dragonfly editorial

Targeting “design for all”

Posted by: Alexis Nesbitt, Art Director, March 8th, 2011

Sometimes, watching BBC America or a foreign film, I will feel a pang of envy, brought on by the suspicion that even the mundane items overseas are aesthetically pleasing. (Subway signage!) And it can feel like the United States is the red-headed stepchild of the developed design world.

Fortunately, that is changing, thanks to Target. Attractive everyday items were virtually unavailable to the average person before this design-focused big box store spread across the country. If that sounds like exaggeration, I contend that it is easily proven by the following challenge: Find a decent-looking shower curtain at a department store. It’s impossible. Go to Target: you’ll have five or six to choose from.

To be sure, a shower curtain is not an investment on the order of a new car; but it’s a fixture in your house that you encounter every day of your life. It’s not unreasonable to want a nice one. In fact, I would argue, it’s necessary to have a nice one. Along with the other mundane objects that surround you, it creates the world you live and work in.

Target has taken the status quo of such mundane objects to new levels. One is no longer limited to outdated ’80s colors or country designs.

The remarkable singularity of Target is most obvious when one tries to find the occasional product that Target doesn’t carry. Light fixtures, for example. Visit a home improvement store; it will be hard to find one that’s acceptable, and most are outright offensive.

A friend and I recently joked about an establishment who shall remain nameless. He called it “Design out of Reach.” Gone are the days when attractive, well-designed items were exclusive to the monied. We can all get it at Target.

Target was recently awarded Design of the Decade by The Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) for it’s ClearRx prescription bottles. “We’re thrilled to be honored with this award because great design is a part of our DNA at Target,” said Keri Jones, senior vice president, Health & Beauty, Target.

To that I say, “We’ve noticed. Thanks.”

Alexis Nesbitt is Dragonfly’s Art Director. She is the recipient of numerous ADDY, Marcom, and Hermes Creative Awards, including for her identity for Dragonfly. She is based in Dayton, Ohio.

Tags: Design
Posted in Design | 1 comment »

The Elements of Branding: Booz Allen group targets internal ‘customers’

Posted by: Amy Paradysz, Senior Editor, March 1st, 2011

Fire, Air, Earth, and Water.

When technical editor Ingrida Kalnins set out to change the way Booz Allen Hamilton’s publishing services are marketed to internal clients—other Booz Allen employees—no one would have predicted she would take things back to the basics. All the way back to Aristotle, in fact.

Booz Allen is a $5 billion firm with 80 offices through the United States and a core business of providing management and technology consulting work for the federal government. In other words, with more than 23,000 employees, corporations don’t get all that much more corporate than Booz Allen.

“We almost have to market our services to the rest of the firm so that they know what we do,” Ingrida explained.

Part of that marketing was renaming Visual Communications Services to Visual Communications Solutions—a one-word change that brings a shift in perception.

With a background in advertising, Ingrida was tapped to lead a team creating an internal marketing booklet. The idea was simple: Tell the clients what services—er, solutions—VCS provides.

VCS is comprised of four primary groups of specialists—designers, editors, printing, and proposal specialists. How could their interrelated efforts be represented visually?

vcs-image-21

Ingrida just so happened to have a degree in philosophy and remembered Aristotle’s four elements—fire, air, earth, and water. And, oddly enough, those elements kind of fit the four workgroups! Designers are the fire of inspiration. Editors and writers work with words and ideas … ethereal things. Print shop workers protect the earth by using recycled paper and nontoxic ink. And proposals … can be turbulent waters to navigate. VCS provides a lifeline to its internal clients—and Dragonfly Editorial, in turn, provides a lifeline to VCS, especially during workload surges.

VCS designers Aaron Bagby and Jaz Griffith created the fire, air, earth, and water logos; laid out a spiral-bound booklet showcasing the four groups and various paper and printing options; and set up an internal website. VCS staff members now use the elements logo in their e-mail signatures.

“Clients who we have never worked with before are reaching out to us. Our marketing is internal and we are establishing our group identity within the Booz Allen identity,” Ingrida said. “And creating this booklet has also been useful in bringing our team even more strongly together. We’re all critical elements in our publications world.”

Tags: Corporate Branding, Editorial process, Marketing
Posted in Editorial process, Marketing, Our cool clients | no comments »

What Borders’ bankruptcy means for the publishing industry

Posted by: Jess Haberman, special guest editor, February 22nd, 2011

borders The recent news about Borders’ filing bankruptcy, while not the least bit shocking to those of us in publishing, will hit the book industry hard.

