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Dropbox Work in Progress Conference

collaboration

October 13, 2023

Discussing the Westchester Publishing Services Client Portal

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

This week’s Dropbox Work in Progress conference in New York City was exciting whether you are a Dropbox power user or not. Topics covered included the new normal of what workplaces and productivity look like, supporting clients and staff with the right tools to get work done as well as communicate more effectively, and — threaded through pretty much every session and panel — the impact of AI on work itself. I was fortunate enough to participate in two back to back editions of a panel called “Scaling Success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” More on what I shared there about our Client Portal, but let’s talk about what the overarching message of the day was, first.

Image of Drew Houston, CEO of Dropbox standing on a stage in front of a screen with the words Global Pandemic and Economic Uncertainty on the left and the words Flexible work and AI revolution on the right.
Drew Houston keynote speech, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

The keynote by Dropbox CEO Drew Houston sets the table for a discussion all companies should have on an ongoing basis about how work is handled in a post-pandemic world, how we are supporting our team members, and how new tools — including AI — can be used to add to productivity when used with the right level of trust and responsibility.

Houston’s keynote is a must watch, and set the tone for the day. To cherry pick another highlight, I would also point to comments by one of the later panelists — John Horton, Associate Professor at MIT Sloan School of Management — who emphasized how AI benefits us most when paired with human beings to apply their judgment and selectively apply what AI can output, rather than just use AI output and guidance without consideration. That is right in line with how the best companies are using AI as a tool, rather than replacing proven expertise. Westchester, for instance, will never just dump a manuscript into an engine for copyediting – that negates the expertise we bring to every project. But, just like how our indexers using indexing software to create lists of terms, or we use NLP to create lists of keywords for marketing, it’s worth looking at what tools can help our editors, typesetters, sales people, and more with using their skills effectively.

Image of man standing on a stage in front of a screen displaying learning points
Drew Houston, Dropbox Work in Progress Conference, October 10, 2023

Lest it be thought that the day’s content was just a one-time event-driven theme, it’s clear to see that Dropbox’s approach to making work easier – not just designing a strong file sharing and productivity platform – is baked into everything Dropbox does and communicates, right now. An op-ed in this week’s Independent (UK) by Dropbox’s Andy Wilson elaborates on the company’s approach to work – with an emphasis on finding ways to help users find info they need and avoid the constant distractions of email messages, Slack notifications, and other attention grabbers that, according to data cited in the article, eat up a typical 131 hours of each employee’s work time each year. You may remember Andy from our Work from Home webinar in March 2020, where he – in the thick of the initial pandemic lockdown – spoke about productivity and tools – and continues to share insights and solutions to this day. Andy will be co-presenting with me and Westchester’s COO, Deb Taylor, at the upcoming Digital Book World in January in NYC on just this, once again!

Picture of two women and a man seated on stage with a banner reading Perspectives behind their chairs.
Debbie McClure, Tyler Carey, and Darci Kendall. Photo provided by Dropbox

I was excited to join Debbie McClure, Dropbox’s Global Head of Sales, and Darci Kendall, Founder of Hodde Bros Beverage Co, on the two back-to-back sessions for our panel called “Scaling success: the role of automation and collaboration in business growth.” Debbie moderated the panel asking us questions about our businesses, our tech stack, the opportunities with AI (which I talked about in a recent blog post), and how we grow our businesses – and make our client experience better – by using different tools. Darci provided a lot of great examples of how she uses different channels to engage with her clients, and how she has grown from a small start up ten years ago into a top brand for the beverage and events industries. If your firm is a start up looking to grow, I really encourage you to look up the story of Hodde Bros Beverage Co and learn more.

So, why is Westchester’s story relevant enough to this topic that I was asked to come speak in these sessions at the event? Well, here’s an overview of what I shared during the panel, in narrative form.

Not long after Westchester became an employee-owned company in 2014, Westchester’s managers began highlighting areas where we could focus on a better client experience, as well as ways to grow our company. Our client experience at the time was in some ways fragmented, client by client. On one-hand, this was a bespoke solution for our clients — each client’s own workflow was tailored to, and supported as essentially its own unit here. But that worked well, for both us and our clients, when we had only forty clients to support, and most of those clients had one major line of work with us. But, as we started doing more work across organizations, we found that maybe one department liked to send us files via FTP en masse for typesetting and ePub conversion, and another department was essentially a smaller operation within the same firm that sent individual projects via WeTransfer for editorial and typesetting – and had wholly different style guidelines, schedules, and expectations. And as we moved into new markets back then — like the work we do for think tanks, legal publishers, trade associations, and more — we found that different types of clients had different needs and expectations for file transfer, schedules, communications, project involvement, and services.

