Artists: find a manager, create a partner... its worth it

As many know, Breathe Productions sits here in Almonte, Ontario amongst some of the World's top artists... from fine arts, to childrens entertainers to musicians. For the past 3 years I have been diving deeper and deeper into their private worlds, enjoying casual beers and dinners with them, spending time at their homes and with their families. I learned a valuable secret: They are NOT what they appear to be on stage or in their galleries!

The truth is, the confidence they exude on stage or with their work often dissappears in private. Many their perceived confidences quickly slip away and the, almost traditional, aura of the 'struggling artist' rears its head. Fact of the matter is, artists love their art. It is their source of energy and represents the full spectrum of business they are interested in... it is their adminstration, production, marketing and sales all wrapped up in a single piece of work, song or performance... once done, they often find it hard to get to the real admin, production, marketing and sales. Unfortunately here lies their traditional downfall.

Breathe recently entered into a relationship with a local artist. One whom spent 150% energy on her product, the administration of her shows, the marketing of her energy and the sale of her stories... after which, all her traditional admin, production, sales and marketing slid. She both had no time and the wrong enthusiasm towards it. As with ANY type of company, her business began to fail... or at least, it struggled.

We moved in and took over the admin. Immediately there was no need for her to worry about scheduling, billing, dealing with suppliers and customers. We took over production. Her dreams of a tv show, film, CD and DVD products are now moving continually forward. Her financing applications are being done on time for these productions. We have taken charge of the web site. It no longer looks like the pieced together site she used to have on an artist's budget. It is impressing and her marketing looks professional and well managed. People are phoning. We are booking for her now. Following up on all sales calls, developing templated pitches for her multitude of potential clients, ensuring quality in presentation is high. We are billing and handling all financial arrangements.

Oh. Our struggling artist... well... she is performing more than ever, she just wrote her umpteenth new story, is rehersing with a new group of musicians, has found an amazing sound engineer for her next CD and is working with a local puppeteer on a new character. She's happy and her artistic product is going to new levels.

The moral of the story is an age-old reality. People thrive at the role they are destined to work. That role HAS to be a role they enjoy. Artists enjoy art. Administrators and producers like Breathe Productions, enjoy just that... administration, production, marketing and sales. An equal partnership bringing the creative together with management is key to the success of any artist. If you think you cannot afford this! Think again. If the art/product is good and the market is there... companies like Breathe will simply invest the time into an equal partnership... In other words, you get someone who increases your sales by a TON and you simply split the profits.

If you are worried about giving too much of the pot away, think about this famous theory: "50% of something good is far less than 100% of nothing.

Don't forget about the traditional web site

Yup, we're going through yet another web movement, this time in the shape of the blog, wiki, podcast and other nifty vehicles...lending to a growing opportunity base for gaining attention to you, your brand and your products/services. All cool. But remember, this is not the end of your challenge. Its great that you're gaining all this wonderful attention, but many of the decisions your clients and potential clients are making are from your web site. Period.

Establishing yourself as an authority figure in any industry can make a sale. True enough, there are those out there who can stand on a table-top and give the speach of their life, take that aggressive stand, pronounce their ideas with such clarity and evangelical strength that folks will simply walk up to them and close the deal. Done. But for most of us, we need to show a bit more. Our speech will get them to a point of interest, they'll grab our business card and they're off. Sometimes, to carry the metaphor farther, they will leave without even speaking directly to us... remembering only our domain name or company name. For those, those silently interested ones, we need our traditional sales materials to work.

When one blogs, participates in wiki's and/or delivers podcasts to a marketplace, we need to ensure the silent listener, the' lurker' as they call it on the web, is able to get somewhere to be convinced. These folks are your MAJORITY! Just as not everyone will hand you their business card at a tradeshow seminar, on-line blog readers will not leave any trace they ever read your blog. They will, however, check out your web site... at which point, if you are selling something, they need all their answers answered. They need to become a qualified lead and either order or contact you ... they need to be 'welcomed' into your natural pitch. Without a proper traditional web site, this will never happen.

Don't stop blogging. Treat it as another great marketing/PR vehicle. Use it to create a community amongst your clients and staff. Ensure the world knows of who you are, what your products and services can do and such... but bring them somewhere that will fill in the blanks that can mean the difference between a sale and a lost lead. Make sure that your web site is a perfect companion to your marketing tools.

Paypal, banking security warning !