Borders has been portending its own demise for more than year now, and publishers have all put into place some plan to adjust. High returns from Borders have been commonplace, and most publishers stopped shipping books to them a while back.

Yet, this is the best chance Borders has to pull it together. Will they survive? If you look at their management decisions over the past 10 years, there’s not much hope. But for many neighborhoods around the country Borders is a staple, a meeting place, something people will not give up easily. So we’ll hold our breath and cross our fingers.

The number of Borders stores will decrease—that’s not in question. I wouldn’t be surprised if soon the number of Barnes and Noble stores decreased. And though there’s certainly a big opportunity for electronic book sales, I wouldn’t discount the opportunity that indie bookstores have to regrasp some of their old territories.

As suggested at a recent book conference I attended, called Digital Book World, smart independents—those that serve as a community center and who really know how to take advantage of social media—can seize this opportunity for resurgence. They likely won’t ever again reach the level where they once stood before the superstores. But they can take some of that market back.

I’m not sure I’d be willing to give up the experience of buying books at a real bookstore. Maybe I’m just naive. But just as we see a trend toward more self-sufficiency, do-it-yourself, homegrown, local markets, book buyers could also swing that way.

There’s no question that the digital book world is growing and will continue to grow at a record pace. And publishers have to adjust and find ways to make it a profitable avenue. Publishers should no longer think of themselves as book publishers—they need to be thinking as content publishers.

Yet, for me, it’s still much too early to imagine a world without the printed book.

Jess Haberman is a full-time acquisitions editor at the Globe Pequot Press/Lyons Press and a part-time Dragonfly editor.

Tags: Borders, Publishing Industry
Posted in Publishing | no comments »

Finding balance—in life, work, and on the mat

Posted by: Diana Ceres, Technical & Proposal Editor, February 15th, 2011

Longtime technical editor Diana Ceres left a full-time job in the DC area 8 years ago to move to Santa Fe and focus on screenwriting, continuing to edit proposals part time. Working from home, Diana has a notable commitment to work-life balance, health, and creativity. Frankly, we’re inspired—and asked about her approach.

Dragonfly: As a company, we have a big focus on work-life balance. You seem to take this seriously. What tips might you share with others, especially about working from home?

Diana: For me, balance is very important. I find that my day is difficult if I do not take time out for myself, even if it’s just a quiet cup of tea before I begin my day of writing, editing, or errand running. I learned this early on in my career when I was working a high-pressure corporate job. I found myself getting stressed easily.

I learned that taking short breaks in the middle of a crazy, whacked-out day kept me sane and smiling. Sometimes I’d sit under a tree and imagine roots growing deep into the earth. Other times I’d walk around the block. And, on more than one occasion, I would cave and drive to Starbucks for a venti soy latte and a currant scone.

The point is I got out of the office, the immediate source of stress, and took a little time for myself. I find it extremely grounding and necessary to do this. In Western astrology I am a Gemini with Aquarius rising. In Ayurvedic medicine, I am all vata. All of this air is great for vastness, expansion, and creativity, but it is also a recipe for frying my circuit board if I do not take time out to honor and nurture myself. Often.

Dragonfly: How does this translate to others?

Diana: Taking care of yourself is such a basic human need. It doesn’t need to be elaborate. I think the key is finding out what feeds your soul and then giving yourself that food in steady increments every day. I find that working at home enables me to have more time to cultivate the lifestyle that best suits me. I tend to be an introvert. I need a lot of quiet time, especially in the morning. Rushing to catch the morning train is stressful to me. When I lived in DC and had to do this, I decided it was worth getting up an extra hour early, so I could ease into my day with a quiet cup of tea and a short meditation.

Even now, if I know that I have a particularly busy day or week ahead of me, I try to structure my time, so that I can still fit in the things that I like to do, even if the amount of time spent doing them is greatly diminished because of my workload. And at least a few times a week, regardless of what is going on, I get back on the mat and practice yoga. I find it soothing, grounding to breathe in and out mindfully, to stretch tight muscles, tired from computer use, and to practice an ancient discipline that leaves me refreshed, peaceful, content.

Dragonfly: Are there some lessons from yoga we can all use to help us balance our lives?

Diana: The most important yoga is the yoga I practice off the mat. My favorite yoga teacher would always tell me, storms are how we practice peace. This taught me not to be afraid of conflict, drama, high-pressure jobs, deadlines … that I could go within and be rock solid no matter what. And that the real lesson is not what unfolds, but how we handle the unfolding.