To scale, Westchester needed a partner. After vetting many platforms, we selected Dropbox as our partner for file exchange and storage (to start). Clients could still send and receive files via FTP, WeTransfer, Box, Google Drive, what have you, but by setting up a number of processes on our end that talked to those different systems and pulled files into a central cloud-based Dropbox environment, we created efficiencies for us and for our clients.

And wow, did things grow from there! Dropbox was highly consultative, and our team identified use cases with the Dropbox API that let us build a custom project management system using our development team, and sitting on top of a trusted brand by using the Dropbox API for automations and process management, which expedited file transfer and made for a robust client experience. You’ve heard me talk about this in past blog posts, but this was the launch of our Client Portal. The Client Portal allows for easy transfer of files to Westchester via whatever means are best for you — but optimized for easy drop-off using Dropbox, even if you don’t have an enterprise account. No longer did clients have to log into a server, download assets, pass them to an author, gather those files back, upload them again… Steps like that became more automated and lightning fast.

Throughout each project, our clients can see the status of assets at each phase, download assets using downloadable links, and track the project schedule against milestones. None of these features, reports, or options for exchange replace the human interaction and customer care that Westchester is known for — we are just providing added transparency and options for engaging with your project’s assets. This has made for a great experience for our clients and has helped us scale our company as we have added more services and clients, growing from the forty-odd we had in the US back in 2014 to nearly 600 clients around the globe, today.

Beyond the Client Portal, Dropbox opened up its platform to us so that we could use more of their tools, including Dropbox Paper (which we use for many things including tracking client documentation, collaborating on marketing pieces, and planning projects), Dropbox Sign (which we use for contracts and onboarding clients within certain units of our company), DocSend (which we use for maintaining a library of marketing collateral for our sales and marketing teams to engage with clients and prospects about meaningful, relevant case studies), Dropbox Capture (which helps with internal training and other use cases for sharing content with narration), and more. Dropbox has been a phenomenal partner, and we rely on their platform, products, experience, consultation, innovation, and highly regarded security as a key element of not just our tech stack, but also how we support our staff and our clients.

While I’m excited about our above use cases that I shared on the panel — as well as further discussions we had about AI, marketing, and client engagement — that’s not the end of the story. We continue to have very detailed workflow conversations with dozens of accounts each week – both existing partners looking to address new products or challenges, as well as exploratory discussions with new, potential clients. Our editorial, production, and digital services are a cornerstone to the workflows for our nearly 600 clients around the world for a reason, and the blend of people skills and technology we are known for is key to their success. If you are a publisher, the chances are very good that we have had to solve any of the editorial or production challenges that you are currently facing. Contact Us to discuss your needs, and explore ways that US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services can help.

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News, Services Tagged With: AI, API, automation, client documentation, client engagement, Client Portal, client support, collaboration, conference, digital conversion services, Dropbox, editorial services, file exchange, production services, secure storage, technology platform, technology solutions, work in progress

October 4, 2023

by Tyler M. Carey, Chief Revenue Officer

headshot of Tyler Carey2023 has been another busy year here at US employee-owned Westchester Publishing Services, as we continue to expand our stateside and offshore operations to further support our clients’ editorial and production needs. In addition to our standard editorial and production work, we are supporting numerous clients who are expressing increased interest in scanning backlist titles, print-on-demand file requirements, accessible ePubs, developmental editing, permissions, and author support tasks.  Across our global operations based in the US, UK, and India, we now support approximately 600 clients around the world. We appreciate the feedback from these partners that has helped us better understand how we can work with publishers and content providers to resolve their problems and deliver quality publications to their readers. 

To best support both client growth and the additional services we are providing, we announced two promotions earlier this Summer.  Deb Taylor has been promoted to our Chief Operations Officer, and Christober Masilamani has been promoted to our Managing Director for our Chennai, India production operation.  More information about their new roles can be found in this press release.  Let me know if a discussion with Deb or Christober about incorporating your needs into our plans and direction would be helpful. You can Contact Us anytime to schedule a discussion with your sales point of contact and our leadership team. 

