Br. Muller explained the objective and purpose of the Salesian Bulletin. He told the participants: "Our readers must understand what we are doing today, what our concerns are, the strengths of the preventive system, the need for the religious, and how effectively the lay people do the mission."
He went on to define the Salesian Bulletin as "an institutional magazine and the mouthpiece and development index of the Salesian Congregation." According to him, there is always a tension between "lean back" and "lean forward" media, and SB belongs to the category of digital "lean back" media, which is not like some of the social media platforms that are appetizing and well-made but not filling.
"Our magazine is not merely a PR tool; we exist for a very different reason," asserted Br. Muller. He indicated that the SB magazine has an advocacy function to guarantee and defend the rights of young people. There is growing aggression towards young people, and the Salesians need to defend them. He also brought up the situation of labour markets and social systems that can easily enslave the young. It is here that the contribution of SB becomes relevant.
Speaking about universality and a wider vision, Br. Muller stated, "We need to face the challenges together as a Congregation and Salesian family. We cannot close ourselves only to our region and province, as we need to work as one entity. We are called to inspire young people to take up responsibility and work together sustainably in a context of enormous complexity, creating positivity for future generations."
"We need new structural models of leadership, governance, and responsibility to preserve at least a part of our works for young people," he remarked. He outlined some themes such as the necessity to move to alternative energies, demands for transparency and the continuous fight against corruption, the constant and special challenge of Salesian leadership, which could be discussed and written about in the Salesian Bulletin.
"With the advent of virtual reality, our future will be very different, and we will have our personal assistants in the form of Siri, Alexa, Cortana, OK Google, in a still advanced version," said Muller with a prophetic outlook.
He also asserted, "We Salesians must move from our previous pragmatic thinking to strategic thinking." He was convinced about the need for this paradigmatic shift that would equip the Salesians to plan for relevant youth ministry.
He reiterated that the emerging 'network society' is radically changing the framework conditions of our educational and social work - and requires new skills from individuals and the entire Salesian congregation. According to Muller, "The reality of connectivity makes it clear that digital transformation is not so much about technological novelties as it is about social resonances in which people play an increasingly important role."
He also envisioned that in the course of rapid change in technology, new cultures, lifestyles, and patterns of behaviour are emerging, as well as a new economy and new religions. While commenting about the shift in power and control, he spoke about cryptocurrencies, Bitcoins, which are based on blockchain technology and the importance of exploring these newer vistas.
He spoke about Artificial Intelligence and convincingly explained that AI is the central engine of digital transformation. He also mentioned how AI, which used to be talked about a lot in the past, is now comfortably employed in many of our tasks.
Br. Muller concluded presenting several important theses to be discussed and written about in the Salesian Bulletin, including: Salesian Provinces becoming nodes of the Salesian Family network, digital transformation being a matter of Salesian culture, the future belonging to the alliance between humans and machines, the beginning of digitization, the human way of dealing with the networked world of tomorrow, and the adaptation, resilience, and competence required to handle the network society.
Overall, it was a delivered and brilliant presentation that offered the participants lot of information and triggered them with a lot of new insights. During the question-and-answer session, the participants appreciated, acknowledged, and approved Br. Muller's prophetic ideas, and it was a great eye-opener to everyone.
