Date: March 11, 2000
Author: Ronald Wolak

Subject: DISS 789 Multimedia Discussion Topic 1: AAM Town Hall

DISS 780 Multimedia Discussion Topic 1:
AAM Town Hall

The best example of the effective use of multimedia at American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) is the annual Town Hall meeting. Town Hall meetings at the AAM - Detroit Forge plant are attended by all plant associates as well as members of the company's executive leadership (i.e. the CEO, executive VPs, and VPs). The once boring presentations were recently transformed into a multimedia event by a local multimedia company that was hired to spice things up. The authoring tool employed by the company is PowerPoint.

As Tannenbaum points out, the proliferation of computer-based presentation programs (e.g. PowerPoint) has made the business presentation the second major use of multimedia (Tannenbaum, 1998). The once routine and boring Town Hall presentations have been transformed into multimedia events. The presentations now include audio, video, animation, still images, and graphics, along with the customary oral presentations.

The new Town Hall presentation is effective because it combines multiple multimedia elements into one integrated, coordinated, and synchronized work. Since each of the multimedia elements present information about the same topic, the individual elements are not generated in isolation (McKeown, Feiner, Mukesh, & Chang, 1998). Each influences the other and must be coordinated. The effectiveness of the presentation is dependant not only on its use and combination of audio, video, and text (England & Finney, 1999). It is dependent on sequencing, editing, morphing, and time-lapse photography. In summary, the message from the company's executive management is more effectively communicated by the addition of multimedia.

References

England, E., & Finney, A. (1999). Managing multimedia: Project management for interactive media (2nd ed.). Harlow, England: Addison-Wesley.

McKeown, K., Feiner, S., Mukesh, D., & Chang, S. (1998). Generating multimedia briefings: coordinating language and illustration. Artificial Intelligence, 103, 95-116.

Tannenbaum, R. (1998). Theoretical foundations of multimedia. New York: Computer Science Press.