We enjoy having an ongoing dialogue with the market about topics impacting our industry. Here are a few discussions that may be of interest to you: 

  • Last month, I spoke on the Publisher Nation podcast with Digital Book World’s Bradley Metrock – and industry thought leaders Lorraine Shanley (Market Partners International) and Andrea Chambers (NYU Masters in Publishing) – about how publishers are exploring AI within their workflows. You can watch the YouTube feed of our discussion. 
  • On October 10th, I will be presenting on the “Amplifying Impact” panel at Dropbox’s Work in Progress conference in New York City. I’ll be speaking about how we partnered with Dropbox to build out our Client Portal, and how both of our organizations continue to explore ways publishers and media organizations can leverage tools and technology to make their work more efficient.  You can sign up for this one-day event on Dropbox’s site. I’ll also share a blog post afterwards with info about the day’s content and any best practices that may be worth tracking. 
  • Most exciting of all, our next Publishing Now webinar – launched in partnership with Publishers Weekly – is coming up on Thursday, October 26th.  Speakers include Marina Padakis Lowry from Union Square & Co., Diem Bloom from Johns Hopkins University Press, and Bill Rojack from Midland Paper and Two Sides North America. Our panelists will be exploring the ways books are being produced in our new normal, including topics related to AI, workflow, and working with partners. You can sign up here. 

If there are any areas where you have questions, contact us to schedule a brief Zoom. We always like to help, even if that means connecting you with our partners who may be better able to support those needs that are outside our area of expertise. I would welcome the chance to hear from you, and learn more about what you’re exploring with your 2024 publications program. 

Filed Under: blog, Conferences, News, Services Tagged With: accessible ePubs, AI, Client Portal, collaboration, developmental editing, Dropbox conference, editorial, epub, Johns Hopkins University Press, Midland Paper, print on demand, Production, Publishers Nation podcast, Publishing Now webinar, scanning titles, Union Square and Co., workflows

July 9, 2018

George Baier IV is Media Industry Principal at Dropbox, responsible for communicating the company’s unique perspective on how Dropbox can transform work and IT infrastructure for customers in the media vertical. George works closely with customers to deliver product features and solutions that meet specific media customer needs.

Westchester:  George, Westchester is excited about our partnership with Dropbox which has resulted in several positive developments including upgrades to our internal technology, and further enhancements on our Client Portal. Can you share with readers a little about your background in publishing, and how that led to your current role with Dropbox?

George: I’ve worked in the publishing and media industry for over a decade, across different leadership roles involving technology, content, and design. Prior to Dropbox, I served as a VP in IT at Macmillan, where I helped deploy tools that the organization’s teams and employees still use today. One of those tools was Dropbox, which consolidated the applications people organically brought to work, and gave teams the freedom to collaborate under a common platform. Seeing employees get excited about technology like Dropbox ultimately led me to the role I currently hold — Media Industry Principal — in which I help even more media customers deploy tools to help them do their best work. 

Westchester: What makes you so passionate about publishing in particular, and how does that inform the work Dropbox is doing with companies in the media sector?

George: Trade publishing continues to evolve but its business model still operates on the creation of content, and the consumption of that content by readers that are willing to pay for it. Unlike other forms of media, the straightforwardness of the relationship between publishers and audiences is something I’ve always found appealing. In this spirit, Dropbox helps creators move their process forward, and is designed for any author to use as a means to enable creativity at scale. It’s also part of the reason we continue integrating with tools that are industry-standard within publishing while seeing increased adoption overall.

Westchester: What is the potential Dropbox sees in the media space – specifically in publishing, during the next couple of years?

George: Teams and users in the publishing, media, and entertainment space created and saved more than a billion files in Dropbox last year. Every day those teams — especially in publishing — are under pressure to create more content in less time. As a result, there’s a growing need to manage complex projects at scale, as content often becomes trapped in silos and spread across teams, tools, and devices. We see an opportunity for Dropbox to continue serving as a home for content and the collaboration around it. 

In parallel, we see an opportunity to support authors through a platform that unifies documents, rich media, and the exchange of ideas. Those with talent and creativity should be enabled to tell stories with less friction, wherever and whenever inspiration may strike. I observed firsthand at Macmillan how unique tools like Dropbox can be additive to an author’s creative toolkit, which ultimately led me to Dropbox itself — I wanted closer involvement in helping other organizations benefit from our platform.

Westchester: We came to Dropbox with several situations we needed to resolve – including upgrading our own internal infrastructure, working with our operations teams around the globe, version control, handling large files, and the development of our Client Portal.  Walk us through the approach Dropbox took to evaluate our requirements and propose specific solutions.

