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Work from Home (WfH) webinar

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by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

We are all learning to adapt to a new, temporary normal during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  In publishing, specific issues arise for publishers that are not used to working in a distributed Work from Home (WfH) environment.  And even for those publishers that built their operations as WfH from the bottom up, the general disruptions of COVID-19 like having the kids home from school for an extended period are making this less of a typical WfH experience.

On Thursday, March 19th, Westchester Publishing Services gathered a panel of our partners in the industry to share about what they’re seeing in their markets, methods for successfully adapting to working from home, and more.  Speakers and Panelists included:

  • Nicole Tomassi, Westchester Publishing Services, Marketing & Conference Manager
  • Michael Jensen, Westchester Publishing Services, Director of Technology
  • Terry Colosimo, Westchester Publishing Services, Director of Operations
  • Kevin J. Gray, Westchester Education Services, President & Chief Content Officer
  • Cev Bryerman, Publishers Weekly – Publisher and Executive Vice President
  • Cathy Felgar, Princeton University Press – Publishing Operations Director
  • Rich Portelance, CareerPath Mobile – Founder and CEO
  • Andy Wilson, Dropbox – Global Director, Media Technology

Over the course of the webinar, we covered practical measures like how to handle tasks that were rote in the office but now need new solutions remotely, technology solutions for file sharing and communications, and the empathy needed when working and managing remotely in our current environment to adapt to different challenges than we might normally encounter in the office or WfH.

Key considerations covered in depth in the below links include the following practices and ideas:

  • Take Inventory of your associates at home computer equipment – don’t assume all have appropriate equipment – PC, printer, etc.
    • Quite likely they do not have all the software they need to work from home, so consider IT support that will be needed
    • Follow up with your associates as their needs may change as they become settled into their new routine
  • Take Inventory of your associates’ internet connectivity from home – be sure to consider impact on bandwidth of school age children doing classes from home
  • How do your associates connect to the company’s email system from home?
    • Get your associates’ phones set up with company email access
  • Be sure to collect cell phone numbers for all associates –  and circulate the list
    • Confirm with each that they receive text messages – for urgent communications
  • Centralize Documentation like the above phone numbers and processes —critical information should be centralized in a common location. Consider Dropbox Paper so comments can be made as procedures may change
  • Consider how associates will access documents on company servers/systems which they must print at home
    • Small size documents can be transferred via company email from the server to the local machine
    • Large documents (i.e. <3mb) can be transferred via file sharing services such as DropBox
  • Consider how your associates will mark-up and communicate edits/comments to manuscripts/documents
  • Schedule regular (perhaps daily, but at least every other day) team conference calls – video conferencing if possible – so your associates stay and feel connected
    • Remember this is physical distancing not social distancing. Use video conferences for social interactions like lunch together with your team. Those watercooler interactions you’re used to in the office are on hiatus, and video can help fill that void.
  • Show Understanding and Be Flexible – Empathize – many of your associates are doing this, work from home, for the first time – and this is a foreign experience – they need time to adjust
  • Good News – the publishing business can continue and be successful without everyone being in one physical office location – a period of adjustment, yes – but will quite likely lead to real and permanent changes in how we do business, and cost savings

Here are the links for: the Webinar recording, the Presentation in PDF format, and a PDF of Questions & Answers from the webinar.

We have also compiled this list of articles and videos with helpful information about working remotely. Please use the Contact Us form to reach out with any feedback, needs we can help with, or ideas for working from home during these times. Westchester Publishing Services will provide further webinars in the coming weeks and months, and welcomes your input.  

Terry Colosimo, Director of Operations
Terry Colosimo, Director of Operations

In a previous blog post, you learned about the approach to Customer Service that Director of Operations, Terry Colosimo and her team bring to each project. But do you know Terry?

Terry started as a manufacturing assistant at Greenwood Publishing, reviewing final repro before sending it off to the printer, checking blue lines and distributing printer copies. Within just weeks of being hired, she was invited on her first plant tour. “Within my first month at Greenwood, I got to visit two printing facilities and a composition house. I realize that I was very fortunate to have that opportunity and absorbed as much information as I could. I have spoken many times about how those plant visits taught me so much about the importance of defining workflows with the whole process in mind, and the value of customer service—lessons that helped me throughout my career.” It was during this time that Terry was first introduced to Westchester, who was then a vendor for Greenwood. “There were only a few vendors that I could say provided consistent quality and service and Westchester was one of them. I remember working with Sue Grenier, who was my CSR at the time, as well as having conversations with their graphics team about halftone scanning. They were mentors for me, not just vendors. They helped me better understand my needs as a publisher.

