Explore every episode of the podcast The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast
Dive into the complete episode list for The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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Title
Pub. Date
Duration
Never Bring Fish To The Studio with Brent Maynard
22 Apr 2025
00:41:28
Summary
In this episode, Daniel Jester is joined by studio operations and photography manager Brent Maynard, who shares stories and insights from his unique experience managing photo studios for a major pet brand. Brent dives into the complexities of working with animal talent, from cats and dogs to guinea pigs, birds, and even cockroaches, and explains the specialized studio workflows required to keep animals, handlers, and crew safe and productive. He and Daniel talk about their shared love of optimizing studio layouts, reflect on the importance of removing obstacles for creative teams, and explore how the presence of animal talent transforms everything from set design to crew behavior. It's a fascinating look at the intersection of operational excellence and animal chaos, with a few screaming guinea pigs along the way.
Key Takeaways
Animal talent adds layers of complexity to studio operations, requiring specialized workflows to ensure safety and smooth production.
Studio layout changes can significantly improve efficiency, even without new investments. Small shifts in shelving and table placement led to measurable productivity gains in Brent’s previous roles.
Brent’s approach emphasizes reducing physical strain and mental load on creative teams, which often results in better output and less burnout.
Studios working with animals must prioritize safety above all else, including airlock-style door systems, species separation, and cautious scheduling.
Pet behavior affects production. Even subtle stress signals can compromise a shoot, which is why the pet team plays a critical role in monitoring and interpreting animal body language.
Noise and tension on set can disrupt animal performances, so maintaining a calm and low-stress environment is essential for success.
The pet team serves as both handler and advocate, ensuring that animals are safe, comfortable, and not being pushed beyond their limits.
Animals with professional experience are more predictable, but many shoots also involve non-working pets, which require more patience and flexibility.
Unusual animal talent like birds, guinea pigs, and even cockroaches come with highly specific needs. Guinea pigs may scream, birds may curse, and fish are generally not worth the risk due to their fragility.
Brent is passionate about studio operations and finding thoughtful, efficient solutions. His experience with complex sets and talent makes him a valuable resource for any production team.
In this episode of the E-commerce Content Creation Podcast, Daniel dives deep into the topic of Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, exploring their importance yet lack of widespread adoption in the E-commerce space. He discusses the differences between cloud storage solutions and DAM systems, emphasizing the need for metadata, version control, and user permissions. Daniel also highlights the challenges of managing assets at scale and the necessity of having a structured workflow. He concludes by encouraging listeners to evaluate their current asset management practices and consider the benefits of implementing a DAM system.
Key Takeaways
DAM adoption is still relatively low in eCommerce.
Cloud storage tools can become chaotic as assets scale.
Metadata is crucial for effective asset management.
Version control helps track asset iterations and approvals.
User roles in DAM systems provide granular access control.
Integration with other systems enhances DAM functionality.
Scalability is a key factor in choosing a DAM system.
Evaluate your team's ability to find assets efficiently.
The Flash Drive Files - Episode 5 with Matt Licari
28 Nov 2024
01:01:21
Takeaways
Matt Licari identifies as a portrait photographer at heart.
Celebrity photography often involves quick, high-pressure situations.
Building a connection with subjects is crucial for capturing authentic moments.
Technical preparation is essential for successful shoots with limited time.
Finding creative expression within constraints can lead to unique results.
Emotional intelligence is key in high-stress photography environments.
Photography can serve as a form of unlicensed therapy for subjects.
Personal work can lead to unexpected opportunities.
SEO efforts can pay off years later.
Trusting your technical skills enhances creativity.
Fashion photography requires understanding of the industry.
Lookbooks have evolved with digital trends.
Technology has streamlined post-production processes.
Learning from mistakes is crucial in photography.
Building a conducive workspace enhances focus.
Influences shape an artist's unique voice.
Embracing one's journey is vital for growth.
Credits
This podcast was produced by verybusy.io and co-produced by Daniel Jester
Visit VeryBusy.io/fdf to learn how they can help you streamline your review process and post production communication
Studio Highlight: ShowLabs, Creative Force and Orbitvu with Danny Effron and Polly Babcock
20 Sep 2022
00:32:03
Summary
The Content Crisis. Danny Effron said it really well in this episode of our podcast. When a brand makes the decision to move into a new marketing space or channel, they quickly find out that requires its entire own set of assets designed to work within that space. This is why the content studio of the future needs to be able to adapt quickly, while still building a system that ensures accurate and timely work. Joining Daniel for this episode is Danny Effron and Polly Babcock of ShowLabs, a Denver based commercial studio that uses some of the most cutting edge technology available in our industry in order to meet the content crisis head on.
Key Takeaways
ShowLabs was founded by Danny Effron to help solve problems that retailers in the sports and outdoors space were experience with content creation
The Sports and Outdoors industry was a bit slower to come around on wholesale channels, focusing on D2C. They needed a way to leverage the new technology in the wholesale market.
ShowLabs builds structure around the content creation process. They build a framework so that brands provide all the information needed to produce exactly the right content.
"Content Crisis" Brands moving into new and different channels realize that they need to make content for each of these channels.
ShowLabs was a test studio for the Creative Force integration with Orbitvu devices. ShowLabs has been able to streamline their workflow and ensure accurate file handling and naming with this integration.
While the Beta had its issues, it's been quite successful.
Automated Devices for the Modern Studio with Mark Duhaime of Orbitvu USA
13 Sep 2022
00:39:07
Summary
Automated imaging devices have come a long way in a short period of time, both in terms of capability and the organizational understanding that these devices need to function as part of a system of tools and technology. Joining Daniel for this episode is Mark Duhaime of Orbitvu USA. Mark’s roots in our industry go back to the days of medium format film cameras, but his purpose now is working with studios to automate the parts of the process that can be automated, and help studio invest more time into the truly creative aspects of Creative Production.
Key Takeaways
Orbitvu was founded in Poland by the son of a camera shop owner who went to school for engineering. Combining those two parts of his life led to the automated imaging device that became Orbitvu.
Background removable was a critical element to this process, making the post production process easier.
Orbitvu wholly controls the systems, both hardware and software, which allows for incredible inputs into the algorithms that can dramatically speed up your imaging process.
Equipped with a turntable, Orbitvu in some cases can shoot all variants of your images automatically.
Orbitvu USA is a consultative company. They want to help your studio succeed first and foremost.
Templated workflows allow studios to really speed up work on set, while allowing the photographers to focus on the creative problems they need to solve.
Orbitvu wants to automate what we can, recognizing that studios have many needs and not all aspects can or should be automated.
Outside of Atlanta, Orbitvu just moved to a 5k sf showroom where you can see the entire device lineup in action.
A Studio Origin Story with Rob Cohen of Vizio Imaging
06 Sep 2022
00:27:28
Summary
Joining Daniel for this episode of the show is Rob Cohen of Vizio Imaging. Rob comes from a background in consumer products, where he experienced first hand the challenges of inconsistent or low quality product photography and the impact it could have on marketing and sales. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, in response to his customers needs and his own business seeing the impacts of the pandemic, he started Vizio imaging with an Orbitvu automated imaging device that he had brought to Israel a few years earlier.
