DDA Celebrates 25 Years of Groundbreaking Leadership in Digital Interactive Media and Technology

From a Time When Software Still Came in Boxes

2019 will mark 25 years of continuous, industry-leading innovation in the digital world by DDA. Established in 1994, DDA was an early adopter of digital media, foreseeing the unique opportunity to create high quality work at exceptional values that expanded access for a greater number of businesses and organizations. From its first post cards reading “Digital Is Cool” and “Catch the Digital Wave,” DDA has helped promote the advantages inherent in working with a fully integrated agency working with a multitalented team in an all digital environment. The company was the first digital photography study in Pennsylvania, and would soon become one of the first all digital video and animation studios in the country.

Medical Video and Animation Studios

DDA’s vertically integrated, all in-house production process makes for a aesthetically and technically cohesive execution that delivers serious value with maximum efficiency. DDA guides its clients through all parts of the production process: from conceptualization, scriptwriting, and storyboarding to recording video and voice-over narration, sourcing additional imagery, integrating on-screen texts, editing cuts, effects, and transitions, and delivering a final product. DDA records video both in its own studios and on location, and offers teleprompters and a variety of camera support and mobility options for special shots. All video and voice-over narration recording is webcast for client monitoring and direction in real time, to ensure performances meet client expectations. DDA creates both 2D and 3D animations using many of the same software suites as used by Disney and other Hollywood studios creating the latest blockbuster animated features. DDA also provides all casting services thanks to the DDA Actors’ Network of professional on-screen and voice-over talent.

Expanding into eLearning

From the start, DDA specialized in offering the kind of high production value multimedia that traditionally was only available from the most elite ad agencies—without the elite prices. The company has consistently expanded its capabilities throughout its history. The additions of custom software and database development and 3D modeling and animation led the way to the creation of comprehensive medical eLearning platforms to train and educate users on a vast array of topics, from continuing medical education (CME) websites, diagnostic training and research platforms, and electronic medical records applications, to synchronized media and video/animation-based eLearning, virtual medical simulations, and more. DDA’s integrated approach to medical eLearning combines alluring aesthetics with engaging interactivity features that deeply involve learners in the materials, facilitating a experiential and participatory learning process that is enthusiastically received and maximizes long-term memory retention.

Other advanced technologies have helped DDA push the possibilities in eLearning further. Each virtual learning environment DDA builds allows for continued scaling over time, so that new eLearning courses can be added to the existing framework. DDA’s e-Commerce development allows CME and other eLearning platforms to include fully integrated shopping carts. E-Commerce platforms streamline sales and encourage loyalty among customers, with automated email reminders for renewed purchases that can encourage repeat business—a particularly strong feature to retain those that need to continuously maintain CME accreditation. Customer/client relationship management features can help eLearning platform administrators develop specific relationships to specific organizations and gather insight into those relationships in the long term. Custom metrics reporting allows administrators valuable insight into the success of eLearning courses and identify areas of opportunity for improvement. The options for advancing the eLearning craft with custom features are endless.

Award-Winning Medical eLearning

DDA’s pioneering role in eLearning has been acknowledged with a series of awards over its long history. DDA received two unsolicited awards for the emergency contraception website www.not-2-late.com in 2007, the Aesculapius Award of Excellence, and Outstanding Achievement Award from OBGYN.net. It later one the first issued Tabby Award for Best iPad Healthcare App of 2012 for the Philips XperGuide, a comprehensive medical eLearning platform using video, animation, and interactive virtual reality software to train clinicians on new cardiac procedures using new medical equipment. You can learn more about DDA’s virtual medical simulations by reading this article on the topic by DDA’s President, David Katz: https://zeroonezero.com/mdn/. DDA received a second Tabby Award, this time for Best Healthcare and Pharmaceutical iPad App, for its ETHOS Engage interactive iPad pharmaceutical advisory meeting application, which allows administrators to facilitate the flow of visual references and audience communications to help capture and keep attention and engagement. DDA’s current focus is on finding new ways to leverage the advanced capabilities of augmented reality to help people learn in the real world with app-generated information enhancing the user’s view through mobile devices and eyewear in real time.

With approximately 3,000 projects delivered in its 25-year history, DDA stands at the pinnacle of custom medical eLearning design and development. DDA’s deep experience and diverse staff of programmers, webmasters, animators, writers, SEO specialists, graphic designers, and more allow it to balance technical demands with aesthetic and usability goals to create deeply engaging, rewarding eLearning experiences that leave lasting impressions and maximize information retention. Find out for yourself how you can be a part of evolving the next generation of eLearning. Contact us today.