Advisory Board Meetings & Reports

2006 Industry Advisory Board Meeting

April 27, 2006

Attending:

Dave Almos	Cymer, Inc.	Susan Iwamoto	NAMM
Reggie Amos	Square Mile Studio	Leslie Johnson	CA Alliance for Arts Ed. (Music Center)
Casey Bernay	Local 790, Illustrators & Matte Artists	Jay Matheson	Apple
Debbie Brooks	The ACME Network	Kathleen Milnes	Entertainment Economy Institute
Anuja Dharkar	Adobe	Thel Rountree	lynda.com (Chair)
Don Doyle	California Department of Education	Scott Ward	Armory Center for the Arts

Meeting was called to order by Chair Thel Rountree at 11:00

Introductions

Avakian: Overview of MEI

Input from Board members

Milnes: why only 6 centers and why aren’t there more in northern California?
(We want to reach more areas…need to find a way to do this?)

Almos: what is the reason for convening the statewide advisory board? Response: Regional board input can roll up to the statewide board.

What’s needed

Iwamoto: Create career opportunities – 30,000 jobs 20% increase annually. There has been a 50% cut in music education. Need business students – retailers, marketing. How can NAMM strengthen the MEI? They do coalition work with education. Provide grant funds. Hope to contribute – effecting an entrepreneurial foundation for the arts in California. Want to help with advocacy efforts, as well.

Amos: there is no college curriculum for students to understand event design. Students also need to have a business sense. Hard to grow through the industry; have to understand how the business side works – entrepreneurial. Need bilingual students, too. (For them, Chinese is the needed second language, because they have hired people from that area.) 10% of international work is done in Europe. Those employees have multicultural focus. Foreign employees aren’t necessarily better than Americans, yet they have more value due to their multiculturalism.

Bernay: film industry uses “cutting edge” – drivers of new technology; but it puts pressure on them to be current. Workers are expected to know and own ALL new software (and equipment). $8,000 to own Maya (high end); takes at least a year to learn. Trying to find solutions to get the workers the training they need in a short period at a reasonable cost. First “trimester” with LA Valley got 90 workers trained. Workers need help – advertising/marketing that MEI is out there. Would like to get this training offered at other facilities. Transfer of this training. Also have to keep track of what’s going on; union vs non union; little face to face contact. Having remote locations tends to suppress pay. Trying to become more technologically supporting. (IATSE reviews Lynda.com training.)

Burruss – no unions/support groups for web designers, etc. Employee is expected to keep their skills up to date. Asked Apple/Adobe folks how they can help.

Software Issues

Matheson – can’t get the message out about their educational pricing. Trying to set up community colleges as a training center – certification programs (for teachers) on campus. Take the training then get the educational discount. Want to find ways to work with the community colleges. Apple is working on standard skills sets so industry will know that certain level has been achieved.

Wilson: need more scalability in software – by skill level. (big leap from educational version to professional). Limited term licensing might work for this.

Anuja: starting student pricing; product licensing allows them to use it for commercial use. Tracking and piracy is an issue. Focus is on building materials and resources for community colleges as well as anyone who wants to educate them self. Where do the needs fall? Want to help with articulation from high schools to community colleges. What are the new product solutions that need to be developed?

Burruss: Financial aid recipients should also be able to get funding for laptops and internet access because many students are required to have these items in order to pass certain classes.

Almos: don’t limit to one platform (Mac).

Expanding conceptual framework

Milnes – need to bring attention externally to the idea of cross working. California’s creative, digitally migrant workforce needs to be supported. Brand MEI with a global common language. Daniel Pink “A Whole New Mind”, Friedman, Florida – should be required reading.

Amos: Need to incorporate the business/entrepreneurial aspects into the curriculum. Employees have become compartmentalized (which also leads to students losing their creativity).

A model – Kaufman Foundation put $125 million into eight campuses – focus on entrepreneurialism with a learning community foundation.

Individual vs collaborative creativity. Students need to learn to work in a collaborative environment.

If MEI could find a university partner to which the Initiative could be connected there is funding available from Sloan Foundation. We need to have capacity for global education.

(Palomar is trying to establish a creative economy initiative.)

Learning communities

Brooks: connecting intellectual capital to students is key. Bring in students starting at the middle school level. The ACME Network has created a learning community – pros give feedback to students. Can see the sustained growth of the students. Students not going into the industry benefit by becoming problem-solvers (skills learned can be applied to other areas)

Bernay: don’t forget that entrepreneurs need basic skills for managing a business; structures of corporations; how to balance a checkbook; paying taxes, etc.

Use EDCs (local Economic Development Corporations) for entrepreneurial classes and/or SBDCs (Small Business Development Centers).

Meeting adjourned to lunch, 12:50.

Respectfully submitted, Kathy Pulse