Live from Spectrum; Lessons Learned from iPad Production
Posted On Friday, January 21, 2011 at at 6:52 AM by Dianne Kennedyi M sitting in the opening session on the last day of the SPECTRUM 2011 Conference. Josh Courtney, Voda Systems, is just saying that “Publishing companies must become media companies to survive. “ After two weeks of blogging I can add “Associations must become media companies to survive!”
One thing is clear from the buzz at this conference – a radical redefinition of publishing has happened overnight. Here at Spectrum we learn how publishers and catalogers are coping with the change and what they see changing in the next year. Here’s what I hear:
1. Print production departments have become the “owners” of iPad editions by default. We have tools. We have the skills. And most importantly we have established procedures, workflows and disciplined product planning and scheduling processes that it takes to get this job done.
2. Production departments are are working far too hard. Producing the iPad edition means roughly twice the effort with no slip in deadlines and no increase in headcount. We continue to meet deadlines by working longer hours, calling on key talent from across the organization and employing strategic outsourcing.
3. We can’t add headcount. There is no financial model for what we are doing. This is the “Wild West’. We are learning, trying new models and gathering intelligence in hopes of building a financial model for the future. But today there is no financial model to support adding staff.
4. We shouldn’t add headcount. Today I could use 5 more on the production team. But we are learning and new tools are coming to market. Tomorrow I can to the same work with only 4 more on my production team. Who knows, by next year process and technology improvements may mean I can do the work with only a single addition to the staff. We need to wait to see how this all shakes out before we can confidently add just the right headcount.
5. We have the right people and skills to do the job. Layoffs over the past two years, while cutting staff to the bone, have left us with the best and brightest. While we may need staff with new skill sets to produce the digital edition, we can’t just hire a person with that skill – they don’t yet exist! We are far better off using the bright staff we have to try new technologies and learn vital new skills on the job.
6. Workflows for print and digital editions are rapidly merging. In the beginning the two workflows were separate. By October 2010, most publishers held combined design meetings for both the print and iPad editions. Now we find more and more workflow steps have been merged. For example photo shoots for the print product are being combined with video shoots for the digital edition. And joint final editorial reviews are becoming common.
7. New tablets will increase the chaos for production departments. But it is not a given that publishers will publish on every platform. We need to do market research to determine what makes good “business” sense. For example, the iPad at its 10.1 inch size is perfect for reading a magazine. The device is light and portable. It’s large enough to make reading a magazine or catalog a joy. Its got the touch screen that give the digital magazine the “feel” that we get from the paper-based edition. And its got the power to agument the magazine with some really sexy new functionality. But would we get the same experience on a 7” pad? In some cases NO. It other cases absolutely. So here the match between content and functionality must carefully be balanced
Dianne Kennedy
