The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint was written in 2003. Last week The Wall Street Journal brought us news that Tufte’s criticisms have caught on—with a few. For example, T.X. Hammes argues in the Armed Forces Journal that PowerPoint has undermined the military’s whole decision-making culture:

Before PowerPoint, staffs prepared succinct two- or three-page summaries of key issues. The decision-maker would read a paper, have time to think it over and then convene a meeting with either the full staff or just the experts involved to discuss the key points of the paper. Of course, the staff involved in the discussion would also have read the paper and had time to prepare to discuss the issues. In contrast, today, a decision-maker sits through a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation followed by five minutes of discussion and then is expected to make a decision.

Hammes also echoes Tufte’s criticism that PowerPoint slides are often packed with too much information for the audience to absorb in the minute or so each is onscreen. Tufte blamed this effect for the Columbia space shuttle disaster of 2003, claiming that superiors failed to understand engineers’ warnings before the launch in part because of it. According to the Journal article, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board officially agreed with him. One shudders to think of the damage that could be done in the military.

José Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University, is also identified by the Journal as an anti-PowerPoint crusader. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Bowen encourages teachers to put their presentations online as podcasts, test students to make sure they watch them, and then devote class time to discussions of the material.

These efforts point in the same direction: productive discussions of complex problems are only really possible when people have had time to absorb and digest information. If organizations fail to allow for that, it’s an indictment of their management culture much more than it is of a piece of software. After all, Tufte has persuasively argued that poor graphic design in a slide-based presentation was responsible for the Challenger disaster in 1986, too—well before PowerPoint was in widespread use.

As Hammes puts it:

[PowerPoint] can be useful in situations it was designed to support — primarily, information briefs rather than decision briefs. For instance, it is an excellent vehicle for instructors. It provides a simple, effective way to share high-impact photos, charts, graphs, film clips and humor that illustrate a lecturer’s points. … Yet even in a classroom setting, it is not appropriate for developing a deep understanding of most subjects. For that, additional reading is required. There is a reason students cannot submit a thesis in PowerPoint format.

Just as we all still use QWERTY keyboards even though proponents of Dvorak have been arguing since the 1930s that we could all type faster with that key layout (convincingly or not, depending on which studies you read), we may be stuck with the imperfect PowerPoint for a good long while. But that doesn’t mean we have to be stuck with poor presentations or poor decisions. We can bring you advice on the presentations. The decisions are up to you.

Given the staff cutbacks that face almost every type of publications enterprise, it has become more important than ever for publications managers to assess their staffs’ productivity. Here is a basic approach to the task.

For a period of one or two months, each staff member should document how long he or she spends on each of six job categories:

1. Original writing
2. Editing the work of others
3. Travel
4. Production
5. Detail or administrative tasks like meetings, reading e-mail, general correspondence, training, interviewing job candidates, article recruitment, filing, etc.
6. Supervision of other staff members or freelancers

Keep separate tabulations for time spent on print content and on the Web. Also ask staff to keep a telephone log showing time spent on incoming calls, and to categorize the nature of these calls. To facilitate analysis, give staff a form that breaks down the day into 15-minute periods.

The goal is to estimate the number of days each staff member spends on each task category, with the assumption that total working time available in a month is equivalent to 20-22 days. If the total looks out of balance for any given task category, look for possible shortcuts.

For example, in one recent analysis a senior editor was found to be spending an unreasonable amount of time editing single manuscripts. Meanwhile an associate editor was spending a frightening number of hours per week surfing the web for story material. The production process often is an area where work duplication abounds. And limited staffs are often given overly-ambitious goals for Web content.

Once an editorial staff has a realistic handle on quantitative achievement, you have a more useful way to update top management on the exceptional value you deliver every day.

Howard Rauch is president of Editorial Solutions Inc., a consultancy focusing on B2B magazines. Contact him at howard@editsol.com.

As a former literary agent, friends and family are constantly asking me advice on how to get their book published. And since I end up giving out the same information over and over again, I thought I’d share a recent email I sent to a friend. Chris emailed me because his friends have a b-to-b title they’d like to shop around.

Hi Chris,

My experience is in consumer publishing, so I don’t have any editor contacts in the b-to-b sphere. However, some of the same search tactics still apply.

I did a search on Amazon for professional/medical books and got this result.

From this search, you’ll be able to identify book publishers who publish in your category. This is a good way to figure out who you should submit your proposal or manuscript to.

(NOTE: Chris doesn’t necessarily need an agent because his project is a professional/technical title. See below for more info on whether or not you need an agent.)

Once you narrow down your list, go to each publisher’s website to get specific instructions on how they want material submitted. And by all means, follow their guidelines so your manuscript doesn’t get trashed by some intern who was told to go through the pile and light fire to any submission that doesn’t fit their submission criteria-seriously!

However, if you find that a publisher wants a proposal and if you need help writing one, I highly recommend the book How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen.

About finding a Literary Agent

Authors hoping to get published by a mainstream consumer publisher (Random House, Penguin Putnam) will need an agent. Most mainstream publishers no longer accept submissions directly from authors. And no author should even think about signing a publishing contract without having an agent or experienced publishing lawyer reviewing it first.

