Going electronic: who controls the buying decision?

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Oct, 1989 by Jim Strothman

If you're seriously considering buying an electronic publishing system, here's the advice of veterans who have crawled through the decision-making minefield: Be sure to get opinions from everyone whose job is affected before deciding what hardware and software to purchase.

Arbitrary and uninformed decisions on equipment, and management mandates on systems the art and editorial departments don't want - and maybe can't usefrequently lead to resentment, affecting productivity and morale, they say.

The buying decision process may start at any point. At large- and medium-size publishing firms, top management generally looks to manufacturing or its production department to drive equipment purchasing decisions. In smaller firms, the publishers themselves often carry the ball. But exactly who makes the final decision doesn't seem to be an issue, according to interviews with decision makers and users. What's important, they say, is bow the decision is made.

Some publishers prefer to form an internal task force to recommend system needs-with representatives from editorial, art, production, manufacturing and data processing. Others choose to bring in an experienced outside consultant to add a more global perspective to the decision-as well as to install equipment and train users.

"There's a lot of resistance to change," acknowledges Eve Farren, who as electronic production manager at Hearst Magazines oversaw the partial automation of many titles, such as Cosmopolitan (with a text-oriented, PC-based Bestinfo Inc. editorial network) and Victoria (using Macintoshes and Scitex' graphics-oriented Visionary pre-press link for production).

The key is to work closely with editorial, art and production people, carefully analyzing workflow and then determining where automation can save money, according to Farren, who recently left Hearst. "We focused on magazines that had above-standard cost-extremely high AAs (author's alterations) and revises," she says, "because those are cost areas that, with technology, you can address."

Assessing a publication's flow-and, along the way, getting editorial and art interested in desktop systems-can sometimes take several months, Farren says. Her strategy is to stay abreast of technology; meet frequently with representatives of editorial, production and art; come up with a recommendation for the best software and hardware solutions; and arrange for live demonstrations wherever possible.

"I encourage the decision," Farren asserts. The goal is to have the final decision arrived at by consensus, with everyone feeling they've contributed, she adds.

Top management often sets stage,

The stage was set for automation at Hearst over a year ago, when top management made a decision that it was necessary to cut production costs and improve the bottom line.

"It's become a very serious goal in the last year, as prices for work in the various [pre-press] plants have gone up," Farren says.

In addition to holding planning meetings among staffers at each title, Farren participated in a small upper management task force formed at Hearst Magazines Division to produce a two-year, $3 million budget for the parent corporation to automate editorial operations at 15 magazines. ,

Meanwhile, a small task force representing manufacturing and the business side is looking longer-range. Its objective is to assure that all system-editorial and noneditorial (such as advertising and accounting)-are as compatible as possible and capable of sharing resources, such as file servers.

Like Hearst, Conde Nast has been carefully, and slowly, automating editorial operations, although its demanding art requirements have limited the immediate extent of automation to text. Particularly in a large operation, "I think a publication should proceed slowly." says Sharon Schanzer, who as manager of PC services was responsible for initiating, designing and implementing a plan for 800 PCs throughout Conde Nast,

Schanzer-now a vice president at Madison Technologies Inc., Demarest, New jersey, a consulting firm specializing in editorial systems for magazine&-saysmagazines "don't have the luxury of making mistakes.

"You can definitely start slowly. That's one of the great things of a PC environment," she "You can spend just $3,500, buy an IBM AT compatible and a laser jet, learn on Ventura, add PostScript, then add a scanner. It can grow into a $150,000 system if that's what you require."

In making the decision, "a first stepand it sounds obvious, but it hasn't proven to be-is that an institution has to understand what it is doing," says Madison's president, Jonathan Jacobs, who was a senior editorial systems analyst at Conde Nast who created computer-based editorial tools. "It has to know what DTP is, and whether it is going to be appropriate for them."

Before Conde Nast bought its 50-PC system for Conde Nast Traveler "we talked to everyone-from the top editors to the researchers," Schanzer recalls. "We presented this beautiful workflow diagram saying, 'This is how things work.' And, they said, 'That's completely wrong!' Then we tried again, and they said, 'No, that's wrong.'