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| 8th May 2012 |
Issue 17/2012 |
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Taking responsibility for the future | |
Just about anyone who has had an interaction with Bill McCurry, either at an Australian PMA event, in store or in the US would agree that he has the uncanny knack of cutting through the smokescreens and getting to the crux of the matter at hand.
This was pointed out yet again in this week's issue of his Ideas Exchange Newsletter where he discussed two phone calls from two different photo retailers.
The first call came from a retailer who had aggravated his staff by "overdoing" Christmas Card promotions this year. They had samples, they had posters and the store was covered with floor graphics showing all the Christmas Card designs possible. There wasn't a customer that came in the store that wasn't exposed (over-exposed the old time staff said) to the fact that this retailer not only did Christmas Cards, but they had a designer on staff who would custom design a card for you with your image for only $39.
The result was an increase in Christmas Card sales - a feat not widely copied by most imaging firms for Christmas 2011. In commenting on the floor graphics this retailer said, "I'm taking responsibility for getting every dollar possible out of my assets.
The owner believes "if it is to be, it is up to me." His statement, "I'm taking responsibility . . ." made it easy for him to face down the long-term employees that felt he was going over the top. Those employees still have a job and this re-empowered owner is making sure that everything in his company is being used to the maximum possible to generate revenue. From that revenue the owner will pay those employees that continue to drive revenue. Those employees who don't want to be part of the push to capture new revenue streams are invited to go elsewhere to not grow revenue. If they stay, they'll be expected to help the company build profitable sales, period.
Fantastic to see a retailer who is not worrying about what the opposition is doing but instead he is making sure he maximizes the opportunities that do come his way.
The second call was from a retailer that was looking to reinvent their business but were not prepared to go outside their store to a major conference to learn HOW to reinvent. The philosophy being that it would not look good to his staff if he went off while cutting back his staffs hours.
In Bill's words "I lost it again. How bad does it look if you lay them all off and close up? What the *#!! are you thinking? Are you thinking at all? You're going to let staff prejudice and ignorance direct your actions?"
When Bill suggested he get the key problem staff member to look at attending in his stead and that he list everything that was expected of him to achieve. The pressure of having everyone's future hanging over his head made it seem like a whole different ball game.
What I take away from this is can a storeowner afford NOT to attend an event, which may change their future direction or add a revenue stream that changes the way they operate?
Of course not but can you go out and do these things without involving your staff both prior and post event to make sure the effort is maximised?
Thanks Bill for once again focusing on that which is most important to us.
Cheers
Peter Rose
Director Of Australian Activities
www.pmai.org
www.pmaaustralia.com.au
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Your PMA Australia Executive
National Chairperson
Phil Gresham
philip@fotofast.com.au
Eastern Region TVP
and NSW Chairperson
John Ralph
jrcamerahouse@bigpond.com
WA, SA, NT, QLD TVP
and QLD Chairperson
Andrew Mason
print@photocontinental.com.au
TAS Chairperson
Tim Jones
tim@perfectprints.com.au
VIC Chairperson
Jeff Crowley
jeff.crowley@fujifilm.com.au
SA Chairperson
Paul Atkins
paul@atkins.com.au
WA Chairperson
Murray Gibbs
murray@ggch.com.au
Director of Australian Activities
Peter Rose
prose@pmai.org
Australian Directors for PMA
John Paxton
jpaxton@paxtons.com.au
Len Sandler
len.sandler@starshots.com.au
PPFA Chairperson
Ormond Williams
osgood@bigpond.net.au
APCI Chairperson
Paul Atkins
paul@atkins.com.au
PSPA Chairperson
Paul Dawson
pd@hydrophotographics.com.au
PIEA Chairperson
Gale Spring
g.spring@rmit.edu.au
PMA Australia Office
02 9454 2444
pmaaustralia@pmai.org
Editor
Glynn Lavender
pmaaustralia@pmai.org
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Education: The key to PMA's Future Success | |
As the retail market shifts with the advent of on-line purchasing, and dominance by a few major chains, it is important that an association like ours adapts to these market fluctuations.
We must continue to be relevant in the market, and work to support our retail base.
One of our primary functions is to provide educational support to retail and the industry.
As the retail base contracts, focus should shift to the end user and in our case the prosumer as he/she is now the major supporter of ongoing imaging equipment sales.
Read here how PMA is changing the way it connects you with your customers
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| Is your business 255? - by Paul Atkins | |
I was watching American Idol and was interested to hear every contestant singing 'flat out'. These are very talented, very inexperiened kids, belting out songs. They are packed with singing power but they lack subtlety.
They go from 245 to 255 in one giant leap.
By 255 I am referring to the maximum RGB value, which is pure white. 245 is a very light tone it can appear white, but it will contain detail. The zone between detail and no detail, control and out of control, is where greatness lives.
The "Idol" singers think the audience want their 'everything' in each performance, but it starts to resemble yelling. Enticing listening involves subtlety. You need contrast and harmony, you need restraint. Show how you can control near your limits.
Let's look at another example, album design. If every page has faded backgrounds under multiple images, the viewer will tire from the visual assault. If every page is full bleed, none will stand out. If every page is a tiny image in a field of white, most will be ignored. Great design follows a rhythm, the viewer will not be allowed to ignore, they will be carried along by subtlety. They will be lulled by harmony, and awoken with contrast.