How to find a literary agent? Start by reading the acknowledgments page of your favorite titles in your category. Authors usually thank their agents, and agents tend to be interested in fresh takes on the same topics. Don’t fret if a junior agent expresses interest in your project-do you really want to share an agent with Stephen King?

Additional tools for finding a literary agent:

• 2009 Guide to Literary Agents by Chuck Sambuchino
• Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors & Literary Agents 2009
• Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Great Serious Nonfiction-and Get it Published by Susan Rabiner
• MediaBistro.com’s “Pitching an Agent” column

The productivity genre offers publishing managers numerous “hacks” that can improve productivity online or off. The king of the hill, offering more than a dozen posts daily and a good view of the rest of the field, is Lifehacker, part of Nick Denton’s Gawker blog empire. It’s heavy on free downloads for users of Windows, Mac, or Linux operating systems, as well as cross-platform and Web-based solutions that improve workflow with e-mail, websurfing, blogging, and document-sharing. Its editors have created their own open source programs to add to Google’s application suite (e.g., “Better Gmail”).

Managers of far-flung freelance teams may enjoying browsing it by subject – see what its archives have to offer on “group” or “conference”. The editors even suggest that they know there’s more to life than computers; every now and then they’ll throw in potpourri like “Three Plants That Give You Better Indoor Air” or a public speaking tip.

Many in the world of lifehacking drew their first breath of inspiration from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. For a time, no greater GTD acolyte than Merlin Mann bestrode the Web; his site 43 Folders is named for Allen’s calendar folder system (31 days + 12 months).

He has recently broadened his focus and rededicated 43 Folders to “finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.” But his archives remain chock full of handy guides to creating better presentations or designing systems to, well, get things done. He’s now combined those tips with the occasional reminder that spending all day reading about productivity is not all that productive, and a newfound interest in choreographer Twyla Tharp.

Relatively few productivity “hacks” are specifically intended for publications managers, and the sites display a technology fetish that’s not for everyone. But a quick review of their offerings will often yield a trick or download that will smooth out the edges of your meeting or workday, and virtually everything is applicable to a world dominated by knowledge workers in front of screens.

The economic forecast for 2009 looks dismal. Given the jitters of the market, reviewing your forecasts more frequently throughout 2009 will serve you well. Use this timetable as a guideline for the next six months.

1. January: Prepare your annual forecast. If your market segment is too unpredictable, forecast through June. Prepare monthly targets in line with your forecast.

2. March: Revisit your forecast to see if you are hitting your targets. If not, ask yourself why. What product or service changes can you make to increase sales?

3. April: The first quarter is over. Update your forecast for remainder of 2009, including the product or service changes you identified in March.

4. May: If summertime is usually slow for your business, what promotions do you have planned to keep pace?

5. June: The second quarter is almost over. What is selling and what is not?  What changes have occurred in the economy that you need to address? What does the rest of the year look like financially? Can you see far enough into 2010 to identify what you need to be doing now to increase revenue?

Stay focused and don’t take your eye off of the numbers.  I’ve been through several recessions — even started my current company in the midst of the last one. Each time it has been the companies that manage cash efficiently that come out afloat, even ahead.

Raj Khera is the CEO of MailerMailer, LLC, which specializes in e-mail solutions for all types of organization.

It’s an especially hot topic among publications managers. Increasingly, staff members want to telecommute to save gas and time, share childrearing responsibilities, and focus less on office politics and more on the task at hand. Not all senior managers are eager to manage nanobots. The usual sticking point: measuring productivity of the worker you seldom see.

If you’re among the concerned—or if you’re convinced and want more selling points for senior management—here are six techniques that have enabled most of our company to function as nanobots for 13 years:

1. Create nanobot teams whenever two or more people are working on similar or related projects. Everyone stalls out occasionally, and talking to a colleague can help to jump-start the brain.
2. Put all assignments in writing, in more detail than if you were explaining it in person. Nanobots get the opportunity because they’re self-reliant self-starters, but as workloads grow, details can get blurry. Create a project wiki and designate a wiki master to capture and update project descriptions.
3. Set a budget, in dollars or hours, for every assignment. Few managers know exactly how to do all the pieces of every nanobot project. Set a budget anyway. Better yet, ask the nanobot to propose one. Adjust as the project moves forward.
4. Agree on priorities. Nanobots tend to be high achievers who characteristically overestimate what they can accomplish in a given time frame. That helps to explain why eight-hour days stretch out into 12-hour days, productivity falls, and mistakes get made. If your nanobots aren’t already making A, B, and C lists, they need to read Alan Lakein’s short classic How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.
5. Treat nanobots as individuals. We can’t agree with the Journal authors’ distinction between “who is cut out to be a nanobot, and who isn’t.” Management skills can be learned, including self-management skills. Some nanobots need to be reminded to wave a red flag when they’re stuck—so remind them. Once.
6. If a nanobot isn’t responding to management direction, cut the ties. Many work habits can be changed, but persistent refusal to recognize the chain of command—unless the nanobot persuades you that management policy is dead wrong—calls for a personnel change. Explain the reasons to the others, unless you’re pretty sure they already know.