I tend to be very results oriented. I still work on this, so I can enjoy the process a little more, rather than jumping way ahead of myself, waiting impatiently for the finish, which always seems anticlimactic, because I am too busy waiting for something to end rather than appreciating all of the delicious little details in between.

In a way, yoga also makes me a better writer. By reminding me to slow down, I can appreciate the pauses in life … and (hopefully) capture these moments in my writing.

Tags: Freelance Editorial Services
Posted in Freelance editing, Freelance writing, Work-life balance | 4 comments »

Great customer service: three lessons from Hospice

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, January 21st, 2011

My grandma passed away two months ago. She was 89 and beloved by three generations of family: two daughters and husbands, two granddaughters and their husbands, five great-grandkids … and four great-grand-dogs.

In the last week of her life, grandma was cared for around-the-clock by hospice nurses. They sat with her in her apartment, administered her medication, bathed her, and talked with us about the process of illness and death, and how to best help grandma let go and move on.

It struck me that in some ways, hospice provides a model of optimum service — and optimum caring — that many service providers would do well to follow. Here are some of the things I noticed.

24×7 service

While we were preparing to move grandma from the hospital back to her assisted-living apartment, we were incorrectly told that a family member would have to stay with her around the clock, even overnight. Needless to say, this presented a major stress to our family, who had already been taking turns on 12-hour shifts at the hospital. Our hospice case manager corrected us. “That’s why we’re here 24 hours a day,” she said. “So you don’t have to be.”

In the same way, at Dragonfly, we help our clients manage overflow work that runs into evenings, weekends, and holidays. Our job is to let them work hard from 9 to 5 — then go home and relax, be with their families. We take it from there.

Managing the details

Before my grandma was released from the hospital, a nurse had provided my mother with a laundry list of medications that grandma would need, cautioning her that some might be hard to find at the right dosage. When mom mentioned this to the hospice case worker, this was her response: “Put that list down. It’s all in my computer. You don’t have to worry about any of that. That’s why I’m here.” It was a huge relief to know that at this very difficult time, we didn’t also have to run around town trying to track down prescriptions.

Similarly, in our work with Dragonfly, our goal is to take the entire burden of a project off of our clients’ shoulders. They should be able to give us the basic parameters of what needs to be done and know that we will take care of all the details, from assigning appropriate staff to developing a style sheet, to coordinating with the desktop publishers, to reviewing work for quality.

Attention and care

I noticed that one of the hospice workers positioned herself in grandma’s apartment so she was always facing her. She noticed everything about grandma: her breathing, her color, her movements, whether her face registered discomfort or peace. She would also go up frequently to touch her, adjust her position, feel her temperature. What a great comfort to us to know that someone was paying such close attention to grandma’s condition and could respond with caretaking or a change in medication as needed.

Even though our work at Dragonfly isn’t a matter of life and death, it is important to our clients. Good customer service is about bringing dedication and care to any service provided, as we try to do, and as the hospice workers so graciously did. It made a difference to grandma, and to all of us. Thanks to all of them.

Tags: Customer Service
Posted in Customer service | 1 comment »

Working remotely (REALLY remotely)

Posted by: Amy Paradysz, Senior Editor, January 21st, 2011

I’m a government proposal editor so far off the Beltway that I have a view of Maine’s Sebago Lake — but no mail delivery service at the end of my dirt road. I am, in more ways than one, what is described as a remote worker.

“The days of everyone being in one big office together are becoming increasingly less common,” says Judi Casey. Judi is the director of the Sloan Work and Family Research Network, whose website is packed with the latest research, news, and statistics about work and family issues. “I’ve worked with many people on projects from around the world… and we’ve never seen each other in person.”

Every Dragonfly Editorial writer and editor works from home. This gives us huge advantages in finding work-life balance. And providing support to our clients nearly 24×7.

And we’re not alone. As of 2005, more than 8.1 million Americans were working from home exclusively, according to a recently released Census report. It’s not surprising that we can write and edit from home. But did you know that your JetBlue ticket reservation agent could be in her jammies with a cat by her feet? At-home workers can prepare taxes, test new video games, or be a customer service agent for 1-800-FLOWERS.com.

The Results-Only Work Environment

Even President Obama is an outspoken supporter of flexible work arrangements. Last spring he unveiled the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) program piloted in the Office of Personnel Management with the revolutionary idea that it’s not how long you sit at your desk that matters, it’s what you get done.

“This involves negotiating new roles and new ways of communicating,” Casey explained. “What if it is 7 p.m. and I have a question. Can I call you then? What if it 10 a.m. and I call you and you’re supposed to be working and you don’t answer? What does that mean? … It is a totally different way of thinking about work and managing work, especially for traditional managers who are used to seeing people in cubes.”

