The first Media In The Pub night, on August 26th, will take a look at Australian media jobs in ten years time. What are they going to look like? How do contracting and new skills interact? What does the fragmentation of media sources mean for finding people to pay for your time?

Update: Thanks to everyone who came along and contributed. From what people have said told me so far the night seemed to be a great start. Keep your eye on this site or the facebook group for details of the next event.

Photos from the event are on facebook, which you’ll need to be signed into to see.

I’ll keep on collecting links on this subject. If you want to stay up to date on them you can check delicious, or add this RSS feed to your feed reader: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/ferguspitt/mediainthepub+jobs.

Original Text: BBC World Service boss Richard Sambrook reckons that by 2015 we’ll all study psychology, programming, business, media production, marketing, then sub-contract for bosses we never meet, work in bursts then lay on the beach between gigs. You can get his view first hand on his blog.

Meanwhile Fairfax freelancers are feeling distinctly uncomfortable about the new contracts they’ve had to sign. But there’s an optimistic side; at the same time in Sydney an ecosystem of independent media companies - often just one or two people - is starting to bubble. Who knows how long they’ll last, or how big they’ll grow?

Will that ecosystem be any good? For the people who work in it or for the people who use its products? That the structure of media is changing is an accepted truth (especially if most of your industry reading is from overseas) but is that even true of our local Sydney industry? If so will that actually have an impact on Australian careers?

Come along on the night, and have your say.

At time of writing the facebook group alone has 30 58 62 74 attendees, including people from across the Sydney mainstream and independent media ecosystem.

1. A beer propelled discussion I will look forward to. I’ll be there with bells.

   Comment by Pip — July 24, 2008 @ 3:07 pm

2. I suspect in 2015 we’ll also be studying philosophy for better critical thinking skills, and media theory (in order to understand the meta-structures of media change, not just the current work processes & platforms). Looking forward to the discussion - and to hearing Pip’s bells.

   Comment by Kate — July 25, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

3. Found out about this via http://twitter.com/stilgherrian

   Will definitely try and be there, representing the aforementioned “independent media companies - often just one or two people” sector

   Comment by Neerav Bhatt — July 26, 2008 @ 7:35 pm

4. This will be good for me as a future media arts major. Subject I’ve just begun, dealing with convergence/divergence & new media strikes at the heart of this issue and it’ll be interesting to get some other perspectives.

   Comment by Iam. S. Murg — July 30, 2008 @ 4:24 pm

5. Wish I could be there Ferg. It promises to be a good night! The big Q for me: As we live our lives in the media, with everyone producing media content for work and play every day – as a part of our normal lives – what is it that will differentiate media workers, i.e. professionals, from everyone else producing media? Let me know what answer your mob comes up with.

   Comment by tw — August 14, 2008 @ 10:28 am

6. was directed here via http://twitter.com/stilgherrian

   i shall come and check this out in a non-committal kind of way… looking forward to it.

   Comment by Josh — August 24, 2008 @ 4:56 pm

7. Pity I missed this, would have been great to attend. Hope to see you at the sophomore event…tba???

   Comment by Gavin — August 26, 2008 @ 7:28 pm

8. Couldn’t make this one, due to birth of my first child. But given recent changes at Fairfax, ACP and ABC’s RN - when’s the next one?

   Comment by matt — October 15, 2008 @ 11:44 am