You most likely have heard this warning, but let me make it official !

Of interest to whom?
- Those with on-line bank accounts
- Those with accounts at ecommerce sites
- Those with accounts at Paypal specifically

Your access to the above mentioned accounts is sacred! Unfortunately there are initiatives on-going to take this information from you and drain your accounts. It happens very often! The best way to heed this warning is to describe the process and make you aware of its simplicity and its danger.

A security warning via email
Many banks and Paypal are victim to this. An email will be sent to all those with accounts at these banks and at Paypal. The email will look very much like the bank or Paypal, complete with logo, type and even return email addresses with @paypal.com or @royalbank.com ! The email will warn that "there has been a potential security problem and your account needs to be modified" They usually say that your password needs to be changed immediately. The email will then provide a link for you to click on.

The illegal link!
When you click on the link you are taken to a screen that looks EXACTLY like Paypal or your bank web site. You will be asked to log in. Here is where you run into HUGE trouble. If you notice at the top of your screen, you will see the website address listed like "190.220.232.1/something/something/paypalsecurity something...." or a strange domain that has nothing to do with your bank or paypal ... other than a mention in it near the end.

You have been taken to a strange, untraceable web site where they are trying to get your user name and password. If you enter your user name and password at this screen, the information goes immediately to the crooks. They will then IMMEDIATELY log into your account and transfer funds to temporary accounts they create and run.

Warnings
- Never follow an email link to a log in page... for any reason... be it banking, paypal or anything else!!!
- Never give out your user name or password to ANYONE. Banks, paypal and ecommerce sites NEVER ask for it other than when you yourself visit the site on your own accord by entering the domain name yourself in the address field above in your browser.
- Keep an eye out for weird account activity.

Solutions
- keep your username and password secret even to your cat.
- Report ALL emails to your bank or paypal etc. Again, NONE of these ligitimate places hit you with emails!
- Change your password regularly and do not keep it in Outlook or elsewhere electronic!

Domain registrar rant

Sum this one up as a rant... pure and simple.

I received my umpteenth email and letter from Domain Registry of Canada. All official and all very formal. These folks inform me on a regular basis that my domain will be expiring shortly... er... relatively shortly... and invite me to head to their web site to renew.... for $43 per year! Did I mention that I have NO domains registered with this registrar?

It starts with the letters and ends with a series of emails from the Domain Registry of Canada (or 'America' for those in the US). The quite-formal letters come a good 4 to 6 months ahead of the expiry date of your domain. They look impressive and are quite serious, aimed at sending an 'official warning'. For the average Joe, an expiry notice for your valued domain can be scary. Odds are, they head to the Domain Registry site and renew (drog.com). Problem is, most of the time, like me, you did NOT register with them in the first place and, in effect, what you end up doing is transfering your domain from your initial provider to this new one. The real issue is the ethical practice of stealing domains like this compounded by their outrageous pricing. The average domain registrar charges around the 20$ mark per domain renewal. They charge 43$ per registry or renewal. That's highway robbery at best!

This is how the Domain Registry of Canada and America makes a living. Hitting up unsuspecting domain owners months before their domains expire and scaring them into a transfer/renewal, NOT just renewal. Where a consumer friendly domain registrar will notify their domain owners a month or so before expiration date, the Domain Registry of Canada and the Domain Registry of America spend time mining for domains and their expiration dates. They then try to highjack them with a good many warnings via letters, then emails, months before the expiration date. Many folks who are not aware that this group are stealing domains will choose to panic and register with them.

The Domain Registry of Canada and America are not government agencies, but communicate like they are. They produce very formal emails and letters with government-ish letterhead etc. They will try to take your domain by transfering it... where they say they are 'renewing', much of the time they are 'transfering and renewing', a big difference, especially in cost. They are not practicing straight up business and are feeding on the unaware... a poor ethical approach to business and one I condemn.

Warnings:
- Be aware of who your registrar really is!
- Keep your account info and your password to yourself
- Watch out for wording in the agreements that implies a 'transfer' as opposed to a 'renewal'
- Keep an eye on pricing... you should be getting fair market price
- When you receive a letter or email from the Domain Registry of Canada or America, immediately check and see if you are registered there. Go to Internic/whois look up sites and confirm your domain's registrar.


