PubPro

PubPro 2016: Event Recap and Session Summaries (Part 5)

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PubPro2016_scheduleIntroduction by Iva Cheung, PubPro facilitator

The fourth annual PubPro unconference for managing editors and publication production professionals welcomed participants from across Canada and the U.S., as it was, for the first time, offered as a workshop immediately before the Editors Canada national conference. Although not as many attendees came prepared with talks, all participants came prepared to talk, many of them stepping up to lead discussions on different aspects of publication project management. PubPro volunteers Connie Behl, Ellen Michelle Koehler, and Yvonne Robertson took notes and have summarized the sessions. Continue reading →

PubPro 2016: Event Recap and Session Summaries (Part 4)

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PubPro2016_scheduleIntroduction by Iva Cheung, PubPro facilitator

The fourth annual PubPro unconference for managing editors and publication production professionals welcomed participants from across Canada and the U.S., as it was, for the first time, offered as a workshop immediately before the Editors Canada national conference. Although not as many attendees came prepared with talks, all participants came prepared to talk, many of them stepping up to lead discussions on different aspects of publication project management. PubPro volunteers Connie Behl, Ellen Michelle Koehler, and Yvonne Robertson took notes and have summarized the sessions. Continue reading →

PubPro 2016: Event Recap and Session Summaries (Part 2)

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PubPro2016_scheduleIntroduction by Iva Cheung, PubPro facilitator

The fourth annual PubPro unconference for managing editors and publication production professionals welcomed participants from across Canada and the U.S., as it was, for the first time, offered as a workshop immediately before the Editors Canada national conference. Although not as many attendees came prepared with talks, all participants came prepared to talk, many of them stepping up to lead discussions on different aspects of publication project management. PubPro volunteers Connie Behl, Ellen Michelle Koehler, and Yvonne Robertson took notes and have summarized the sessions. Continue reading →

PubPro 2016: Event Recap and Session Summaries (Part 1)

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PubPro2016_scheduleIntroduction by Iva Cheung, PubPro facilitator

The fourth annual PubPro unconference for managing editors and publication production professionals welcomed participants from across Canada and the U.S., as it was, for the first time, offered as a workshop immediately before the Editors Canada national conference. Although not as many attendees came prepared with talks, all participants came prepared to talk, many of them stepping up to lead discussions on different aspects of publication project management. PubPro volunteers Connie Behl, Ellen Michelle Koehler, and Yvonne Robertson took notes and have summarized the sessions. Continue reading →

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PubPro 2015: Session Summaries (Part 2)

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On April 25, EAC-BC co-hosted PubPro 2015, an unconference for managing editors and publication production specialists. We previously featured a recap of the event and part 1 of the session summaries. Part 2 of the session summaries follows.

Written by Amy Haagsma; copy edited by Meagan Kus

Change management: A guided discussion led by Chantal Moore

Chantal Moore is communications manager at the BC Council for International Education, a Crown corporation that facilitates international student exchanges. She was interested in discussing best practices for managing change.

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PubPro 2015: Event Recap and Session Summaries (Part 1)

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On April 25, EAC-BC co-hosted PubPro 2015, the third annual unconference for managing editors and publication production specialists. A recap of the event and part 1 of the session summaries are below; part 2 is available here.

Event recap

by Iva Cheung

For the third year in a row, EAC-BC teamed up with Publishing@SFU to host PubPro, an unconference for managing editors, production professionals, and anyone who manages publication projects.

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April 25, 2015: PubPro 2015

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What: PubPro 2015—Third Annual Unconference for Managing Editors and Publication Production Specialists
When: Saturday, April 25, 2015, 9:30 am–4:30 pm
Where: SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver | map
Co-hosts: EAC-BC, SFU Publishing Workshops of the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing

Whether you’re called managing editor, production editor, editorial coordinator, publications director, project manager, editor-in-chief, or any number of titles, you do any or all of the following:

  • Work in-house for an organization that creates publications
  • Manage an editorial and production team of in-house staff and freelancers
  • Hire freelancers, including editors, writers, designers, and indexers
  • Develop project schedules
  • Create or work to project budgets
  • Shepherd projects through the production process

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PubPro: Workflow systems and digital shifts

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In Short: Workflow Systems for Managing Large Projects with Multiple People

by Megan Brand; discussion led by Eve Rickert

Google Drive: Gantt chart-like workflow spreadsheet, task lists, timelines, and revision histories. Wiki-esque: great for real-time collaboration but not for version control.

Teamwork: More automated than Basecamp and can set up dependencies. Cloud-based with messaging systems and task lists, but time-tracking feature can’t do time estimates for entire projects, just tasks.

Smartsheet: Gantt-based, cloud-based, and allows for multiple contributors. Can send it out to users and assign them to different tasks. Would ideally create a snapshot showing users’ black-out periods. Free up to a certain amount of tabs.

SharePoint: Website document repository using Excel for tracking and MS Project for scheduling. Source documents populate timelines, with Gantt charts and dependency and reporting features, but it’s not user-friendly.

JIRA: Sophisticated code repository and project-management and collaboration tool. Sets up contingencies and updates continuously.

Tom’s Planner: Online Gantt charts for workload management. Fast, easy, and free (except for printing), it shows freelancers’ schedules. Doesn’t require programming like Excel but needs constant management and updating.

 

The Shift to Digital at MEC
by Lana Okerlund; presented by Merran Fahlman

In 2009, MEC (or Mountain Equipment Co-op) published four print catalogues annually and one CSR (corporate social responsibility) report biannually, updated its website monthly and sent emails to customers weekly. Fast-forward to 2014, when 100% of its published content appears in digital-only formats, including the MEC website, a WordPress blog, a journal microsite, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and emails. The company has shifted from centralized to decentralized contributions, and while still relying on a core group of two writers and two editors, as well as freelancers and subject expert contributors, the team now includes a social community manager responsible for content curation and a brand engagement manager to help ensure that all that content upholds the MEC brand.

The company’s publishing environment has changed so much that managing editor Merran Fahlman wonders if her title shouldn’t be altered as well. “I’m more like brand engagement or content strategy manager now than a managing editor,” she said.

The shift to all-digital publishing has come with challenges, Fahlman said, including potentially unbalanced content themes, difficulties with overall planning, hard-to-access tone and style standards and the need for flexible quality standards. On the last point, no one reads tweets, for example. “We edit blog posts and site content, but there’s a whole lot of content that no one reviews,” Fahlman said.

As one PubPro participant pointed out, these challenges are “all about the change from push to pull. All of these issues have to do with loss of control. The customer is ultimately shaping the information, telling us in the moment what is important.” That may be so, but if you’re a managing editor used to editorial checklists and doing all you can to put out (you hope) perfect content, and what you’re now consumed with are Google Analytics, webmaster tools and HootSuite, it’s a brave new digital publishing world indeed.