Key Takeaways
Rob Cohen founded Vizio Imaging, based in Israel, at the beginning of 2020 after realizing he was going to need react to his business slowing down due to COVID.
Rob had a client who needed product photos, and he decided to dig up an Orbitvu machine he had purchased years earlier to make product images for other projects.
Rob found that it took off. He found a niche within mid-level brands, straight product photos with varying angles, and staying away from the more subjective, higher touch work.
Focus and client selection are critical to success for new commercial studios.
The Golden Age of LED Technology with Robert Magness of Aputure
30 Aug 2022
00:42:59
Summary
We live in a golden age of LED technology. It's been said before on this podcast. Think back to the early years of LED lights for almost any application and you might recall that those products fell pretty flat. Whether it was LED christmas lights, LED consumer light bulbs, or light fixtures for the studio. Since that time, LED has come a long way, and for many applications is now the leading option in both quality and price. Joining Daniel to discuss this golden age of LED technology is Robert Magness, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Aputure, one of the leading brands in LED fixtures for film and still production.
LED lighting has come a long way since the late 2000s, clear evidence of this is the history of LED Christmas lights.
Aputure was founded and is run by filmakers, who deeply care about its customers and what their needs are.
The future of lighting for video will be integrations and eco-systems. Expect lights to become the next thing that are enhanced by connectivity and the ability to integrate.
Managing the Complexity of Product Photos in the Field with Kim Dirmaier
23 Aug 2022
00:24:35
Summary
Kim Dirmaier of Burton Snowboards joins Daniel for this episode of the podcast and we discuss the role that location shoots with athletes plays into PDP imagery at burton and the complications that can arise and the organization required to manage so many inputs coming from all over the world.
Key Takeaways
Burton has started using more imagery from the field on PDP pages to help support sales and product photography.
This presents some challenges to traditional studio and post production teams.
Images now come in from all over the world as athletes are in the field training, competing and performing.
Art direction is impacted by this and has made concessions to make it easier to make selects for use on the site.
Post production teams getting involved in conversations early can help ease pains later on that may not have been
Evolving the Commercial Studio Work Force with Tim Dalal
16 Aug 2022
00:29:02
Summary
Daniel is joined by Tim Dalal of Lifetime Brands. Tim is a longtime commercial photographer based in New York City. After an entire career running his own commercial studio, he took on a position as Adjunct Photography Instructor with LaGuardia Community College, along with a role as managing senior photographer with Lifetime Brands. Tim’s experience and observations on the industry make him uniquely suited to discuss with me what the future of the commercial photography labor force might look like.
Key Takeaways
With the current iteration of e-commerce creative production becoming a more mature industry, the need exists for some standards in terms of training, terminology, and compensation for experience.
This might look similar to cousin industries like film production, where there are distinct requirements to earn the title of the role you inhabit.
Imagine Senior Photographer is a standard role that means the person inhabiting that role has attained a certain level of experience as an e-commerce photographer.
Something like a governing body of e-commerce creative talent can pay dividend to both employers and employees for a variety of reasons.
Continued education for creative talent can also be a mission of this type of arrangement.
Building the Right Mentor Relationship with Lauren Stefaniak
09 Aug 2022
00:35:37
Summary
Key Takeaways
Last time we talked, I had opened up the possibility of talking mentorship with you and we didn’t get a chance to touch on it. In your experience, how important is it to find a mentor?
The importance of a mentor is directly proportional to the importance you’ve set on your goals and your development
If you’re one of those “i’m just happy to be here” kind of people, a mentor will probably feel unnecessary to you
If you’re someone who has a target in mind (ie. I’m a manager and I want to be CMO someday, or I started a side hustle and I want to turn it into a full-time gig), it’s a critical component on your journey to your goal to find a mentor (or a few!)
What should a person look for in a mentor?
Someone who has already achieved the goal you’ve set for yourself (NOT someone whose overall achievements are inspirational to you)
Meaning – if you have a goal to be a CMO, find someone who currently is or has been a CMO
This is NOT – I want to pursue X as a mentor because I think they live a really cool life and I want to be them
“Never meet your heroes”
Someone’s life & success often is not as it seems
It is incredibly difficult & unlikely to mirror your entire life after someone else’s
You’ll fall flat in conversations if you’re not clear on what you’re looking to learn
Someone who is/was in your industry or one that’s adjacent to yours
This leads to a natural progression of networking opportunities
Also cuts through the “language barrier” of having to over-explain your role/industry to glean meaningful recommendations toward your goal
Someone who is fairly accessible and open to continued communication
Goes without saying, but cold-calling a CEO of a Fortune 500 company probably won’t get you anywhere
Someone with limited time can be great for a one-time conversation (you can learn a hell of a lot in one phone call), but would not work as a long-term mentor
Someone with a communication style that matches your own
By this I mean – you both prefer meeting in person, scheduling phone calls, sending emails, etc.
If you don’t like talking on the phone and your prospective mentor keeps scheduling calls, it’s probably not going to work over time
Have you been a part of any orgs that formalize the process of finding and having a mentor?
Once, professionally, and it was the worst thing in the world!
In one of my previous roles, it was a requirement for new hires as part of the onboarding process to attend quarterly “coffee chats” with a randomly-assigned mentor who may or may not be in your department
Mentorship has to be something both parties want to do & are ready for
And some of the best mentors operate outside the confines of a defined mentorship relationship
Does/should you mentor change over the course of your career?
They can, but they don’t have to
Instances where they do change:
Your goal changes
Your mentor falls out of sync with your goals
Your mentor can no longer dedicate the time to you
Recommend having more than one mentor at all times:
Ensures you’re hearing a diverse perspective of experiences & insights
Ensures you’re not leaning too heavily on one particular person
Mentorship burnout can be real
What are your best tips for early career professionals in this biz on being a good mentee?
Be thoughtful in your approach to learning from your mentor
Ask detailed questions, not a general “how did you do X”
Don’t ask something you can readily find on Google, but do use information you find as a launchpad to ask something else; ie. “I saw on LinkedIn you were at X company as CMO, what about that company made you want to accept that position there?”
Be respectful of your mentor’s time
Show the hell up if you schedule something
Remember it’s a two-way street
A good mentor is invested in your success
If they don’t show up to something you’ve agreed on & scheduled, consider walking away
You can walk away from a mentor if it’s not working out for you
We often have such high expectations walking into conversations with strangers, and occasionally it can turn out nothing like what you expected
Do you want to shout out to any of your mentors?
My current manager, Pamela!
I legitimately think she would shy away from officially being called a “mentor,” but has been my guiding light in my career
She helped shape my approach to mentorship, personal development & how I operate in my role:
“Your value is not in what you know, but how you think.”
Innovation, Safety, and Social Media with Martin Torner of Matthews Studio Equipment
02 Aug 2022
00:32:58
Summary
If you’re like many people, having grown up in commercial photo studios, you may not have spent a lot of time interrogating the history of your grip equipment. But for Martin Torner, who spent close to 20 years as a grip working on film and television productions before joining Matthews Studio Equip., it’s all about the history of innovation and serving a tight knit industry who values efficiency and safety. Martin joins me for this episode to talk about how it all started for Matthews, what it means to be a pioneer and innovator in your industry, and how social media and supporting smaller scale creators plays into it for this legendary equipment manufacturer.