Solutions:
- Call your web or internet service provider if you have any questions or concerns about your domain's expiration date.
- If you are registered with the Domain Registry of Canada or America, go to another provider (domainpeople.com, Bluegenesis.com are two good ones) and transfer your domain pronto!!!
- If you receive an email from these folks, reply to it with a complaint. Even better, call the Better Business Bureau...

Stay away from any domain registrar operating like this!!

What is a publishing tool? A technical review...

The dynamic web presence, or the "data base driven" web entity came about as a matter of convenience. Static HTML is simply inconvenient when dealing with the following situations:

• When the amount of information displayed on similar pages becomes unmanageable.
• When content changes often or continually on any page forcing programmers to continually produce HTML pages for the new content… it was labor intensive!
• When companies with the above mentioned issues were forced to employ technical staff to maintain an evolving web site…
• When data needed to be collected, processed and stored for core business purposes.
• When online activities generate transactions that need to be reentered into existing "legacy systems" like accounting, order processing and inventory.
• When web sites looked to customize screens based on individual visitor tastes.

In the early days, every page was a separate document on a web server, an HTML document. In big sites it meant hundreds of individual web pages were being developed and managed, one small change to design or navigation was an epic and costly process. Dynamic sites were then created where there are only a few documents and the content for each page is filtered through them for display to visitors. This involved a relationship between the visitor interfaces (the web site), an administrative interface (that which data is entered and managed) and a database (where the data is held).

Databases

Databases come in a few varieties, but there are norms for the web industry today. It is important to stay close to the norm in technological endeavors to allow for any potential compatibility with other systems. Today's standards include:

• SQL or MYSQL (freeware)
• Oracle
• Sybase

Database programmers develop procedures to allow for the organization of data, whether it be text and photos for simple web pages or complex calculations for shopping systems and management tools. The database makes sure that all content and information is collected or stored for presentation and/or management.

Interfaces

There are two interfaces involved in dynamic web sites and applications. One is your administrative interface; the other is the public visitor or viewing interface. The administration interface allows for the collection of data via a web-based entry screen or form and the management of that data. The visitor interface is basically your output of data… whether it be simple web pages or transactional information. From here the combination of the two interfaces becomes unlimited:

• Web site publishing tools have administrative interfaces that collect text, photos, video and other typical web content for display on the public site.
• Intranets mix both administration and viewing interfaces to allow for work collaboration where data and content is entered into databases and passed to others for further management. There's admin work well as viewing involved for all parties, typically within a single company.
• Extranets go farther where they can involve data being entered, viewed and managed by a single company with an "external" access to interfaces for their clients to enter and manage data.

These interfaces are simply either input screens or output screens with direct links to the database. All are written in standardized programming languages. Once again it is key to remain both current and compatible in your selection of programming language as you may want to consolidate applications being developed or be compatible with other systems. Today's top development environments include:

• Java, J2EE
• .NET (ASP.net, C#, Visual Basic.net)
• Cold Fusion
• PHP

Once the dust settles on your understanding of these principles the opportunities to collect, manage and publish information of all kinds is unlimited. Simple web pages to complex banking systems are all built using these standard development and database tools. Indeed most desktop applications, especially productivity oriented ones, are built with web-savvy tools to ensure that web interfaces and consolidation are possible. Today's companies have links from web interfaces to legacy systems to eliminate double entry and streamline workflow.

Checklist: Choosing the right platform

1. Do you have IT standards regarding operating systems? Y/N
2. Does the database the web project you are about to embark on use the same database as your internal systems? Y/N
3. Do you have any other web or internal systems written with the programming language you have chosen for your project? Y/N
4. Is security of information a concern? Y/N
5. If above is Yes, do you have security standards? Y/N
6. Is scalability an issue? Will your system need to be duplicated and accessible to a growing number of users and transactions? Y/N

Back to the basics on Job Management

In the past 15 or so years, I found myself walking into installation after installation repeating the same basic rule: "Find where your productivity leaks are and continually correct them!" In reality, if solid project management practice, including measuring success and improvement, isn't in place before a project management software gets installed, not much will change... er... except you will be able to make the same mistakes much faster and more frequently.

