CTVs' Creative Director, Ryan O'Brien came to Sheridan Colleges' Web Design Program to give a guest lecture on his job and what it is like to work his job in the industry. Under the wing of CTV lies famous other networks like:
• MuchMusic
• MTV
• Fashion Television
• Discovery
• and tons of local news stations
Just 2 years ago, CTV bought Chum.
CTV scale : infrastructure runs differently than any broadcaster. They run on 2 virtual atmospheres. CTV currently has 110 websites which are all managed by a group staff of approximately seventy (70) people. Since video has taken a big turn in the interactive web world, this section of their department has been governing all the attention and focus. CTV has increased their video usage by 200 – 300% more than their competitors. Traditional aspects of usability like leaderboard and big box advertising have been down in value - web and interactive media are the way of the future. Ryan showed us a video on CTV globe media. They have over 50 destinations online, making them the number one destination in online video. TSN is number one in sports online. They have very high level clients - very recognizable. This video that was shown was first introduced by the CEO of the company which was just released last year. CTV has now been bought by Bell so it's like going from six thousand (6, 000) employees to sixty thousand (60, 000).
As a creative director, it is Ryans' job to work on brand management and placing, all aspects of usuability (including interactive design for mobile), web proportions, as well as video platforms, and other various areas. It is also part of Ryans' job to work with the marketing department, sales teams, and the creative agency (an internal group) who create & manage the brands they are working on.
Ryan is quoted saying, "To be in this industry, you better like working with people - it is a must-have asset. Everything used to be basic enough that you could potentially get away with doing it all by yourself - good luck with that now. All teams manage themselves independently, but work together overall, as a whole.".
Ryan grew up in Niagara Falls, attended art school, learned audio, lighting, and how to build stages. He obtained an internship with a staging company called Uptex where he spent his time delivering equipment to the shows that he now puts on. He also attended Humber College for Technical Theatre – which, at the time, only had a 2% success of getting a job right out of school. Ryan thinks that is weird compared to what the statistics are now.
He got hired as a body piercer at a local piercing and tattoo parlour where he stayed with them for a couple years. He then ventured off into a new area of personal protection for Chum. This was all happening back when MuchMusic was live fr eight (8) hours a day. He states that, "It was extremely bizarre in contrast to the rest of my life." He was able to meet artists and he become good friend with one of the acts. They would meet up while they were in town and later on, he started a clothing company. It took off and did quite well, so he moved to LA and lived in Hollywood for two (2) years. His clothing was featured in stores such as Bloomingdales and Macy's and even in store within the Eaton Centre in Canada. However, retail took a big nose dive after 9/11 hit, so it was time to move on. Ryan relocated back to Toronto, approached an executive from Chum and was hired as a Web Designer for MuchMusic (February 2002). He was the only designer for the 6 music commute stations. The sites he was working on were being updated in real time which Ryan had a "very interesting time doing". He was promoted to Art Director with Chum Interactive – the first one to ever exist within the company. He did brand management for a few years and then he was promoted again to his current job as Creative Director.
C O N T E N T M A N A G E M E N T :
Music and Youth Services have their own digital team. It consists of:
• 2-3 designers
• 1 developer
• content manager (licenser agreements/issues).
* Believe it or not, it was actually hard to convince people that others would care about television being on the internet (before it became the norm).
Ryan states that he loves his job because he essentially gets to live in the future. "I get to live in the future. I'm always thinking about 2 - 4 years from now," he continues, "But people never believe you when you tell them the future". Nothing is ever the same for him. He gets to learn something new everyday from colleagues specialized in this own areas of expertise. “Everything is always an educated guess... You do the best you can to guess correctly. Even if you aren't completely right, you have the be able to swim in all pools”.
"I need to come up with new ways for putting something in your face and not annoying you with it. Users get involved with content, and it can be sponsored content. People are going to get the content they want no matter what, so you need to try to give it to them in a legal way and still be able to make money off of it". - Ryan O'Brien
(This was mentioned in relation to the high quality video CTV wanted to provide, but couldn't because of bandwidth issues with the people they were trying to provide it for).
