Rick_McCormack@mindlink.UUCP (Rick McCormack) (04/09/91)
I recently posted a survey on multimedia here. I received 12 replies, and thought others might like to see the results. Of the 12 replies, 5 respondents are working in University environments; one more just left that arena; 3 work for communication-oriented companies; 3 work for computer-oriented companies. 6 work for "really big" companies; 3 for companies with less than 200 employees; and 3 for companies with fewer than 20 employees. 7 work in departments with more than five but less than 20 co-workers; 5 work with fewer than 5 co-workers. 9 of the respondents got into multimedia as their job developed; 4 as a result of planned expansion. (One of the 12 claims it was both planned and "growth.") 8 of the 12 "sell" multimedia; 3 use it "in-house;" 1 both "sells" and uses "in-house." The 5 University respondents worked in computing areas (2), teaching faculties (2) and instructional technologies (1). The 6 respondents from businesses worked in hardware/software development (3), graphic and communications (2) and advanced technologies (1). Of the 10 who commented on hirings/layoffs, 2 each in education and commerce had neither layoffs nor hirings; 1 university had laid people off; 3 universities had hired; 2 commercial enterprises had also hired in the last three months, but only one of the two had hired in the multimedia area. No big surprise: 8 respondents (4 in education, 4 in commerce) said other departments generally ignore them. 1 each in education and commerce said others ignored them except when they needed a high-tech sales tool. 2 of the commercial respondents said they were regarded as part of normal company services. Good news here: 4 of the respondents report they are ready to produce CD-ROM or LaserDisc projects; and 6 ALREADY HAVE! Only 2 (both University) said there are no current plans to produce. There were 9 US-resident respondents (3 from CAlifornia, also from Delaware, D.of Columbia, Iowa, Georgia, and the mid-West), and from Belgium, Scotland and Germany/Switzerland. COMMENTS from the respondents Dr. Richard W. Bingham, Lecturer in Veterinary Virology Years in M-m: about 18 months Here in the UK there are various "Computers in Teaching Initiative" Centres (government funded) to promote all aspects of CAL in higher education. The CTI Centre for Medicine at Bristol (which covers the veterinary sciences as well) produced a laserdisc a few years ago on pathology which we started to use. As it was inadequate for my needs, I have been involved with collecting the images to go into the revised edition of the disc, which is in hand now. At the same time I have been writing an aplication in "Guide" to teach virology to veterinary students, and which will incorporate interactive video once the new laserdisc is ready. Mark Thomas, Senior CD-I Engineer Years in M-m:Been here about 2+ years. I used to do interactive ship manuals for the navy... Multi-media is fun. And painful. Mark S. Millard CD-I Studio Manager Years in M-m:2 Years Someone approaching a career in multi-media should try to obtain as many cross-disciplinary skills as possible. It is important that the skills required to produce an application be understood by everyone involved with a project. This means that a software engineer should understand the audio/visual process; likewise, the producer/director and audio/video technicians must have some comprehension of the software design cycle. In the CD-I studio, we are striving to obtain this balance. All of our engineers have multiple talents in addition to programming. Some are musicians while others have graphic art or film backgrounds. I am involved with animation and play the trombone. Our graphic artist and video technician are currently learning to program "C". So, what I am trying to say, is that a career in multi-media requires a self-driven individual who has the desire to learn new subjects outside the realm of their "career path". Alastair Milne Programming Manager Years in M-m:first phase of current M-M was in '85, intermittent since then I would claim we are still just exploring. However, we may be rare in preferring Turbo Pascal for driving m-motion (specifically IBM's M-Motion board with M-Control program). We *never* use authoring languages. This whole area seems to me so fresh, I doubt if anybody is well established yet. Glen Yarneau Micro Computer Cooridnator Years in M-m: 1 I work in the Department of Cell Biology. We teach Gross Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Neuroanatomy to first year medical students. My educational background is in physiological psychology, but because of my work experience in an anatomy lab I became involved with actually teaching. A couple of years ago, my boss bought a macintosh. I new nothing about computers. So one day I sat down and began to play around with somthing called HyperCard. In the past year I have become increasingly more involved with development of educational programs to teach anatomy to medical students. I am currently developing a unit for the lower limb which will utilize a videodisc, which we will be producing in-house. The project is due for next years incoming students which begin the first week of August. I am using SuperCard as the development and presentation application because of its object oriented graphics capabilities. Greg Wandrick Software Engineer Years in M-m: less than one We produce multimedia solutions (usually interactive laserdisc projects) for clients, although this type of work represents a small percentage of our overall business. David McFarling, President Years in M-m: 7 Company: Midwest Multimedia Currently changing our name from Small Business Computer Systems I'd be interested in the names of anyone interrested in doing contract programming. We have no need at this time, however we have several proposals out could get swamped. uunet.UUCP!dsndata!mmedia!mcfarlin Samuel Hahn, Department Mgr, Program Mgr Years in M-m: 6+ In 26 years of business, we have established ourselves as excellent engineers of high-performance, high-technology, special-purpose, communications systems, signal processing systems, data reduction systems, and intelligence handling systems. We process all signals in the spectrum, and make sense of most of it. We work primarily for the US Government. I am Sam Hahn, a department manager and program manager in the Advanced Intelligence Applications Technology (AIAT) laboratory. This laboratory consists of approximately two dozen staff (growing monthly) whose history since 1982 has been development and delivery of successful expert-system-based, advanced user-interface, distributed, multi-media, multi-source, and database oriented intelligence analysis workstations. We have grown from a handful of people in 1982 to teams ranging in size from two to two dozen. Our mix of expertise includes, and is certainly not limited to: Lisp, C, (Transact-)SQL, NeWS, X, OpenWindows, Unix, Mach, NextStep, PostScript, C++, Sun, NeXT, Symbolics, Xerox, Pixar, Vitec, Parallax Graphics, CLOS, PCL, Objective-C, KEE, ART, Mercury, natural language processing, free-text database, multi-media databases, geographic information systems, image processing, distributed computing, ... (and others which I will be embarrassed later I didn't cite). In specific, there are two subsystems to my current project which are implemented in Lisp. One is a document analysis tool, the other a smart database-cognizant "stuffer" tool. Other components to the total system are implemented in C and Objective-C. Kevin P Centanni, Manager of Computer Graphics Technology We have off-line editing here, 2 VISTA cards to do some animations and speech support for meetings. We have a couple of VGA-to NTSC devices, a Targa+ card that we hope to do more multi-media work with... lots of still video (mavica) and color video printer equipment. We do work in designing interactive exhibits for conventions, trade shows, and museums. We recently did a NYNEX-sponsored work at the Ellis Island Museum in N.Y. harbor... It is a 16 monitor interactive videowall for school groups called the Ellis Island Learning Center. I have done alot of work with Autodesk's Animator and Grasp designing interactive exhibits at conventions. My thanks to all respondents. I hhope this gives others some base-line about their work and job situations. -- _________________________________________________________ | IMAGISTICS Business Theatre Technology | Rick McCormack | | Interactive Effective Compelling | Vancouver, BC | |________________________________________|________________| | UseNet: Rick_McCormack@mindlink.uucp | A O-L: Rique | |_________________________________________________________| .