Advisory Board Meetings & Reports

2008 Regional Industry Advisory Council Meeting

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Doubletree Hotel
San Diego, CA 92108

Thank you to all participants in the 2008 Regional Industry Advisory Council Meeting. The community colleges served by this industry advisory council include: Cuyamaca College, Grossmont College, Imperial Valley College, MiraCosta College, Palomar College, San Diego City College, San Diego Continuing Education, San Diego Mesa College, San Diego Miramar College, and Southwestern College.

 

The purpose of this meeting is to give a real-world snapshot from industry representatives to educators who create and influence the media arts educational programs throughout San Diego and Imperial Valley Counties. The goal is to give industry members a chance to address educators from each of the community colleges at the same time, thereby maximizing the use of industry members’ time.

 

This meeting provides an opportunity for a regional discussion about emerging technologies and trends (Table Topics), sharing of economic reports and salary surveys, a keynote presentation, and Q & A with industry representatives. The meeting packet included the newly released 2008 Horizon Report, multiple economic reports, and information about salary surveys. This report includes notes from the speakers, the Table Topics summary, and links to the resources handed out in the packet.

 

The meeting was held on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at the Doubletree Hotel, 7450 Hazard Center Drive, San Diego, California, United States 92108 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

 

There was a literature table to share information from colleges, professional associations, and industry partners. Each table setting included a meeting packet plus a pack of cards, to celebrate the year-long MEI effort to provide professional development in the growing digital media field of game design.

 

In attendance were:

Name

Company/College

Alfonso Saballett

Mesa College

Amy Berger

City College

Andrea Henne

SDCCD Online

Andrea Patrick

SD Continuing Education

Anthony Graham

Apple, Inc.

Barbara Fanning

SDCCD Workplace Learning

Barry Roth

Grossmont College

Brent Altomare

Groovy Like a Movie

Carmina Caballes

MiraCosta College

Carolyn Graysen

Lynda.com

Carrie Clay

Grossmont College

Cassondra Caesar

SD Continuing Education

Christy Coobatis

MiraCosta College

Connie Terwilliger

Voice Talent

Cynthia Scott

MEI Region 10

Diane Kew

Cuyamaca College

Doug Elliot

SD Continuing Education

Duy Yin

Double Koi Tea Company

Gary Ellington

Designer

Gracie Fowler

Palomar College

Jane Newcomb

SD Continuing Education

Janet Gelb

Grossmont College

Jeff Uhlik

MiraCosta College

Jill Malone

MiraCosta College

Jim Vincent

SD Continuing Education

Joan Stroh

Southwestern College

Karen Owen

Mesa College

Karl Cleveland

MiraCosta College

Kathleen Canney Lopez

Southwestern College

Ken Dodson

Palomar College

Larry Forman

City College

Lillian Payn

Palomar College

Linda Brown

Tonic Media

Lucina Gonzalez

Scripps Oceanography

Lynda Reeves

SD Continuing Education

Lynda Weinman

Lynda.com

Maria Reyes-Niemeyer

SD Continuing Education

Mark Steele

Motorola, Inc.

Martin Banks

Video Gear Rentals, Inc.

Mary Chapman

AutoDesk, Inc.

Michael Fausner

Scripps Oceanography

Mike Riley

Adobe, Inc.

Paul Richard

SD Continuing Education

Rick Corlett

San Diego Unified

Roger Owens

Grossmont College

Ron Flores

SD Continuing Education

Shane Hazelton

Designer

Tiffany Wong

SD Continuing Education

Tim Buckles

Cuyamaca College

William Craft

Mesa College

 

 

Introductions

The meeting began with greetings and a chance for community college educators from throughout the region to meet colleagues from other colleges and mix with regional industry members.

 

Master of Ceremonies, Brent Altomare, founder of the local video production company “Groovy Like a Movie,” called the meeting to order and introduced Cynthia Scott, representing the Multimedia & Entertainment Initiative for Region 10. Ms. Scott welcomed guests and thanked the team that had made the event possible: Tiffany Wong and Ron Flores, North City Campus; Jim Vincent, Dean of the North City Campus; Gracie Fowler, Palomar Site Coordinator for MEI; Lynda Weinman, Keynote Presenter; Carolyn Graysen, Honored Guest; and Panel Members Ken Dodson (Comet Copy), Mark Steele (Motorola, Inc.), Mike Riley (Adobe, Inc.), Tony Graham (Apple, Inc.), and Mary Chapman (AutoDesk, Inc.).

