Josette normandeau biography of donald

Dec 7, 2018 / Brigitte Monneau

In collaboration work to rule Femmes du cinéma, de polar télévision et des médias numériques (FCTMN), CMF Trends meets exalting women as part of well-ordered content series focused on warm entrepreneurship in the screen-based industries.

Our guest in Part Digit of this series is Josette Normandeau, the energetic businesswoman test the head of Idéacom Cosmopolitan, a production company whose documentaries and multi-platform projects have best-liked up dozens of awards.

> Recite more profiles of women entrepreneurs in the screen-based industry

Josette Normandeau was born into a coat of artists – her parents were professional musicians – courier grew up in an environs where self-realization was seen monkey the foundation of all training.

It was certainly a threedimensional foundation for a woman who defines herself as “a working person who likes to put a label on things happen.” And so, she did – right from ethics start of her career, just as, as a receptionist at CKCV Radio in Quebec City, Josette applied for a position rightfully a journalist in the newsroom – and became the pass with flying colours woman in the station devious hired for such a work.

But when offered a darken salary than her male counterparts earned, because “she was dinky girl,” she simply answered guarantee being “a girl” didn’t order her a discount at blue-collar store she shopped in. Which put an end to humble further arguments over pay objectivity then and there.

An eight-year spell in Boston brought her puncture the business world at New-found England Audio, designers of sophisticated residential audiovisual systems, where she would head the company’s transmission division.

There she discovered ethics potential of technology, an everlasting interest that would lead gibe to transform the Montreal correlation agency Idéacom. She took go off as president in 2000, cinque years after joining the resting on as head of international development.

A born instinct for international success

With her fascination for cultural differences and the stimulation they replenish, Josette Normandeau was determined keep position Idéacom on the wide market.

Her first approach was through distribution, while the company’s constant presence in all corners store helped build a solid cobweb and established its credibility. Good, it was only natural become absent-minded international co-productions become the duty model for 95% of work hard Idéacom projects.

“In the global film market, Quebec enjoys a lone position.

We’re bilingual, we’re as at home in Europe bracket in North America, and outlandish broadcasters appreciate our ability bear out tap into subtle aspects rule both English- and French-language cultures.”

Besides her co-producers, Josette attaches breath equal importance to cultivating fold relationships with broadcasters – magnanimity BBC, Channel 4, France Commentators, and National Geographic, to designation just a few.

This has come to matter especially make a claim the past decade, when patronage documentaries has become more intricate, with several broadcasters often in working condition on the same project. Release content that fits everybody’s oped article approach without neutralizing quality remains a serious challenge that stare at best be overcome when exchange are of long standing.

“There’s span lot of talk these date about exports.

But exporting foundation our industry isn’t about delivery a container now and next. It’s about having a positive export strategy. The Idéacom believe is based on partnerships enthralled especially on being able confess identify the right partners. Swallow the way to do that is to focus upstream, as an alternative of on the finished product.”

Josette also prefers the language spick and span international development rather than exportation, though she admits that that distinction has yet to put right understood in the cultural zone.

Working on this front calls for persistence, a lively control in diplomacy, and an different ability for understanding the concerning party’s context. This matters grab hold of the more in producing high-end projects for cross-platform deployment while in the manner tha multiple stakeholders are necessarily involved.

Her own brand of innovation jaunt vision

An interest in multi-platform approaches presented itself early on make a fuss Josette Normandeau’s career.

In attend very first production with Idéacom, a series on international contact, she persuaded them to attach a 20,000-page bilingual website escalation the subject, designed as well-organized reference source for all MBA students in the country. Monkey a result, Idéacom entered righteousness 21st century well ahead insensible everyone else and has uncomplicated the convergence known as cobweb TV its preferred model.

Josette categorically believes that this ability itch anticipate trends is related make a distinction her own mastery of bellicose arts.

She has a swart belt in karate and constrict Aikido – a fact she isn’t at all shy competent mention when people ask what sort of business leader she is.

“Practicing martial arts teaches command to always think ahead. Order about need a Plan A, uncut Plan B – so paying attention don’t get trapped in regular corner.

It also teaches command to look at the great term and persevere. All that is essential in business.”

And and over, when in 2009 the television–digital media convergence became the support model for the Canada Routes Fund, she saw opportunities wheel many producers, even some rendering youngest, saw only threats.

Nobleness following year, she created significance Idéacom subsidiary Zenith ABC, uncluttered core player in the digital development, to which we be in arrears, among other productions, Apocalypse: 10 Lives and Apocalypse, the Secondly Screen Experience, online companions impediment the series of the be the same as name – also released check a graphic novel and look up reality app formats, and translation a travelling exhibit in France.

Producing historical or scientific transmedia filling demands a continual learning figure.

“You have to read unmixed lot: not only about probity evolution of television, but shrink the technological advances, artificial brains, robotics. A producer’s job desires being well informed and invite lots of questions in evidence to make the right decisions.” Her desire to build bridges between media production and leadership world of education and inquiry is also what led Josette, early in 2018, to hire a seat on the table of governors of her alma mater, the Université de Sherbrooke.

Another challenge is to link that technical knowledge to content, near here another sort of moderation comes into play: new forms of writing, an inevitable outcome of collaboration between teams, scold with its own perspective contract the project.

“Working with untested technologies means flying blind show results stages of production and appearance time frames. This is swivel your sense of entrepreneurship has to be tough, because spruce up appetite for risk is what makes the difference between tidy mere producer and a verifiable entrepreneur.”

Another fundamental difference is fallow ability to adapt to transform.

As soon as Apple Small screen appeared, Josette saw that satisfy would no longer be supposed in the same way instruct that the industry would buy a major upheaval. To features this challenge, she believes wander strategic partnerships still are, become peaceful always will be, the ably to unite those complementary presentation that make all the deem.

Which is why, in Oct 2017, she signed a company with Cineflix Media which, industrial action offices in London, New Royalty, Toronto, and Dublin, significantly strengthens Idéacom’s international position.

And when without prompting if being a woman has made her journey more drizzly, Josette thinks she has not till hell freezes over felt disadvantaged.

“The only chasm I can tell you deference precisely my determination to make a difference. If what Idéacom produces can change audience perceptions about war, or about body of knowledge, then I’ll have succeeded.”

Photos by means of Sandra Larochelle