“Citius, Altius, Fortius”
Swifter, higher, stronger; the Olympic motto, as established by Baron de Coubertin.
Last night a number of leading lights in different industry gazed into the crystal ball and tried to predict what the creative media industry might look like in 2012, and what skills and jobs will be needed too.
BBC Sport, Pearson, PA, Ascent Media, radio professionals, photographers - all came together to give their views. Skillset is the lead in a large project to find 1200 keen and talented individuals from London, put them through a training programme, into work placements and hopefully into full employment in time for the Games - and so we need to know what skills are going to be at a premium both during and more importantly after 2012.
A full research report will follow in time, but last night we saw different views on how technology will effect media - some felt that the disruptive technology is already here - others that we can’t begin to imagine how different the world will look. One view was that whatever platform we choose to watch the 100m final (my favourite is watching it on a fridge magnet!) this will just be re-purposed content. Others felt that with the rise of mobile 3G camera phones and sophisticated tagging websites (You Tube+, if you like) will mean serious competition for the traditional broadcast model. Most agreed that many of the workforce will be those at the top of their game - so not much opportunity for new talent - though with a huge explosion in content there may well be need for highly skilled “preditor” - producer / director / editor.
It is a global game and this was very much in the content of the discussion. What would happen here and what would happen elsewhere? All this content needs tagging and sorting - and the army that would do that could be anywhere - the tagging that the Press Association will do for their pictures of Beijing Olympics will happen in Nottingham.
What I left with though was the thought that the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the first truly new broadcast experience since the advent of colour. HD is a given - 3D is not but should be available. High quality user generated content, an extreme extent of viewer choice, content adapted for a myriad of platforms. The media will be faster - what I want to see will be on my phone instantly. It will be more detailed - if I only want to know about one athlete or one sport, I will have as much depth of content as if I wanted to see the whole Games. It won’t be limited just to the sport - we are a nation addicted to media (just look at all the special interest magazines in the newsagents!) - so it will be also be huge.
Citius, Altius, Fortius - it describes the athletic ambitions of the Olympics, but I think it is as apt for this new media opportunity that we have been blessed with.
Explore posts in the same categories: Skillset