Paradigm sets sights high for global biz

Multimedia company banks on bandwidth

The summit.

In his business, as in his climbing, David Korbitz will settle for nothing less. The high-sighted president of Paradigm Multimedia Group Inc. is staking out his company’s future on the peak of a budding global market for interactive multimedia design.

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“We see no limitations,” he said. “We can be the largest multimedia interactive company in the country. We want to be considered a global leader.”

Today, in their modest Greeley office, Korbitz and Paradigm vice president Chris Hill are setting up base camp for the arduous assent. With their eyes fixed upward, shouldering a load of cutting-edge technology and always planning 10 steps ahead, the two are set to dig in their crampons and blaze trail.

Already trumping its competitors in Northern Colorado, Paradigm’s sole stumbling block may be the innovative nature of its own technology. Paradigm, which produces high-end, production-quality video and Internet-based images for businesses, is hanging its future on interactivity, a full-breadth use of multimedia technology. It’s an area that Korbitz sites as the linchpin of future business-to-business relations.

That’s the future.

Until this year many of Paradigm’s services were “a tough sell,” Korbitz said. Convincing businesses to trash weighty paper catalogs in lieu of interactive CD-ROM or DVD alternatives has been difficult. But as voyeurs of the technology boom have come to expect, technological viability is always followed quickly by real-world practicality. As they did with Web presence, which is now as standard as a telephone, businesses are quickly latching on to the cost and convenience opportunities that interactivity presents.

“Interactive technology provides us with an opportunity to do a lot of things in a lot of places at a smaller cost,´ said Dan Bergman of Loveland Industries, an agriculture-products company that is producing a series of field-training videos with Paradigm. “We can visually communicate what goes on so people all over can see it done and interact with the program as they need.”

“It turns something flat and boring into a business transaction,” Korbitz said.

The agriculture community may be one of the top beneficiaries from interactive multimedia, Korbitz said, because of its sparse nature and an increasing demand for new marketing techniques. But agriculture isn’t alone, and droves of other businesses are signing on with Paradigm, primarily enticed by the company’s jump on interactive video technology on the Web.

“Businesses are realizing that this technology will position them in a place where they can take advantage of at least local markets with e-commerce applications,” Hill said. “We bring a lot of elements into it that other companies don’t have.”

With that, the growth-happy business is shedding offices like baby shoes, currently eyeing its third expansion.

Paradigm’s climb has been fast and steady so far. Setting out from the wind-swept prairie in Brush before transplanting to Greeley in search of more bandwidth, Korbitz has capitalized on his penchant for risk taking and what he terms a “forward-thinking business community” along the Front Range to maintain his pace.

It is a journey that started unassumingly at AIMS Community College where, consumed in the pursuit of a journalism degree, Korbitz heard of an opportunity to work on a local cable production.

“I didn’t know anything about production,” he said. “I thought I might write some things.”

Korbitz jumped in, and soon the La Junta native was doing everything from directing to editing. After finishing his degree, Korbitz began working on audio and video production for several companies on the Front Range, and quickly earned an award-winning reputation when his public-service announcement received praise as the best cable commercial for the American Cancer Society.

Still, Korbitz remained guarded in his optimism, unsure of how far his new career might take him. That doubt was quickly quashed, however, when he took on an intimidating Disney project. Assigned to manicure an overflow video from the entertainment giant, Korbitz locked himself in a Denver editing bay for more than a week, emerging only to fly the video directly to Disney.

“They said it was one of the most amazing things they have ever seen,” he said. “I knew then that it doesn’t matter where you are if you do good work.”

Doing good work means being a trendsetter, Korbitz said. Since the Disney deal Korbitz has never looked down, leaping forward into unexplored terrain, working to carve out a niche for Paradigm in the technological future.

“What cuts Paradigm out from the rest of the group is that it’s a trendsetter,” he said. “We’re not just going with the flow. With interactivity we are working where the Web is going not where it is now.”

Today, Korbitz is readying his company for its next move. Bringing Hill – and his Web experience – on board this year, Korbitz is trying to avoid spreading the company too thin, working to prime the company for its conversion into a corporation.

Yet despite the safety precautions, Korbitz continues to take risks, rewarding others who do the same.

“You have to take risks to stay on top,” he said. “If someone comes in with a good idea, even if they don’t have the money for it, I’ll always support those projects.”