At BLOX Digital, we believe success starts with finding the right people. The work we do here is changing the local media industry, and these are the people who are making it happen. Today we shine a light on Heather Matanock, Senior Software Developer.
What is your background?
I have a degree in environmental biology from Bradley University, but after college, I never really worked in the field. Instead I worked through a series of random jobs until I got into local television as a floor director for the NBC affiliate in Peoria, IL. (A floor director is the person that stands by the cameras and does hand signals for the talent to know where to look and how much time they have left.)Â I eventually moved into the graphics department for the station, and did the graphics for both on air and various marketing endeavors for more than a decade.
After I moved to Madison, WI, I got a job with the company that, at the time, provided the website CMS for the TV station, Broadcast Interactive Media. During my time there, I worked on a simple upload form that allowed clients to upload videos for display on their website. That single page form eventually became an entire suite of tools that comprises BLOX VMS.
What do you love most about your job?
I love puzzles and games and I see coding as an extension of that. It's a fun challenge to be able to play with combinations of words and symbols and have the computer actually DO something in response. Then the puzzle is extended when you get to figure out why it's NOT doing what you thought it would and attempt to deduce what you need to change to get it to work.Â
What are you currently working on that you'd like everyone to know more about?
I'm always working on the next iteration of the Field59 VMS platform, but I'm most excited about upcoming changes to the video player. We'll be merging the video player that is currently used for BLOX CMS into the Field59 VMS platform.Â
What are you most excited about for the future of the news industry?
I'm always interested to see how the industry grows and adapts to new technology. When I worked in TV, there were cool archive photos of how everything was done by hand. The weathercasters would draw out details of the weather forecast on great big boards with chalk and all on-air graphics were hand drawn by artists. It's amazing to think of how far things have come with computer generated graphics—it's only gotten more realistic, detailed and more informative.
In less than a century, we've gone from needing a huge piece of furniture in your living room and a giant antenna on your roof to being able to have all of television on a small device in your pocket. I look forward to seeing what comes next!
What's something people don't know about you?
I love to train and run agility courses with my dogs. It's so much fun and a great way to bond with your dogs.
