International Interactive Communications Society (IICS) is a professional trade association for companies and individuals involved in interactive media

Interactive media

Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user’s actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio, etc.-Terminology:...

. This organization traces its early roots to the days of interactive laser disc production in the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

 during the 1980s. Originally the society was proposed as a special interest group of the International Television Association (ITVA)now known as Media Communications Association – International (MCA-I) but the charter members (composed of equipment vendors, independent producers, training professionals and members of Apple's IIe computer group, Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

's SMC-70 computer & interactive laser disc groups and Pioneer

Pioneer Corporation

is a multinational corporation that specializes in digital entertainment products, based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan. The company was founded in 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair shop...

's interactive Laserdisc

Laserdisc

LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

 groups) decided to establish the society as an independent entity with different membership requirements for the new interactive and computer based communications.

In its heyday they had hundreds of members in the San Francisco Bay Area and thousands of members worldwide with chapters in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Atlanta, Washington DC and New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

IICS Charter Members
Tom Wohlmut	Original IICS President	currently President WMS Media Inc., San Francisco
Debra Wohlmut	Original IICS Vice-President	Wohlmut Media Services
Vicki Vance	Original IICS Secretary/Communications Director	Sony and then went on to become Manager of Business Development, Apple Computer: New Media and Entertainment Group
Tom Anderson	Original IICS Treasurer/Membership Director
Maria Mancini	Original IICS Program Committee
John Ittelson	Original IICS Institutes and Workshops	Chico State University
Mark Williams	Original IICS Institutes and Workshops	San Mateo College
Richard Haukom	Original IICS Special Projects Director	Co-Founder Haukom Associates and now Senior Instructional Technologist at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Kris Koster	Original IICS Computer Services	Sony
Patrick Ford	Original IICS Database System Operator
Jana Rochon	Original IICS Original Journal Layout and Design	Television Associates and later President of Image Technics Inc. Irving, TX
David Hon	Honorary Board
Steve Booth	Charter Member	Level Three Authoring Systems
Jerry Jackson	served on the Executive Board as International Vice President and co-founded the IICS Hollywood Special Interest Group	founding partner in Water's Edge Communications
Joe Roizen -	Charter Member	Telegen (American division of French Videotex company)
Debra Lieberman -	Charter Member	Institute for Communication Research
Brian Blum -	IICS President, 1992	Blum Interactive Media, consulting group in Jerusalem, Israel
Dale Rochon (aka: digital_dale)	Charter Member	Interactive media sales at Television Associates, later led the sales and marketing efforts at two computer/video convergence manufactures and then contributed to the launch of Verizon's FiOS TV, and Arbitron's PPM technology

Pioneering IICS members continue to use the talent and skills in interactive communications developed during their tenure at IICS as interactivity and consumer engagement evolve in the multimedia, streaming media, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and mobile media industries. .

External links

• The original website was www.iics.org but now the closest website is the San Francisco chapter http://users.rcn.com/sfiics
• MCA-I http://www.mca-i.org/
• Jerry Jackson background at Waters Edge
• Vintage SMC 70