Tag Archives: project management

Digital is still young. If the media we know and love was a family, what would it look like?

• TV would be the Dad, still trying to act cool, occasionally pulling it off, trying out email and interactive TV
• Radio would be a great uncle, whose picture would be on the wall, dressed in a World War I outfit, gone but not forgotten
• Cinema would be a great-great grandfather, a sort of viz-esque Victorian Dad, starched collars, classical but timeless
• Print would be an ancestor, immortalised in a painting, or perhaps a old manuscript, with a single page framed in the hall

What about the new generation? Digital, and it’s younger sibling Mobile?

Well they’re not even out of school yet. Digital is just about in secondary school, and Mobile? Well Mobile is still in shorts. They’re both trying to find their way, to sound more official and grown-up, but the grown-ups simply aren’t taking enough notice. Well some are, but most aren’t taking them seriously still, because they don’t know the lingo.

What if there was some way these young upstarts could somehow get recognised? What if they could become more mature?

I’ve been speaking to a lot of people in agencyland in the last 4 weeks, and something they all say is that there’s a real shortage of digital production talent, at all levels. Another problem is that Seniority is not comparable. Some producers claim to be senior after a very short period of time, which may be possible, but not with so little experience in terms of projects, technologies, platform, and people.

Agencies rely on being able to produce great work reliably to retain their clients, and they’ve been doing so because their output is being managed by a very experienced group of TV, Radio and Print producers who’ve been doing it for years in a tried and trusted way. Everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, there’s an unspoken code of conduct generally, and there’s even a spoken one in the form of accredited courses, for example the one run by the IPA and various higher education establishments. But there’s few equivalents within Digital.

The IAB run a course, but it only skims the surface, 2 days hardly qualifies you as anything other than a beginner (but it doesn’t profess to be more than this). The IPA currently offer nothing, but are showing an interest. Higher education establishments are trying, most notably places like Hyperisland, but few in the UK seem to be doing the right thing. Places like Plymouth have built up a good track record, with what was formally their MediaLab arts course, now called Digital Arts & Technology, but this doesn’t give enough focus to managing the digital arts. London College of Communications has produced some good people recently as well.

What I’m interested in is an industry-driven accreditation though. I’ll be speaking to some Heads of digital production over the coming weeks and putting together a plan for an official course for those who do want to hone their craft and be recognised for it. Any course worthwhile won’t be easy, and it won’t be quick, but it will be useful, and it’ll help this industry evolve into what it needs to be so that Digital and Mobile can stand side-by-side with all the other members of the media family.

What will a course look like? Well I see 3 levels, much like the scrum alliance format.

• Beginners | aimed very much at Juniors or those with less than a year of experience | a foundation course run over a few days, reinforcing the basic concepts and perhaps introducing some new ones. Digital platforms, their associated workflows. Roles and responsibilities. Media plans. Budgeting and Risk Management. Differing methodologies. Tools. QA.
• Intermediate | for those with between a year to 5 years experience – skilled practitioners | A system of peer-review could help strengthen the value of this rating. Applicants might be required to carry out some recommended reading and write an essay on digital production to demonstrate their knowledge and experience. This would be backed up by references from team-members, and details of a broad spread of technologies and technologies (successful ones). One could consider having a points system, or using Professional Development Units to ensure sufficient experience is gained.
• Advanced | for those wishing to engage in training and management of other producers | Again, this could be a points based system, perhaps with tasks aimed more at helping people to understand best practice. One could have more in-depth training over a period of weeks with practical and written tests.

I’d be keen to hear your points of view on this. What do you think? Would you invest some time to make this happen? Maybe take a quick survey on what’s important for digital producers?