Director of Media (not a job post)

[Rilian20]

I have a situation I am hoping you all can help me with. When I came on board a struggling company about a year ago, they had no "computer people" on staff. Since then, we have pushed the company forward, largely by use of print and web media and an infusion of "e-mentality" into the culture. My role and responsiblities in the company have grown incredibly. The largest challenge, however-remains that most of my coworkers are largely technologically illiterate baby-boomers, many of whom still want things printed out and physically handed to them on paper once something is complete. They think I need to "make sure I have enough film" for my Nikon D70 and essentially that the computer does all the work. The bottom line is, they make many requests and don't seem to have any real idea of what they are asking for.

As the company has grown, our product line has grown exponentially and the labor involved in delivering effective imagery of each of our products to the customer is just plain scary. Does anyone have any advice or direction for educating in this environment - perhaps a book walking through this which surely cannot be an uncommon scenario?

Thanks for all your attention!

Rilian

[johntabita]

I formerly worked for a company where I supervised a department of Macintosh operators. Our production involved tweaking the client's files to fit our output (large-format, computer-painted imagery onto vinyl). Because most of the files were prepared by print designers, sometimes this "tweaking" was more than just a little minor.

Our sales team (especially the ones who'd been there since before there even was such a thing as a "Macintosh") were particularly computer-illiterate, and they, too, often made unrealistic requests. This generally happened when a client provided improperly prepared files. The sales rep's response to our request for new files was often met with, "Can't you just do such-and-such to make the files work?" ("No, I can't use their 72 dpi logo from their website on the 14'x48' billboard...")

What helped break the cycle was to have each rep sit down with an operator and watch him complete a job from start to finish. Most were surprised at the amount of work involved. We also received comments such as, "I though you just put the disc in, and the computer did all of the work." This process was repeated for every new rep that was hired. We also conducted similar group sessions during National or International sales meetings, when all of the reps from around the country/world were together. Eventually, a lot of this got documented and put into sales training manuals.

It was easy to justify this level of education, because it was important to the rep's job to be familar with the workflow that produced the product they were selling. Your case may be different.

Hope that helps.

[Rilian20]

This helps very much - thanks for posting. These kinds of stories really help to develop a framework to facilitate a change in culture here.

Thanks again,

Rilian

[webdreamer]

A good read....