Ernie's blog

20 Financial Terms Every Studio Manager Should Know

2014-09-02T15:36:00.002-07:00

“Until we have comprehensive financial education, we'll never see the end of our booms and busts,” Robert Kiyosaki

Managing a studio requires a set of skills and expertise in a variety of disciplines, (Oh yes! we have to wear many hats) one of which is financial literacy. Even when you are not running the full operation, you must have the financial knowledge that allows you to read and understand financial reports, get into a meeting with your finance team and be able to articulate at a professional level, adding value to the discussion. You must be able to interact (financially) with other departments and that requires a certain level of business acumen.

I've curated the list below with (in my personal opinion) the most widely used financial terms in the graphic studio business. We are already familiar with most of these terms, but I'm pretty sure this could help us to improve our financial literacy, hence making us more effective managers.
Accounts Payable
It's the money you owe to vendors and suppliers. Any pending invoices you have to pay for goods and services you have requested and received.
Accounts Receivable
It represents the money your clients owe you. You usually claim for it by the means of invoices, after delivering a service that your client has properly requested using a "Work Order" and a "Purchase Order." Accounts Receivable is only one of a series of transactions that are part of the processes involved in billing the client. It is legally enforceable if you follow standard business practices like estimating, getting estimate approvals, and requesting and receiving a purchase order.
Audit
It's an inspection done by an independent qualified personnel (outsiders) to a business financial statements to ensure the information represented is fair and true. The purpose of an audit is to provide an objective independent examination of the financial statements, which increase value and credibility to the way a studio is conducting its business affairs. An audit can be done internally and can also be requested by a client. It's a tedious process to go through, however, if the studio has been managed ethically and financially correct you should never be afraid of an audit.
Balance Sheet
It's the statement that summarizes the financial balances of your studio. In other words, it tells the financial position of your business at a determined point in time during a calendar year. The studio has its assets, owner's equity and liabilities, and like in any other business the equation remains the same: assets-liabilities=owner's equity.
Budget
A budget is the contemplated amount of money and/or resources to cover for a specific project, expenses, or activity. Budgeting is the best tool managers use to control expenses and resources.
Cost-to-Date
In our context, it means the amount of charges posted on a specific project at a given moment in time, it could be the end of the job or still a work in progress. It reflects all the resources expended on a single job and managers have to be observant this amount never exceeds the (PO) purchase order amount.
Estimate
It's an approximate calculation of the value of the services and/or goods requested by your clients. This is not a perfect science, however, experience will allow you to prepare more accurate estimates. Following historical data, using the proper billing codes and some common sense (ask questions when in doubt), will help a new manager to get on the right track while performing this important task.
Expenses
The economic costs that a business incurs in order to obtain gains or revenue. Any outflows of money in return for goods or service are an expense. Whenever the studio purchases material to be used on a project, pays or submit a voucher for a cab ride, buys food for the studio artists working on a late night project, a business-related airline ticket, etc., these are all considered expenses. Usually, when authorized to do so, an employee can pay for an expense out their own pocket and then submit an expense report to be reimbursed later. Payments to suppliers/vendors and salary wages to employees are also considered expenses.
Financial Ratio
It's a quantitative analysis made by establishing a relation between 2 different values from the financial statements. Financial ratios are the tools used by financial managers to read and analyze financial statements. They indicate how the business is performing in a specific period of time, however, they're useless if you have nothing to compare this data with. You can compare it with past performances (historic data) and/or similar business performances. There are several categories of financial ratios, but in this list we're only covering one of the profitability ratios: Profit Margin.
Forecasting
It's the analysis you make to foresee how much you'll spend and how much revenue you'll capture in a specific period of time. It's based on the use of historical data, good assessment/management of your client's expectations, and controlling your expenses. As a matter of fact a good forecasting must start with the expenses.
Invoice
It's a commercial document issued by the studio to the client after a project has been completed. It indicates the amount of money is owed to the issuer, specifications of the services rendered and the PO number backing up the work request. Invoices also have a unique reference number for tracking and security purposes. When the studio receives invoices from vendors and suppliers, these are considered purchase invoices.
Markup
After expenses and costs are covered in the price of the service you rendered or any goods you are selling, you add extra money to create the profit. This extra could be a fixed amount or a percentage of all the costs incurred in providing the service.
Operational Cost
Expenses associated with running a studio on a day-to-day basis are considered operational costs (see Expenses). For instance if you receive a request to print and bind 20 books and you purchase $200 dollars worth of paper, the $200 are considered an operational cost. However, if you only used half of the paper, then $100 is considered an expense while the rest go straight to your assets. This example illustrates the difference between cost and expense.
Overhead
Any business expense not related to direct labor or direct materials that are billed directly to your clients. For instance, rent, utilities, insurance, etc. Overhead expenses have to be taken into consideration when determining or adjusting how much should be charged for the services offered by the studio.
Profit
When the total amount of revenue exceeds the expenses, costs and taxes needed to run the studio operation, it's considered a profit.
Profit and Loss Statement (P&L)
It's a financial statement that encapsulates the revenues, costs and expenses in a specific period of time (this could be a quarter or fiscal year). The "P&L" is perhaps the most important tool to help you see the big picture of the "ins and outs" and to put a "plug" in some of the holes to stop the outs. In other words you can easily see which costs and expenses can be cut in order to make the studio more profitable.
Profit Margin
It's the percentage of the revenue that turned into a profit. It's a profitability ratio that you calculate dividing your net profit by the revenue. The profit margin is key information used by financial management to do forecasting and to revise pricing.
Purchase Order
It's a commercial document issued by a client to the studio, indicating the specifications of the services requested. A Purchase Order is issued after the client agrees with the estimate submitted by the studio and until it is accepted, the transaction is not considered contractual. We also submit POs to our vendors and suppliers in order to control the studio purchasing and services requested to external entities.
Revenue
It's the amount of money the studio receives for the services rendered and goods sold in a specific period of time. In an ideal scenario, the amount reflected on the invoices issued by the studio must equal the revenue.
Timesheets
It's the system used to record how much time studio artists spent on a particular job. Everyone knows what a timesheet is, but I'm including it in this list because in my personal opinion timesheets are the building blocks of the studio's financial structure. There's a reason why studio management is constantly enforcing the correct preparation of them, and CFOs and financial managers send email reminding employees to fill out their timesheets.Simply put, this is the way we bill the clients period.

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Ernie Arias is an Advertising Studio Manager at Hogarth WW. Social Media enthusiast. Dad, husband. Opinions are my own.

References.: Wikipedia, Investopedia, Reuters financial glossary and Yahoo.

Top 10 Qualities of An Über Presentation Specialist

2014-08-12T23:56:00.000-07:00

"Every presenter has the potential to be great; every presentation is high stakes, and every audience deserves the absolute best.”
Nancy Duarte

In 1997, I was working at the UBS Swiss Bank Presentation Center as a Mac designer. Part of my job was to assist the presentation artists in recreating logos, plotting graphs and charts in Illustrator and creating background images in Photoshop. The center was divided in 2 departments, the PC artists who worked exclusively on MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint; and the Mac designers working with Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator.

I decided to learn the PC applications to become a cross-platform operator and a more valuable asset to my employer (flagrantly looking for a promotion). To make the story short, I wound up hating PowerPoint because my learning approach to this application was based on my graphic background (totally wrong), and not as a presentation software. It was so frustrating that I even joined the band wagon echoing "PowerPoint sucks!" Needless to say it took me a while to figure out why it doesn't have a visible kerning and tracking feature like the rest of the applications I used to work with.

