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Volume 7, Issue 1 Setting—and
Sticking to—Schedules
Setting—and Sticking to—Schedules Eat better ... exercise more ... spend less ... stop smoking ... get organized ... stay on schedule. If you’re like most of us, the hope and promise with which you made your New Year’s resolutions have faded significantly by mid-February. Year after year, our resolve weakens, and in no time we’ve fallen off the wagon—again. Whether trying to lose weight or gain control, our poor track record has everything to do with not planning ahead. A vague promise to get fit or restore order—without a very clear understanding of what we’re doing wrong and how to change it—almost guarantees failure. Turning failure into success requires setting specific goals, identifying the obstacles and figuring out exactly how to overcome those obstacles. When it comes to meeting deadlines, the hurdles typically include competing needs, insufficient resources, inefficient workflows and general disorganization. The good news, though, is that none of these is insurmountable—and the solutions may be closer than you think. Every publisher wants his or her magazine to read well, look good, make money, mail on time and come in under budget. But rarely can all of these goals be achieved in equal measure, and that’s where trade-offs come in. Can you afford to turn away advertising to stay on schedule and meet your mail date? Are you willing to sacrifice the integrity of the magazine’s design to shoehorn in a late-breaking story? Is spending more to maintain both your flexibility and your schedule an option? The key to creating schedules that really work is to know what you can compromise on and what you can’t, and what constraints are imposed as a result. A critical mail date, for example, gives you one fixed point in your schedule; the amount of time allocated to design and produce finished pages gives you another. The trick, then, is to work both backward and forward from those points to establish a comprehensive schedule: • What’s your target mail date? • What does that mean in terms of a deadline for delivery of the magazine to the printer? • How much time does your design/production team need to hit your in-date at the printer? • How far ahead must you start the copyediting/proofing process to have material ready for production? • When do you need to make article assignments to allow enough time to get them written, reviewed and ready for copyediting? While the amount of time required for each of these stages will vary from publication to publication, the one constant is the need to build “buffers” into your schedule. Plan for at least one crisis per issue—a late article, a corrupt file, even a sick child—and build in an extra day or two to work around such disruptions. The next trick is to find those days. They’re probably in your schedule right now, masked by a process in need of tweaking. Take a hard look at the bottlenecks in your current workflow and start outlining strategies to eliminate them. Are you chronically short of content, scrambling at the last minute to fill enough pages to support your ad/edit ratio? Keep the pipeline filled by preparing two or three more articles than you think you’ll need for each issue. Are you losing hours or days in endless rounds of proofreading? Establish well-defined guidelines for what sorts of edits are permitted at which stage of the process (for example, no subjective changes once an article is out of copyediting), and limit the number of proofs in play. By issuing only one copy of each set of proofs and circulating it through the ranks, ending with the decision maker, you can not only put a stop to back-and-forth edits, but eliminate time spent comparing and compiling multiple versions. Are you see-sawing between mind-numbing boredom and soul-crushing “rush jobs”? Instead of saving up stacks (manuscripts to be edited, articles to be designed, pages to be proofed), consider a smoother, more continuous flow, in which each piece of content moves through the system at its own pace: formatted as soon as it’s edited, proofed as soon as it’s formatted, corrected and designed as soon as it’s proofed, etc. As with so many resolutions, it’s tempting to put off making changes—“When I have more time, then I can get organized!” In the meantime, though, the costs of disorganization continue to pile up: the magazine’s credibility is threatened when content is rushed through the review and copyediting processes; its appearance is affected when hours or days are stolen from the design cycle; its mail date is compromised when too many changes are left until the last minute. This year, resolve to make time to fix the process itself, and you’ll find yourself dealing with far fewer “crises.” Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. If you’d like help identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, email or call Rebecca Hoeckele, ULI Client Liaison, at 703.858.1000, ext. 2123. Let’s copy money! It’s been a number of years since we’ve gone over the legalities of reproducing currency on paper. And now that we have pretty colors on our new $20 bills, you might be tempted to incorporate them into a design. According to the Secret Service, it’s OK to do so as long as 1. the illustration is less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half times the size, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated; 2. the illustration is one-sided; and 3. all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use. On April 27, 1988, Time Magazine made the mistake of violating these terms by printing an image of a bill at actual size on its front cover! Needless to say, that’s something United Litho would rather not be doing. Guess who gets thrown in jail? Interestingly, starting with Photoshop CS, Adobe has added routines to its software that look for images of worldwide currency. If it finds one, you’ll get an error message and the program will refuse to continue. Eliminating eye strain When I visit customers, I often notice that some users with CRT monitors (that is, monitors that are not the laptop/ LCD type) have their refresh rates set way too low. The refresh rate is the rate at which the image on your screen is redrawn. When set to the default of 60Hz, you may notice that the screen flickers, which some have said will lead to eye strain over time. To fix this, try adjusting the refresh rate to at least 75Hz. (Unfortunately, older monitors will likely not work at higher refresh rates.) Your eyes will love you! Mac (OS 9/X): Go to your Control Panel/System Preferences and choose Monitors/Displays. PC (2000/XP): Right-click on your desktop and then choose Properties at the bottom of the pop-up window. Choose the Settings tab at the top of the window. Click on the Advanced button at the bottom. Finally, click on the Monitor tab at the top. If you haven’t passed out from looking up and down so much, you’ll find the place to make your adjustment. Who said Microsoft isn’t looking out for your health? Entourage repair Those of you who use Microsoft Entourage to send and receive e-mail might like this next tip. If you ever have a problem with the program crashing, try holding down the Option key when you start up Entourage. It will bring up a dialogue box that will let you rebuild its internal database, possibly fixing the problem. It will likely save you a bunch of disk space as well, once you delete the old database files. Candy Tolson: Making a Difference in Mail List Services In the summer of 1999, Candy Tolson came out of retirement for what she thought would be a six-month stint helping her husband, Hugh, get United Litho’s new Mail List Services department up and running. More than four years later, she’s still putting her extensive background in customer service to good use, helping clients navigate the often-challenging waters of the U.S. Postal Service. “I’d always worked in printing plants where the customer service folks had to know and understand the mechanics of mail list services,” she says. “So when Hugh found he needed help, he knew where to look.” “When Candy started working at ULI,” her husband says, “it made the difference between sinking and swimming. She had the vocabulary, knowledge and professionalism we needed.” “I process and check all the work orders that come from ULI’s account managers,” she explains, adding that she often contacts customers directly if there are any questions about the data she receives. “I also let them know if I have suggestions on how they can better provide their material to us, which ultimately helps their bottom line.” One customer whose bottom line was really boosted through Candy’s persistence is White Dwarf magazine, published by Games Workshop in Glen Burnie, Maryland. White Dwarf had applied for periodical status with the USPS but became mired in the “pending” stage for nearly two years. (Normally lasting only a few months, “pending” status permits a magazine to be sorted and treated as a periodical, although postage is still paid at the higher standard rate.) Candy got involved and, after dozens of phone calls to postal officials, managed to cut through the red tape, straighten out the paperwork and pave the way for White Dwarf to receive a refund of more than $85,000 from the post office just before Christmas. “The client was thrilled!” says White Dwarf’s account manager, Jenny Meckley. She adds that Candy’s “can-do attitude” characterizes all her interactions with ULI staff and clients. “She’s always available to answer questions and sort through the details of complicated jobs,” Meckley says. “I have one job that encompasses 10 different polybag versions, and she works really closely with me to ensure that this job flows smoothly.” Account Executive Mike Schumacher describes Candy as an incredible resource. “She’s always ready to help, and often drops what she's doing to get me what I need while I'm still on the phone. She’s also been a tremendous benefit to customers, offering advice and helping them to understand postal forms.” Julie Williamson, another account executive, adds, “When Candy gives you an estimate, she always takes the time to point out USPS