Finding work-life ‘balance’

For us work-at-home editors and writers, the balance in work-life balance is a verb—an action requiring continual flexibility, adjustment and re-adjustment, and decision-making.

Should I take business calls during dinner with my daughter? I usually do, because our work is deadline-driven. Are there places where I am not reachable or try to be not reachable? Yes, of course. But then there was that one time that I was editing an 80-page slide presentation for a European client right up until Thanksgiving dinner was served.

We want to do everything we can to make our clients’ lives easier and their publications the best they can be. But we have to draw the line somewhere. Nearly every day, in our actions large and small, we are determining our priorities and where exactly we draw the line. Overnight turnarounds? Yes. Overnight deadlines that require all-nighters? No, I need sleep.

With work-life balance constantly on my mind, it is little wonder I’m fascinated by the online publications we edit for the Sloan Work and Family Research Network. Geographically, the Sloan Network is just a few hours from me at Boston College. But Sloan’s readers—just like our clients—are global. Sloan’s topics—including telework, part-time work, flexible work schedules, afterschool care, single workers, older workers, phased retirement, elder care, and fathers and caregiving—touch the lives and lifestyles of the editors I work with on Dragonfly projects.

We are, each in our own way, carving out employment that works for us.

Amy Paradysz (amy@dragonflyeditorial.com) recently shifted from freelance to full-time employment with Dragonfly Editorial as an editor and project manager. She gets around the mail delivery thing with a P.O. Box—which also provides a reason to leave the house regularly.

Posted in Freelance editing, Our cool clients, Work-life balance | 2 comments »

24 new rules in Chicago 16th

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, August 24th, 2010

Well, wordie types everywhere must be quivering with excitement. The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th edition, has just been released! Woo-hoo!

And, guess what? It’s blue. Blue, people! Not orange. Can you believe it?

OK, anyway, here is a handy list of the most significant rule changes in the new guide. I’m glad to see the Chicago editors now recommend lowercasing web and website – though they still recommend capitalizing Internet and World Wide Web. Though we don’t say that much anymore, do we?

Posted in Resources for editors | 1 comment »

Twitter Hashtags for Writers

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, June 15th, 2010

Erika in DC sends this handy list of 40 Twitter hashtags for writers, published on the blog DailyWritingTips.

You can use these tags to search through the jungle of Twitter to find posts relevant to writing and editing. The authors note that “#amediting” is used to label posts about editing; “#amwriting” to label posts about writing. Many more are listed in the blog.

Posted in Freelance writing, Technology and communications | no comments »

I love my clients, part 7

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, May 7th, 2010

Just sharing a few thank you’s received from clients this week. Seriously - we work with the best folks ever. Even under the tremendous deadlines of writing proposals and deliverables, they take time to thank us for our small role in the process.

Our mash notes this week have ranged from happy:

Thanks so much for your and the team’s effort to help us get all of these documents edited and delivered to the client. The client has been very pleased with the work, and you and your team share in any praise we receive.

To apologetic:

Unfortunately for Sam and Amy, they should remember me from our previous work reviewing and editing about 50+ resumes that I kept sending to them in bursts of 3-5 with terribly quick turnarounds. They were very helpful and patient with me, so hopefully they’ll bear with me again this time.

To simple:

Hi, Sam . . . thanks for all of the great work today!

I’m so grateful for all of these comments from our clients. Knowing that they understand and value the work we do inspires us to work even harder.

Posted in Our cool clients, Proposal editing | no comments »

Win more proposals by being less professional

Posted by: Samantha Enslen, president and senior editor, April 15th, 2010

Great article yesterday on CapturePlanning.com about using the quality of your writing as a discriminator in helping you win proposals.

I’ve long felt that most proposals are written in a style that’s at once stiff, boring, jargony, dense . . . nigh on unreadable. Every proposal seems to contain the worst of business writing distilled (or usually expanded) into one mind-numbing document.

This article suggests that proposal writers instead employ the best of business writing in their props — writing that is conversational, direct, and passionate. Writing that has personality, and that tells a story.

Here at Dragonfly, we edit literally hundreds of proposals every year. In 15 years, I’ve yet to see one written in such a style.

Now that would be a key discriminator.

[Note: For you non-proposal-heads out there, "key discriminator" is proposal jargon for the cool aspects of your company that set you apart from your competitors.]

Posted in Proposal editing, Technical editing | no comments »