As a production editor on several titles, Terry was able to fully understand the editorial process. “Though I did act as editor on some book projects, I was more drawn to working with my print and composition vendors. And so it evolved to where I was often the liaison between our production editors and our vendors.” Terry’s responsibilities also extended to print buying for journals as well as building out their POD program. All these roles gave a good foundation for Terry’s current position at Westchester, because she understands the needs of production managers at publishers, as well as how best to work with vendors to get those needs realized. “I learned how to set up workflows, and manage QC, staff, and schedules. Having been on ‘the other side of the desk’ helps me to know what clients want and expect from a vendor.”

Terry joined Westchester in 2002, leading the Quark department. “I remember thinking, Quark? I know nothing about Quark.” She learned about pagination and design, which having worked at a publisher tied in well with her other experience. As her role at Westchester grew, she developed trafficking and transmission procedures to move files to our India-based offshore composition facilities (starting in 2004) and was instrumental in mirroring the processes, training, and all our procedures in India. “We’re unique in this industry in that we own our offshore typesetting operation, having acquired one that was already a great shop. By bringing our US office’s protocols to India, we mutually established mirrored processes so that we both understand how each operation works. It’s been over a decade of success since then, as we work as partners, not a mothership with an offshore vendor.” This was done through working collaboratively on checklists, SOP’s, workflows, and making sure QC was matching the level we had stateside even though thousands of miles away.

In 2014, Terry started handling more of the operational management, working with sales and client expectations, customer service, and setting up new accounts with both the Editorial Services and Composition Services teams. As Westchester launched its India Direct Offshore Composition Typesetting offerings in 2015, she was involved in establishing protocols for that operation, working in collaboration with our teams in Chennai and New Delhi. She realized that workflows are continually evolving based on the needs of today’s publishers, and took the opportunity to help Sales establish protocols for onboarding that start with a call with members of Westchester’s management and each new client. This gives the client a sense of partnership across the company. “Everyone works together and does whatever needs to be done to make sure the jobs get completed to the customer’s requirements. Everybody pitches in, regardless of traditional job title, to get the work done—whatever it takes. It’s a very collaborative process with the client, rather than talking at them about how this should work to keep our costs down like many vendors do.”

Terry visits our offices in India regularly. “I have just come back from what I think is my 11th visit.” This is of bidirectional value—she learns more and more from our staff in India each trip, and also works to make them feel comfortable with the projects we’re onboarding and handling. “We’re all part of the group, and it’s important to be inclusive, mindful, and respectful when working across time zones and cultures, to make sure everybody is at the table and successful. We have long term employees who have grown and pivoted their skillsets as we’ve added more capabilities and different types of accounts.” It’s through this empathy, ability to listen, and come up with solutions that Terry helps create an environment for our clients, for our US-based staff, and our offshore staff, where we’re all part of the same team, and ensuring success on each project.

Wouldn’t you like to know more about how Terry and her teams can help you? Contact us to learn more.

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

Why do policy groups partner with US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services on their books and white papers?  We provide a wider breadth of offerings than most individual editorial and design freelancers – or even competing vendors – are capable of.

One of the trickier aspects of any policy or analysis publication can be data visualization.  Get it right and your book or paper really stands out, delivering meaningful content visually and with impact. Get it wrong and you’ve got a mess on your hands that looks like a PowerPoint done by a high school student.

To really get data visualization right in the first place is often quite expensive – and something that requires having the right resource available to start work as soon as your publication is set to go to design, and in turn publication.  Many policy publications are time sensitive, making this approach a risky gamble from scheduling and cost perspectives. This is where Westchester can help.