Truth is, job management software follows the same age-old rule as ALL other software... 'Garbage In, Garbage Out'. In the end, its up to the human element to determine how effectively you use data from cool toys like Job Central.Most companies are simply not that far away and the good news is, software can help you get back on track as you re-engineer your work process to a more effective level. First off, lets look at the end goals:

- Budget properly and accurately
- Develop a timeline that is accurate and one that you can follow
- Track all time and expenses
- Bill accurately
- Examine profit and/or loss
- Make corrections

Obviously I have simplified all this, but, in a nutshell these need to be your principal goals. Where many fail is simply by not improving... there in lies the importance of the final goal... corrections. When job management is in place, there is no end to the metrics you can collect and measure on. You should always put yourself and your production in a position to be able to report on all flaws in your process. A software can do this. A software can also report these findings... or, it should be able to.

From there, it is up to you. Job Management 101 says: Measure, correct, Measure, Correct... repeat always! This is also the primary principals behind the ISO and CMMi standards we see floating about. One program that works well, especially with Job Central, is a practice of continual review with your teams at regular productivity meetings. Don't mix these in with production meetings. Separate improvement from customer delivery as both are worthy of their own focused attention. Each month, revisit each project, examine budgeting vs actuals with the staff, work together to find where your time or expenses were over or under. Make a definitive plan to correct or keep practices. Revisit all changes each month to see if they had any effect, positive or negative and document them in a production manual for new employees to review. The more you involve your staff, the more they are aware of what costs you as a company.

The process of continual measurement, review and improvement is a very healthy one. It will streamline your production, involve your staff and cut much of the fat off you and your customer's costs. You need the proper tools to do so, if it gets too complex, or if calculating all this gets to be part of the burden... call us. Job Central does most of this for you.

About James McBeath

James McBeath is the former Director of Production for Compuware's Professional Services division and now an industry leading consultant, specializing in productivity in the creative workplace.

What took them sooo long?

No matter what magazine you pick up these days, no matter what information based web site you go to, the buzz for the past while has been that of the 'new community' tools like Blogs and Casting (Pod etc.). The excitement over all this, I must admit, raised my eyebrows, but that lasted only a few seconds ending with an "ahhhhh".

In 1997 I launched an on-line journal for adventure sporting athletes. A tool that allowed them to post articles with photo and videos via simple web interfaces from anywhere with web access. In turn, viewers were able to cross post comments and questions to the posters. We subsequently used this tool for many web clients: Domtar for its Creativetoolbox.com where artists shared electronic productivity ideas, BDC where on-line advice was given to upstart companies and much more. At the same time, newsgroups were the popular gathering points and it's interfaces were being used to share opinions, photos and video. Tools were being developed to stream Real Player video and audio via media browsers. Remember those days?

In my shop, we had developed a tool in a fledgling Flash application toolset, that allowed Montreal Canadien's fans to receive live updates to any game through a Flash browser. A goal would be scored and voila, the browser would download the latest video replay and text stats on the scoring for instand viewing... As soon as the coach stood in front of a microphone the audio feed was delivered to this browser... wasn't this a podcast? OK, OK! So iPods were, at the time, a sparkle in Steve Job's eye... but, the technology was there... haven't I just proved that? ... and the tools delivered the same things...

...So what took them sooo long? Well, there are a number of reasons that this boom is happening now. There are new and very accessible tools as well as distribution methods for getting content out there... but thats not the key reason. For the most part, the biggest reason is simply that we, as internet users, have GROWN UP to the point where blogger-spots and forums are 'mature' places to post to and the content we are publishing is becomming more and more consistant with our market's needs. The result of years of self-policing content at public content posting points has been a return to comfort levels where opinion and journal posts are welcomed and lauded. In the 90's and early 2000's we posted with varying results. Participating in forums and posting content in opinion form was a hazardous endevour. Remember the term 'flame'? You still see it today, but there is much more appreciation now towards those who are trying to post constructively. In the old days, when an opinion was just a bit off, you were knocked for a loop with cross posts that put you on a pedastal and horse whipped. Today, if you are wrong, you most likely will be politely corrected.

If your company posts blogs from you key personel, your markets appreciate the effort. If you show up on forums where consumers are complaining about your product and participate in trying to find a fix, you are appreciated. It was never like that. We have matured.There will always be a demand for factually correct postings and content. Posting as an authority means that you should be an authority. Your audience will ALWAYS sniff out the pretender or those counting on broadcasts like blogs and such for commercial gain. Contribute to your marketplace and you will quickly see results. Over-pitch the audience and you will quickly be seen as a door to door salesman. If you had tried to work with newsgroups and such before, don't fret, we have come a long way and welcome your blog or cast!