One of the areas of work I have been doing over the last two years is looking at the crisis facing engineering in the audio visual sector. Simply put we don’t have enough of them, the ones we do have don’t have the right mix of skills, no-one else understands what they do, no-one wants to be one, and even if they did the courses available aren’t fit for purpose. A very bleak picture.
A working group made up of IABM, Sky, BBC and others looked at this issue and proposed that we look to the Australian model of certification – M.I.T.C. (Media Industry Technologists Certification) They have some of the same problems, and are developing a map of the competencies needed at different stages of your career as a “para-technical” throughout the industry. This is assessed with a combination of peer review and online questions. It seems to be working for them.
By having a breakdown of what people need to know in each of the job roles in this area we will start to create solutions to some of the issues. We will have a list (with salaries, job style, promotion chances) that can be used to attract people to the industry (as an aside, in my journey on this I spoke to engineers outside of our sector – who face the same problem – who consider us to be the “sexy” face of engineering!). We will have a ready-made curriculum to give to education and training that spells out what they should be delivering. We will have a similar list (and certification) to allow for continual professional development for people already in the workplace. We will have a true picture of what skills are transferable.
Now I have a little funding to explore this idea further – to reality check it with the Broadcasters, the OB’s, the post companies and the manufacturers, and to start to collaborate with our down under cousins. It’s a long term goal, admittedly, so other ideas are also needed – can we entice engineers from other sectors, or even other countries, to come and work for us?
One great idea I really want to explore is with the armed forces. They provide all their exiting personnel with training to prepare them for the real world – how about a transferal course in media engineering for their boys and girls? Their understanding of deadlines and pressure must make them extremely useful in our industry – and we can promise them not to get shot at whilst they do it!*
* certain gritty reality shows not-withstanding!
