly in digital media. Students will learn the basic components of the Lean approach, a rigorous way to develop and launch startups, to search for a repeatable and scalable business model and to iterate and adapt to new and unknown markets. Students will learn the basic components of Lean, be introduced to resources and learn about how this process creates today’s “startup culture.”

This course is recommended for aspiring digital media startup founders, managers, employees and interns.

This five-week class prepares students to consider and start a creative freelance business. Typically, these ventures are in graphic design, writing, photography, video and audio production, branding, marketing, publicity, talent representation and creative content creation of all types.   Most of these types traditionally provide services and sell business-to-business (B2B), but with the emergence of the Creator Economy and direct-to-consumer digital channels, freelancers can also sell to consumers. Consumer freelancer products and services could include art, books, newsletters, blogs, videos, training and all kinds of entertainment and personal services. Assignments and class discussion cover getting started, finding your market, partnering, subcontracting and more.