Key Takeaways
Matthews has been in business for over 50 years, and was born from the extraordinarily talented key grips and electricians of the old days of film production.
Matthews developed tools and systems for production that allowed for great advancements in how film productions were produced and much of that informs how we work in e-commerce photo studios.
Safety is paramount at Matthews, and social media is key in getting that message out.
Matthews has always been good at viral video, going back to the founder riding a dolly down his driveway to show what it was capable of.
Matthews believes in servicing all creators, from the individual content creators to full scale bug budget film production.
It’s not an uncommon idea that the tenure of a creative team member in an e-commerce studio tends to be short. 2-3 years typically. It’s easy to understand how this idea persists because creative production for e-commerce can be quite repetitive, and changing teams, studios, brands can help keep things interesting for a career product photographer or other creative role. What if we in the studio challenged this idea? What if we create policies and culture that encourages retention and rewards it? Easier said than done, but Josie Diamond and Daniel have a bit to say about it.
Key Takeaways
Often we think of the lifecycle of the creative in a studio as a full time employee to be only 2-3 years. We accept that and in some cases don’t really seem interested in changing it.
I believe we should be actively working with our teams to get them ready for their next career move, whether in-house or elsewhere
What are some reasons that a studio SHOULD consider making an effort to retain employees beyond what is generally accepted?
High retention is desirable, especially when recruiting new employees. It’s an attractive pull, and even more so in such a competitive market.
Social media is also a strong tool these days, with a high likelihood of good and bad practices being shared - you won’t attract great talent unless you prioritize keeping the great talent you already have
Knowledge stays within the team/business, and true progress can be realized in longer term projects, process changes or business-wide strategy
Some studies have shown that it can take individuals up to 18 months to fully settle, build confidence and learn the ropes inside & out of a new business - if this is true, we’re losing all positive momentum just as it starts with every resignation
Have you experienced any programs or policies that you felt helped retention for creatives?
Allowing use of equipment and space out of hours for testing & personal shoots
Including (& protecting) time for R&D in the job description - this applies to every role, whether its sample management, pre & all the way through to post production
COST days (Creative Off Set Time) - I’ve not experienced this myself, though have heard it mentioned enough times - it’s a great initiative, and relatively low cost if it’s planned in effectively
What types of policies (official or unofficial) tend to hurt retention in the studio?
All starts and ends with budget - if there is no budget assigned to learning and development, you will risk your team departing
In today’s world - flexibility in terms of location, hours etc. Provide some flexibility for real life scenarios we all deal with.
Return to work plans for those on parental leave - I think this is a major area where development is required, especially for those roles that are based on site.
Removing any limiting policies in the employment contract that allow you to work elsewhere at the same time - cliché but the world today is a different place, and deterring anyone from benefiting outside of your organization isn’t fitting anymore - if it’s not a direct competitor and little risk to your operation, just remove it from the contract - your team will be happier
Image rights for personal work in employment contract - I once worked somewhere where the wording in the contract was so vague, that it stated any image created by the employee would be owned by the business - read your contracts! That business owns a lot of my pet portraits.
For a studio that is serious about retaining talent, where should they start? (use this to talk about the interview and onboarding processes, in addition to everything else)
An honest interview process - don’t gear people up for a perfect workplace, you’ll risk losing your talent far sooner than the 2-3 years!
Proper onboarding - shadowing of all areas of the team and stakeholder teams in the wider business. Allow ample time for building relationships. I think we’ve all been guilty of letting people come in and get on with it. It’s been a recent reminder for me to create an onboarding plan, not just for your full time team but also your freelancers! Super important, with the increase of hybrid teams.
Have no expectations of new hires for the first few weeks.
How can you prioritize expanding the skill stack of your team
Do you have a sample support colleague who has a keen interest in production (for example), and can you make them some time to learn this from your existing team, and even support in future
If your workload peaks and troughs through the year, can colleagues flex in to different projects or areas to support in busy moments - providing alternative work experience for a future career?
In-house support, dedicated to coaching talent - recent job we saw (I think it was Farfetch?)
Actively discussing the issues of the world, and how you can implement change in the workplace to address them; whether that be DE&I, Sustainability or work life balance
Bring in revered external talent to run training sessions, or for teams to shadow whilst they work (agree this with them up front though!)
I can’t stress it enough to create flexibility wherever you can. If that means
Can good retention help you attract talent?
ABSOLUTELY! We all know and have heard of great employers in the market, and I’ll bet they prioritise the development of their talent, so much so, that they want to stick with them longer term.
If your studio has never managed a post production vendor before, the task can seem daunting. But with a little preparation and an understanding of your own studio KPIs, you can rely on the data to help build that relationship. That's one of the great things about data, it becomes that source of truth that, with some transparency and communication, clearly indicates whether the relationship is working or not. Adam Parker joins Daniel for this episode of the podcast to discuss how KPIs can support your vendor and your team in growth and process improvement.
Key Takeaways
Data and metrics can help ease the difficulty of managing a post production vendor, especially for the inexperienced studio.
It starts with understanding your studios specific needs. What is your expected SLA? What specific tasks need to be performed?
Take a look at some of the industry leaders for Post Production and determine who fits your needs.
Be open and transparent about your studio needs and how you expect the vendor to perform.
Keep regular check-ins with your vendor and use that time to review performance, include the data points you've been tracking.
Use this opportunity to grow your own team professionally, involve them in the management process.
This week's episode features Caleb Raynor, taking us back to school for studio economics 101. We talk about the mechanics and metrics that determine the financial success of the photo studio and how you can learn to speak that language fluently when making the business case for more investment in your creative teams.
Beyond Shaping Light with Patrik Bluhme of Profoto
12 Jul 2022
00:32:34
Summary
Patrik Bluhme of Profoto joins Daniel for episode 69. About a year ago, Profoto went public with an IPO and as part of that process, explained what their plan for future growth looked like. One area of opportunity that profoto identified was what they called “ecomm workflow solutions” That can mean a lot of things, but we now know that Profoto was interested in moving into the automation space in a big way. It was announced in early april that Profoto had acquired Styleshoots. We invited Patrik to come on the show and talk about not only that, but what else the future holds for brand.
Key Takeaways
Profoto has committed to making tools that support creating great light, including in the mobile space.
Profoto purchase StyleShoots in order to move more into automation, and bring the lessons they've learned as the industry leader in lighting, to other areas of the creative production workflow.
For Profoto, it's also about an automated solution that is consistent with other assets created. Profoto lights it all.
The day of this recording, Profoto had released the A2, a soda can sized flash you can throw in any camera bag.
Expect more interesting announcements from Profoto and Style Shoots.
There is an art form to asking your company for money or resources, and while business lingo changes and evolves all the time, right now that art form is called making a business case. It might not be a surprise to you that this skill generally doesn’t get taught in photography school nor is it wisdom passed among stylists while setting up the next look. It’s a skill that really gets developed on the job, and the opportunity to practice doesn’t always come up before your thrust into the hot seat. Lauren Stefaniak joins Daniel on the podcast to help you learn how to make that compelling business case, and hopefully prepare you for a new phase of your career.
Key Takeaways
What does it mean to make a business case?