And the answer is simple, PowerPoint is not for typesetting. It's a Presentation software. And please stop blaming the software for your badly designed slides.
I wanted to share my story with you because this particularly wrong approach kind of summarizes the history behind why there are so many bad, terribly-designed presentations in this world.

In the quest to find the über presentation artist, I used LinkedIn, Behance, Indeed, Monster, and some other job sites and I was able to gather a considerable amount of CVs with the tittles 'Presentation Artist' and 'Presentation Specialist', so I gave priority to the best-designed and well-written ones. It's a no brainer, if you are in the presentation and design business you must show it off in your resume. However, a good-looking resume does not guarantee the owner to have what it takes to be an 'uber presentation specialist.' With that said, we're going to move to the next step: the interview process. You can see below a list of the qualities I was looking for in the interviewees. I classified them into 3 different categories: Technical Knowledge, Design Sense, and Communication.

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
1.-Before start working on a deck the presentation specialist must know if it's going to be a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. (you better get this one down if you don't want to work twice).
2.-Identify what computer platform is going to be used and make sure there won't be any issues with fonts or movie files. Testing is required to ensure presentation will go smoothly.
3.-Anticipate if any of the slides from the presentation will be re-purposed as a board to make sure resolution is not an issue.
4.-The specialist should be proficient in all the major slide ware applications (PowerPoint, Keynote, SlideShare and Prezi); and the Adobe Creative Suite to process and create custom artwork to avoid falling in the trap of using those cheesy native graphics.

DESIGN SENSE
5.-Design with simplicity in mind. Put meaning and purpose as the main focus of your design. Even when the requester wants to stuff a slide with lots of copy, charts, and/or graphics, you should suggest a better way to represent the information. Either by using a provocative and powerful image that tells a story (remember the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words") or by creating more slides or builds, etc. Your input is greatly appreciated, specially when you're adding value to the presentation.
6.-Color should flow consistently across the deck (graphics, charts, photos, solid backgrounds, etc.,) following your selected color scheme. Make type visible by creating contrast with color.
7.-Creation of templates on demand. The uber presentation specialist should be able to create a few templates (at least 5 slides per template) at the beginning of a project, so the presenter can have options to choose from and determine a final look and feel. He/she must also be able to create a full-fledged template that covers all the possible slide situations if requested to do so. These templates usually have over 30 slides.
8.-Thorough knowledge of diagrams, graphs, maps, charts and infographics structure. You should be able to represent data and to bring abstract information to life via visual graphics.
9.-Attention to detail is paramount. An uber presentation specialist will make sure graphics and specifically logos are not out of proportion. Even when you didn't do it, the minute you start working on a presentation, you own it.

COMMUNICATION
10.-The uber presentation specialist recognizes the importance of getting involve with the presentation. When in doubt will ask questions. Understanding and feeling the message embedded in the presenter's sketches is absolutely necessary to deliver a top performance. The more you understand the story behind those slides, the better you'll communicate with the team.The presentation specialist must be assertive and at the same time respectful when suggesting an idea or issuing an opinion. Don't ever try to impose your graphic 'genius' to the presenter. As long as they feel comfortable delivering their message in a particular way, it's always good to remember they are the ones facing the audience, not you.

Finding the Über Presentation Artist

2014-08-06T18:42:00.000-07:00

“Design can be art. Design can be aesthetics. Design is so simple, that's why it is so complicated.” Paul Rand

In the middle of the Summer of 2009, I found myself searching our servers—looking for all the presentation work (PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi, etc.,) our studio has done since 2005 to date. The studio director during that time had already scheduled a meeting to scrutinize all these assets to determine what we had delivered so far, and what we should do moving forward.

It was pretty obvious to everyone the need to raise the bar in our presentation delivery.

By looking at the big picture, we realized most of the presentations were using a corporate-look and dated template. No disrespect to corporate style templates, but we are in the business of selling creativity. We definitely could have done much better than that. We also found out that some of the best work was done in Indesign and presented as interactive PDFs, which can probably make you think the solution to achieve better-looking presentation slides is creating them in Adobe CS since this is the preferred designer's tool and everyone in the studio is proficient using Adobe. It sounded like a good option, but the reality is that almost all the time the requesters of these projects ask for either PowerPoint or Keynote because they can do last minute edits to their presentation.

I left that meeting with one goal in mind, to leverage my social media and resource management skills to find the Über presentation specialist. And you bet I found not one, but a handful of über presentation specialists that became part of the pool of freelancers we call on a regular basis.

Stay in touch for the continuation of this story in my next article: “Top 10 Qualities of An Über Presentation Specialist.” A list similar to The Über Production Artist.

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Ernie Arias is an Advertising Studio Manager at Hogarth WW. Social Media enthusiast. Dad, husband. Opinions are my own.

27 DAM Terms Every Studio Manager Should Know

2014-07-18T16:39:00.002-07:00

“In a time of turbulence and change, it is more true than ever that knowledge is power,” John F. Kennedy

As studio managers, it's our duty to keep up with the technology and trends relevant to our industry. You also need to interact with your IT and/or Digital Asset Management personnel and quite frankly even having a 'water cooler' chat with them, to the majority of us, it's a sure trip to Google some of the terms filtered in their 'geeky' vocabulary.

I've put together a list of 27 terms and concepts that in my personal opinion are the most important to any end user of a DAM system. Most of them you probably know already and in general this may help us to brush up on our DAM knowledge, so the next time you talk to the dudes from IT, your first reaction is not a "Huh?" Yes!, I've been there and I must confess this blog has been a very humble and educational experience for myself. I hope you'll find it interesting as well.

ACL
Access Control List or ACL is a technical term to refer to permissions which control the visibility, usage and modification of assets (corresponding to activity descriptions like view, download and edit).

API
An Application Programming Interface or API is a set of specifications used by an application program to communicate and share data with other applications. These are often published as a set of documents by the software vendor. By leveraging the power of an API, developers can execute functions and retrieve their results from an external application. The degree of ease required to achieve system integration and expansion are commensurate with the quality of an API.

BOOLEAN SEARCH
A type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as AND, NOT and OR to further produce more relevant results. For example, a Boolean search could be "advertising" AND "New York". This would limit the search results to only those documents containing the two keywords.

CATALOGING
Cataloging means the high-level process of adding metadata to assets in a Digital Asset Management system. It is also called Ingesting.

CLOUD COMPUTING
Cloud computing relies on sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of converged infrastructure and shared services.
Cloud computing, or in simpler shorthand just "the cloud", also focuses on maximizing the effectiveness of the shared resources. Cloud resources are usually not only shared by multiple users but are also dynamically reallocated per demand.

DAM
DAM is an acronym for Digital Asset Management. Digital Asset Management (DAM) – the process of cataloging, finding, delivering and preserving digital assets; including images, documents, video, audio and any other digital file. Digital Asset Management systems provide users with a central location to search, locate, access and share files in an easy and efficient way.

DATA MIGRATION
Is transferring a database (assets, metadata, folder structure, etc) from one system to another. Usually happens when one system is replacing another.

DATABASE SERVER
A database is typically used in a DAM system to hold metadata about assets. The majority of modern databases are known as Relational Databases (the correct term is RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). In a relational database, tables of information are connected together by using identifiers (or indexes) to do search on them.

DIGITIZATION
Converting a physical/analog file, such as a paper document, slide or printed photograph, into a digital file, i.e., scanning.

