One aspect of the class that I find to be unique (and the point of this article), is that these students are assigned actual clients in groups of two or three and are tasked with providing them a completed website as a final project. I work with an organization on campus called the Digital Media Outreach Center (DMOC) to get this all together. The mission of DMOC is to provide digital media services such as website creation to “Colorado-based non-profit and not-for-profit organizations in a manner that also gives students and faculty opportunities to apply and extend curriculum-based learning to community-based projects”. For my class, they find clients and manage the student-client relationship as I teach the skills and concepts necessary to fulfill those requirements through the course.

In general, this approach is both beneficial for the students and for the clients. Students receive a hands-on educational experience in both the subject matter and client relations. Clients receive a simple- yet fully functional, standards-based website to promote themselves and interact with their members and clients. A few problems do occur, from time-to-time, but most are easily resolved and the students come away from the class with a greater level of experience than they otherwise would have.

Work at DU is good. It’s been very busy and that is a major concern. We should be hiring someone soon to take some of the load off. There is no shortage of interesting projects. I get to work with Flash, Flex, AIR and the rest- a really nice environment to use my skills. It’s difficult to see myself working in a more corporate structure at this point.

I’ve also been very active with teaching- way too active. It’s a nice source of extra income but if I take on too much it becomes a burden rather than a pleasure.

My work through Fractured Vision Media has really blossomed this year. I’ve partnered with ZStream Media Services on a rather large project building an interactive media delivery system for Blockbuster, La Quinta Inns, and potentially a number of other clients. The framework we’ve created is pretty extensible and the initial development will hopefully wrap us soon as we are seeing a nationwide release beginning this week.

Personal projects have been sparse. Just no real time with all the other stuff I have going on. One item that I am very pleased with is the completion of a new audio collection “A Prison of Oneself” which I am releasing through FVM. I’ve worked on material for this release off and on since 2003(!) and have put in far too much work to let it rot in my archives. I sold a number of copies of “August” back in 2000 and with much better distribution through the internet, I believe I can recoup the small amount of money I’ve put into this project fairly easily. I set up a crappy MySpace Music account to help advertise and network with artists I’ve worked with when I was more active with this stuff. The album should be available for purchase within the next week or so.

All in all, it has been a pretty successful year. If I can look back next year with the same amount of optimism- I will be thrilled!

My wishes for the new year involve the following:

1. Become more introspective and considerate of personal time, personal projects, and the inner-life.
2. Continue growing Fractured Vision Media as a multimedia services entity.
3. Become more fluent in ActionScript 3.0 and related technologies while expanding focus once again to design aspects of my many projects.
4. Generally become a better father, husband, and human being…

Happy New Year!

What I’ve learned in this process is that I am taking on too much work and do not have enough time for myself and my personal projects. I’m scaling back my Fractured Vision Media efforts to become more of a venue for the production and distribution of my personal endeavors. That is not to say that I will not take on any client-based design or development work, I will just be a lot more selective in this area.

I’ve recently been given the opportunity to do more teaching and will be shifting my extra-daily work activities to that area. The teaching is becoming much more regular and it is something I enjoy. Not having to be scrambling for project details, client wishes, and all the rest that comes with freelance work is also something very nice about a regularized teaching contract.

Now that some time has gone by, I believe this project, In Flagrante Delicto!, still holds quite a bit of value, not only for myself but also as a contribution to the greater pool of information. I’ve removed a lot of the less technical, more personal, posts and plan to post less often but with greater relevance.

In bringing things back online, I’ve chosen to use the Sandbox theme as a base. There may be a few things to patch up, here and there, as I re-form the website and apply my own design stylings to the structure. So… please excuse the mess.