A Manual Labor of Love

When Leslie Ellis was notified of her upcoming Vanguard Award for Associates and Affiliates, she was stunned. Someone out there does understand what she does, she says. As an independent technology analyst, columnist and author, she has covered cable for nearly two decades and has helped countless industry members navigate and interpret this fast-changing, high-tech business, from her "Translation Please" column for B&C sister publication Multichannel News and technology analyses for Communications Engineering & Design (CED) to her work as a contributing research analyst for Bear Stearns and authorship of The Definitive Guide to Broadband. But she also relates to her readers' need for someone to demystify complicated concepts and lingo, from Internet Protocol television and distributed CMTS to telco video and session-based encryption. Today, Ellis continues to observe industry trends and watch them play out. Over the past 5 years, high-definition and "everything-on-demand" have been the biggest movements in the industry, she says.