GUI
A graphical user interface (GUI) is a common type of user interface which allows users to interact with DAM through the use of graphical icons and visual indicators.

INGESTING
Ingesting is also referred to as cataloging. The process of adding or uploading assets to your digital asset management system, and adding, embedding and extracting metadata to/from your assets. Once the assets are in your DAM system, users can search, find, share and work with your digital files.

FOLKSONOMY
A vocabulary that uses a collaborative method to categorize your metadata, where freely chosen keywords are used instead of a controlled vocabulary (such as with taxonomy). It could lead to inconsistencies in the classification of information (kitty versus cat, for example).

KEYWORDING
The action of assigning information to your assets to describe them better and help others find them later. Keywords become part of your digital assets’ metadata. Organizations usually use a combination of taxonomy and folksonomy for describing their assets.

LINKED DATA
Linked Data is a series of techniques to allow data which is stored in a distributed fashion to be interconnected. It is describes a range of functions, including exposing, sharing, and connecting data.

MAM
Media Asset Management (MAM) is generally considered as simply an alternative term for Digital Asset Management, although some would argue that a MAM system only supports video rather than any type of digital file.

METADATA
Metadata is the data about the data. it's the descriptive information about your files. Digital asset management systems rely heavily on metadata, as it’s critical for searching, retrieving and managing your rich media assets.

PROXY FILES
This term refers to any files that are created from the original for reference purposes. They are used to represent assets - in general as a low resolution, truncated or otherwise constrained edition. The term is now the more popular way to describe non-original assets that have been rendered specifically for use in Digital Asset Management system.

SAN
It's the acronym for Storage Area Network. It's a dedicated network that provides access to consolidated storage. SANs are primarily used to make storage devices, such as disk arrays appear like locally attached devices to an operating system (Server). Typically used by enterprise level organizations.

SCHEMA
When talking about databases, your schema is the framework or concept that helps organize and interpret information. It is your structure, your list of fields (such as date, author, name, subject, etc) that you would like your catalogs to contain.

TAGGING
Tagging is a colloquial term given to the process of adding metadata generally and keywords in particular to digital assets.

TAXONOMY
The technique for creating classifications, using a very controlled vocabulary. Unlike folksonomy, it is hierarchical in nature, and represents information about your assets or metadata. An organization may use taxonomy to better manage the metadata that users will assign to the digital assets.

TRANSCODING
Transcoding is the process of converting one video or audio format into another. In general it refers to the conversion of one codec to another (e.g. MPEG to FLV), although the description can also apply to conversions between container formats (e.g. QuickTime to AVI).

UI
User Interface (or 'UI') is a generic IT term relating to the method by which a user operates computer software. User interfaces typically are either graphical or command oriented (e.g., written instructions).

WORKFLOW
The way a file travels to, through and from a DAM system. Workflow reads and acts upon metadata. Workflow can add captions, convert colours and handle distribution. It saves time and errors.

XML
XML is an abbreviation of Extensible Markup Language. XML is a standard for creating markup languages which describe the structure of data so that it can be exchanged between two different systems. It is heavily used in systems integration. Most Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems include features that allow metadata and assets to be supplied to third party systems in XML format.

XMP
Extensible Metadata Platform. A standard created by Adobe for processing and storing metadata about all types of digital assets such as images, documents, layout documents, etc. Metadata is embedded into the files and allows files to be shared and transferred without any of the information getting lost.

ZONZA
It's the pioneer of the next generation of cloud-based enterprise asset management systems. I'm very excited of migrating to this innovative system and you can find out more at zonza.com.

Ernie Arias is an Advertising Studio Manager at Hogarth WW. Social Media enthusiast. Dad, husband. Opinions are my own.

References.: DAM Glossary, DAM Learning Center, Wikipedia, ZONZA.

7 Tips To Improve Your Workflow Management

2014-06-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

As a Studio Manager, the last thing you want to see is a job circulating countless rounds or a project taking much longer than the estimated time, thus creating a bottleneck in your workflow and affecting your deadline. The ideal is a steady and smooth flow of jobs getting in and out period.

PROCESS

It doesn't matter how big or small your studio is, you need to have a process in place. All entities interacting and affecting your workflow must acknowledge this process. Otherwise, you'll have chaos and disorganization in your studio. There is a misconception about not implementing process because of the size of the studio and in my personal opinion it's just wrong. Process is the only way to guarantee a consistent result on similar tasks.

STYLE-GUIDE

Every account should have a set of guidelines. If you find yourself working on a new account and you don't have the style guide, it's time to create one. You should communicate to the Account and Creative teams of the need of a style-guide. They'll happily agree, because everybody benefits from having one. This ensures consistency on every job output from this particular account.

JOB LOG

Logging-in every job either manually or by means of a software (a database like FileMaker Pro is recommended) will provide very valuable data that can be used to assist you in future decision-making and planning.

PRIORITIZING

To establish priorities is a no-brainer, but sometimes it can be very tricky. In my opinion, the client should be your number one priority. Jobs that require files to be sent to the client, mechanical releases or any production job in general should be considered a priority. Very often you'll get "rush" requests that in reality are driven by personal agendas—it's just something you have to deal with.

THE BRIEF

This is probably the most important part of taking a job to the studio. So many jobs go to an unnecessary number of extra rounds due to a misunderstanding in the briefing. It's a good idea to have the studio artist taking part in the briefing. They usually have questions and the requester can answer them in the spot. At the end of the briefing, make sure everyone is on the same page about the task at hand. Make sure supplied assets are correct, FTP sites, copy sent via e-mail, etc., before the requester leaves, just to make sure that everything is in order and we'll be able to meet the deadline with no problems.

10-MINUTE RULE

After delegating a job to a studio artist, if he/she finds an issue, give them 10 minutes to figure it out on their own and if they can't, then they must bring it back to their manager, who'll take proper action either by finding a solution or by notifying the requester about the issue.

WATCH THE ROUNDS

It's a matter of great concern when a simple advertorial circulates more than 4 times. It's definitely a red flag and you should pay close attention to this. Identify the problem and take action.

These workflow tips are specifically for an advertising/graphic studio. However, some of them can also be applied to other industries where workflow management is part of the daily work routine. I hope you find them useful. If you have any tips of your own, please share them with us.

Crowdsourcing On LinkedIn: What Does It Take To Be A True Professional?

2013-01-16T00:34:00.000-08:00

“The true professional is a person whose action points beyond his or herself to that underlying reality, that hidden wholeness, on which we all can rely.” Parker Palmer

Last October I started writing an article about the qualities of a true professional, and right in the middle of the first paragraph, an idea came to mind. I thought, "What if instead of writing it on my own, I do some crowdsourcing on Linkedin and pick up the brain of the many professionals on my network?"And that's exactly what I did and what a better place to do it than a discussion group.

Of the many groups I've been honored with being a member, I decided on using the "Advertising Professionals" group because it has the largest amount of members in our industry. See the whole discussion on this link: http://lnkd.in/Qat9ma

As expected, I received lots of interesting insights from professionals of different backgrounds within the industry which helped me to come up with some bullet points about the essence of being a true professional:

You should never promise what you can't deliver. A true professional always under-promise and over-deliver. Once you lose your CREDIBILITY you'll never get it back.

When you're a true professional your actions should never be motivated by personal matters. You must always bring to work your ETHICS 'toolbox.'

You should never stop from doing what you have to do because 'this is not my schedule.' When a true professional is asked by his/her boss to do or work on something, you'll never hear the lame excuses 'it is not on my job description' or 'these are not my hours.' A true professional is a CAREER-ORIENTED, TEAM-PLAYER and RESPONSIBLE individual, who is always willing to give more than what he's been asked to do.