We are a US employee-owned company with US-based designers, offshore typesetters that span 3 shifts, and hundreds of staff and freelancers ready to go at a moment’s notice.  If you have a publication that is time sensitive but also requires high impact visuals, we are your most affordable and reliable option.  In many instances, the policy publications we work on are embargoed or at the very least fall under copyright, so it would be improper of us to share examples of our work.  This past year, though, we worked on an open access title with Brookings Institution Press – the CEQ Handbook – which, as it is open access, is available to be viewed online.  This link brings you to the CEQ Institute’s page, where you can view sections of the publication online at no cost.  For publishers that handle economics content, or any other type of content that needs to be presented with high-quality data viz, it’s worth flipping through the PDF to see the great work that Brookings and its author, Nora Lustig, did on the title.  We were pleased to be selected by Brookings to provide the editorial and production services that resulted in the final printer and online files.

I also encourage you to visit our services page to learn about the complete array of high-quality, reliable pre-press services we provide for policy groups, think tanks, and foundations. Rely on Westchester – we have the expertise your projects require, whenever you need it.

 

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

As announced last summer, Westchester Publishing Services partnered with Dropbox to use its Dropbox API as part of the architecture of our Client Portal. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to bring you even more enhancements, resulting in the release of Version 2018.C.03, late last year.

To start off the new year, I thought I’d take a few minutes to give you a relatively concise tour of all the great features the Client Portal has to help you streamline management on your Westchester projects.  Want to learn more about how you can use the Client Portal to easily submit editorial and production projects to Westchester, track the assets and status of your project at each pass, customize dashboards and reports, email your rep at Westchester, and more?

If you’ve got about 9 minutes, you can learn more about the core editorial and production features as well as our newest enhancements to the Client Portal.

After you’ve toured the Client Portal, contact Westchester to learn how you can use it to help you trim costs and condense schedules on your publications projects.

 

Mona Tiwary, head of offshore editorial servicesKeeping offshore editorial services costs in check on publication projects may mean you need to rely on outside editorial and production resources. If you decide to work with a production facility that is located offshore, how can you be certain that your expectations for high-quality production values will be achieved while also maintaining trim budgets and tight schedules?

Meet Mona Tiwary, Director of Offshore Editorial Services, Westchester Publishing Services, India.

Mona possesses nearly two decades of distinguished experience in producing a multitude of print and digital products for top publishers like McGraw-Hill and Cengage. She joined Westchester Publishing Services in 2015 as the business head of the New Delhi Business Unit, headquarters for our offshore editorial services. Her strong understanding of the publishing needs/goals of publishers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia and her knowledge of the K-12, higher education, professional, trade, and academic markets make her a valuable asset for WPS.

Mona leads a highly skilled team of editorial and production resources at our wholly-owned and US-managed production facility, in New Delhi. This team includes project managers with expertise in end-to-end project management services, each with approximately a decade of experience in working for major publishers. She has cultivated a vast network of editorial resources across disciplines – there are more than 400 editorial staff (freelance as well as in-house) located in the United States, United Kingdom, and other international destinations, ensuring the editor who is assigned to your project possesses the requisite subject matter knowledge. No matter how specific your content is – science and technology, humanities, math, life sciences, fiction to name just a few – Mona is able to pair it with an editor who can adhere to your standards and deliver a quality product.

Mona’s team can capably execute on a complete menu of full-service pre-press services, including, but not limited to, content creation, developmental editing, copyediting, project management, complex composition layout, cover and book design, proofreading, indexing, artwork, photo research, and alt-text content creation.

Michael Burggren, Senior Director of Production for National Geographic Learning, shared this feedback about working with the team at the Westchester Publishing Services New Delhi office:

“We recently had the Westchester New Delhi operation handle the Wonderful World 2E Lesson Planner adaptations and to say these were messy and complicated is underselling the challenges these presented. Westchester Publishing Services was excellent and able to meet program expectations, as well as schedule and budget requirements.”

Clients including Blue360 and Twelve Tables also shared testimonials about working with our New Delhi operation, which you can read on this page of client feedback.

When you consider the knowledge and experience that Mona and her team of professionals bring to publication projects, it is beyond what is traditionally considered full-service because they act as a partner to publishers, becoming a trusted, reliable extension of the publishers’ internal team and practices. Publishers who work with Westchester’s New Delhi team are confident in the quality of the finished product due to the consistency and consultative approach they receive at every stage of their projects. They are also impressed with the responsiveness and solutions that are utilized to address challenges which can happen as a project progresses. If you have been looking for the balance between cost-effectiveness and high-quality production values for your projects, the search is over. Download these workflow overview charts, which are customizable to your specific requirements, and contact us to learn how you can benefit from the expertise of Mona and the New Delhi team.

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