 

Ms. Scott summarized the Multimedia & Entertainment Initiative’s role in bridging industry and education. MEI is a program out of the State Chancellor’s Office, with six centers placed at community college districts in California. The MEI Center for Region 10 is hosted by San Diego Continuing Education’s North City Campus. She spoke of the Advisory Council as a gathering of futurists: a place for educators to learn about emerging trends in order to modify and adjust classroom instruction.

 

One theme of the statewide, community college-based Multimedia & Entertainment Initiative for the past year was a focus on professional development in the emerging field of game design. Industry research had showed a growing field with job opportunities. In addition, students are drawn to game design study. As a result, MEI designed a learning path to help educators and colleges prepare. Events included a statewide game symposium at Mission College in San Jose (70 participants, 10 from San Diego; April 2007), a Hospitality Suite in conjunction with the SIGGRAPH convention in San Diego (August 2007), a three-day face-to-face training in San Diego at the North City Campus, (September 2007) followed by a 12-week online training, and culminating with support for 50 California Community College educators to attend the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco (February 2008). Ms. Scott asked for a show of hands to indicate who in the room had taken attended the GDC and about 10-15 people raised their hands.

 

Ms. Scott then invited announcements from the floor. Connie Terwilliger, a voice talent artist, spoke on behalf of a professional association and networking group for media arts people—the Media Communications Association International, San Diego Chapter (MCA-I). She invited educators to send their students to the next MCA-I meeting at no cost, and reinforced the value of the networking opportunity for students to mix with working professionals. Martin Banks, owner of Video Gear Rentals, Inc., spoke on behalf of the San Diego Filmmakers, a non-profit association that provides a platform for local independent filmmakers to network and share ideas and resources.

 

 

Table Topics

Brent Altomare then invited participants to start the Table Topics discussion. While lunch was served, guests at each table explored trends and shared observations through the guided discussion. One person took notes at each table, which were collected and compiled by Tiffany Wong and are available below.

 

Brent Altomare then introduced Tony Graham, Systems Engineer, Apple, Inc. Mr. Graham spoke from the heart about a transformative model to create learning objects in education. He spoke about the struggle of the old model, which was to train faculty members to create video as a supplement to their learning delivery methods. Very few faculty members, perhaps 10%, have the time, energy, and resources to retool in video production on top of their existing professional expertise, in order to accumulate new learning objects for their classroom.

 

One day, Mr. Graham related, he and Jeff Monday were flying back from a disappointing sales trip. Mr. Monday is a new Account Executive at Apple, dedicated to community college sales, who has a degree in game theory economics. Sitting next to them on the plane was a fourth grade student who was creating a documentary for her class.

 

To Jeff Monday, it was an “ah ha” moment about who has the skills to accomplish the task of creating video learning objects. Later that night, Jeff called Tony at home to describe the new model: his insight was to shift video production for education to students. For example, a faculty member asks a student to explain in a video what he or she has learned in the class. These videos can accumulate in iTunesU and become part of a learning repository for future students. Mr. Graham encouraged the audience of educators to put him in touch with students who have the skills and interest to become part of the new wave of video producers of educational content.

 

 

Keynote

Mr. Altomare then introduced Lynda Weinman, who gave the keynote address.

 

Lynda Weinman started teaching in 1989 and co-founded lynda.com in 1995, a leading software training company that produces software training books, videos, and an online learning subscription service, called the Online Training Library. Lynda has written numerous bestselling books, has taught at some of the most prestigious digital design and art schools in the world, and has spoken at numerous industry conferences as either a presenter and/or keynoter. Weinman has been working in the software industry since 1982. She is the founder of Flashforward, the largest Flash user conference and film festival in the world.

 

Ms. Weinman explained that she had been self-taught in media arts, and that there were no educational programs at the time. She began teaching in 1989, taught at the Art Center of Design, published books on the emerging field of web design, and then launched Lynda.com, an online training library.

 

Asked to describe trends that are influencing the industry from her perspective, this is what she sees:

 

Trend #1
We are entering a bad economy. Jobs are going to be scarcer. Applicants need to have very strong skills. People need to retool. Specialist need to become generalists. Employees need to wear more hats. Skills go deeper than technical skills. Communication skills are key: critical thinking, ability to present work and take criticism, ability to make it safe for an employer or client to ask for changes, and being adaptable to change.

 

Trend #2
Lifelong learning: Multimedia changes constantly. Everyone needs to engage in lifelong learning. It is important to teach students how to participate in lifelong learning, for example forums, learning portals, and online content libraries such as Lynda.com and Safari Books online.