Effective COMMUNICATION is a critical skill in every professional. Communication is a 2-way path, so listening carefully and expressing your ideas, clearly, thoroughly, succinctly and accurately should be mastered by a true professional. Either when you're writing an e-mail, having a phone conversation or standing up in a meeting, clear and effective communication is a must.

True professionals are constantly motivated to learn and to keep that knowledge up to date, always fresh. They understand the importance of becoming an EXPERT in their field of work by keeping themselves up to date in the latest software, skills, tools, techniques, required to do their job.

Indeed true professionals are models of what every company's code of conduct book says. As a rare breed they are, they'll treat everyone respectfully and pretty much the same way they expect to be treated. Especially when interacting directly with clients and costumers, either selling goods or as a service provider, the way you treat them will determine how successful your business will be. So certainly EMPATHY, COMPASSION, RESPECT and HUMAN RELATIONS skills are in a true
professional's DNA.

True professionals, regardless of being in a position of power, are humble enough to acknowledge what is not known. They are also capable of admitting their mistakes because they are up-front and responsible individuals. Another HUMILITY signal is that no matter how good they might be, you'll never catch them neither gloating or in a self-praise, boastfulness speech. On the contrary, they'll give credit to whoever deserves credit and possess the best attitude to pass their knowledge to their peers.

In a nutshell being a true professional is an attitude, a passion that emboldens you to do your work with unparalleled energy and contagious enthusiasm. It's way beyond salary and more about giving and serving. It's also about integrity, responsibility, commitment and trustworthiness. Unfortunately for some individuals, you can't fake any of these values, and that makes being a true professional a very powerful brand. A brand that anyone would like to be associated with.

Coaching and Mentoring: The Keys to Being a Successful Leader

2013-01-04T18:49:00.001-08:00

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” John Quincy Adams

Coaching and mentoring are by far the most effective ways to build a team and become a successful leader. They create a strong connection between supervisor and employees by building trust and loyalty, simply because employees feel that they are being valued and appreciated by their supervisor and/or organization.

When an employee is working under the type of leadership that invests in their career advancement —a leadership that not only sets goals and objectives, but also gives clear directions and access to the resources they need to attain top performance— they become a highly motivated employee, and highly motivated employees are usually the most productive ones.

More Commitment and Higher Employee Retention

When employees are experiencing growth and advancement in their careers, it's extremely difficult for them to leave. Realizing that their supervisor cares, the feeling of gratitude for the newly learned skills, and the perception of “being part of the team” are all powerful elements that strengthen their commitment and increase the accountability on any given task.

Reducing Cost of Freelancers

It also helps you to bring everyone to the next level of skills, which in return will improve the quality of performance delivered by your team. In a very challenging job market, where good talent is scarce and expensive, you're better off investing time and resources in helping your staff to realize their full potential, rather than hiring an expensive freelancer. Just imagine the immensely positive impact in your ROI if you're able to reduce or completely cutoff the spending on freelancers.

In a work environment that's constantly changing due to technology and/or economy, quickly adapting to new situations is a must. If you are a manager these days, you're probably facing more work to do with less people to work with; or maybe you've been asked to stop spending on freelancers for the next two months, even though your workflow will not lessen during that period. This is the time when you look at your staff and wish you had two or three copies of your best performer; it's also the time for a reality check, and to start thinking about how easy it would be if your under-performers could develop to their fullest potential.

The Infamous Indispensable Man

Have you ever heard a business owner or an employee gloating about every time they go on vacation, their shop or office descends into anarchy and chaos? You can actually see how important and proud they feel when they're talking about this. Their ego is so inflated they're oblivious to the fact that there's nothing to be proud of. Nobody, absolutely no one, should be indispensable! And when we let this happen, it just means we've failed as managers.

There's a tendency with some insecure individuals, out of the fear of losing their jobs, to "mark territory" and keep a tight grip on certain important tasks that may require specialized training. This is a very common and harmful practice in the workplace and the way to avoid it is simple. As a manager or business owner you need to ensure your coaching and training programs are followed thoroughly as part of the process, never allowing individuals to come up with their very own "personalized system," i.e., user names and passwords to access vendors and client sites, when needed, must be available to anyone in the office.

In an advertising studio, we have individuals with different sets of skills and degrees of expertise. It would be almost impossible to have a studio full of know-it-all, Jack-of-all-trades studio artists, but what you can do is to motivate and coach the team so they can strengthen their weakest skills by supporting them with the proper training. So when your best production artist is out, your designer can handle the task of producing a mechanical.

Leadership is about giving and sharing knowledge, which is the most precious asset anyone can possess, with the only difference that whoever gives knowledge is not losing a bit of it, and this is a beautiful thing. An organization with a structured coaching and mentoring programs would not suffer much if one of the key employees decides to go on a long vacation or leave the company, and periods of transition, i.e., promotion or succession, will go really smoothly.

Love, The Most Precious of All Human Values!

2012-12-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

The morning after Christmas, I was lying down on the couch, watching cartoons with my kids and enjoying my coffee when suddenly my mobile rang. It was my mother who wanted to know about the kids since we didn't celebrate together. I hung up the phone and one of my boys asked me what's the meaning of the word 'value,' (I've just mentioned that word while talking to my mother).

I described value by asking him a simple question, "we have two equal boxes, ones is full of toys and the other is full of dirt, which one is more valuable to you? His answer was obviously the box full of toys and my job was done! He now knows what 'value' means. However, I thought this was a great opportunity to get a bit deeper in the topic and talk to them about personal values.

I turned off the TV and asked them, "Come on guys, let's do something fun and interesting! We're going to learn a bit more about 'value.' Let's now learn the meaning of Personal Values." They were not so thrilled about my idea (I've just interrupted their favorite show). But I continued anyway, after all I didn't feel I was being disruptive because one of them initiated the whole thing.

I asked them to look for their dictionary and gave everyone a list of five thoroughly selected values (all social and human-interaction related values.) Here is the list: Obedience, organization, respect, responsibility, tidiness, honesty, loyalty, trustworthiness, integrity, poise, composure, resilience, generosity, altruism and empathy. They already knew some of these words and a few of the ones they didn't know, were not listed on their dictionary, so they wound up using mine.

When we finished discussing every word, I asked them to visualize two exactly equal treasure chests, one full with gold and diamonds, and the other full of wood. If both chests are closed, we'll need to open them up in order to know what's inside. Then I changed the treasure chests with people and asked, "imagine two individuals, one is responsible, loyal, honest, generous and trustworthy; the other is irresponsible, dishonest, petty-minded, and deceiver. In your opinion which one possess the values you'd like your friends and the people around you to have? They all agreed the first one has the values they would like their friends to have. Then my six years old daughter asked me, "like gold and diamonds in the box, what would be the most precious of all values for a person to have?

My brain paused for a few seconds, thinking about the best answer for my daughter's question and suddenly I was able to clearly see the answer. "Love it is my dear Jazz. If you fill your heart with love you'll fulfill all the other values," I replied to my daughter. I just couldn't believe how did I mention fifteen personal values and forgot the most precious of all. It all started with me trying to teach something to my kids and I was the one learning the lesson!!

