I was asked to write a few lines about a Multimedia practitioner based around my pathway and there is one I've known for a long time now who I am going to show you.
His name is Simon and he is the CEO and budding creator for a 3D avatar based social networking website called Frenzoo. I actually mentioned Frenzoo and Simon during a blog in my first year on the course but I never got to spend time on the website as promised due to numerous extreme difficulties I encountered up till now.
The site is all about creating your own person 3D avatar to represent yourself and communicate with other members on the site, thus making new friends and discovering people from around the world. You can buy new clothes for your avatar using thei
r currency system on there from the online shops set up by members and staff. Pro Members can create their own clothes and soon furniture, pets and so on. It's been a long time since I went on the site truth be told, but Simon told me progress has been good for them, they are expanding the site including Pro Members being able to create more types of objects and also securing a big deal.
Although Simon is the CEO, he does contribute his own fashions for his own online store on there and it can be viewed via the link provided below:
As well as that, one of the animators/meshers from the company created a new look for his avatar for Thanksgiving Day but it has it's own personal twist as you will see below...
I asked Simon for a brief summary of his background before Frenzoo and this is what he said in response anyway:
Me: Can you give a brief biography of your career pre-Frenzoo?
Simon: Sure, before jumping into the online 3d world with Frenzoo, I worked in Internet networking with Juniper Networks, the upstart competitor to Cisco.
There I was leading the Emerging Technologies team for Asia. That was a great job, dealing with customers in Korea and Japan through to emerging countries like India and Vietnam. Learning how and how not-to introduce new solutions to market, winning over early adopters, feeding requirements back to development teams – a lot of fun.
Before that I was in Melbourne with Juniper where I worked with Telstra to help design their 2nd generation broadband infrastructure (their DSL network). That was a great job for a young engineer, although I recall a lot of late nights living in their labs
As you can see, he's had quite a lot of experience working with networking in particular, and has experienced and gained a lot from his prior jobs. He also has had the opportunity to work in different parts of the world as you can see as well as interact with customers from other countries from where he was at the time. At the moment, he is working in Hong Kong with some Multimedia graduates on the Frenzoo website.
It is quite fascinating seeing what he did previously as he did get to travel around the world, interacting with people from different countries and learning a vast number of things whilst trying to emerging countries and also as he said, having a lot of fun along the way.
Even though dealing with networks isn't something I'd do, it's inspiring to see how Simon built his way up to where he is now and what he experienced along the way. He ended up doing online 3D in the end and the 3D industry is what I'm currently studying as well hoping to have a career in one day.
Also, our current essay is all about networking and building up our networks of contacts to help promote ourselves, so I think talking to Simon has been pretty beneficial for me especially seeing as he works in the 3D industry now. To have someone I know who works in that particular industry can always be very helpful for me, because I can gain advice from them, get a good insight into the 3D industry, show them my portfolio to get some feedback on it and also get references for any future jobs I want.
If I could get the references, it would be excellent as it would be from someone in the industry I'm trying to get into so getting a recommendation from someone like that would have a lot more weight to it I imagine and also show a lot more promise.
Looking at what Simon does now, I wouldn't mind doing 3D work for a site like this if I didn't make into the games industry as planned, by getting to know other areas more where 3D is used in apart from games and films, it helps me to understand how much more open my possibilities can be and it gives me more options for my future should getting into the games industry not work out, or if I need to build myself up in terms of my experience, skills and portfolio before I join a games company.
Even though Simon is based in Hong Kong, this is a great start to building up my own personal network of people to help promote myself and I hope to be able to gain more contacts like him in the future to help promote myself as well help me to learn the necessary skills and knowledge that can help me with getting the jobs I need in the future.
I am going to try and find people nearer to me as well, preferably ones who know me in person if possible as that can help, but the more people I can meet, the bigger my network can get and the more opportunities that await as a result of that.
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