regulations that our customers may have overlooked in researching special mailing options. This saves all of us from unpleasant surprises when the job mails!” Candy says her greatest satisfaction comes from helping clients. “When a customer is happy with ULI because of something I was able to do for them, it really feels good.” An Extraordinary Service Experience: Museum News Located in the heart of downtown Washington, D.C., the seven-member staff of Museum News normally relishes being just across the street from Lafayette Park and the White House. But on September 11, 2001, it was a scary place to be. Art Director Melissa Miller remembers the turmoil well. Unsure whether the White House would be the next terrorist target, they evacuated their office by mid-morning and much of the staff made their way home on foot. In the middle of production of their November/ December issue, the office remained closed for another two days while the threat level was assessed. “As with most publications, the events of September 11 threw our editorial and advertising into a constant state of uncertainty,” Miller says. “It was a really difficult time—but it could have been even worse. It was our first issue with United Litho, and the transition was wonderful! The New Title Start-Up Meeting left us feeling we were in very capable hands, and as we worked through the challenges of that first issue, we got nothing but support and attentiveness from United Litho’s staff. Our account manager was in constant contact to help us make schedule changes as needed, and April Sellers, [account executive] was on top of everything.” Also thrown into a tailspin by the terrorist attacks was Museum News’ training on Proteus, the publication planning software ULI offers. “We had begun our training the day before, and Rebecca Hoeckele was on her way to our office on the 11th when the plane hit the Pentagon,” Miller says. “When she finally got through on her cell phone, we’d just gotten the word to evacuate. Rebecca called me at home while the office was closed to coordinate schedules, and went through a lot of hoops to finish our training. She had to work around our editorial schedule—and DC’s complicated security traffic—to get to our office. I’ll never forget that effort; it was really beyond the call of duty.” The spirit of cooperation and teamwork in the aftermath of September 11 really set the tone for the relationship, Miller says, noting that ULI’s customer service is the best she’s ever encountered. Not that that’s come as a surprise, though. In fact, she recalls, “a lot of our concerns [when we were looking for a new printer] revolved around customer service, since that was a big issue with our old printer. We chose United Litho largely because we were so impressed by the service-oriented approach throughout the entire process. I really felt assured that ULI understood our publication.” Published bi-monthly by the American Association of Museums, the award-winning Museum News serves as the primary forum for the discussion of issues facing the museum community. Its audience of 18,000+ museum professionals has come to expect an exceptional product, Miller says, and ULI does not disappoint. “I never have to worry about whether or not a job will turn out okay at ULI,” she says. “I have complete confidence in their processes and their people. “[Account Manager] Donna Dodge is really good at keeping me informed,” Miller notes. “She helps us with our annual schedule, and calls to check on when the publication is coming in. There are times that we cut our deadlines close, or are not able to make them at all. Donna always works to accommodate things so that everyone is happy. She’s proactive, rather than reactive, and that’s really important to us.” Dodge herself says she really enjoys her relationships with the staff of Museum News. “They’re very easy to work with,” she says. “They’re great folks—lots of fun, and very organized.” One tool that’s helped them keep on track is Proteus, Miller says, noting that the software makes it much easier to track and organize advertisers’ placement preferences, as well as their materials. “Before Proteus,” she says, “we did everything manually. I would extract information from a spreadsheet and draw up thumbnail layouts. It was so frustrating to have to erase half of the layout or even start over if there was an ad change or late editorial. I’d really take it personally. Now, it’s much easier to make changes.” She adds, “Our ad manager loves it, too—she says the flow of information between us is ‘exponentially more efficient.’ It’s kind of like having a translator who can clearly state the advertiser’s needs in the production team’s language. Proteus has really helped us communicate better between departments.” How
would she describe her relationship with ULI? “I really think of
United Litho as a partner,” she says. “In some ways, it seems
like we have more of a friendship than a business relationship. I know
ULI is always looking out for us and what is in our best interests.”
Copyright 1997 - 2008, United Litho, Inc. All rights reserved. |