At its simplest: preparing, developing and presenting an informed point of view in an effort to persuade decision-making in your favor
They can seem daunting but on a micro level we do these every day (“what do you want for dinner”)
Most people focus on the presentation, but that’s the smallest part of the whole
Iceberg metaphor
Preparing - 70%, 10 hours
Research the hell out of what you’re talking about
Look internal
Who is your company today, tomorrow, yesterday
Can you tie your request to the companies mission or values?
Look external (same & different industries
Developing - 20%, 3 hours
Distill it down into the most relevant & compelling info – 1-pager
Format that works best for me:
Current State
Request or the Change
Benefits
Requirements/Key Enablers
[Short-term Recommendation]
[Long-term Recommendation]
Known Open Questions
Use language that a friend or family member outside your industry would understand
Try to predict what questions you might be asked based on your information; assume someone will ask something you’re not prepared for
It can be hard to temper the desire to “show your work” but the details will drag you down & make your presentation less effective
Put the most relevant details into an appendix, 2 pages max
Make the document simple, use visuals as needed (must be pretty)
Present & gut-check your work with mid-level partners for their feedback & buy-in ahead of the formal presentation
SEND A PRE-READ 48-24 HOURS IN ADVANCE
Remember: you’ve spent many hours in this detail & even more hours living this; for some of your key stakeholders, this will be entirely new info for them. Your presentation could fall apart if leaders are caught off guard when they’d prefer to be prepared
Presenting - 7%, 1 hour
Enter the room with this mindset:
This is not life or death
This is not personal
These people are someone else’s family & friends
Ask to hold questions until the end – some questions will be answered in your presentation & Qs won’t derail the whole thing
Speak slowly & leave time for your audience to digest the info & what you’re saying (silence is okay)
Allow time for questions & be open, honest in your answers
It’s ok to not know the answer – you can say “that’s a great question, i’ll find out that information and get back to you”
If you’re doing it right, the best metaphor to describe you is a duck gliding across a pond (graceful on the surface, paddling like hell under the water)
Commit to following through – this is when the real work begins
Send recap notes & next steps following the meeting
A Cultural Style Guide with Anna Schaum of Straub Collaborative
28 Jun 2022
00:36:37
Summary
DEI has been a topic on this podcast before, we’ve recorded 3 episodes on the topic with Jessica Lopez in episode 52, with Karen Williams in Episode 47, and way back in episode 8 with Clair Carter-Ginn. While we were recording the live the episode at the Henry Stewart Photo Studio ops event in New York, we heard again during the Q&A session that this topic is still top of mind for many studio professionals. After our recording session in NY, Marc Katzin of Straub Collaborative and told Daniel about an effort that Straub was undertaking, a cultural style guide and defines DEI for Straub. Marc put Daniel in contact with Anna Schaum and they sat down to discuss this document, and what Straub is doing support DEI efforts across the organization, and how it impacts each employees day to day.
Key Takeaways
Straub Collaborative has been developing a "Culture Style Guide" since 2020 to help guide the cultural values of Straub and it's employees.
The process truly started in 2016 with the presidential election in the United States. The result of that election was a significant departure for contemporary American politics and created a lot of feelings in people across the political spectrum.
Straub noticed tensions in the workplace increasing, and experienced an uptick in negative interactions.
Anna's background as a therapist helped her identify the need to give the team at Straub tools they could use to communicate and interact more effectively.
As this was in progress, during the summer of 2020, George Floyd was murdered by police officers in Minneapolis. This event precipitated a long, global conversation about race and racism, and we saw many brands and retailers expressing support for black Americans.
Following these events, Straub's customers were asking about DEI statements and to express their values.
The project really took off when Elizabeth Semple joined the Straub team as VP of Human Resources.
The culture team at Straub was developed out of interviews with employees around the mission and values of Straub.
The Cultural Style Guide is in 3 parts - Part 1 outlines how straub defines DEI. Part 2 covers inclusive language and part 3 covers diversity in model casting.
Rhea Pappas joins Daniel to talk about the benefits and pitfalls of remote retouching. We learned some valuable lessons during COVID about how to operate remote production teams and there is a lot of benefit to widening your available labor pool and use remote retouchers. Really it all boils down to developing relationships based on communication and trust.
Key Takeaways
Trust and communication are critical for effective remote workflows.
Defining standards and then automating everything possible. This is an excellent basis for reducing waste in any process, but when dealing with remote teams it becomes and absolute necessity.
There are some challenges that need to be solved for: Color and Retouching Notes. Some notes and tasks can be standardized, but there are still one off requirements that need to be communicated IN CONTEXT. Color requires a bit more finesse, hiring standards and training.
We've set it before, and we'll say it again: include post teams in all phases of the production process or input and improvements.
Daniel's Professional Tenet: Be aware of the work that you create for other people, and try to reduce it whenever possible. If you have to create extra work for someone you owe them an explanation.
We talk a lot on this podcast about the current state of e-commerce product photography. In particular, the studio process, where we control everything. All or most variables are accounted for and we have all the tools we may need to get the job done. Sometimes though, we have to take the show on the road. While most of us creative production professionals are no stranger to the location shoot, taking a dialed in studio process on the road is a bit different. Guest Don Reed of Saks 5th Avenue and Daniel each have stories of situations where they needed to take the show on the road in order to get the job done.
Unlearning Fear in the Face of Changing Technology
07 Jun 2022
00:28:35
Summary
This is episode 64 of the e-commerce content creation podcast and Daniel is unpacking his terrible fear of changing technology with Conrad Sanderson. If there’s anyone who understands the relationship between change and fear, it’s probably Conrad, while he’s not a licensed therapist or anything, his career has spanned many changes in the technology that drives our industry and his job has taken him halfway around the world, moving back and forth across the US, and now across the Atlantic to Germany. We unpack the fears that creep up when we start to talk about what the future holds for creative production teams, and how we can meet them rationally, and see them for what they are, an opportunity.
The instagram account Daniel reference's in the episode belongs to Peter Tarka, @petertarka
Moving the Studio from Startup to Growth with Larry Gerrard of Gymshark
31 May 2022
00:25:36
Summary
In this episode Daniel is joined by Larry Gerrard, studio leader at Gymshark. If you have a pulse and are active at all on Social Media, we're certain that you’ve heard of Gymshark. An absolute favorite brand amongst fitness influencers, Gymshark has experienced incredible growth over the last several years, and we connected with Larry to talk about his approach to building the right foundation to make sure his studio team is supported.
On Post Production Org Structure with Ashley Snarski of Medline
24 May 2022
00:26:35
Summary
Joining Daniel for this episode is Ashley Snarski of Medline. At Medline, Ashley manages the post production teams but with a bit of a twist, as part of the e-comm content team, and not as part of the production process which is more typical in our industry. Ashley shares with us a bit about how this org structure came about, and what impact it has had on their workflow and speed to web.
On May 4th 2022 The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast was recorded in front of a LIVE audience at Photo Studio Operations 2022 in New York City hosted by Henry Stewart Events. Recording an episode in front of a live audience is something we have wanted to do since virtually day one of this show, and this event in New York was the perfect opportunity. David Hice of Aritzia joins me for a second round as a guest and we dig a little deeper into some of the topics from his first episode as well as take audience questions
Key Takeaways
This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Henry Stewart Events Photo Studio Operations 2022.