H O W T O P R I O R I T I Z E :
The Analytics Department will assist with the educating guessing game.
But in a world of so many varying platforms, how do you know who to design for first? Everything needs to be seen on all platforms, (Blackberry, Apple, Android, and all the different web browsers, etc, etc.).
"Just because people click on it, doesnt mean it was successful".
Consider that accessibility has become a really big issue in Canada. For example, the Federal Government regulates access to/for really big sites. Everything was getting fast & loose so they needed to start making rules to include those who are hearing and/or seeing impaired. These regulations were made for accessibility in the terms of adjusting font sizes actually on the browser. ie) tabbing properly through form fields, zooming in, etc. Studies show that 45-65 year old people take up a big percentage of those who use the internet the most nowadays. They are using video, which means they are using a video player, online. These older generation people, need to be taken into consideration when it comes to usability. Usability as a whole, is a core focus for anyone in this industry. It can be overlooked easily. Developers will develop things that make sense to them, but not things that are necessarily usable for everyone else.
B I G A C C O M P L I S H M E N T S :
A five (5) part documentary that originally started out as a web series. It had so many hits online that it was re-cut and aired on broadcast television during the holiday season.
17days @ the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia. Everyone shot great stories. They were a lightweight team consisting of only 2 HD cameras, extra external drives, all digital suite, all editing on macbook pros on location and uploading remotely to the video structure online. They were producing five-seven (5-7) stories a day each.
Ryan finishes of his lecture by saying that he is "always surrounded by really super smart people and they all have a flexible mindset. There is never one right way to do something. A lot of collaboration and ideas coming together happen. You need to keep an open mind so that innovation can happen. It is often seen that crazy ideas come from the craziest of plans and often work out. In the office, it is not strange of us to pull random people from hallways or off the street to get their opinion on something we've designed. You can never have an accurate representation of everyones' ideas, but you need as much as an educated guess as you can".
He then answers two of the most popular questions from our young minds:
A) WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN US?:
The fundamentals are very much the same;
• solid foundation: coding in notepad is a great thing and always appreciated. People get used to dragging and dropping and not understanding the relationship between things. Having an intimate knowledge of how websites work with each other, with other websites, within itself etc.
• understanding emerging technologies (like query etc.).
• html 5 watching. Google Chrome OS.
Usability architecture and design all go hand in hand with this job. They are core assets to have.
• soft skills - communication is a SUPER important thing.
• passion about the internet - actually care about this thing.
Ryan always ask for previous work- your design and site to look at the code.
Teamwork is key. You need a sick day? You need someone to hand your current project off to. Change jobs? You need someone to take over what you left off on.
Never leave something in a state that someone else can not understand it. Label your folders by name, colour, number, etc. Adding notes to files. Labeling your layers appropriately.
Ryan suggests these authors to us:
• Steve Krugg. - usability author.
• Jacob Nielson - usability guru.
B) WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? (he did say he gets to live in it always).
• tablets & mobile = huge (there are 105 tablet releases for 2011 already).
• 4g network = huge game changer
• Google Chrome OS = huge game changer as well. It's very rare that a new OS comes out.
• blackberry + security = game changer as well. business application useful.
• apples facetime - HUGE game changer. bypass cellular and just use wifi. super wifi which can travel in miles, not feet. City-wide accessible for cheap. (like wimax, but on steroids).
• a lot of clouds syncing technologies are coming out now that are specifically aimed at people. Video is a huge focus.
• 3Dtv. = interesting, however, Ryan is very curious and interested in knowing the long-term effects of watching 3D tv after being immersed in it for so long.
• Junos-3d. sports-hockey 3d (this year)
In the end, this lecture was very insightful. He has gotten to travel and have a variety of jobs within his lifetime so far. For more information, please visit the CTV website:
www.ctv.ca
Or if you like to contact Ryan, you can find him on LinkedIn:
or here:
