Stanford University
Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics (CCRMA)
Fall 2018
Music 152A: Careers in Media Technology 2 units Friday 10:30-11:50 AM PT CCRMA Classroom (Knoll 217), The Knoll Instructors: Lecturer, Stanford University Executive Director, Real Industry Contact Jay with questions via email: Jay.LeBoeuf @ stanford dot edu Office Hours: By appointment Required Materials:Course website for blended/online lectures to be viewed before each face-to-face class meeting. Please note that all course materials, including video lectures and supplemental materials are posted on our website: https://learn.ccrma.stanford.edu/ Course Description:Careers in Media Technology explores how leading digital media and entertainment technology companies, such as Pandora, Adobe, Sonos, Dolby, iZotope, Facebook, and Avid, bring products from idea to market. We examine best practices, roles, day-to-day responsibilities, desired skill sets, and department/team function. This seminar is intended for all students considering full-time positions or internships in the music / audio, video, and creatvie tech industry. No prior engineering background required. Topics include: software development in large organizations, UX/UI design, marketing, hardware development, product management, advanced technology and research, project management, sales, data and analytics, executive teams, and operations (HR, IP/patents). Online lectures available. Class time includes discussion and meetings with industry professionals. In partnership with dozens of companies and industry mentors, we are breaking down how some of the greatest products were made, how these companies operate, and the roles and skills involved. Join us on this adventure - meet and interact with the leading companies in the music industry. Projected Course Outcomes:At the end of this course, students will:
Course Requirements:Flipped Classroom Much of the content of this course is delivered through videos and readings that you will need to prepare before each class meeting. We will have frequent guest presenters in class. Watching their intro videos (when available) and reviewing assigned readings in advance is key to having productive face-to-face classes. Weekly In-person and Guest Presentations Each week students will review online interviews and meet as a class face-to-face with local or remote industry professionals. For many of these presentations, students will watch an introductory video before class and come prepared with specific questions for deeper engagement with the guest speakers. Team Sprint Projects Students will work in teams to prepare a presentations, sharing the team’s ideas and key learnings. Grading Policy
ScheduleSept 28, 2018 Inside the Music & Video Tech Industry; Overview; Marketing Jay LeBoeuf, Executive Director, Real Industry Dave Hill, Jr, Fractional CMO | Executive Coach Formerly at iZotope, Ableton Oct 5, 2018 Research and Development Kapil Krishnamurthy, Head of Software | Bose AR, Bose Oct 12, 2018 User Experience and Software Engineering Diane Roberts, Director, Software Development, Sonos Oct 19, 2018 Hardware and Product R&D Glenn Dickins, Architect of Convergence, Dolby Laboratories Mark Alexander, Hardware Architect at Dolby Laboratories Mark Thomas, Researcher in Audio and Acoustics, Oct 26, 2018 Business Development Nov 2, 2018 Content Creation; Spatial Audio Will Littlejohn, Director of Sound Design, Facebook Nov 9, 2018 Product Management; Software Engineering; Virtual Reality Gina Collecchia, Senior Software Engineer, Audio/DSP at Jaunt VR Adam Somers, VP of Product, Jaunt VR Nov 16, 2018 Product Management; Quality Assurance; User Testing; Todd Chernecki, CEO/Co-Founder, SubPac Sarosh Khwaja, Head of R&D, SubPac Sean Leonard, EVP - Strategic Development, SubPac John Alexiou, Co-founder, President, SubPac Nov 30, 2018 Signal Processing; Research and Development Steinunn Arnardottir, Director Of Engineering at Native Instruments Dec 7, 2018 Advanced Product Creation Neal Lackritz, Engineering Director Week 1: September 30, 2016 Overview of the Music Technology Industry We will take you behind-the-scenes into how the media technology industry really works. We’ll provide a high-level overview of the media technology industry - focusing on the music technology space! We introduce the product development process from ideation through shipping, explore a variety of industry roles, explore the types of companies available for your future careers, and present the business fundamentals used by all companies, engineers, and product teams. This week’s assignment (due Oct 7):
Guest: Derek Tingle, MIR Engineer, SoundCloud Week 2: October 7, 2016 Product Management We'll look at how music and audio tech companies develop products that consumer love. How are new products, product lines, and features created and prioritized? Does a company use a single "product guru" who decides the features or new products? How do you ship products that customers consistently want? This week we will use customer discovery techniques to determine what “product” we will build. In-class session: Review of product management questions. Guest provides coaching on customer discovery. Optional references: Lean Startup, Lean Entrepreneur, Business Model Generation, Agile Product Management,
Guest: Gordon Lyon, Principal Product Manager, Adobe Assignment:
Week 3: October 14, 2016 User Experience, User Interface With computing everywhere we go - smart phones, tablets, browser and cloud, desktop, and hardware - product design is everywhere we look. We explore how designers approach the layout, look and feel, and implementation of some of your favorite mobile apps and software. Visual design, graphic design, user interface and overall product experience from logging in and registering your product, through pairing your iPhone, and making professional video editing tools like Avid MediaComposer feel like a tool - a natural extension of their hand and realization of what they have in their minds eye. It’s the layout of 80 fader live sound console, with ingenious and ergonomic design. In the audio industry, it’s how you interact with your music. In the consumer space, it touches the lives of hundreds of millions of consumers. And in the professional space, you have thousands of professionals using your product for 12 hours a day! Reference: The A/B Test - Inside the technology changing industry Guest: Jonathan Eccles, Senior Product Manager, Listener Ad Experience, at Pandora Assignment (due Oct 21):
