Digital companies left squinting into the sun?
The Sector Skills Council for creative Media are to launch their most comprehensive survey of the digital skills sector in 3 years and they’re looking for your input.
At a time when the BBC are still at logger heads with internet service providers over who has to foot the bill for their streaming of programmes to the web, it seems that technology has become a mere speck on the horizon in the digital race with some companies left squinting into the sun.
The Skillset survey will cover a broad spectrum of the country’s audio and visual industries. Throughout April and May a series of questions will be posed to employees and freelancers working in the TV, Radio, Film and Interactive Media to try and quantify any deficits in the digital sector.
Once gathered the info will be invaluable for identifying skills deficits in digital as well as outlining a broad career development plan. At the same time it’ll allow a career prospects comparison across demographic groups with, so the theory goes, industry solutions tailored to follow suit.
It was at the end of 2007 that we here at Chinwag sent our own survey out into the world of digital to find out what the industry really felt.
Amongst other things it was clear that the small number of up-to-date, digital marketing degrees out there are negligibly shaping how the digital industries operate. MA courses in Digital Marketing are only now starting to make their mark in the business faculties of the country’s top universities (London School of Business and Finance for one) even though digital marketing is pretty much essential for all business.
When media and digital are so reliant on technological developments, training and job roles must diversify to stay cutting edge. In the race to be the most innovative it’s often the basics that fall by the wayside. When there’s such accelerated growth in both sectors Skillset’s attempts to gauge employee satisfaction and define training shortfalls can only be a good thing.
If you or your company fancy getting your hands on the Skillset Survey you can by visiting their website: www.skillset.org/research. On the other hand paper copies can be obtained from Karen Muir on 0113 244 6795. The closing date for the questionnaire is Friday 30th of May 2008.
