Hello all,
I’ll be attending the O’Reilly Tools of Change (TOC) conference over the next three days. I’ll be posting updates and reviews on each of the sessions/workshops I attend.
Posts will begin with TOC:
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As production professionals, our job responsibilities change very quickly. Advancements in technology (both hardware and software) requires us to keep up-to-date on what is happening in the industry. Aside from doing it on your own by reading blogs, joining networking sites, reading books (the Pocket Pal is practically the bible of our profession), or listening to webinars, one of the best ways to learn, network and interact with your peers is at seminars. Now, you may say that you don’t have a budget for professional development, and that’s a legitimate reason for finding alternatives. However, many print vendors are trying to break out of the mold of “printer” and are trying to find clients by educating them with FREE seminars on everything from mailing to direct marketing/variable data, paper to prepress, and color management to printing/press techniques. If your sales representative (or representatives, if you use more than one print vendor) is a good one, he/she should be letting you know about these educational seminars in advance, so check and see if any are scheduled (most come with lunch!). Read the rest of this post One of the most frequently debated questions in the industry is whether to find one printer to publish all of your projects, or to bid out each project to different vendors. There are benefits and drawbacks to each method, which are examined in this post. Let me start out by saying that I dislike contracts, especially multi-year contracts, and think that they should only be utilized in certain instances. I do not see why I should be tied to a specific vendor for years, especially with how fast technology changes in the publishing field. Printers are always buying new presses, which enhances their capabilities. My association prints books, newsletters and a magazine, and the only contract we have signed is for the magazine. We DO, however, have a verbal agreement with our newsletter printer that they will print the product for one year without them having to re-bid. At that time, we may do a budget bid to see where costs fall, especially if we encountered issues with the quality, schedule, or “ease of working with” throughout the year. If not and everything has gone smoothly, we can simply agree to extend our verbal contract for an additional year. Now, I feel that many publishing houses these days take the easy road and sign contracts with one or two vendors to print all of their products… pretty much to save production time. I think it’s lazy, especially when you have a production director/manager or team who have experience with print buying and can negotiate prices. In my experience, there is a benefit to signing a contract only if: Read the rest of this post Your company does a lot of mailings (direct mail, periodicals, member benefits, etc), and you’re sending a postage check for every project to your print vendor (or mailing house) to complete the mailing. This is a lot of money to track. Why not establish your own permit at the post offices in the cities where you do repeat mailings? This allows you to keep better track of your postage amounts. Very often, vendors who perform mailings for you will require the postage before the pieces are delivered to the post office (I don’t know of any vendors who foot the postage for you upfront). If you are mailing off their permit number, you have to make the check out to the vendor and then make sure that you track the estimated postage versus the postage receipt (how much it actually cost). More often than not, the postage estimate is greater than the actual, so you have a bit of money left over. Read the rest of this post So the entire world is buzzing about Apple’s new iPad®. Even after the release (and the rumors that have circulated over the past two years), there is still a lot of speculation about whether the iPad will be the device that changes the face of publishing, based on what the iPhone did for smartphones and the iPod did for music. In my opinion (and based on my research on eBook formats), there are three big factors going for the iPad: Read the rest of this post There’s been a lot about green-friendly publishing in the news, and your organization hasn’t done it yet. How hard is it to go green? It’s actually much easier than you think. Chances are, some of the paperstocks you are already using are green-certified. It’s “easy” to start your green program. Simply ask for a “green-friendly” option when you bid out a project in addition to the conventional stock you specify. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results! The main thing you need to know is that there are three different types of green-friendly publishing. I’ll explain the first two (because I’m not all that familiar with the third). Read the rest of this post One of the most important tasks a production team/group/unit has is the interaction with a variety of different groups. We have external clients (ad agencies, print vendors, file conversion/prepress, etc), as well as internal (editorial, marketing, sales, etc). Often, we are seen as the bad guys because we have that delicate task of enforcing deadlines, so it is up to us to break down those silos that are sometimes built between departments. In my last few jobs, I’ve busted into the silos by establishing what I like to call “Bridge Meetings.” These are short meetings (generally a half-hour, but certainly no more than an hour) that happen on a regular basis (every 4-6 weeks, every quarter, etc) that are set up with the manager/director of another unit, as well as a liaison from each group. Read the rest of this post Hello and thanks for visiting! My name is Mike, and I’m the admin/creator of this site. I’ve worked in the production field in the DC Metro area for the last 14 years, and am currently in my last year of getting my Master’s in Publishing from George Washington University. Throughout my career, I’ve always wanted to create a group/website that would connect production professionals in the publishing industry, and provide a forum to foster the exchange of ideas, tips, questions and the exploration of industry-changing technologies. Let’s face it… production is the area of publishing that changes the fastest. My job description from five years ago was outdated as of three years ago due to the advancements in technology and different publishing formats, including how electronic publishing is being integrated with print, and how it is taking a life of its own. Read the rest of this post |
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