5Qs with Susan Green, svp, programs and education, The Cable Center
Where is The Center headed? We’re in a transitional and phase. We’re completing a strategic plan that’s re-evaluating everything. We’ll go into the new year with consensus from the board that will enable us to go forward in a highly strategic and very targeted manner. Hasn’t The Center been transitioning and/or coming up with new strategic plans pretty regularly? There’s no doubt we’ve been going through significant changes over the last year. The purpose is to focus on programs that best fit our resources and our role. It’s not about the plan. It’s the results of the strategic vision that should energize the industry. Your aims are: professional development; raising the profile of cable’s contribution to society; and promoting The Center as the definitive resource on cable. Tell us about professional development. We see huge opportunities in training-particularly beyond the 2-3 top MSOs as the complexity of the business evolves. We’re in a number of discussions about assisting smaller MSOs’ training, based on our track record of doing specialized executive-level or mid-management training for Time Warner, Comcast, Cox and others. On the international side, we’ve trained Chinese executives for 6 years and are evaluating proposals from other parts of the world. Is getting the word out about why The Center exists and what it offers your toughest hurdles? Absolutely. But it takes any new organization time to get its sea legs. We’ve had a protracted startup, but we see we’re going in the right direction. I think it’s been largely a question of not clearly articulating what we’re doing and getting the message out to the industry. We hear "The Sopranos" will be visiting The Cable Center? That’s our remarkable archive. With the support of HBO we have put together a relatively small but exciting exhibit of costumes from 3 of the main characters, Tony, Carmela and Adriana. It will premiere this week at The Hall of Fame. It’s the 1st of many.