Today was the big day – speaking on a panel at the Digital Entertainment Leadership Forum at Hong Kong Cyberport. It was a long one – started off with an early morning breakfast with the other DELF speakers. Flash back a few months ago when I was invited to present at DELF by my friend Hal Josephson who was producing the event. I gladly accepted because it was a great opportunity.

Photo: DELF speakers – Front: Hal Josephson, Nicholas Yang (CEO, Cyberport), Me, Lorraine Justice (Director, School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University); Middle: Rita Cahill (Principal, RTC Productions), Michael Stephens (Lawyer, Wingnut Films), Paul Wang (Executive VP, Imagi), Lifeng Wang (Founder, Eastar Digital), Andrew Senior (Head of Creative Industries, British Council), Ivan Yau (Formal Principal Anchor, TVB News); Back: Lawrence Behrs (CEO, South Park Media Company), Scott Ross (CEO, AWOL Pictures, Former CEO, Digital Domain), Warren Franklin (CEO, Rainmaker Studios), Edward Jones (Principal, The Light Exchange)

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We recently got back from the eighth annual KidScreen Summit in New York City, the premiere event for executives in the children’s entertainment industry. It was another fantastic event, with great sessions and activity, which we’ll be posting more about soon. But we also wanted to write about the Pitch It! event that was held at the end of the 3-day summit… we pitched CIE… and won!

The official Pitch It! description: “Watch as brave producers take center stage to pitch their projects for boys ages six to 10 to our distinguished panel of judges (not to mention a room full of other potential buyers, licensees, retailers, distributors and co-production partners). The Summit ends with a bang as votes are cast based on the merit of the project AND the quality of the pitch.”

Intimidating? Yup. I knew what to expect watching other producers pitch at the big event the last few years at Kidscreen. But it was still nerve-racking to think about pitching in front of over 1,300 executives from the children’s entertainment industry AND to a panel of senior executives. We found out we were one of only four producers to be selected to pitch in the competition a mere two weeks before the event. So we hustled to get ready.

The judges: John Rooney (YTV Corus Entertainment), Sebastian Debertin (KI.KA), Howard Litton (Nickelodeon UK), Bob Higgins (Cartoon Network), David Levine (Disney)

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I was at the Banff Centre again the past week for a few different reasons. Among those reasons was to present at the annual Interactive Screen 0.6 conference organized by the folks at the Banff New Media Institute. One of the sessions I presented was entitled “Digital Alberta: Creating a collaborative ecosystem for digital media producers in Alberta”. As the digital media industry develops it is crucial that business and the production community take every opportunity available to be innovative and maximise the use of partnerships and technology.

I think Alberta has many of the pieces needed to build a strong digital media ecosystem. Here are the 10 steps I suggested. What do you think?

Share a roadmap.
The industry is fractured. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have all the pieces in place. What we need is a shared vision for the industry to align all industry members and stakeholders and their respective programs and initiatives. This industry led action agenda will provide the common framework towards a shared vision. This includes identifying key roles and value propositions within a digital media value chain provincially, nationally, and internationally.

Know the value chain.
A value chain is a string of companies or players working together to satisfy market demands for a particular product. We need to more clearly define roles and capabilities within the value chain including financing, strategy, creative, development, technology, marketing, and distribution. By understanding these roles, we can key on high value components to develop in Alberta, and identify gaps that can be filled by regional partnerships.

Small has big advantages.
In an industry where over 70% of companies are considered “small”, why not use this to our advantage? We need to create an ecosystem where small teams have the opportunity to make big things happen. Use large companies to provide anchor capacity within the ecosystem, and use small companies to provide agility, flexibility, and focus on high value components within the digital media value chain. Build companies that focus on innovation, value, quality, and efficiency. Companies that do more with less. And companies that do more attract other companies.

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It’s official. Rocketfuel Productions [a joint venture between Hotrocket and Redengine] was named the Most Promising New Company of the Year at the 2006 Canadian New Media Awards. At a gala awards ceremony held at the Carlu in Toronto Monday night, we were one of 15 winners out of 43 national finalists to be presented a prestigious Pixel award. The ceremony was hosted by Alan Park (of CBC Royal Canadian Air Farce fame) live in front of an audience of over 500 industry members and guests from across the country.

Photo: Host Alan Park joked about the day’s transit strike in T.O.

We were so honored and thrilled to be recognized by our peers with this award. It capped off an amazing two days in (blistering hot) Toronto that included an excellent BBQ reception hosted at the Canadian Film Centre on Bayview Drive, and a luncheon hosted by RBC (in their executive dining room), featuring the Honourable Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Kerry Munro, General Manager of Yahoo! Canada, and RBC Vice President Joanne Gordon. Kudos to the team at CNMA including Founder/Exec Producer Adam Froman, Tannis Wengel, and Jacquie Sands for delivering such a great experience.

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