LinkedIn Recommendations: An Advertising Studio Manager's Insight

2012-05-23T21:13:00.000-07:00

By Ernie Arias

"Credit to the fullest the good qualities to be found in others, even though they may far outshine your own." William M. Peck

A LinkedIn recommendation has more value than just a Like, sharing or commenting on any of the other social networks. As a matter of fact, if you think about this, it's the equivalent of all three social media metric markers in one single post. Let me explain, when you recommend someone it's always a positive comment about an individual's performance (like and comment) and when you post it, you're actually sharing it to all your contacts (share). Not to mention that once you post a recommendation and the recipient approves, it gets embedded on both of your profiles permanently (of course, unless you withdraw it). So we're talking about a triple combo of a share, a like and a comment with no expiration date!! Get the idea!

Motivation Through Recognition

The other great value of a recommendation via LinkedIn is that it's by far the cheapest, and one of the most appreciated, ways of performance recognition. Unfortunately, it's also so underrated and underutilized because of the misconception of identifying salary raises as the only way to recognize employees, and perhaps some more traditional individuals are just concerned about using the mainstream media and going public with it. But you can't imagine how good it feels to get a simple word of praise, compliment, pat-on-the-back or a LinkedIn recommendation (BTW, it's free). It's such a great motivation knowing that your effort has been recognized by your boss, your peers or anyone within your working environment. It works like fuel, igniting you to accomplish more and greater things within your company.

The True Essence of a Recommendation

Recommendations have been traditionally requested by individuals, either when quitting a job, or when being laid off for reasons not related to performance. It's usually called a recommendation or reference letter, depending on to whom the letter is addressed. These type of references are also requested by Human Resources departments and managers at any level involved in the hiring process. As a studio manager, I've both received and requested references about job candidates, and I've observed there's something in common: There is a non-written code between managers about the trustworthiness of these references and recommendations. Your professional reputation and integrity are simply on the line if you're ever caught lying about an employee's past performance.

We can clearly see three very distinctive aspects in a LinkedIn recommendation, starting with how it's perceived from a social media point of view; the amazing motivational power it has, which can be utilized by managers and HR in their reward programs; and the qualitative value of being trustworthy by adhering to its true essence.

Tips From The Experts

Most social media experts advise that before you ask for something you first have to give something, and the same principle applies to LinkedIn recommendations. Many following this tip are trading or swapping recommendations with fellow professionals. The truth of the matter is, regardless how you get a recommendation, it better be trustworthy. Having several recommendations could make any LinkedIn profile look good. However, you need to keep in mind that what really counts—it's not a social media metric algorithm (Klout, Peerindex, Kred, etc.) scrawling your profile. Instead, it's a pair of human eyes reading and assessing the content that will enable you to land the job. Quality over quantity!!

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Thanks,
Ernie Arias

Delegation, The Power To Empower

2012-04-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

By Ernie Arias

"I just do what I'm really good at, to delegate. The rest I delegate it." @ERNIEARIAS twitted on July 14th, 2011. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/91704449155862529

My first gig as a studio manager was about ten years ago. A responsibility I earned because of my work ethic, outstanding skills as a studio artist and an excellent interaction with my co-workers as well as with the Traffic Coordinators, Editorial, Print Production and Account personnel. Pretty much everyone agreed I was right for the position and I was very excited in taking this new challenging opportunity. However, today I look back and realize how 'green' I was, regardless how super-talented I might be.

I still remember my first week as being such a traumatic and stressful experience, because either I wanted to do everything myself or at least be involved in it more than I needed to be as a supervisor. There I was, completely out of my comfort zone and as someone else pointed out, "I found myself distrusting my piers," the very same individuals I've never judged or distrusted before when I was not a supervisor. On the contrary, they were all excellent professionals and we had a very strong studio process in place plus a newly created quality control unit. As a matter of fact, there was no rationale that could have possibly explained my behavior. So what was wrong? What's happening?

My problem was very simple, I was not delegating as much as I should. It took me a while until I was able to adjust to my new responsibilities as manager and learned to delegate effectively.

The Big Picture

Delegation is probably one of the most important skills a studio manager must possess and it's as simple as assessing the job requests, dealing with priorities and distributing the workload among your staff (and freelancers), always following the cardinal rule of not doing anything that doesn't absolutely need to be done by you. It's very easy to fall in the trap of creating a work overload on your desk if you don't delegate effectively, especially to those who are very skillful and can take care of any task as good as any studio artist or even better. You need to focus in your task as a manager in order to maintain control over the workflow, priorities, process and quality of the final delivery. You must sit down on the 'Captain's chair' to be able to see the 'big picture' and ensure the operation is running smoothly, as well as to identify, anticipate any potential problem and take corrective action.

Building Trust And Empowering Your Staff

By delegating, assigning important tasks, you build trust and create a sense of ownership and empowerment among your team. Trust is essential to leadership and team building, and also to earn respect beyond your appointed position. Good employees are very observant of the manager's ability to delegate and when they sense they're not being utilized as much as they can perform or to the level they can perform, they simply feel themselves as not being trusted, hence a bit demoralized. They can also misjudge the manager as not being confident or even worse, holding a heavy workload on your desk might also be misinterpreted as territorial protection.

The good news is that delegation is a skill, and as any skill it can be learned. Not surprisingly, there is a very tight connection between your title and your ability to delegate. The higher you climb up the corporate ladder, the more refined and effective your delegation skills must be.

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If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it, please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias

A New Business Pitch: Put The Bubbly On Ice, This One Is A Win!!

2012-04-14T18:07:00.001-07:00

By Ernie Arias

Of all activities, New Business pitches are the most exhausting, demanding and strenuous projects in any advertising studio. They can also be the most satisfying and rewarding, especially when the 'cherry on top' is a big WIN. It feels as if you're putting your hands on the most coveted of all trophies after a fierce and long competition.

What a win Represents

Winning a new account or getting more business out of an existing client, it's essentially what our business is about. You don't have to be a genius to realize that a new account will bring financial gains to your company and eventually this translates into securing job spots, the possibility of hiring more talent, new creative challenge that comes with a new product, brand or market and it also opens the door to expand the clientele because of all the good PR that comes with a new business win. It's not a coincidence when an agency wins an account, several others come right after. Simply put, every new business acquisition adds equity to an agency's brand.

Team effort and studio's role

You can certainly compare a new business pitch with a competition because that's exactly what it is. Several agencies competing against each other in a showdown of creativity, marketing and business strategies. The studio is an integral team member in this 'competition' and plays two very important and distinctive roles. The one prior to a presentation and what we do after the agency wins an account.

Let's use this analogy from ancient times to represent the studio roles: Hunters would go out into the wild for days and come back to 'put the meat on the table.' Then you have the people who'd cook and grill this meat to perfection in order to feed the whole tribe. Prior to the hunting campaign there was a team preparing those hunters with proper weapons and some food and water to survive several days out of their shelter. In this analogy the group of people preparing the hunters represent the studios.

Every creative execution, regardless the media in which is going to be presented, goes to the studios for an exhaustive clean-up and meticulous scrutiny before it's produced either as a printed and mounted board or as a video presentation. After a win, the studios are in charge of delivering ads (print and digital), web sites, direct mail, in-store and OOH pieces to vendors and publications. Some people usually call it the 'dirty work,' while I call it the 'Final Touch.' And the quality of this 'final touch' in combination with an excellent creative output and a stellar Account team performance is what allows an agency to get more business from an existing client.

Don't you want to be part of this?

So after knowing all of these interesting facts, don't you want to be part of the team working on the next new business pitch? Well, I do. And I believe every employee should embrace new business as one of the most (or maybe the most) important projects in an agency. New business efforts bring cohesion, strengthen our culture, raise the morale and promote high employee engagement, not to mention of all the good things that come after a win.

