Student helps streamline processes at TVNZ

Friday, 2 March 2007

Manukau Institute of Technology IT student helps streamline processes at TVNZ

Sharing information is at the core of the media industry, and nowhere is this more important than TVNZ.

Manukau Institute of Technology graduate Glenn Bartley made his own contribution to the free flow of communication at the network when he implemented Project Infopak, a piece of software that makes it faster and easier to create and locate documents.

Thirty-three-year-old Takanini resident Glenn, who has worked at TVNZ for five years, took up the chance to implement the software as part of his Bachelor of Information Systems degree, which he has been studying part time.

“The software was sitting on one person’s PC but was not being used even though it would have been useful to a number of departments”, says Glenn.

The software enables users to grab information from any application and put it into an easy-to-use pre-formatted template.

This has given TVNZ consistency of format across a number of different documents, from scripts to training manuals, which can be accessed by everyone from a central location.

Glenn adds, “It also means that documents can be easily updated, with the new version saved and accessible to everyone, providing better document management and sharing.”

Implementing a project in such a large and diverse organisation was a tremendous challenge, but a valuable learning experience, says Glenn.

“I got great satisfaction from finally seeing it up and running, because very often in larger organisations a lot of IT projects get bumped for other things that might come up, like an urgent upgrade of a broadcasting system.”

He is also pleased to have negotiated the often-complicated web of media politics. Glenn says, “There are so many other projects that are going on, it’s hard to manage resources and people.”

However, Glenn enjoys his job in TVNZ’s IT department, especially now his career has been boosted by his new qualification.

He says, “My degree has given me and my manager confidence and I have been given more responsibility at work. I started out looking after one IT system, but now I am involved in five or six systems, four of which are my own.”

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