The Internet was like a dark alley, scary, mysterious and yet inviting. Pictures were poor in quality, content was minimal. I logged off disappointed and returned to my professor-approved books. By 2007, political pundits were announcing their presidential candidacies on YouTube. Oh, how the times have changed. Every savvy college student now has an Internet connection—it would be unscholarly not to.

 

As of Sept. 30, 2007, 1.25 billion people used the Internet, according to Internet World Stats. The Internet has transformed the basic computer into a one-stop-shop for multimedia and has become the springboard for emerging technologies.

 

During interviews, three New York Women in Communications members discussed emerging technology trends and how these will affect the future of communications and the job market.

 

 

Currently, employers are snatching up hybrids—candidates with both artistic and technical skills. According to Crain’s New York Business, “Hybrids Taking over the Workforce” (Nov. 18, 2007), hybrids are “critical to developing the kinds of projects that are keeping [New York City] at the forefront of the online advertising boom.”

 

One particular ad agency states that “there are no [job] categories for some of the new things we're doing now.” With more companies desiring a digital multiplatform, these emerging hybrid jobs are hinged to whatever developing technology will make that multiplatform produce an exciting interactive experience.

 

With nearly 10 years of television and online communications experience, Aimee Campbell, director of MarbleVision, the media ministry of Marble Collegiate Church, earned a MBA in media management. Her coursework examined traditional and emerging media platforms. Campbell felt she needed a “holistic understanding of mass communication, as well as of the business models driving each medium.” She manages Marble’s television and radio broadcasts as well as its online videos and print publications.

 

On-demand content, user/consumer-produced content, and multiplatform distribution have completely changed the communications industry in the last decade, according to Campbell.

 

 

Former business journalist Shoba Purushothaman agrees with Campbell’s assessment. She says that user-produced content has shifted the “power from content owners and creators to content consumers.”

 

Purushothaman is the president, CEO and cofounder of TheNewsMarket.com, which provides free broadcast-standard video and multimedia content via digital technologies. “To thrive as a journalist you need to be proficient in multimedia skills,” says Purushothaman. She, like Campbell, has hybridized her skills.

 

After living and working in Europe, Asia and the United States, Purushothaman wanted to use online video to create a global experience. “It was exciting to think that we had spotted a market opportunity that could transform the [communications] industry,” she says. TheNewsMarket website was developed in 2000, offering multimedia content from providers to journalists.

 

But online video is just the tip of the emerging technologies iceberg. Geraldine Wilson, vice president of Yahoo! Europe, predicts that the mobile platform (the nascent software for portable devices using wireless broadband) will dominate in the next 10 years, making personal digital assistants (PDAs), media players and smartphones the point of entry to online content. Will having nimble texting fingers become a hot job skill? Can all this ever-evolving technology truly sustain a creative working environment?

 

 

Purushothaman sees emerging technology bringing people together, creating a small world after all. Member Ann Fry doesn’t hold that romantic notion. As a psychotherapist for more than 30 years, Fry started her own business 15 years ago, specializing in corporate stress management and team building. She combines her therapist’s knowledge, management experience and sense of humor to create her workplace culture coaching programs. Technology, she firmly believes, breeds stress in the workplace.

 

“Everything is so technology focused, so digital,” says Fry, “that humans almost feel pushed out of the world. There’s also the shift to having such a Web presence and having to constantly update that information and do more to beat the competition. It’s created a rat race of people who are constantly doing—working long hours, always seeking new and innovative ways to promote their needs.”

 

Fry’s concern is the concern of businesses worldwide. Multiplatform businesses are spending billions of dollars on convergence—the task of unifying technologies seamlessly without stressing out the workforce and the bottom line.

 

For Campbell, it’s convergence that will be that next big thing to change the communications industry: “When people start getting all their television programming through the Internet, the industry will change forever.”

 

 

So how can a traditionalist go about hybridizing her skills? Stay on top of trends. Media Industry Newsletter (minonline.com) tracks media trends while Veronis Suhler Stevenson (vss.com) tracks what communication businesses are investing in. The “VSS Communications Industry Forecast” report offers a comprehensive look at all media, consumer, traditional and alternative trends.

 

Eventually, having technical skills will become a job requirement. But it will also level the playing field, making solid personal communication skills a prized commodity yet again.