ECT Continued
I want to mention what we've discussed in the past two ECT classes, since they mention a recurring theme.
The two Big Words in our ECT class are BANDWIDTH and CONVERGENCE. More bandwidth gives you the opportunity to send voice, video and data much faster to many destinations. When you can send and receive all three at the same time, you experience the convergence of the three.
I want to reiterate how interesting it is to understand the back-end of communications. I've spent most of my life dealing with the front-end: public speaking, interpersonal communications, coaching - in other words, interactions between people face-to-face.
In ECT, we're learning about the other side of communications - how people and machines communicate with one another from a distance, or how one facilitates the other. It's fascinating and relevant.
Anyway, we briefly went over a timeline of invention for telegraphy, telephony, radio and TV, and we realized that they were all being created at more or less the same time: from the late 1880's through today. And now, they are all converging into new devices for new uses for new audiences. You have to admit, that's pretty cool.
We read Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think", written in 1945 at the tail end of 1945, and realized how many of his predictions about the future have come true.
In yesterday's class, we talked about radio waves and televisions. It amazed me to learn that television is just a series of still images played at such a rapid speed that they seem to be continuous motion - like those old flip books we used to play with as children. I'm sure this is old news for many people, but I am not ashamed to be amazed by this. In fact, I maintain a generally high level of amazement about physics and chemistry in general.
We then talked about TV, specifically pixels and aspect ratios. We learned the difference between current standard televisions and the new HD televisions that will eventually phase the old ones out completely - HD has more pixels for a clearer picture, along with a movie-screen ratio of 9:16 for screen size, which makes for a rectangular image. We also learned how liquid crystal displays (LCD) work.
Again, it's very cool to understand what's all around us. To look at my digital camera in playback mode and realize that the image is created by stimulating electrons caught between two panes of glass. It's probably the same amazement that the little Berber children had in Morocco when I showed them their image in the LCD screen - either ways, it's like magic, whether you understand it or not.
Our instructor alluded to something very important towards the end of class yesterday: as bandwidth increases and convergence takes place, we as communications managers have no choice but to provide a multimedia experience for our customers. In other words, convergence is raising people's expectations of what communications should look like, and we're going to have to either manage or fulfill those expectations. It should be an interesting journey.
The two Big Words in our ECT class are BANDWIDTH and CONVERGENCE. More bandwidth gives you the opportunity to send voice, video and data much faster to many destinations. When you can send and receive all three at the same time, you experience the convergence of the three.
I want to reiterate how interesting it is to understand the back-end of communications. I've spent most of my life dealing with the front-end: public speaking, interpersonal communications, coaching - in other words, interactions between people face-to-face.
In ECT, we're learning about the other side of communications - how people and machines communicate with one another from a distance, or how one facilitates the other. It's fascinating and relevant.
Anyway, we briefly went over a timeline of invention for telegraphy, telephony, radio and TV, and we realized that they were all being created at more or less the same time: from the late 1880's through today. And now, they are all converging into new devices for new uses for new audiences. You have to admit, that's pretty cool.
We read Vannevar Bush's article "As We May Think", written in 1945 at the tail end of 1945, and realized how many of his predictions about the future have come true.
In yesterday's class, we talked about radio waves and televisions. It amazed me to learn that television is just a series of still images played at such a rapid speed that they seem to be continuous motion - like those old flip books we used to play with as children. I'm sure this is old news for many people, but I am not ashamed to be amazed by this. In fact, I maintain a generally high level of amazement about physics and chemistry in general.
We then talked about TV, specifically pixels and aspect ratios. We learned the difference between current standard televisions and the new HD televisions that will eventually phase the old ones out completely - HD has more pixels for a clearer picture, along with a movie-screen ratio of 9:16 for screen size, which makes for a rectangular image. We also learned how liquid crystal displays (LCD) work.
Again, it's very cool to understand what's all around us. To look at my digital camera in playback mode and realize that the image is created by stimulating electrons caught between two panes of glass. It's probably the same amazement that the little Berber children had in Morocco when I showed them their image in the LCD screen - either ways, it's like magic, whether you understand it or not.
Our instructor alluded to something very important towards the end of class yesterday: as bandwidth increases and convergence takes place, we as communications managers have no choice but to provide a multimedia experience for our customers. In other words, convergence is raising people's expectations of what communications should look like, and we're going to have to either manage or fulfill those expectations. It should be an interesting journey.
posted by Allison at 10:20 AM
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