 

Trend #3
One-on-one is at a premium. Much of our lives are now online. It is rare to be able to have one-on-one experiences, such as the community college classroom environment. People can learn technical skills in a variety of ways, but the classroom offers the unique environment to teach the deeper skills that make technology skills useful. For example, focus on project learning, team skills, communication skills, and make students present in class. Bring in industry leaders to speak to the class. Bring in ex-students. Provide opportunities for group critique.

 

Trend #4
Industry changes: we’re seeing software as service. Google Apps, Basecamp, Adobe Labs (Adobe Air) show the trend to online applications. Salesforce.com has software online that changes based on clients’ votes. The software changes in real time.

 

Another industry change: the gaming industry continues to explode. Ms. Weinman said she was glad to see the community colleges addressing this. Gaming uses all the skills in video, scripting, interactive design. She discussed the popularity of Webkinz, familiar to anyone who has a child in their life—stuffed animals that come with a code to enter an online game environment.

 

Industry change: everything is coming out of the browser. What used to be limited to the framework of the browser is running on the desktop. Examples are Adobe Air, Microsoft Silverlight, and Amazon’s Web Services, based on cloud computing. The new Apple Air is very light in part because the data is in the air.

 

Trend # 5
Inspiration
In her own company, Ms. Weinman has started a new series of speakers to inspire others. She showed an example called “tokidoki.”

 

Trend # 6
Disruptive technologies: for example, the way classes used to be taught have been disrupted. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

As emcee, Brent Altomare thanked Ms. Weinman. He spoke about his own experience bringing inspiration into the workplace: his creative director brings in five minutes of inspiration to the weekly staff meetings. Mr. Altomare described it as showing projects to aspire to in the company’s work.

 

Mr. Altomare then introduced the panel members who joined Lynda Weinman and himself in addressing the audience:

 

 

Panel Members

Brent Altomare is a unique individual who combines a strong business background with a fervent desire to be creative. After receiving his B.A. in Directing from Pepperdine University, Brent worked for his father at the San Diego Auto Trader. In the marketing department, Brent performed on a team that helped grow the publication into an advertising powerhouse with 95% market penetration among automotive dealers. When the business was sold in February of 2000, Brent’s entrepreneurial spirit drove him to create Groovy like a Movie. Storytelling is the key to Brent’s creative philosophy. Whether his team is working on a television commercial, corporate training video, or short film, Brent is constantly asking; “What is the story we’re trying to tell, and how does what you’re doing drive the story forward?”

 

Ken Dodson
Ken Dodson oversees the daily operation of Comet Copy—a ten person in plant print shop, copy operation and graphic design service at Palomar College. Ken started working in the graphic arts business in 1978. He has held the position of press operator, production manager, and business owner. His current position with Palomar College is that of Supervisor of Print Services. He has been with Palomar College in this position for fourteen years.

 

Ken has also taught as an Adjunct Instructor at Palomar College for 20 years. He has taught traditional camera and film assembly, screen printing and offset press operation. Currently, he teaches digital prepress and press operation.

 

Ken became interested in graphic arts while in high school and has exemplified lifelong learning. He’s also an example of one of the primary benefits of community college: having instructors in the classroom who are also steeped in their industry.

 

Tony Graham
Tony Graham is a Systems Engineer with Apple, Inc. Since 1999 he has helped higher education institutions and professionals in Southern California use Apple technologies to teach and conduct research. He now works with Account Executives Jeff Monday and Billy Behler to exclusively service Southern California community colleges.

 

Mike Riley
Account Manager, Higher Education Sales, Adobe Systems
Mike has been with Adobe for 9 years and has been with them through the dot.com heydays, the rise of InDesign and the Macromedia acquisition. He looks forward to the next generation of Adobe applications for the web and mobile devices and seeing how our interactions with information and each other will help change computing in whole new ways. Mike has held sales positions with Quark, Microtek and Fractal Design and has been in the industry for over 15 years.

 

Mark Steele
Mark Steele is Vice President, Enterprise Wireless Sales and Worldwide OEM for Motorola’s Enterprise Mobility business. He is responsible for providing Motorola’s industry leading wireless LAN products and OEM components and products to customers worldwide. These products include data capture engines and products, wireless switches, access points and clients, mobile computing platforms and products that enable customers to develop leading-edge Enterprise Mobility solutions. Mark's organization includes sales, business development, product requirements and operations and works closely with Motorola’s product development organization to deliver world-class Enterprise Mobility technology to customers.

 

Mark holds a B.S. in Engineering Management from Stanford University and has 29 years of computing and communications industry experience including IBM, Qualcomm, Gateway, PCSI, Airprime, Symbol and now Motorola. He sits on the Advisory Board of Incendonet, a San Diego start-up providing speech recognition solutions to SMBs and is a Board member and past Chairman of CommNexus, a telecommunications industry non-profit group that includes over 200 of Southern California’s leading companies.