George: We worked closely with several stakeholders at Westchester to offer guidance on a Team Folder system that met their needs and matched their investment in our product’s deployment, while ensuring no data loss occurred throughout the migration and deployment process. In general, our approach was to make a transition to Dropbox as seamless as possible, helping them maximize the full benefit of our platform to support large volumes of content and launch their Client Portal. This also involved listening to input from production, editorial staff, and ensuring we could follow through on the capabilities promised as part of our deployment. Interestingly, as we continued working together, we uncovered even more ways that Dropbox could support Westchester, whether it be handling large files, version control capabilities, or expanded Dropbox previews of file types like ePub. 

Westchester: Are the challenges that we brought to Dropbox consistent with what you see from other media firms? What other types of issues do you and your team help resolve for companies in the media industry?

George: Westchester is a great example of organizational vision and execution facilitating the full promise of Dropbox, from start to finish across migration and deployment phases — adoption, integration, workflow enablement and, ultimately, transformation. We weren’t surprised how quickly Westchester did it, given the strong leadership and cross-functional partnership, but it became clear that Dropbox was additive to Westchester’s holistic philosophy to technology, content management, and infrastructure migration. Our goal is help replicate the success of Westchester’s IT maturity model for other customers that want to mature their business through the capabilities of our collaboration platform. 

Westchester: Many publishers have their own in-house architecture or use other file transfer and archival systems. How does Dropbox differ in its ability to support the ways publishers handle projects with multiple stakeholders, versions, and large files?

George: Over the past few years, we’ve evolved from a place to store your files to a place where collaboration gets easier. We’ve released several new products and features like Paper, Smart Sync, Showcase, and Team Folders that have made it incredibly easy for publishers to adopt our platform, specific to projects involving multiple stakeholders, versions, and large files. These build upon our core product capabilities including best-in-class file sync/share, previews, and unlimited file size uploads. 

More specific to file transfer and archival systems, we see patterns of work that still rely on inefficient methods of content transfer — FTP, email, file attachments — across businesses today. The products and features I’ve mentioned, especially Showcase, can help modernize those legacy tools, the use of which can result in lost time and focus away from the content itself. In addition, Dropbox also integrates natively in digital asset management (DAM) tools like Widen, nicely complementing archival systems of record that store IP. This integration facilitates our larger platform strategy, in which Dropbox can work with tools and systems customers have already purchased, as opposed to creating another ‘walled garden’. 

Westchester: We’re excited about the new release of our Client Portal, because it uses the Dropbox API integrated with the DBX platform to provide clients with a secure, cloud-based file management, and communications hub for their projects (see video). How do you see our ability to extend the use of the Dropbox platform to clients as a change in the way publishers of all sizes are able to interact with their vendors?

George: The Client Portal is an impressive example of leveraging the power of DBX Platform to customize specific publishing workflows for both internal and external audiences. As more and more content is produced, it often goes through key stages of creation, feedback, and distribution — which can, unfortunately, lead to lost time searching for the latest versions, or “work about work” if not properly managed. Ultimately, we think our APIs can serve as the connective tissue for collaborative work among Dropbox, publishers, and vendors, facilitating a unified home for work across the entire content lifecycle.

Westchester: Tell us more about the new features that Dropbox has rolled out recently that would be of interest to our clients and publishing partners.  Are there additional developments on the horizon that you’re able to share with us?

George: Recently, Dropbox announced expanded partnerships with Canva, Final Draft, Frame.io, Getty Images, Shift.io, Marvel, and Widen to bridge content silos, in support of teams that continue creating content at an exponential rate. These integrations complement core Dropbox product capabilities like best-in-class file sync/share, no-download shared links to protect IP, expanded preview capabilities like EPUB, ZIP, RAR, and enhanced previews of PPT and PDF. Especially as rich media and visual assets become ingrained in traditional and digital publishing, we’re focused on giving authors and teams more flexibility to bring Dropbox closer to the tools they already use. In the future, we’ll be looking for more ways to expand our relationship with those seven partners, and other publishing-optimized tools like Scrivener, that integrate with our collaboration platform meaningfully.

Westchester: For publishers interested in exploring the solutions Dropbox can offer for their own particular challenges, what’s the best way to reach you?

George: You can always connect with me on LinkedIn (George Baier IV), or check out our Flow Together eBook if you’d like to learn more as well.  

Westchester: George, thank you for taking the time to share your insights about publishing and technology. For clients and prospective partners interested in learning more about our Client Portal, and our editorial and production services, please Contact Us.

Filed Under: blog, Featured, News, Services Tagged With: Client Portal, collaboration, creativity, DBX platform, Dropbox, entertainment, epub, file transfer, George Baier IV, media, publishing, technology solutions, toolkit

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