Top teacher award caps off a great year for Varan

Murdoch marketing and interactive television guru, Duane Varan emerged victorious from the Australian Awards for University Teaching in late 2001.

In an outstanding achievement, Professor Varan won both the overall Prime Minister’s Award for the University Teacher of the Year and the Australian Award for University Teaching in Economics, Business and Related Studies – a total prize pool of $75,000 - for his work in Murdoch’s School of Commerce.

The awards reinforced Professor Varan’s reputation as one of the world’s foremost authorities on digital communication, marketing and interactive television.

Professor Varan is full of optimism about the future of interactive and digital television - and his research institution, the Interactive Television Research Institute, (ITRI) - saying it is increasingly being recognized as a global unit.

“ITRI is the world’s leading public research institution focusing on the study of interactive television,” said Professor Varan.

“As part of our exciting current research, we are developing proof of concept for an interactive advertising campaign for major global brands including Nike, Pizza Hut and Telecom New Zealand. The work also involves many of the region’s leading advertising companies such as Saatchi and Saatchi, Wellington, Singleton, Ogilvy and Mather, Sydney and Carat Australia.”

Professor Varan said his students were an integral part of the research process.

“They have already received invaluable experience completing placements - with all expenses paid - in Sydney and Wellington.”

He added that ITRI was now globally respected and had a truly analytical focus.

“So far, most people in this area have only been asking: ‘What would people do if they had interactive television?’” he said.

“At ITRI we go much further, asking: ‘Why do people do the things they do?’”

Professor Varan said ITRI’s research was largely interdisciplinary involving students from a huge range of backgrounds, including business, media studies, psychology, economics and information technology.

“This combination of disciplines brings about an exciting exchange of ideas, enabling us to look at a range of problems from many different perspectives,” he said.

This helped his students fill a global void so that by the end of their studies, they understood every aspect of interactive television research - from the ‘techies’ who developed the technology, to the ‘suits’ responsible for the strategies, and the ‘creatives’ behind the campaign.

“These are three widely-differing cultures from totally different worlds,” he said.

“When you are dealing with a new medium like interactive television there have to be linkages. To the best of my knowledge, we are the only program in the world training people to fill this critical void.”

He said one of the biggest complaints from industry had been that nobody could bring all of these parameters together.

“ITRI fills a unique gap as our students are trained right across the value chain,” he said.

“They have hands-on skills with the technology, deep insight into the strategy and the creative skills needed to bring it all together.

“Thus I expect, increas-ingly, for the key players in the industry in years to come, to be Murdoch students.”

He said Murdoch had already attracted a remarkable intake of postgraduate students for the coming year with enquiries from top-level applicants around the world.

These included senior management already involved in the industry who were keen to take a year or two off to do the Murdoch degree.
There had also been much interest from the United Kingdom where industry professionals saw Australia as an exciting alternative to the often ‘high stress’ European lifestyle.

Professor Varan said students were attracted by the stimulating nature of the research and the way it kept them at the cutting edge of interactive technology - despite being separated from their existing jobs for at least a year.