Week 4: October 21, 2016 Product Design & R&D Part 1 This week explores the teams and technology behind leading algorithms and advanced technologies. We look at how the R&D is developed, prioritized, and implemented - and the technical and interpersonal skills these engineers use to succeed. We’ll look at Pandora’s music recommendation algorithm, audio signal processing algorithms from iZotope, and the audio fingerprinting algorithms that allow our mobile devices to recognize songs in 3 seconds or less! Guest: Neal Lackritz, Director of Technical Education and Development, Bose Assignment (due Nov 4):
Week 5: October 28, 2016 Research & Development This week explores the teams and technology behind leading algorithms and advanced technologies. We look at how the R&D is developed, prioritized, and implemented - and the technical and interpersonal skills these engineers use to succeed. We’ll look at Pandora’s music recommendation algorithm, audio signal processing algorithms from iZotope, and the audio fingerprinting algorithms that allow our mobile devices to recognize songs in 3 seconds or less! We’ll talk about how the R&D engineers might often get a lot of the credit, but the core algorithm might only be 5% of the total work developed! Guests: Suketu Kamdar, Senior Project Manager, R&D Innovation at DTS, Inc. Jean-Marc Jot, Sr VP, R&D at DTS, Inc. Assignment (due Oct 28): Watch next session online and submit surveys /
Week 6: November 4, 2016 Hardware Engineering From the analog circuit design to the power amplifiers, we cover designing customer chips, industrial design, manufacturing millions of units, and wireless synchronization. In audio and music, their work makes music more visceral - creative, tactile, and sounding amazing. Roles we may cover: Mechanical, Industrial Design, Embedded Systems Engineer, Firmware Engineer, DSP Engineer, Electrical, Original Design Manufacturers (ODM), Contract Manufacturers (CM). HW Product Manager, HW Program Manager. We’ll discuss the challenges of designing physical products. Guest: Richard Kulavik, Chief Technology Officer, Turtle Beach Corporation Assignment (due Nov 11):
Week 7: November 11, 2016 Software Engineering We’ll look at how software engineers create production-grade code powering music subscription services, iOS Apps, desktop music creation software, backend web services, and software that makes your HW devices intelligent. How do you go from being a computer science major to a software engineer? How do you develop audio apps used by millions of users? Or software that world class musicians, Grammy winning recording and mixing engineers, and world video editors rely upon for their living? How do dozens of engineers simultaneous collaborate on a release? Guest: Adam Somers, Engineering Manager at Jaunt VR Assignment (due Nov 18):
Week 8: November 18, 2016 Korg Assignment (due Dec 2):
November 25, 2016 NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Break Optional sessions: Marketing The world’s greatest product do not sell themselves - and I’ve seen firsthand how product launches can make or break years of R&D. Marketing is about connecting to the customer - identifying who they are, what their needs and motivations are, how and where to deliver them, how to price them, and how to promote the products. Why should they care about your product? How do you keep them engaged in your community, happy with your product, and purchasing future products? Program Management Topics: Agile, waterfall, scrum, scrum master, product owner, product backlogs, prioritization, standups, sprints. We’ll look at how Adobe, iZotope, and Universal Audio apply Project Management in their products. This week we will teach you the essentials of Agile software development. This teamwork and development methodology will be used to keep your projects running smoothly over the next 7 weeks. Week 9: Dec 2, 2016 HR: Resumes, Interviewing, Job Offers and Entering the Industry How do you get into a company? What do HR managers and hiring managers look for when they are screening your resumes for a music and audio industry job, interviewing you, and coaching you through your career? We’ll go behind the scenes of the hiring process and meet top recruiters from leading media tech companies. Assignment (due Dec 9):
Week 10: Dec 9, 2016 Executive Teams and Leadership We’ll also use this class time to focus on supporting each other with internships, introductions, and exploring how we can pursue opportunities in this industry. Guest: Pascal Pilon, CEO at LANDR Audio Discuss best practices from our mentors at LANDR, LANDR blog. Instructors Bio: Jay LeBoeuf is a technology executive, educator, and entrepreneur in the media creation and production industry. Jay is the President/Executive Director of Real Industry - a non-profit transforming how students learn about the real world and how products go from idea through commercialization.
LeBoeuf led R&D, IP, and technology strategy as Strategic Technology Director at iZotope. Jay founded and was CEO of intelligent audio technology company Imagine Research, which was acquired by iZotope in March 2012. While creating a "Google for Sound", Jay was recognized as a Bloomberg Businessweek Innovator, awarded $1.1M in Small Business Innovation Research grants by the U.S. National Science Foundation, and interviewed on BBC World, Science 360, and other major media outlets. Prior to founding Imagine Research, LeBoeuf was a researcher in the Advanced Technology Group at Digidesign (Avid Technology) in charge of innovations for the industry-standard Pro Tools platform. LeBoeuf lectures on Real Industry and audio / machine learning at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), and is on the Board of Advisors for music startups Chromatik and Humtap. | ||||||
Priya Shekar is a music technologist, product consultant and entrepreneur building the new digital renaissance. She currently serves as Program Director at Real Industry, a non-profit transforming how students enter the media tech industry through experiential education, teaching at top-ranking universities including Stanford, UC Berkeley and University of Michigan. Priyanka has founded startups in mobile music technology through Stanford University’s leading StartX and Graduate School of Business venture incubators. She has consulted for Shazam and Lincoln Motor Co. Priyanka studied on a Stanford Arts Institute Fellowship at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), the premier institute for music technology. She is passionate about helping young people design their careers, STEAM education, and is involved with the Audio Engineering Society San Francisco Section and Y Combinator’s Female Founders networks. | ||||||