 

Mary Chapman
Mary has a broad perspective based on sales activity and training needs across CA. She is the AutoDesk education territory manager for AK, HI, CA and OR. Mary has been in the software industry for 15 years doing training, tech support and sales. Based in Marin County, she meets with schools across the states and helps maintain the infrastructure to support AutoDesk’s education customers.

 

 

Notes from Panel Discussion

Following up on the issue of software as a service, and the success of salesforce.com, the panel discussed the pros and cons of software that changes every time you open it. It could be a challenge, but on the other hand it would always be getting better. Adobe has an 18 month revision cycle. AutoDesk has a 12 month cycle. Pro workflow changes constantly and the updates are seamless.

 

Question: Gaming is a 30 billion industry, compared to Hollywood’s 9 billion. How are your companies addressing the gaming industry?

 

AutoDesk is seeing sales trend with animation software. 3ds Max is core of game industry. Lynda.com doesn’t have a game strategy yet, but should. They may look for experts in game and 3D in the future. Motorola is working with the part of gaming that is mobile. Apple TV is an intriguing product, for entertainment. Millions are addicted to learning and achieving in game formats—apply this to education. Adobe sends people to the Game Developers Conference to learn. For Electronic Arts it can cost $100 million for a new game title. Flash platform for mobile phone games. Build games in Flash; huge market in 5-10 years.

 

Question on print sparked discussion about how print is not dead, there is no paperless office anywhere in sight, and that people still like to touch and hold well-designed print products. Products for print are being repurposed. Designers cannot design for print alone—it is going to end up in different formats. Discoveries and development in print production lead to new opportunities e.g. printing on foil and printing large banners. Big trend in print: variable data printing, integrated databases with design. Marketing materials customized with images and information specific for the recipient. Print on demand, customized web to print. Skills require design, Adobe software and databases. Print is alive and well—example of a publishing company that solely creates annual reports for companies; another example of online shopping leading to increase in catalogues arriving at home.

 

Mr. Graham introduced a phrase that became thematic for the rest of the discussion. He said, when asked if we should design for large screen formats or small handheld screens, the answer is “yes and yes.”

 

In looking ahead and guessing which way technology and the businesses that thrive on and surround technological advances are going to go, the answer is “yes.”

 

At the end of the meeting there was a raffle of USB drives. Brent Altomare and Cynthia Scott thanked guests and speakers for attending.

 

 

Resource Websites

Here are the links to the 2008 Horizon Report, economic reports and salary surveys from the meeting:

 

http://www.nmc.org/horizon/

 

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=223

 

http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/416/the_game_industry_salary_survey_2007.php?page=2

 

http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/salary-survey

 

http://home.sandiego.edu/~agin/usdlei/lei07dec.htm

 

http://www.sandiegoatwork.com/generate/html/LMI/Roundtable_05_main.html

 

 

Table Topics Summary

2008 Predictions & Future Trends—summarized from the Table Topics discussions

 

1. What new product/service intrigues you the most?

  • iPhone –especially when development opens up
  • Skinny Apple Air
  • Jitterbug
  • Kindle
  • Virtual keyboard with ability to remap the keyboard display
  • The ADA-effect on new technologies
  • “Flow” new software that traces the history of a file [MacWorld Best of Show award for GridIron Flow http://gridironsoftware.com/]
  • Internet access on flights
  • 3D graphics
  • Guitar Hero
  • Softimage vs [other?] work tools
  • Using Flash to create games – handheld
  • Services – Wii – applications other than entertainment
  • Services used to teach social skills
  • Integration of tech devices into a universal device
  • Broadcasting [lamination?] on television
  • Multi-touch products
  • Smaller, affordable, DV camera w/ adapters that enable the use of SLR lenses on other cameras
  • 3D technology (not only available in theatres, but for the house)
  • Serious gaming software
  • Electronic textbooks – company called Course Smart
  • Self-publishing websites, wikis, etc
  • Job changes require new skills
  • Good enough is now good enough
  • YouTube
  • Green technology - statewide program
  • Wireless keyboard accessible anywhere
  • iPhone/portability

 