I can hear the Commodore shouting, with his powerful and commanding voice, "Bring the champagne! This is a win! Let's celebrate!!"

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If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it, please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias

Studio Procedures and Deadlines: Walking The Tightrope

2012-03-23T19:12:00.001-07:00

By Ernie Arias

"To manage a studio is not enough to walk the fine line between business and service, yet stick to process. We also need emotional intelligence." Ernie Arias on Twitter 7/8/2011
https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/89435174877659136

Small graphic businesses, design firms and some boutique agencies are not as complexly organized and well-structured as a large advertising firm. This becomes more evident when it comes to creative services and more specifically the studio. Many of these organizations don't even have a studio but instead a unit where graphic designers, art directors, retouchers and producers converge and everyone is a "Jack-of-all-trades," multifaceted and super-qualified employee. Camaraderie, proactivity and team work are always present, and this might be the perfect environment for creative ideas to flourish in. However, you can also find a bit of disorganization; lack of structure and procedures, which affect the workflow and billing system.

Several books, articles and non-traditional media about BPM (Business Process Management) have been written and pretty much all of them agree on one thing: the main reason for having or creating management procedures is to guarantee consistency in delivering a product or a service. There is a popular saying; "measure it twice and cut it once." I am going to use it as an analogy. In our case, it would be "follow the process and you only have to work once."

Standard Studio Procedures
Standard studio procedures have been created out of learned experience and most of the time are based on trial and error, by what is demanded on a particular situation in a specific moment, with means that have been proven to be effective. Procedures prevent errors, streamline the work and guarantee consistency, regardless of who is working on any given job. So it's very important to watch out for those requests to avoid studio procedures because they will compromise the deadline. Be tactful and convey to requesters how important it is to follow the process. Ask them about the possibility of extending the—deadline because if something goes wrong, there's always going to be time to fix it.

There are some procedures common to every studio, but I'll just mention 3 of the most important ones:

Proofreading—Every job routing out of the studio needs to be proofread. You should never, ever buy into "No, it doesn't need to be proofread. It's just internal." Or "We don't have time to proofread the document." Well, I've got news for you. As a studio manager, you're accountable for any misspelling errors if you go along with such an irresponsible attitude. My recommendation is to either greek the copy or place a watermark across the document with something like "DOCUMENT WAS NOT PROOFREAD, AS PER REQUEST. STUDIO IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY MISSPELLING ERRORS." This will definitely deter any requester trying to avoid proofreading.
Flight-check and Quality Control—Every completed job going to a pub, a vendor or any digital/web material needs to be checked thoroughly prior to release. Studios are the final destination of all the laborious efforts made by the rest of the teams. We are the last line of defense, hence the need to create a robust QC process. Whether created with cutting-edge technology or manually, every job going out has to be perfect.
Routing Signatures—Slugs are a standard medium to route jobs throughout the agency and there's a signature box in it for everyone responsible for overseeing each round. It is imperative that everyone involved sign off on every single round to prevent an excessive amount of rounds and to increase accountability. With today's digital technology, there shouldn't be excuses for not routing a job to all parties involved. When an editor, a proofreader, or a studio manager address some issues about a job on the routing printout, those queries require the addressee's attention. It is very frustrating when a job routes back to the studio with unanswered queries.

No Procedure Is Set In Stone

Every studio has its own personality and for that reason it needs its own customized directives, based on industry standard procedures, to be able to function and engage seamlessly with the rest of the agency. Procedures are meant to streamline, to ensure quality, to increase accountability and, as I mentioned before, to ensure consistency in your output. It's a very well discussed and thorough process before you establish a determined procedure but the reality is that a new technology (software or hardware), a new client, or even the economy can trigger a revision in your current process. It's not a perfect science but it helps immensely in our quotidian management routine!

I hope you've enjoyed the article. Please post your opinion. Comments are greatly appreciated!!
EA

Corporate Fitness 101: Managing A Lean Studio

2012-02-27T23:30:00.000-08:00

By Ernie Arias

Advertising industry, with its highs and lows, offers quite an interesting challenge in financial management. The need to maintain 'healthy' quarterly financial statements regardless of business 'going south' on a downhill ride, it is perhaps the most important task and responsibility over the shoulders of a CFO and any department director presenting financial reports. And among all agency's departments, the studio is undoubtedly the quintessential, role model of a business unit within a business because of its service-provider nature, therefore it's at the same time the easiest one to be outsourced in its entirety.

I bring outsourcing into this article as the total opposite solution some Operation Managers opt for, when things go sour financially speaking. The bottom line is that it's a business and it needs to be profitable otherwise it will collapse.

Technology, The Backbone Of 'The Skeleton Crew'
Backbone and Skeleton might sound a little creepy, but the reality is that we must rely on cutting-edge technology to streamline and optimize tasks. Just like robotics technology replaced dozens of hard-labor employees in a processing plant, the same way cutting-edge technology like Dalim Twist, Xinet WebNative suite, FMP-JobCharge, etc., allow us to streamline our work flow, to increase productivity and to manage with a few good ones (über studio artists.)

You can go technical if you want, and utilize sophisticated methods to determine who are the studio overachievers that will allow you to run a lean studio; SWOT analyses, performance reviews, the Pareto or 80/20 rule,, etc., the truth is that you already know who they are and if you don't my recommendation is to do the 'mental exercise' so when the time comes to cut staff you are ready for it. (This might sound cruel and heartless but the reality is every employee's salary must represent 3X revenue in order to have a healthy profit margin, hence the need of managers to make sometimes unpopular decisions.)

Staffing Agencies + Social Networks
Now that you're running the studio with a reduced number of excellent employees, one thing you don't want to do is to burn them out. It wouldn't be proper to "reward" or better say to punish them with ridiculous amount of work, unless you want to compromise the morale in your team.

It is true that in this business we have to put many times the extra effort. However, this should never be the norm. In order to create sustainability with this model you need to have a reliable source of freelancers that will cover the over flow, so having a good commercial relationship with staffing agencies plus building your own pool of talented freelancers by the means of social networks, it is the way to go.

Fluctuating Work Flow
With this business model there is absolute guarantee the staffers' profit margin will be substantially high and bringing freelancers will always have a rationale, so regardless is billable or non-billable you should have a positive profit margin or worst case scenario, at least you'll cut even.

Communication between departments is critical. Getting timely heads up from Project Managers and Print Producers will allow the studio manager to staff properly and to keep any project within the estimated budget. There is also the need to incorporate certain preemptive measures as part of our billing and staffing process to avoid undesirable situations with the requester.

Get Lean Without Being Mean
As I mentioned before, this is a business and it must be profitable otherwise it might collapse. But you don't need to be a corporate tyrant in order to achieve this, on the contrary, now that you have a crew of super qualified and talented individuals who are giving you 110% whenever is required, you must consider putting your management efforts towards keeping a high morale within your group by the means of compensation, reward programs and even salary raises. If you used the 80/20 rule to pick them up you should know that they were the 20% of your crew responsible for generating 80% of the revenue, so they really deserve it.

