NEWS
Giving Outsourcing a Good Name
Future Media Concepts
by Michael Kunkes
 Jeff Rothberg. Photo courtesy of FMC |
Future Media Concepts, Inc. (FMC) was co-founded in 1994 by one-time Madison Avenue account executive Jeff Rothberg and Ben Kozuch, a former Israeli fighter pilot who later founded and served as president of Multimedia Productions, Inc. Kozuch, an early Avid editor, was a client of Rothberg’s at LRP Video, a leading Manhattan post facility at the time.
Together, they took the initiative and proposed to Avid that it outsource its end-user training, an unheard of concept at the time. “The people at Avid realized that sticking to their core business of manufacturing would be a better use of resources than entering the training business,” says Rothberg. “They decided to outsource it to reliable outside sources, and selected organizations they knew and felt comfortable with who had the proper credentials, such as FMC.”
Starting from that humble New York beginning, FMC now has opened training facilities in Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Orlando, Chicago and Washington, DC (although not in Los Angeles, a market that Rothberg regards as too saturated with training). In addition to Avid, FMC’s training partners now include Apple, Adobe, Autodesk, Boris, NewTek and Softimage.
 Ben Kozuch. Photo courtesy of FMC |
Rothberg calls it a win-win situation for both sides. “In the past, manufacturers would attempt to deliver the training themselves, as it was not a main focus and required a few internal trainers going from customer site to customer site,” he explains. “The manufacturers themselves were not properly staffed; eventually they became aware of all the details and administrative issues involved in delivering consistent, quality accessible training as the demand increased. Outsourcing to an independent third-party training organization such as ours relieved the manufacturer of these obstacles.
“At the same time,” he continues, “the manufacturer is monitoring the effectiveness of the training by getting evaluations of each class run, setting standards in terms of continuing to retrain instructors as new software is introduced into the marketplace, and mandating that up-to-date equipment and software be used to deliver the classes. The benefit to the students is hands-on training in a small classroom environment taught by certified experts. An additional benefit to the manufacturer is usually a reduction in the volume of support calls because new users are just being better taught.”
In courting a manufacturer, Rothberg looks for a rather large user base, as only a small percentage of users take hands-on training. There are just too many other means of getting up to speed on a product, including e-learning, friends, books, DVDs and so on. “The manufacturer also has to have the proper corporate mindset in terms of the training channel,” Rothberg explains. “There really needs to be a commitment on the corporate level to develop curriculum, support the training channel in terms of not oversaturating the marketplace with centers, and support the products by having certification testing or levels. If we see this commitment, then we are happy to partner, because the amounts of resources necessary to run a successful training channel can be substantial.”
 Future Media Concepts' principal Instructor Yossy Tessone, right, works with a student learning the Avid. Photo courtesy of FMC |
The importance of certification training cannot be underestimated, according to Rothberg. “Becoming a certified expert––a program that includes major testing––is getting a big push from most manufacturers because they know that it gives the ACE [Apple, Adobe or Avid Certified Expert] the difference in an employment search,” he adds. “There just aren’t many headhunters that place animators or editors, so certification gives the prospective employee a strong competitive edge.”
Rothberg feels that one of FMC’s strongest suits is its small class size, usually between six and eight students––and never more than eight––with 75 percent of them professionals looking to augment their current skills on new software. “We kind of stumbled into that model, because when we started 13 years ago, we were working out of a post facility,” he says. “So it came about by default, but we’ve kept it that way and it works. Our philosophy is to run the class, even with one or two people, most times. We don’t like to disappoint clients, especially if they are flying in from out of town or coming from a strategic account.”
Certification is one thing, but learning to apply that education to real-world situations is another. Beginning in 2001 with the first Avid World Event, FMC launched an aggressive conference production division under Kozuch’s aegis. FMC’s conferences run a spectrum from small government training symposiums for 30-40 people to what is by far its largest training partner, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).
FMC, an NAB exhibitor for years, approached the association in 2002 to propose producing the largest industry conference in the world, the Post-Production World Conference. At that event’s 2007 meeting in Las Vegas, over 2,000 registrants took in 230 sessions featuring more than 100 speakers. At NAB 2008 this coming April, FMC will also feature a Director of Photography Workshop, a Podcasting Summit, a Rich Media website conference, Director and Producer workshops, and the Digital Tech Guru workshop.
Future Media Concepts just held the New York Post-Production Conference in October (see next issue for coverage) and, in January, will stage its second Editors Retreat in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. An intensive five-day immersion into craft and technology, the retreat is restricted to 75 heavily screened applicants to ensure the attendance of the brightest and the best.
“The retreat’s focus is evenly split between high-end technical sessions and the ‘world behind the timeline,’ says Rothberg. “For us, it’s about the creativity and craft of the editor and the business of creating a thriving editing career.
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