Daniel learned not to clip his lav mic to a name badge lanyard, sorry Calvin.
Know you KPIs! A project managers mindset for the studio requires a deep understanding of the capabilities of your studio and how that capability impacts studio KPIs.
Granularity in your metrics can be difficult to achieve, but provide deep value to studio leadership in order to forecast production throughput.
This information can help inform the "Why." Why the studio can or can't do something, and help your cross functional partners understand the impact of the ask.
Insulating your creatives (to an extent) can help protect their ability to create without getting bogged down in non-value added processes.
We need to do a better job of learning what is creative and what is technical. Creatives sometimes get wrapped up in technical processes and mistaking it for a creative process.
Anything we can do to reduce certain touch points, and remove the possibility for parts of the process to fail, can help enhance the creative parts of the process.
Sean Arbabi joins Daniel on the podcast to talk about the relationships and disconnects that can happen between the studio and adjacent stakeholders. Sometimes you need a "zoomed out" that can help build fluency between departments and allow for more effective communication and facilitate problem solving.
Key Takeaways
Its all about inputs and outputs, and being aware of what impacts you have downstream, along with what upstream processes impact you.
Saying "I don't know" is powerful. You don't need to know and you're doing a disservice by trying to know
The "Fake it til you make it" attitude can exacerbate this
Real talk: The relationship between studio and merch team can sometimes be complicated. On this podcast we love our merch partners, but sometimes there is a lack of understanding of how a studio operates and that the approach to imaging requires the same type of project management as any other department.
When you aren't willing to say "I don't know" you risk oversimplifying someone else's role, and that can lead to friction and problems.
Understand Your Value, Find Your Purpose with Tony Baker
19 Nov 2024
00:36:21
Summary
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of the E-commerce Content Creation Podcast, which happens to be Part II of Daniel's recent conversation with Tony Baker. If you haven’t caught part one yet, that was last week’s episode, episode 162 you might want to give that one a listen because in part II Tony is taking us deeper into how he goes about helping his clients understand their value, and how to use that insight to understand purpose.
A Project Management Mindset for the Studio with David Hice of Aritzia
03 May 2022
00:26:14
Summary
Project Management as a discipline isn’t exactly second nature to many studio teams around the world, but employing a bit of project management thinking can help inform studio stakeholder relationships, and set your studio up for success. David Hice of Aritzia joins Daniel for this episode to talk about exactly this.
Reminder
You can save $100 off your registration fee for the Henry Stewart Events Photo Studio Ops Forum 2022 in New York City on May 4 with discount code CONTENTPOD100. We will be recording a live episode of the show at the event. Hope to see you there!
Even in 2022, the idea of the studio as a magic box persists. Project management thinking and communication can help alleviate this.
A note on scaling - scaling can go both ways. Build process that can scale up AND down when the needs arise.
A clear understanding of KPIs and how to measure them is critical to the project management mindset. The studio needs to know what it can and cannot do and articulate that clearly.
Constructive feedback on the complexity of creative requests can be very helpful to stakeholders understanding what is or is not possible.
This mindset can also lead to allowing creatives to CREATE more than they manage.
The right tools can build fluency and unify the language in the studio.
Photo Studio Ops New York - A Preview with Stacey Tyrell
26 Apr 2022
00:20:14
Summary
This episode features an event preview with Stacey Tyrell discussing her session at the Henry Stewart Photo Studio Operations 2022. Daniel runs down some select highlights in the agenda and then interviews Stacey about her session which will kick off the event.
Reminder
You can save $100 off your registration fee for the Henry Stewart Events Photo Studio Ops Forum 2022 in New York City on May 4 with discount code CONTENTPOD100. We will be recording a live episode of the show at the event. Hope to see you there!
Studio Automation 101 with Marc, Dan, Lesley, and Rob
19 Apr 2022
00:25:12
Summary
Last week our episode featured some high level discussion about automation in the studio with Marc Berenson. This week Marc is back and he brought friends! In a first for this show we had 4 guests, the team at Stanley Black and Decker that Marc worked with to find ways to automate their repetitive tasks, and save time and effort. As Dan Berzak, head of this efficiency team, tells us, it’s about leveling not only the playing field, but your own expectations on what you can do.
Reminder
You can save $100 off your registration fee for the Henry Stewart Events Photo Studio Ops Forum 2022 in New York City on May 4 with discount code CONTENTPOD100. We will be recording a live episode of the show at the event. Hope to see you there!
Building off of episode 56, we talk to the team that built a useful and accessible automation system.
One of the keys to success this team learned is to make scripts and actions as modular as possible.
Level the playing field, find the lowest common denominator. Don't get too specific.
If you can get 100 assets 50% of the way to completion with automation, thats better than getting 1 asset 100% of the way.
Leveraging tools the studio had already, the team was able to improve accessibility to images, speed up the review process, and provide updates in real time.
The team learned not to overuse tools in each platform, so as not to bake in to many changes.
Thinking of the entire process as additive is a great way to prevent overcooking your images.
Marc theorizes that the future of Photoshop actions may be actions that are triggered by keywords or other metadata.
We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about agility, scalability and automation. It can sometimes sound like a huge undertaking to pivot a large in-house studio towards automated processes. Automation doesn’t have to be a huge project. Automation can begin with the tools any studio is using today. Marc Berenson joins Daniel on the podcast for this episode to talk about some of his learnings during his time at Stanley Black and Decker, and what he’s been working on since.
Reminder
You can save $100 off your registration fee for the Henry Stewart Events Photo Studio Ops Forum 2022 in New York City on May 4 with discount code CONTENTPOD100. We will be recording a live episode of the show at the event. Hope to see you there!
Over the last year, we've learned a lot by doing this podcast. Discussing topics covering creation production, through all stages of the process and with key stakeholders, we've started to develop a better understanding of the evolution of creative production and that's helped us make some educated guesses about where the future might take the industry. Recently Daniel had the opportunity to discuss some of the history and future of e-commerce content creation with CBU Photography program's senior class, and in this solo episode of the show, he goes a little deeper on the industry of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Key Takeaways
Creative Production for the modern e-commerce company is just starting to mature.
We are just now getting to the point where we have 10+ year veterans of these specific processes in the industry.
Will we begin to see specific technical programs related to creative operations? Probably.
Brands and Retailers have realized the strategic advantage that their production processes represent. We are shifting from cost center to having strategic value, even in some cases to profit driver.
The future of e-commerce will be ushered in by the creative teams, the make up of the teams may look different, the titles may be different, but it will be todays photographers, stylists, digitechs, graphic designers and artists that usher in the next era.
The Philosophy and Ethics of Retouching with Mercedes Castaneda of Fabletics Men
29 Mar 2022
00:31:57
Summary
How much photoshop is too much? At one point does image retouching become dishonest or unethical? These questions in similar form have been around, since even well before digital took over photography. In todays world it can be hard to have a conversation on this topic that includes the kind of nuance required to really understand where the line is. Mercedes Castaneda joins Daniel for this episode and they do their best to deliver nuance and thoughtfulness in a roughly 30 minute episode.