2. What new technology or service are you using that you now find indispensable?

  • Wifi, iPhone, Blackberry
  • Indispensable websites: Lynda.com, Merlot project, Inside Higher Ed, Kurzweilai.net, Google, Google apps, Google alerts
  • iPhone and cell phones
  • Internet
  • Wireless and free wifi
  • Texting and email
  • Podcasting and Lynda.com
  • Social networking
  • Technology in general
  • Using texting more than ever
  • PDA doing everything
  • Wifi on laptop
  • Free wifi at Starbucks with purchase
  • The Internet—cellphones –iPhone –wireless technology in general
  • Podcasting, instructors using podcasting, iTunesU
  • Camtasia—online learning, Wimba Live Classroom plug-in in Blackboard

 

3. What new technologies or service do your students/co-workers now use that they find indispensable?

  • Blackberry
  • iPhone
  • Email
  • Texting
  • Chat
  • Podcast
  • Facebook/myspace
  • Texting—everybody wants to be connected
  • YouTube, Myspace
  • E-seminars that Apple is doing, virtual seminars where you don’t have to be at a specific
  • place to attend
  • Ajax
  • Email, IMing at work, Myspace, Facebook (social networking sites)
  • Getting all information from search engines such as Google
  • iPod
  • Captivate Software
  • Breeze
  • GIS
  • GPS
  • Instant messaging –study of online
  • Databases – no separation between front end and back end anymore
  • Intermediate level CSS classes
  • Single year/semester courses are unrealistic
  • More advanced curriculum – can we combine curriculum to offer advanced classes together to ready critical mass enrollments to draw industry back into the classroom. Recognition of program by businesses because of advanced coursework

 

4. What classes are your students/employees asking for?

  • Joomla
  • Quicken/Quickbooks
  • All Adobe products, in this order: Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, AfterEffects, InDesign
  • “Good to Great” book
  • Integrated topics—e.g. how the software in CS work together, and databases
  • Bridge—people need it, but they don’t realize it
  • Web development
  • Soft skills – CRM
  • Video production
  • Graphic design – print & web
  • Flash and action scripting
  • 3D studio max
  • Project management
  • Writing skills
  • 3D modeling
  • Audio/ audio programming
  • Flash
  • Video editing
  • Dynamic pages – interactivity
  • MySQL
  • Multimedia
  • Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign
  • Photoshop from hobbyists [to] core of it all
  • Flash—some gaming requests but hard to do with 2 yr degree
  • Animation –3D Virtual Worlds
  • Night and weekend classes
  • Intermediate and Advanced classes
  • Online classes
  • Web development
  • 2D/3D gaming
  • Web development—Audio
  • Little 1 unit courses in specific industry
  • How to interface with their web bases [c panel]
  • Mobile game programming
  • Digital imaging retooling

 

5. What kinds of entry-level jobs do your students get/or your company offers? (e.g. image processing, web design, video and sound production, print, game, animation)?

  • Sales, retail inside
  • Skills needed: communication and ability to learn new things
  • Shipping and customer service
  • Promote from within, people who are reliable and trustworthy
  • Portfolio v. important – graphic design, and presentation skills
  • Skills needed: How to take criticism
  • Skills needed: How to make it safe for a client to ask for changes
  • Customer service and inside sales, then look around within the company
  • Show initiative—interns who will work for free
  • Freelance – same go into business together
  • Some come in with specific single need
  • Looking for – Director of Photography
  • Graphic design
  • Pre-press
  • Production more than design as entry level
  • Independent vs big company: more with mom and pop companies
  • Print companies
  • Web design freelance
  • Flash action scripting freelance
  • Ad agency on internet—hiring for designing banners or ads
  • Intern – video, web design, webmaster
  • Freelance web design—the new literacy
  • Graphic design
  • On the job skill set augmentation – the need to get data
  • Intermediate and advanced skills in web development
  • Writing skills
  • Ability to articulate what your purpose is

 

6. Where do you see job growth in the use of digital media skills?

  • Across the board, occupations are morphing
  • Mobile
  • Entry level -seemingly unrelated jobs
  • Gaming
  • Web still booming
  • Decline in production
  • Gaming and the movie industry
  • In particular, Second Life
  • Media integration – TV web, and wireless together in either interactive content and/or advertising
  • In existing industry – medical/coast guard/education
  • Instruction by simulation—i.e. “Serious gaming”
  • CBT [Computer based training?] and EBT [employee business training?]
  • Interactive virtual worlds
  • Better (employee/business) skills
  • How to behave

 

7. What are your predictions for emerging technologies?

  • Houses with computerized/automated devices like fridges, robotic vacuums
  • Mobile devices—where is this going to go
  • More wireless
  • Wii advances
  • Internet TV
  • Holograms are going to get more sophisticated
  • Handheld devices – more spoken, audio media
  • Digital book devices – eBooks, interactive TV
  • On demand learning/training – 3D hands on software
  • Tactile software