AtkinsTechnicolour's biggest challenge as print providers is how we manage those last few steps to maximum saturation on our printers. Great colour management is about the subtlety of those last few steps of tone. We remake our ICC profiles regularly to optimize these steps, we don't want you to see the steps. We want to make the best out of the variety of outputs we have, and yet have them perform similarly so you get a predictable 'best'.
So you can wang out some HDR effects, you can hyper-sharpen, whack a vignette on everything and I'm sure you can diffuse glow, but can you hold back? Can you let a great subject hold the viewers attention without laying on the photoshop? Do you even have a professional grade monitor that will display the difference between 250 and 255?
Being great at something, being professional grade, involves doing it long enough to explore the limits of your talent. To expand your limits by constant practise. To have the understanding of those last few steps from in control to your out of control.
Being great is being subtle.
By Paul Atkins
This is a great observation by Paul. Are your staff belting out stats and tech features and forgetting the subtlety of selling? Do your customers say 'thanks I'll think about it' because of information overload?
Maybe it's time for some low key ballads in our store to give our customers a break from the constant full volume of life! - Ed
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An Australian First - by Peter Rattray
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Not many people know that the World's First Showing to the public of a working DIGITAL CAMERA actually happened in Sydney Australia @ the 1991 PMA convention.
I took this photo of Sandi Barrie and Max Dupain at Sandie's re-enacatment of the first Duguerreotype taken in Australia 150 years earlier.
The re-enactment occured just before the PMA show opened.The third person in the photo was Lucien Samaha from Eastman Kodak with the very first commercially viable digital camera in the world, The Kodak DCS100/Nikon. It was tethered to a huge battery pack you can see on his shoulder.
Little did we know what impact that digital camera would have on the photographic industry some 19 years later.
Max Dupain a good friend, passed away a little over a year after this photo was taken in July 1992.
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FUJIFILM Sponsors PMA Future Leaders Program 2012 - media release | |
SYDNEY, 24 April 2012 - FUJIFILM today announced that they have become a Platinum Sponsor of the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) Australia Future Leaders Program.
Fujifilm Australia GM Consumer Imaging Paul Rogers said, "For over twelve years the PMA Young Achiever Award has been a very successful event and in 2011 the program was expanded making training available to an even larger group of future industry leaders with wider eligibility for entrants. The objective of the program is to expose future leaders to training and techniques that will make them better employees for the entire industry. We see this program as incredibly worthwhile I'm delighted to say that for the 2012 event Fujifilm will be a Platinum Sponsor."
Paul Rogers
PMA Australia's first Future Leaders Program Workshops were successfully run in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in late April and May 2011. Fifty-five industry future leaders, from a variety of retail, wholesale, professional photography and picture framing businesses attended the workshops, which were developed and run by PMA's long time training partner, The Friedman Group. The workshops focus on refining the future leaders' communication skills, enhancing business development skills and developing world-class practice strategies.
Kathy Warlum from the PMA Australia's Future Leaders Program said, "We are delighted to have Fujifilm as Platinum Sponsor of this year's event. Organisations that participate are showing their commitment to the future of the Australian photographic industry."
To download the PMA Australia's Future Leaders Program registration form, click here
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You need to hear this! | |
The PMA team have now completed The Digital Conference progam, to be held this year in Melbourne, May 24th to 26th.
Over the next few weeks we will continue to highlight many of the Conference sessions in this newsletter, allowing you a "sneak peak" at the broad range of topics brought to you by industry acclaimed speakers.
Today, our featured speaker is Anthony Milner, Elcom Technology
Session E7 Thursday 24th May, 3.50pm
Learn five secrets to improving productivity and maximising your investment on the web.
Anthony has over 15 years' experience in shaping web content management solutions, intranet, ecommerce and online marketing for Australia's leading commercial and government organisations. As the Product Director for Elcom Technology, one of Australia's largest web technology vendors, he is responsible for the strategic direction, design and development of Elcom's market leading Enterprise Content Management platform for web, intranet, eCommerce, training and document management - the elcomCMS.
To download The Digital Conference Program click here
To Register for The Digital Conference click here
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| If you haven't smiled today...... | |
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PMA Calendar 2012 | |
May 24th- 26th: PMA presents The Digital Conference
May 25th- 27th: 2012 The Digital Show
Wed June 6th: PMA QLD Meeting
Pig N' Whistle, Riverside, Brisbane
Fri June 8th: 2012 Future Leaders Program - Sydney
North Ryde RSL Function Centre
Tue June 12: 2012 Future Leaders Program - Melbourne
Arrow on Swanston
Fri July 20th: Info'tography Seminar - Sydney
Sat July 21st Info'tography Workshop - Sydney
National Maritime Museum
Darling Harbour
Mon 23rd July Info'tography Seminar - Brisbane
Tue 24th July Info'tography Workshop - Brisbane
Southbank Institute of Technology
South Brisbane
Fri 27th July Info'tography Seminar - Melbourne
Sat 28th July Info'tography Workshop - Melbourne
State Library of Victoria
Tue Sept 4th: PMA NSW Second Industry Quarterly Review
North Ryde RSL Function Centre
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