Key Takeaways
There has been a persistent and passionate conversation about retouching in media and what it does to our senses. While it's hard to have a nuanced conversation about it sometimes, the answer isn't always the same, context is important.
Mercedes' rule of thumb is "Is this thing temporary?" A temporary skin blemish, and out of place hair, these are temporary and become distractions in a still image.
Consent plays a roll in how much change occurs in post, and what types of changes occur. When talking about celebrities, they may have a lot of control over the retouching and in some cases push for some extensive changes.
Even if you want to present a natural beauty in your photography, there are many reasons why an image still needs to be retouched. There are technical limitations to what a camera can see or what it shows us, that needs to be corrected in post because of how can impact perception.
Production constraints can also lead to an image requiring more post. A studio shooting a whole bunch of eye shadow colors, but only book 2 models and not every color may work. In this case you may want to adjust skin tones or eye colors to coordinate better with the product.
One good rule of thumb may be "can you explain why you changed this?" If you can answer it, you're probably in the clear.
Working with intention most likely means you will avoid being guilty of over-manipulation.
A Degree in Photography with Christopher Kern of CBU
22 Mar 2022
00:30:21
Summary
Christopher Kern is Program Lead and Assistant Professor of Photography at CBU in Riverside, CA. Chris joins Daniel to discuss the program, the students, the studio he's built out for teaching and chat about their shared backgrounds growing up in Riverside.
Key Takeaways
Chris' passion for photographic education stems from his own background, pursuing an MFA in commercial photography.
CBU photography focuses not only on teaching students how to be photographers, but how to maintain and relevant and impactful portfolio in order to enter the job market as competitive as possible.
"The magic is not in the medium [...] most of us are in love with photography because imagery that made us feel"
Photography is a tool to investigate curiosities, build worlds, and express ourselves
CBU's footprint is about the same as USC in Los Angeles
CBU Photography lives off site in an industrial complex familiar to many photo studio pros
The program makes photography as accessible as possible to students from all over
Embracing a Broad Definition of Inclusive with Jessica Lopez
15 Mar 2022
00:23:00
Summary
Art Director Jessica Lopez joins Daniel to go deep on inclusive casting for e-commerce. The discussion ranges from the current state of inclusiveness in e-commerce media, to the ground we have yet to cover, to what future technology might enable for shoppers of all shapes, sizes, abilities, and needs.
Key Takeaways
Inclusion has become a much bigger topic in recent years, but we can really expand and embrace a broader definition of inclusive.
Some brands have been at the forefront of inclusion and going so far as to give the user a choice of what skin tone and body type they would like to see.
While there are some agencies that specialize in adaptive model talent, they are few and there is an opportunity for new agencies in the industry that can advance this effort.
Campaigns have often used non-traditional models, but sometimes it can be seen as tokenism, especially when the product offering is inaccessible to certain people or communities, or its used to generate buzz.
Ecomm is still often left out of the diversity initiatives, sticking with a certain type and size of model.
In this episode Daniel recaps the FLOW Event at Hudson Loft in Los Angeles. Creative Force sister company Pixelz hosted the event and organized an excellent slate of speakers. Daniel takes you through the day and includes brief interviews recorded onsite at the end of the event.
Key Takeaways
Are you using technology for technologies sake, or is it truly adding value?
TROVE believes that people, products, and brands have stories, and stories are culture. Brands can capitalize on this idea as well as billions of dollars in resale revenue by controlling more of the resale of their products.
Sef Mccullough presented on the science of creativity and the effect that viewing imagery has on how our brains organize information. Daniel sat down with Sef for a few minutes after the event.
Benjamin Grimes, past guest of this podcast, presented on new and emerging technologies for the e-commerce studio. Fascinating to hear from Ben what some of the trends have been in equipment purchases over the last few years.
Ryan Roberts of Pixelz moderated an excellent round table discussion on planning from pre-pro to post. Mercedes Castaneda, Erin Pederson, Jason Wheeler contributed.
Relatable Content in a Post Covid World with Mark Stocker of The Very Group
01 Mar 2022
00:27:45
Summary
Mark Stock of The Very Group returns for a discussion on the future of relatable content in a post-covid world. Customers that were previously hesitant to shop online have become quite savvy over the last two years of almost exclusively shopping online, and our content has reflected the values that we all found solace in during a traumatic world event. Now that we seem to be moving past the COVID era, how do we as content creators respond?
Key Takeaways
In direct response to COVID, many retailers and their studios did what they could to keep commerce moving, shooting at home, letting go of the perfection of the merchandised studio shot and embracing an aesthetic that was more real.
Relatable and authenticity could be here to stay for a while, as the world slowly begins to open up again.
Focusing on the customer journey, and being authentic could be a trend that we see a lot in e-commerce.
If there's one thing we've learned, it's to be forward facing. Expect everything. Be brave and try things.
Video is going to be BIG for the future of relatable content.
Data can help drive some relatable content efforts, but you have to be careful because data can lead to content that lacks emotion.
Daniel is joined by Tony Baker this week. Tony recently launched his new coaching and mentorship program, aimed at helping creative professionals of all stripes understand their value, and how to incorporate that knowledge in their purpose and goals. This is part one of this two part conversation, they discuss the need for authentic connection in the work that we do, in part so we can use that connection to articulate our value and collaborate more effectively.
The New Era of User Generated Video with Ajay Bam of Vyrill
22 Feb 2022
00:31:18
Summary
User generated content probably isn't going away, certainly not after it became a critical part of a content strategy for many retailers in the pandemic era. But the current state of gathering, processing, reviewing and approving UGC is manual, slow, and comes with risks sometimes. Vyrill aims to change that. Ajay Bam, CEO and co-founder of Vyrill joins the show today to talk about the platform they've developed that uses "in-video search" to tag user generated videos with the content thats in them, making the videos easily searchable for almost any enterprise or customer facing application. The implication of this technology are vast for the e-commerce world, so don't miss this episode.
Key Takeaways
Video isn't going anywhere. 700 million hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. More video content is being uploaded in 30 days than what major television networks in the US have created in the past 30 years.
Vyrill solves the problem of how to catalog the actual content of a video, and then makes it all searchable.
Users can search from influencer or brand videos of a product they are thinking about buying, and search to find segments of the video that shows features they are interested it.
Vyrill has capability to crawl videos to find videos that feature a brand or product, and can gain key insights about the video that brands can use to leverage for marketing, product development and content needs.
Vyrill also has a platform that allows brands to license user generated videos for use on their website.
Vyrill also provides meaningful and deep insights into engagement into videos
For the record, we were not paid by Vyrill for this episode. This is genuinely a powerful tool with the possibility to dramatically improve your video marketing strategy and effectiveness.
Vyrill can also provide competitive intelligence, and find out what people like or dislike about your competitors.
Positivity is a powerful tool. Keeping a positive attitude can make or break just about any situation we might find ourselves in. This is equally as true in a photo studio as anywhere else. Cathi Singh is one of the most positive people I know and as a result, is a beloved figure on every crew we've worked together (it also helps to be an extremely talented make up artist). Cathi and I discuss her approach to keeping a positive attitude on set, why its so important to protect our emotional state when creating content, and her go-to methods for keeping calm and carrying on.
