1. Employability for Connected TV
Richard N Griffiths
Programme Leader: Postgraduate Programme in Interactive Technology
University of Brighton
2. Question I’m trying to answer
• How do you prepare people for entry and
career success in digital media – now?
3. My Agenda
• The effects of convergence are always
underestimated
• There are some eternal verities
4. Plan for this Talk
• Have we been here before?
– The Gartner Hype Curve
• and living with it
• What’s so special about TV?
– What was TV?
– What is TV?
– What will become of TV? (I’m guessing …)
• The eternal verities on the curriculum
5. Have we been here before?
The Gartner Hype Curve
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg
6. Living with it: Red Button iTV
2002
MSc Digital Television
Management & 2001 2003
Production
2012
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg
7. Initial Course Outline (2002)
MSc DTV Management & Production
• Business
– Entrepreneurship
– Marketing in the Digital Age
– The DTV Market Environment
• Design
– Consumer Oriented Qualitative Research and Creative Idea Generation
– Interaction Design and Usability Evaluation
– Requirements Analysis and Specification
• Management
– DTV Project Management
– Legal Issues in Information Management
• Technical
– Current and Future DTV Technology
– DTV Technology Implementation
9. What was TV?
• An idea: viewing at a distance (physical / temporal)
– but film preceded it
• Technology
– Electro-mechanical / analogue electronic / digital
– Broadcast: terrestrial radio, cable, satellite
– Distribution: tape / laser disc / DVD
• A social phenomena:
– Electronic hearth
– Shared national experience / “Water cooler event”
– Telly celebrity
• An economic phenomena
– An industry: production / distribution / consumption
– Capital investment: studios, cameras, transmitters, etc.
– Property: brand (channel) / rights
10. What was TV?
• An idea: viewing at a distance
• Technology
• A social phenomena:
• An economic phenomena
The most significant?
“It’s the economy stupid.”
11. What is TV?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hyaenidae_illustration.jpg
12. What is TV?
In transition from an economy of
scarcity to an economy of abundance
At least as far as the technology of production,
distribution and consumption are concerned
Also fragmentation of audience and competition
from other ‘media’ (games, web, etc.)
13. What will become of TV?
[This slide is intentionally blank]
It will cease to have a distinct technological,
social and economic identity
14. What will become of TV?
But, in the present / immediate future:
• Attempts to hold on to unique identity of TV
– HDTV / 3D TV / time-shifting
• Attempts to co-opt the competition
– Bundled interactive services / on-demand
– Two-screen TV (betting and ‘adult’ anyone?)
• Attempts by major rights-holders to retain
access control
– ACTA / patenting / app store access
15. Current Course Outline (2010)
MSc Digital Media Production
• Interaction Design and Evaluation Process
• Interface and Information Design
• Web Development
• Creative Design Lab
• Project Management
• Research Methods
Plus up to 2 of:
• Independent Portfolio Project • Evaluation in Practice
• New Media Application • Interactive Technologies Business
Development Context
• Marketing for Interactive • Intellectual Property Law
Technologies • Accessibility for Interactive
• Independent Research Project Systems
16. Eternal Verities
• Technology changes – people by and
large don’t
– Understand how to design for people
• It’s a technical industry
– Understand the technology – and keep up with it
• It’s an industry
– Understand the commercial realities
Hinweis der Redaktion
Business Topic AreaEntrepreneurship: Deals with innovation, finance, legal aspects of entrepreneurship, protection of intellectual property, commercialisation, and business skills.Marketing in the Digital Age: Marketing techniques and their application to DTV and e-commerce.The DTV Market Environment: The interplay of companies, regulatory bodies, pressure groups and government that determines the market place for DTV products.Design Topic AreaConsumer Oriented Qualitative Research and Creative Idea Generation: To provide students with theoretical and practical insights into qualitative methods in consumer/client research, and the processes and techniques of creative idea generation.Interaction Design and Usability Evaluation: To provide students with theoretical and practical insights and experience of interaction design and usability evaluation, fine-tuned to the domain of interactive digital television.Requirements Analysis and Specification: To provide students with theoretical and practical insights and experience of requirements analysis and specification in a commercial setting.Project Management Topic AreaDTV Project Management: To provide the students with the theoretical underpinnings, practical skills and confidence to manage a DTV project successfully.Legal Issues in Information Management: To identify the major provisions of the law relating to intellectual property, data protection and defamation, and to analyse and evaluate the economic, social and political arguments that are used to justify and develop them.Technical Topic AreaCurrent and Future DTV Technology: This will cover current and developing DTV transmission (satellite, cable, terrestrial, Internet, wireless) and set-top box technologies.DTV Technology Implementation: To provide students with the technical skills and techniques necessary to realise the implementation and delivery of DTV products.