Revised Date for Next Meetup: 3/16

Please adjust your calendars since the next meetup will be on Monday 3/16 instead of 3/23, but will still be held at The Chill Lounge and begin at 6:30.

Thank you and hope to see you there,
Karina, Joanne, and Ania

Next Meetup: 3/23

We're having our next NYU Publishing meetup on 3/23 at The Chill Lounge, and hope to see you there (see details below). We decided to postpone having the NYU-sponsored event until we got a better sense of the kind of speaker you'd enjoy most, so besides our usual round-robin question, please come with suggestions for speakers as well.

And as always, if you have an inudstry-related question you'd like to pose to the group, either let me know ahead of time via e-mail, or just bring it to the event.

So save the date:

Monday 3/23
The Chill Lounge
329 Lexington Avenue @ 39th Street
6:30 p.m.

We'll be creating a Facebook event for you to rsvp to, so if you're on Facebook but not in the group, just ask us to join; if you're not on Facebook, just RSVP by responding to this e-mail.

And until then, stay warm.

Karina, Joanne, and Ania

PSA Mentoring Program

The Publishing Students’ Association organizes a mentoring program every semester. It’s a wonderful way to get to know others in the program and industry, network, and just have someone to answer questions. It is a very casual program; there are no mandatory meeting dates. Pairs will decide what kind of meeting frequency works for them. Mentors must have been in the program at least 1 year. Alumni are welcome!

If you are interested in becoming a mentor, please submit the following information to Kimberly Bayley at kjb320@nyu.edu by February 13, 2009.

• Name:
• I want to be a (mentor or mentee):
• What was your focus in the program? (books, magazines, digital, other)
• What are your hobbies and interests outside the classroom?
• Where do you work?
• Phone number/email address

January Meet-up Recap

As the lay-offs continue and magazines continue to fold (I’m personally saddened by the loss of Conde Nast’s Domino), our round-robin discussion at January’s meet-up focused on how our industry can withstand this current economy.

If you were CEO of the company you work for, what would you do to make your organization recession-proof? What can the industry do to make itself recession-proof?

Maybe the solution lies in the midst of the NYU Publishing alumni! There were plenty of ideas and lots of interesting answers. Some recognized that lay-offs are necessary in order to keep companies lean. Other ideas included making your product more relevant to consumers and taking a step back to think about quantity versus quality: perhaps publishers should publish fewer books?

Several people noted that the industry needs to change its mindset and not see itself as “publishers” but rather as “content providers,” thus broadening the opportunities. Print on demand was brought up as an efficient, cost-saving and, some argued, necessary technology that isn’t used as often as it can or should be.

Do you use POD at your company? What would you do to recession-proof your company? Do you have ideas on how the industry could recession-proof itself? Post your answers here. We’d all love to hear from you.

Two interesting links

• The Key to Publishing's Survival by Bob Sack (www.bosacks.com) http://bosacks.homestead.com/pmg1.html
• http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/stevecoll/2009/01/nonprofit-newsp.html

Kaplan Director of Production Position

Kaplan K12 Learning Services Now Hiring:
Director of Production

As part of the Product Development group’s leadership team, the Director of Production shares responsibility for establishing a vision for Kaplan K12 product print and technology product, and then overseeing the application of Production resources and processes that enable the company to achieve its product and brand vision on-time and on-budget.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities Include:

• Manage and supervise the timely and cost-effective production of multiple programs/projects for multiple grades, maintaining high standards of excellence as well as competitiveness and profitability.
• Establish project goals, procedures and systems, and then determine necessary resources and allocate accordingly to meet deadlines cost-effectively.
• Identify project roles and responsibilities, and manage and coordinate the efforts of project personnel, in-house departments, and outside vendors to achieve project goals.
• Supervise a team consisting of a Production Manager, Production Artists, and a Print Manager, to ensure adherence to project guidelines, schedules, and budgets
• Recruit and retain exceptional talent, and actively manage performance of all Production staff through clear goal-setting and constructive feedback
• Manage workflow to and from production artists, assessing staff strengths, development needs, and deficiencies in order to utilize the best talent for each task
• Along with Production Manager, establish and manage relationships with production vendors, providing specifications, files, templates, etc. so that work is produced within stated timeframes and budget
• Stay abreast of the newest technology tools and applications, identify those appropriate for K12’s product development needs, conduct or sponsor training, and implement processes to expedite work flow
• Lead the department’s migration to a content management system, instituting workflow and processes that maximize the value of the CMS to produce efficiencies of scale and cost
• Work closely with Creative Director to develop and consistently apply design templates, ensuring a high quality product in line with the K12 product vision
• Collaborate with other department heads, particularly Operations and Managing Editorial, to develop efficient interdepartmental processes, identify critical bottlenecks, and resolve quality control issues in order to manage project schedules and budgets.

Qualifications Include:

• At least a B.A. in Publishing or Technology-related field
• 7-10 years experience in a Publishing (Production or Design), with at least 3 years experience leading a team
• In-depth knowledge of production technologies and content management systems (e.g., most recent versions of Adobe Creative Suite, Photoshop, Quark)
• Thorough understanding of production requirements for both print and non-print products (e.g., manipulatives, games, tech-based tools)
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and proven ability to negotiate, and strong management and problem-solving abilities
• Creative and future-oriented, with knowledge about application of publishing technology to solving current and anticipated publishing problems (versioning, state-specific components)

Preferred Qualifications Include:

• Web design/production experience a huge plus
• 10 + years experience in Publishing, with a minimum of 5 years leading a Production or Design team.

Please email your cover letter and resume to K12HR@kaplan.com. Be sure to put “Director of Production” in the subject line.

Ideas for our next event

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

For those of you who missed last meetup, Joanne uploaded photos on the event's Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=53998474184) and will be uploading a synopsis of the event here.

Our next event, probably the last week of March (more info TK) will be another NYU-sponsored event with a speaker and then a reception. Since we'd like to make this event as useful and informative as possible, please let us know which topic you'd like to learn about and/or if you have a speaker in mind you'd like us to reach out to. You can either respond to this e-mail or post on our blog, where I will be posting this message as well.

Thanks and hope to see you all at our next event,
Karina, Joanne, Ania

PS In the interim, remember that our blog and LinkedIn group page are where you can post questions and ideas to the rest of the group, so feel free to do so...or just e-mail me and I'll post for you, if you prefer.