Key Takeaways
Makeup artists have a special skill, to create a bubble of calm in an otherwise chaotic situation. In a photo studio, this is a valuable resource that should be protected.
Positivity isn't always being chipper and upbeat, a big part of developing this skill is to have incredible self-awareness and know how to read the room.
Even for the most positive person, a bad day can be really bad. Have tools to help get you through, such as removing yourself momentarily from the situation.
Expectation setting can go a long way toward protecting an attitude of positivity. Ask the right questions and feel confident that the answers are clear.
Ego is one of the biggest killers of positivity on set. The crew must all work together to achieve their goals, there is no room for ego.
Taking DEI Deeper than Content with Karen Williams
08 Feb 2022
00:31:57
Summary
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in e-commerce has been a topic that we’ve wanted to explore on this podcast since almost day one. During and following the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, many brands and retailers acknowledged the events by posting imagery in support of our friends and neighbors who’d had enough of not being heard.
When I met my guest for this episode, Photo Art Director Karen Williams, I thought the conversation would focus on that, how diverse and inclusive was the content itself. It quickly become apparent that we needed to talk about the diversity of the crews creating the content. From there, it’s really hard to have the conversation about team diversity if we aren’t talking about opportunity also. Specifically, how we can create more opportunities for a more diverse team that makes our content better.
Key Takeaways
DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) are important in all facets of work, but with content creation, its important not to simply consider the diversity or inclusiveness of your model casting, or what appears in the media itself, but the diverse perspectives of the crew as well.
This can be a challenge, because people tend to bond on shared experiences and common interests. People tend to want to be around others with those common connections. This can create a challenge when building a diverse team.
The crew imparts a lot of itself on the content, and that can in and of itself create perspective issues when creating content.
It's hard to talk about diversity without touching on opportunity. Do opportunities exist in your studio for a diverse set of people to excel and succeed? Or even get a shot at trying?
Building a foundation that creates opportunity can be very difficult, especially at legacy retailers or brands that don't necessarily have DEI baked into their policies.
Equipping managers to be effective moderators of conversation can be one way to ensure that diverse perspectives aren't being overlooked.
What is Customer Success with Ryan Roberts of Pixelz
01 Feb 2022
00:31:46
Summary
It might seem kind of unusual to have an episode about Customer Success for our podcast, after all this is a podcast about creative production, not sales or SaaS or some of the other things you might think of when you hear the term Customer Success. But think about it like this. At the end of the day, customer success is really about asking the right questions, expectation setting, and continuous improvement. Being the person or team that asks “Why?” in order to determine what is the root cause and what is a symptom. Our Guest for this episode is Ryan Roberts, Customer Success Director, North America for Pixelz. We talk about all of these ideas, and we discuss how Customer Success connects with and overlaps other customer touch points, and what their ongoing role is in ensuring customers keep coming back.
Key Takeaways
What is Customer Success? In the modern age of SaaS style companies, customer success is about retaining customers beyond the initial sale, and making sure that your service is adding value to your customers, and retaining them for the long term.
Definitions of success can change from day to day. It's about priorities and expectations.
In a service business, success is deeply personalized by the customer.
The modern take on customer success was born out of the rise of Salesforce. Salesforce realized that without retention, continually adding customers would eventually reach a dead end.
It's not exclusive to software or SaaS. Anyone contract based business should concern themselves with the success of their customers.
You're always in a sales position with a company like this.
Customer Success is also about remembering to remove the bandaids. Use root cause analysis to drill down and uncover the why, to understand the correct solution.
The goal for a customer success manager at Pixelz is to figure out how things can be better for a customer.
Algorithms, Synths, and the Modeling Agency of the Future
25 Jan 2022
00:33:10
Summary
Imagine a world where a creative director walks over to a workstations and says “We need a family, two parents and two kids, sitting down playing a game together.” The person at the workstation punches a few keys, adjusts a few things, and boom, out comes a unique image that is exactly what the creative director asked for. Not a mock up, not a set of casting photos. The complete image, ready for use because you already own the license. You paid to license the technology, the algorithm that uses an ever growing library of hundreds of thousands of images (which also have been properly licensed) to generate this unique imagery. Our guest for this episode, Mark Milstein is Chief Operating Officer of a company called vAIsual and with the tech they’ve developed you may not have to imagine this world much longer.
Key Takeaways
vAIsual is a company that has created an algorithm and interface that creates entirely synthetic "models." These people do not exist in the real world, and are available for licensing without the legal considerations that come with hiring a real world model.
This technology can and will manifest in a lot of ways - SaaS, PaaS, and white label services are all in the future of this technology.
vAIsual shoots hundreds of thousands of images of real people every year. These individuals have signed model releases that release the rights of their biometrics to the company in order to be used as reference for the generations of synths.
The e-commerce photographer of the future may become something more of a synthographer, able to leverage their skills to generate content exactly in line with the creative brief.
This technology could allow for the extreme localization of content, allowing global brands to easily represent the various demographics they serve.
Process Improvement 101 with Kevin Mason of Studio Workflow
18 Jan 2022
00:28:24
Summary
Kevin Mason of studio workflow is back for another round to discuss Process Improvement. We start at the beginning, how do we get the perspective we need to evaluate the process, and the how do we drill down from there. Spoiler alert, many recurring themes that you’ve heard on this show play into success process review. Not the least of which is how we set and communicate business, studio, and individual goals.
Key Takeaways
A studio is an ecosystem of sorts, with a lot of different types of people and talent, and sometimes priorities compete. That's why leadership needs to sometimes make decisions that may impact parts of the team. Clear communication is key to understand and smooth improvement process.
Individual goals that align with studio goals that align with business goals are vital to effective process improvement or change. Teams need to understand the "why."
Get a birds eye view of the process. A process map is a great start, but be sure to also walk the floor, and compare what you see against the process map.
If your studio doesn't have a process map, just start documenting what is currently happening. Follow the product.
Offer opportunities to your team to Job Shadow. Your process benefits from everyone in the studio understanding what happens upstream and downstream.
A powerful tool to determine how current processes are functioning is to ask each task what a successful day looks like for them individually.
Conversations on Color with Jason Wheeler and Jean Francois Ortiz of Columbia Sportswear
11 Jan 2022
00:30:01
Summary
Think back to 2015 and you may remember, The Dress. A viral phenomenon that taught us a lot about how we as humans perceive color. As a photographer during that time, it sort of felt like watching the world learn a lot about what we already knew. Color can be deceiving and you never know what someone else ACTUALLY sees. In e-commerce, color is a constant topic, partially for this exact reason. If we can’t control what devices people are using to shop, let alone how their eyes work, how much effort should we put into this? In this episode I’m joined by Jean Francois Ortiz and Jason Wheeler of Columbia Sportswear and we dig into color for e-commerce
Key Takeaways
Color accuracy and fidelity has been a topic since the birth of e-commerce and digital photography
Color is so difficult to manage because of the sheet number of variables that are involved, both in terms of technology and how digital systems interpret color
Early on in the modern e-commerce age, the available technology made color accuracy very difficult. Cameras were lower resolution and monitors couldn't display the full spectrum of color for web.
As technology progresses, color accuracy gets easier to achieve but also becomes more important to pay attention to.