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If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias

Retrospective: Top 12 Social Media Tweets From An Advertising Studio Manager

2012-02-22T10:18:00.000-08:00

It has been almost a year when I experienced a strong connection with social media and started using pretty much all social networks. To celebrate my first year of actively tweeting, I've collected some of my most memorable tweets (descending chronological order) to share with you:

#Advertising Creatives got hitched with #Pinterest because pins & boards are part of e-day activity. War rooms, meetings, focus groups, etc. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/173068239864213505
When are Corporations Going To Recognize Bad CSR Is The Equivalent To Really Bad PR? | #mobile @SonyEriccsonUS | https://t.co/aLrxKjh5 | https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/152161875164012546
@DeepakChopra, #SocialMedia is the closest tangible thing to compare with the cosmic grid or the quantum connection. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/99022239776784384
I've been devouring a massive amount of media in the last couple of weeks. The excretion or byproduct are all the tweets I've posted lately. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/98623235557556225
In the beginning to read & write made you literate. Centuries later we became Digital Literate. Now literacy means being #SocialMedia literate. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/98055072591790081
People in power using The Power of the People. Very powerful combo: | http://t.co/ysbZYBJ | https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/97002498384068608
SocialMedia, a massive and constantly-growing organism that feeds on 'word of mouth', can't be easily predicted by 'gurus.' https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/96295458217005056
LinkedIn is more than your resume on steroids. It is the most valuable collection of refined data you can find in the web. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/93271227216572416
More and more people are feeling the need to compromise with #socialmedia. It is a very important factor in the hiring process currently. https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/90639481471893505
Kurzweil's 'Singularity' and Zuckerberg's 'Law of Social Sharing' are both supported on Moore's Law. http://tcrn.ch/puXjWr via @techcrunch https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/89068359408287744
Psycographics: A more refined data than just demographics. Conversion will possibly surpass your goals. http://lnkd.in/Awr7wg https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/86765352951873536
Brand exposure does not longer need to be 15 or 30 Secs spots. Making your ad go social will increase exposure time dramatically! https://twitter.com/ERNIEARIAS/statuses/80256844882395136

I hope you enjoy my story and can appreciate the ingenuity within these tweets. It's like someone who've just discovered this powerful new thing and is so excited about it. Since then my enthusiasm has just grown exponentially and I've been studying and experimenting with social media. The more I do it the more I like it. I believe I've just found an activity that turned out to define a turning point in my life and professional career. 'Enhorabuena Social Media.'

I hope you've enjoyed the article. Please post your opinion. Comments are greatly appreciated!!
EA

On A Quest To Hire The Über Production Artist

2012-01-26T18:04:00.000-08:00

After reading my blog post "The Über-Manager: A True Story", a high-end Retoucher asked me what does it take to be an Über-Studio Artist and I answered the following:

"In my story about the Über-Manager, I am referring to an individual who cannot only manage but work and do pretty much anything in a studio. In your case to be an Über-Artist you'll have to take the 'Specialist' approach instead of the 'do-it-all.' Retouchers, unlike Production Artists, don't need to know as many applications, instead they need to be specialists in order to find their niche, a position and to create professional brand.

Studio Managers really appreciate when a Retouching Artist knows about color profiles, effective resolution, spot color usage, file formats and technical prepress knowledge. However, what really gives you an edge is to be a specialist within the specialty. For instance if you are an expert retoucher in high-fashion or jewelry, or a wizard doing background extensions out of 'nada.' Those are the qualities that will make you stand out from the crowd."

With this thought in mind I started analyzing the characteristics we look for when hiring a studio artist. In general we want them to be responsible and reliable, to have a good attitude, expertise in their field and software knowledge, etc.

Production Artist qualities
A mechanical artist needs to be a pre-press wizard, someone who understands that we receive comps (visual layouts) from Art Directors and we need to transform them into a printable piece (mechanicals ready for production). Let's put together a list of the most notable skills a production artist should have:

Software—Proficiency using Indesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat is a must. Shortcuts knowledge is what makes the difference between a power user and a junior artist. Speed and quality are critical in a production environment.
Pre-flighting—Thorough knowledge about effective resolution, color trapping, color profiles, how to troubleshoot files, i.e., a banding gradient, PMS colors appearing twice in the color palette because of bad naming, etc.
Logo usage and Branding, Style Guide knowledge—It's a godsend when a production artist knows all the nuances about a specific account.
Typography and Typesetting skills—Font knowledge and font management usage. Being detail oriented and able to identify when tracking and kerning are not right or inconsistent, having the eye to appreciate when leading and/or paragraph spacing is/are off or inconsistent, minimize the use of text boxes with the proper use of Indesign typesetting tools (setting tabs and tables when appropriate), creation of style sheets and spell checking before printing.
Mechanical Revisions—Attention to detail is required for every Studio Artist, and while doing a revision to a mechanical might not be a difficult or glamorous task, you'd be surprised at how many times a simple punctuation or deletion request is missed in a round. Good Production Artists check their own work before it goes to proofreading.
Design sense—Even though most of the production artist job posts say "not a designer position," in my opinion every production artist should have the ability to interpret the Art Director's design and must be able to translate and respect the integrity of such design when resizing a mechanical. Beyond the obvious knowledge of bleed, trim and safety, it is very important to see when elements are not properly aligned, cluttered, off-balance and/or disproportionate. Art Directors truly appreciate when Production Artists add value to their layouts.
Diecuts—Setting up mechanicals with foldouts, gatefolds, BRCs, pockets and interesting printing processes like spot varnish, metallic inks, die construction, etc., is like Disneyland to the Production Artists. It is the kind of task that allows them to show a certain degree of expertise in the trade. (In my days as a Production Artist those were my favorite.)
Workflow and Process—A good Production Artist follows directions and understands how important it is to adhere to the studio process. File organization, folder structure and naming conventions must be consistent across the board.
Delivering files to pubs and vendors—PDF X1A workflow is the standard when delivering files to a publication. However, a Collect for Output (CFO) is the norm when delivering files to a vendor. So it's really important for a Production Artist to understand the science behind a PDF X1A compliant file as much as it's important to make sure that all assets have been collected when doing a CFO. A common mistake the artists make when doing a CFO is missing to collect either a font or a bitmap file that's being used in an Illustrator file. Testing and attention to detail are a must when doing file delivery.

With the rise of new technology like Dalim Twist (Pre-media) and Xinet Webnative (Digital Asset Management system); Adstream (file delivery to pubs); and software upgrades (Slugger, Cropster, Color Breaker, etc.) that streamlines tedious and complicated tasks, the job of a Production Artist has become much easier than what it used to be a few years ago. Nevertheless, technology is just an aide. Just knowing how to use a software doesn't make you an Über Production Artist, but the understanding and knowledge of the concepts behind that technology. Either by means of traditional paste-up or using computer technology the true concept of a mechanical build is what counts.

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If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias

Skills, Motivation and Attitude: Which is the most important?

2011-11-15T22:05:00.000-08:00

By Ernie Arias

Never before has the hiring pool been so crowded with Social and Digitally-savvy, super-talented young adults coming out of college; seasoned, experienced individuals out of the workplace due to layoffs caused by the recent recession; and people who are working but in the process of making a career move. It's like heaven for recruiters, employers and managers, having so much talent to choose from. It might also be a bit frightening trying to choose the right candidate from such a group of super-qualified professionals.

In all my years managing Studios I've learned that there are three very distinctive quality traits you must identify in an employee, skills and/or abilities, motivation, and attitude. Fundamentally, skills and abilities are the knowledge they possess in the industry based on study, training and experience; motivation is what moves the individual into action, it could be money or recognition, a perk, a bonus or a prize, whatever moves your boat; attitude is every person's approach towards a specific task or situation.

See below how they are defined by Merriam Webster and Wikipedia:

Skill, as defined by the Merriam Webster Dictionary, is the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance. Dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks.

Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. According to various theories, motivation may be rooted in a basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and resting, or a desired object, goal, state of being, ideal, or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, selfishness, morality, or avoiding mortality.

An Attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and negative attitudes toward the item in question.

Skills/abilities, motivation and attitude are all important. It's like having a 3-legged stool, if you take one leg out, the stool will fall down right away. However, I consider motivation and attitude to be the most important traits in this trio. Skills and abilities are what you learn either by proper training or experience and it is proven that a highly motivated individual is usually more prone to learn new things and adapt to new situations than someone with low drive. The key is to pinpoint the element that moves this individual into action. Then we can start talking about a universal motivator like money which includes salary, perks, benefits, bonuses, etc. Other motivators are not as tangible as money and they have to do more with the person's ethical values, the need for recognition, the desire for professional growth and advancement, etc.

Attitude, as per definition, is how you approach a situation. It could be positive, negative or somewhere in between, and it has nothing to do with how skillful and knowledgeable this person might be. True professionals always have the best attitude, and even when the task at hand is not exactly what they'd prefer to work on, you rarely see them complaining to their manager.

Motivation and attitude differ from skills/abilities in how anything you learn is within yourself and actually improves with time, you don't forget what you already know unless there is a physical ailment like amnesia. On the other hand motivation and attitude can change very easily, and you can see how an employee's motivation drops when he/she stops receiving one of the things that promotes their motivation, i.e., if the company decides to stop issuing cab vouchers to the employees to reduce cost. Another example of how an employee with good demeanor and positive attitude can change to a very negative one is when they feel an atmosphere of unfairness in the job place.

The best part is how easy it is to identify if an individual possess a good attitude and what's their motivation, right in the interview process. Future Rock Stars are usually found in individuals with the best attitude and the ones whose motivation goes beyond money. Ironically, those are the ones also who get the promotions and salary raises.

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Ernie Arias

Studio Performance Metrics: Math, Perception, or Good Management?

2011-10-24T23:06:00.000-07:00

Measuring an individual's performance in an Advertising Studio with Profit Center guidelines, could be as easy as applying a simple Profit Margin formula that will accurately give you each artist's ROI. However, these numbers can be particularly deceiving in many ways.

Let me explain by presenting five Case Studies with a universe of 10 operators, which can very well represent any Studio population:

Case Study #1
A Studio with 10 operators where only 3 of them have the required set of skills to handle every single request. These 3 operators do more than 80% of the work load while the rest will have lots of downtime on their time-sheets. Not very promising. You should probably be looking to run a lean Studio with only 3 or 4 operators.

Case Study #2
A skill-balanced Studio with 2 conflicting, bad-attitude individuals and 3 proactive operators will pretty much present the same workload unbalance as the previous case. We have 3 operators coming to their Manager asking for the next job, volunteering to do overtime. Before you know it, their active participation, good work ethic and close interaction with their supervisor will have them getting most of the work load every single day. And again, plenty of downtime on the other operators' timesheets.

Case Study #3
The "Specialist" or the Studio Artist who usually works on special projects, which are usually non-billable. Even when this individual often work more hours than the rest, the fact is that anyone working on billable jobs can easily beat his ROI by only working half as many hours.

Case Study #4
“Slow” or "Milking the jobs" operators. These individuals present a double problem to the Studio Manager. Their timesheets are usually "air-tight" with no downtime but at the same time they affect the job estimate, resulting in conflict with the client or requester because of overcharging, not to mention that it also affects the morale of the rest of the team.

Case Study #5
The "Charismatic" operator. This is the one that some of the requesters ask to work with exclusively. These operators are usually very skilled and possess great personality—nothing wrong about this. The problem is by allowing the requester to dictate whom they want to work with, you are pretty much defeating the purpose of a balanced job distribution throughout your team.

All these cases, more often than what you'd imagine, can go unnoticed. Many Studio Managers go on the routinely and easy road of handling the daily work load with "their people" and don't really pay too much attention to this situation.

It actually presents a true management challenge when there is anticipation of the problem and we're trying to ensure a fair workload distribution. In many occasions an operator presents a poor performance review, when it might really be a case of poor management. It is a fact that not all the operators have the same level of skills, so let's create an environment of highly motivated individuals by means of reward programs and also by promoting professional growth via training and coaching.

An Individual's performance shouldn't be measured by applying a single metric only, there are so many variables in place that is absolutely necessary to pay attention to details.

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Ernie Arias

The Über-Manager: A true story

2011-10-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

In a shrinking economy resulting from a huge market crash and a subsequent recession, corporations had to deal with the nuances of keeping businesses profitable and stable at all cost. So you could see massive layoffs, expending cuts, merging departments, etc.

Pro-active Department Directors were holding staff and status meetings periodically to keep track of individual performances and finance in general. So in one of those meetings held by the Director of the Studio with all his managers, one of them proposed to train all the managers by giving them the opportunity to learn the other manager's job description. Making them able to cover any position due to vacation or sickness. He even coined the term as the 'Über-Manager'.

More than one laughed after this genuinely and brain-child-out-of-the-box thought. I'd say it was kind of funny the way it was proposed. To make the story short, a year and a half after that meeting it is not a surprise that within that department all the managers fit the concept of the 'Über-Manager'.

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Ernie Arias

Breaking the Laws of Physics or Meeting Impossible Deadlines

2011-10-10T14:57:00.000-07:00

I was recently reading a post from Liz Resko in the LinkedIn Studio and Print Production Manager's group (ASPMLINK). It was about what a Studio Manager can do to enforce deadlines. All the comments, from the really complacent ones which saw it as the norm for the Studio to not get enough time, to the process-oriented opinions, missed the point, until Liz intervened again and explained she was not referring to her own unit, but instead to other departments "dropping the ball" and putting the burden on the Studio.

It was very interesting to notice that many of the good suggestions focused on improving communication at all levels, from developing good relationships between departments (internal) and between Studio and Vendors (external).

In Print Production it is very important for the Studio to have close communication with the Producers, briefing on big projects and launches; a robust process and workflow supported by high-end technology (Dalim Twist and Xinet); Monday Status meetings, and CSR-quality relationship with Pubs and Vendors. There is so much control in your hands when dealing with print production, you know exactly what to expect because everything has been previously scheduled, and having Print Producers that know how to manage their projects (upstream, creatives and account) is an absolute godsend.

On the other hand, the Creative Development process is a bit more complicated. This is where you find the personal-agenda kind of deadlines ("My friends are waiting for me at the Pub"); the "I forgot to send you the new copy" (Really?! Just if they're honest enough to admit it), or the classic "The creatives are still working on the files." And instead of bringing the material on time, it comes to the Studio an hour after, and to top it off, the requester asks you candidly if they can make FedEx or have everything ready for their 8:30 AM presentation, after we've already discussed how much time the Studio needs for turnaround. It is as if the Studio can break the laws of Physics and expand time and space at our will.

In conclusion, it is everyone's responsibility to make sure deadlines are met. We all must be aware of the consequences of missing an ad insertion or not sending a PDF to the client on time; there should be accountability in every step of the process. In a nutshell, communication is the key to accomplishing a smooth operation between departments and like my ex-boss used to say, "First we need to fix our own problems. We need to be 'buttoned-up' before we can demand or complain about another unit's problems."

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Ernie Arias

Ernie's blog

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Breaking the Laws of Physics or Meeting Impossible Deadlines

"Every presenter has the potential to be great; every presentation is high stakes, and every audience deserves the absolute best.”
Nancy Duarte