Despite the gloomy outlook for many industries and the large number of development projects being put on hold, it is encouraging to see a continued growth in the media industry, at least throughout some areas of the world.

Christopher Chia, the CEO of the Singapore Media Development Authority:

“It is said that sometimes it is actually anti-cyclical. If the economy generally goes down, the media sector actually comes up and one reason we found behind this is that it (the media) allows people to be actually entertained at a cost much lower than, say, to travel somewhere else. So it does allow a lot of consumption to actually happen.”

I agree with the above statement and think that it’s something that requires repeating and continued assertion to media clients worldwide. Now is not a time to cut back on spending, pull programs or put digital media developments on hold. In fact, now is the best time to ramp up your digital media investments.

Media companies have immense opportunites to gain market share, with an increased consumer consumption and participation in their digital media developments.

In Singapore, the Media Development Authority is spending S$250 million to create and support over 2,000 jobs in the local media industry this year. This is great news and they expect to create more than 10,000 new jobs in the industry over the coming 6 years.

I have spoken with a number of media organisations throughout the start of the year, and especially in Asia there seems to be a genuine interest in digital media investment, but convincing management and shareholders that this investment will pay dividends is still not an easy sell in some organisations.

For those managers, consultants, developers and staff involved in these discussions the most important issue moving forward is education. Educating both internal and external stakeholders as to the value of investment in digital media and the appropriateness of its timing is purely an educational hurdle, everyone has a job in the sales process and its a sales process that should have been happening for some time.

I am very interested to hear of any other countries and organisations that are looking to support and invest in digital media training and job creation throughout 2009.

Ryerson, Waterlook and the University of Toronto are in talks to form a new graduate school of digital media in Toronto, Canada. This is great news and certainly something that I would like to see happening in other areas throughout the world.

Digital media certainly isn’t the easiest area in which to recruit talent, and often the people involved in the recruiting process aren’t entirely aware of who is suitable for the position in any case. This is an unfortunate fact of being involved in an industry that is constantly evolving.

While it certainly isn’t possible to successfully put together a complete digital media curriculum and expect that it can provide the education outcomes required for those entering the workforce, it is encouraging to see that universities are working together to address some of the issues and find a common dialogue with employers and the industry to assist where possible.

This is a positive step forward and should hopefully begin to bridge the gap for those companies still struggling with adopting digital media channels.

Over the coming weeks I will publish a number of short tutorials and information pieces to provide assistance to new community members who are looking for more information or need a plain English explanation of how to undertake certain tasks or projects with eZ Publish. Time permitting I will try to make an examples real-world examples rather than abstract ones.

Hopefully over the coming months I will be able to tidy these posts up further and publish them in a cohesive order over at the Quiqcorp site in our new documentation section which should be launching over the Christmas period.

I have a number of topics already on my list but I am happy to take suggestions from anyone else looking for specific tutorials.