There are stills issues even as technology streamlines, such as display brightness or features like night mode or blue light mode.
The human eye only sees 3 colors of the spectrum and has to depend on our brains to interpret the colors. Who can say if we all see it exactly the same.
A key goal of the studio teams shooting product photography is to help the customer trust that what we are showing them is true and accurate.
For the studio, this becomes about simply having a consistent process that handles color the same way every time.
Color accurate swatching - A step with special tools and teams that can take the time to create an image that is as color accurate as possible.
Color is a headache that will never go away, but we can find a process that works and is repeatable in order to build consistency.
Resources
Metamerism - Two objects whose colors appear the same under a light source
Planning for Disruption with Rob Regovich of Malouf Companies
04 Jan 2022
00:25:56
Summary
Rob Regovich of Malouf Companies joins Daniel to take on the topic of planning for your studio in the face of disruption. We touch on the core challenges of planning for any studio, how your team and studio size impact the planning process, on how data and analytics plays a role in this.
Key Takeaways
The single biggest planning problem for a studio is getting the sample in the studio. Before any other factors caused further delays, simply knowing when the sample would be received was already difficult.
Studio size also has an impact on planning. How much capacity does a studio have, how much can a studio produce.
Balancing full time team, with the ability to expand with freelance talent can have an impact on planning and timing.
Consider your samples teams the lynchpin of your studio. Effective sample or merchandise coordinators must be fluent in the languages of all stakeholders involved in getting samples to the studio.
Experienced sample teams can get way ahead of problems before the issue hits the creative teams.
Data collection and planning are critical to planning. And you need GOOD data, that spans long periods, because outliers in production are often and have outsized impact
Tejs Rasmussen, Chief Product Officer of Creative Force sits down to talk about the growth of the platform in the last year, and what 2022 may hold for the product and for the Creative Force team.
Key Takeaways
Creative Force launched a brand new module for editorial production, built from the ground up and put the company right back in the chaos of learning what works and what doesn't
There were many updates to Creative Force in 2021 that were intended to enhance the logic of the platform.
A big workflow update to Creative Force is color reference logic, which is now best in class in creative production.
Conditional Style Guides and Production Types was a big improvement over the previous iteration, that allows for much smarter construction of a studios production needs.
Aside from the tech, Creative Force as a team and a company has grown a lot in 2021. The company was bought out by the founders, COVID impacted our ability to recruit so we had to pivot to growth in other ways.
Resources
Check out past release notes from Creative Force here
The Gift of Feedback with Terence Mahone of Farfetch
21 Dec 2021
00:35:40
Summary
Feedback is a gift. It can be scary, it can be hard, but when given in good faith it helps us learn, grow, and can make us feel good about the work that we’ve done. For this Christmas week episode of the e-commerce content creation podcast, Daniel is joined by Terence Mahone of Farfetch to discuss the gift of feedback. Even though it can be hard, if the goal of the team is growth, it is absolutely possible to have a culture where feedback is welcome and appreciated.
Key Takeaways
Feedback is often thought to be exclusively negative, when in reality feedback can be a gift.
Feedback at its core is information, and asking for more information to better form your opinion is valuable when giving and/or receiving feedback.
Feedback should always be specific. Generic feedback amounts to a personal opinion and isn't always the best tool for growth.
SBI - Situation Behavior Impact - A feedback format that encourages more meaningful information to help with giving GOOD feedback.
Creating a culture that thrives on feedback changes how people approach cross functional projects or relationships
Timeliness of feedback is crucial, if only because the more time passes, the harder it is to remember.
Feedback can become a barometer for culture and communication in a team or org. If feedback is difficult, maybe there are some communication gaps that need to be filled.
Like all things, we get better at feedback if we practice it. If you only give feedback a little bit once a year, you can't really expect to be good at it.
we LIKE to hear things that tell us our colleagues believe in us, and want to see us grow.
Difficult feedback needs to go through a manager, but peer to peer feedback can be really valuable provided the studio culture allows for it.
Keeping a record of feedback can be important for a manager, to help facilitate growth, but also to give their next manager an idea of the accomplishments and areas of an improvement for a direct report.
Keeping good records and meeting notes with your employees also eases the performance review process each year.
Photography, Curiosity, and Connection with Monica Baddar
05 Nov 2024
00:30:34
Summary
The guest for this episode is Monica Baddar. If that name sounds familiar, you might be remembering Monica from Episode 3 of the Flash Drive Files, the miniseries podcast from our friends at VeryBusy.io that drops in this feed. Monica was kind enough to record for both podcasts over the summer, so full disclosure this episode was recorded a few months ago. Monica is a really special photographer and that shines through her work in a very particular way. In this episode we talk about her approach to connecting with her subject in order to capture that magic.
Efficiency with Phillip Kirst of Spice Media
14 Dec 2021
00:25:24
Summary
Phillip Kirst, founder of Spice Media, joins Daniel to talk about efficiency. Everything from starting small to measuring and evaluating, to fostering process improvement from your team.
Key Takeaways
Efficiency is ever-evolving. Experience and heuristics helps find efficiencies in your process.
Low hanging fruit or big wins aren't the only way to get efficient. Small improvements in the aggregate can have huge impacts on overall savings.
Seconds saved on several thousand pictures has a big return.
Commercial studios have to balance many factors that dictate how efficient they can be. Client specific needs can change the calculus.
There isn't ONE thing you need to do to achieve an efficient process. But it does start with selecting the right team. A curious team is a team that creatively solves problems to achieve shared goals.
You cannot manage you do not measure.
Getting data isn't only important, but how you collect the data makes a difference.
KPIs, Planning, and Continuous Improvement - 2021 Clip Show with James Lewis
07 Dec 2021
00:32:32
Summary
Creative Force senior product specialist James Lewis joins Daniel in this clip show style look back at a few topics from the past year on the podcast. We listen to and discuss clips on KPIs, strategic planning, continuous improvement, and more!
Social Media Marketing in the New Era of E-commerce with JR Curley of Fab Fit Fun
30 Nov 2021
00:28:29
Summary
Joining Daniel for this episode is JR Curley, VP of Brand Marketing at Fab Fit Fun. We talk about what Social Media really means to e-commerce in the new era of selling online, how brands can leverage social listening to give their customers what they want, and why your Social Media teams need your support and investment.
Key Takeaways
Social Listening through data analysis and customer interactions can provide a lot of insight into what your customers value and what they want. In some cases, it can even replace more traditional methods of forecasting and merchandising.
Interacting and having relationships with brands online has been and will continue to grow as the norm for e-commerce.
The social media manager is a very important role with a lot of inherent risk. We need to shift our thinking away from someone who is younger and more digitally native, to a much more strategic role thats add a lot of value. Invest in this role accordingly.
Social Media ties directly in to performance for a company.
The analytics that we can derive from social is valuable and complex.
In many ways, the social media team are spokespeople for your company.
The various social media channels are sort of like different types of restaurants. They all serve food, and serve the same function, but there is a distinct tonal different between a high end restaurant and a fast casual eatery. You have to adjust your approach accordingly.
Synergy amongst the departments that NEED content is critical. Marketing, including social, need to have a productive and collaborative relationship with the studio and creative teams.