I’m logging in late because I’ve just returned from the California State University (CSU) Westfield location in San Francisco where I attended the “Emerging Trends in the Entertainment Industry”. The day-long conference brought entertainment industry folks together with CSU faculty and staff, and a few students, to engage in a dialogue about the how new technology and the changing content creation and distribution are impacting the film and music business, the California economy and job opportunities for students.
The event was produced by CSU’s Institute for Next Generation Internet and hosted by the Institute’s director, Joaquin Alvarado.
The event was not focused on student job opportunities per se; it was meant to help CSU faculty and staff understand what the industry needs from CSU’s students, their future job candidates. It was also an opportunity to air opinions on the state of the industry and where it’s going next (to Semantic Web, more downloads, more uploads, more old-school player domination, more haves and have-nots, more of other states baiting productions away from California).
Stuart Tenzer, Senior Vice President, William Morris delivered the keynote. Entertainment industry panelists included Thomas Scott, VP of Technology, Onstream Media, Cliff Plumer, CTO, Digital Domain, Jason Nadler, Head of United Talent Agency-online, Michael Min, Dreamworks, filmmaker Dianah Roneyah Wynter and Jeroen Lapre, Senior Digital Artist/Technical Director, Industrial Light and Magic. Other panelists included Anne Neville from the California Broadband Initiative and Agnes Briones from SF Mayor Gavin Newsom’s digital media advisory council.
The biggest take-away from the event was the fact that CSU is committed to helping students secure career and business opportunities. They are doing everything possible to facilitate partnerships between government, industry and the university system (CSU faculty articulated several plausible solutions to funding and workforce development issues). My sense is that, while these industry and government reps showed up and shared, their counterparts are not as driven as the CSU system to create partnerships, incubate new talent and/or develop solutions to challenges facing the California economy. This is disappointing, though not surprising. The entertainment industry remains an insular industry that, though confronted with amazing changes in technology, consumer behavior and market trends, prefers to persist as-is as long as it pleases the powerful few. Until that changes amazing artists, would-be award-winners and game-changers will continue to operate on the fringe, toil without pay and watch helplessly as industry jobs are outsourced to other states and countries.
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