I Can Decorate A MySpace Page; Does That Make Me A Programmer?

I recently started to help a local company modernise their staff HR material. As part of the project, we decided to make employee training resources digital rather than physical. The client wanted them to be an online flipbook with embedded video, tutorial animations, and all the bells and whistles.

To do this, we needed a licence for the flipbook software that would allow us to distribute the online book and embed the content. My client had the idea that we were working with some simple animation software that would enable us to make promotional videos. We weren’t sure where she got this idea (or why she held on to it, even though we corrected her every day for two weeks). This recent exchange may have helped me to figure it out, though.

Client: “So, when will we be able to launch this project?”

Me: “Well, as I mentioned before, we can’t launch it until we get the licence. We can’t export from this free version.”

Client: “I don’t understand. Why can’t we do this? Are we waiting for the animation? Is that why?”

Me: “No, the software doesn’t make ‘animations.’ It puts our materials into a flipbook format, and we need the license to export the file to the format we need. Any animations you want on top of turning pages will have to be added after.”

Client: “But when we get that, we are ready to go? It will do the animation for us?”

Me: “No, it won’t add any animation for us. Production of any animations you want to include hasn’t started as the only instruction you’ve given us is that there should be one. There’s been no discussion of what the animation needs to include or what it’s of, and even when that is sorted out, it could take days or weeks to produce.”

Client: “Animation must not be your strong suit. My daughter took a picture of me, uploaded it to a site, and did an animation of me dancing in a few minutes. It was incredible.”

I guess uploading a photo to [eCard Site] makes you a professional animator.