Custom Publishing

19/05/2010

Had my catch up with Sarah yesterday and it was quite good. She asked me not to be afraid to challenge her department’s way of working. The discussion then turned to styles of getting work done, basically influence v authority. And since I currently don’t have any authority to get my work done, I need to be using and building on my influence skills.

We discussed a few scenarios in which certain approaches would work better than others and Sarah also shared some examples where she used a certain method which worked for her.

The outbound project was also discussed and I bounced a few ideas off her around the customer offer and it was great to see her challenge my line of thought.

Today has been a very different day altogether. I got a chance to sit down with Jo Elwin, the Custom Publishing Manager, who gave me a very good insight on what she does and what her area works on. Jo has over 16 years in publishing and she is what is commonly called a ‘generalist’.

A generalist is one who has a rounded approach to publishing having usually had significant experience in all aspects (editorial, advertising, production etc) of publishing. As it sounds, there are very few generalists around so it was quite a treat to pick her brains on different things. She has also been as kind as to ask me to join her in some editorial meetings which should help give me a better understanding of how things work in her area.

Tomorrow I take on another step in my quest to learn more about editorial as I have been invited by Pamela Stirling, the Listener editor (kinda forced myself upon poor Pamela really!) to join her team at their team meeting.