A reader asked:

“I am a copy editor for a mid-size daily, and I’ve been here for a little less than 10 months. I was just offered a new job with a hefty raise at the same paper… I would be a Web developer, responsible for creating new products that build profit and readership.

“I think I may have been offered the job more because I’m young — fresh out of college — than because I know anything about Web developing. I looked up similar jobs, and the requirements for them include knowledge of PHP, MySQL, CSS, JavaScript, etc. I barely know HTML and haven’t even heard of some of those other things until now. I made this very clear to the paper’s editor, but she says the offer stands and that I’ll get training opportunities.”

Joe Grimm advised the young journalist to take the job, largely for the chance to move into digital journalism.

Reasonable advice, but …

We strongly encourage that young person to do three things before accepting the new assignment:

• Ask to see the paper’s business plan for the website. If they haven’t got one, respectfully (but firmly) ask for a week to write one. You don’t know how? Buy a book. It isn’t rocket science, and if you’re expected to create “new products that build profit and readership”—that is one tall order—you need management’s agreement on a plan to achieve that goal.
• Request a technical assistant from day one. Nobody can learn JavaScript and plan and populate a website in a field where as many sites fail as succeed. You’re a journalist. Technical website development is a different field. You may only need someone part-time. Get what you can.
• Get a travel and telecommunications budget and participate in every conference and Webinar you can find. Learn what other papers are doing. Ask questions. Meet people. Swim in the sea where you’re being asked to excel. A lot of people are trying to do the same thing. The smart ones want to share what they know, so that you will reciprocate by sharing what you know—or soon will know.

Good luck.

This is the point that Andrew Razeghi makes in his article “Innovating Through Recession.” Razeghi, who teaches at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, asserts that innovations are not only more necessary and valuable during a downturn, but also easier and cheaper to manage than at other times. Some notable examples:

• In February 1930, just months after the great stock market crash, Henry Luce launched Fortune magazine. Over the next seven years, subscribers rose from 30,000 to 460,000. Fortune succeeded, Razeghi says, because it “made a uniquely important contribution to its customers’ lives” with articles they could find nowhere else.
• Miracle Whip, introduced by Kraft at the 1933 World’s Fair, gave consumers a scintillating alternative to mayonnaise at a time when limited family income often meant tedious meals.
• Applying the same basic principle to women’s cosmetics, Charles Revson and his colleagues introduced a glossy line of nail polish in shades never seen before.

So, publications and Web content managers, what do our customers need right now? A few innovations occur to us:

• A guide to the workings of real estate markets that’s based on solid economic analysis and is comprehensible to someone who is interested in buying or selling a house and is willing to invest a little time learning how the system really works.
• Information about organizations that have genuinely solved problems of intergenerational conflict in the workplace. They’ve figured out how to retain workers longer and make them more productive on teams ranging in age from 20-something to 60-something. And they have the numbers to prove it.
• Web sites for intensely local communities of interest (like soccer moms and dads in Reston, Va., or Stanford MBAs who started their own companies in Seattle) that are economically viable — that is, visitors value them, maintain them, and will pay to keep them going.
• Articles about ways to reduce your organization’s costs related to health care — not ways to spend money on wellness programs, but proven ways to bring down health care costs. (There are a few out there, but we need more.)

So what’s new with you?

Unlike, say, buying a car, dealing with freelancers isn’t a zero-sum game. In fact, collegially and openly discussing rates, tasks, schedules, workflow, and other project aspects prevents potential conflicts and creates pleasant long-term working relationships.

Focusing frankly on real goals and constraints removes emotion from negotiations, letting you and the freelancer mutually accommodate reasonable requests. And showing respect for freelancers makes you a favored client, earning “above and beyond” effort when it’s truly needed. For example, don’t make freelancers play “20 Questions” to determine basics such as where work will be performed, whether travel time or meetings are involved, if research will be compensated, and the sort of editing required (proof, copy, substantive, etc.). Don’t be manipulative, either—for example, promising future work in exchange for a lowered rate.

Recognize that it’s hard for freelancers to bill more than 20–35 hours per week. They face noncompensated time-sinks such as marketing, meetings, skill development, and technology chores. While those surely aren’t your problem, being aware of them helps you remember why freelancers closely monitor what is “on the meter.” So help your freelancers help you by responding quickly to queries and making sure they have what’s needed to work, rather than allowing your delays to affect their allotted schedules.

The power-struggle rule of negotiating says not to be the first to mention price. But it’s unreasonable to ask a freelancer to quote a rate without fully understanding the work to be performed. And since fees can be structured by the hour, day, project, or word, disclosing as much as possible—including budget parameters—enables jointly shaping assignment descriptions best for both parties.

For long projects, and especially if you’re a new client, make an initial payment when work begins. Offering 25–35 percent shows commitment on your part, equal to that of a freelancer working for some period before being fully paid. Similarly, match progress payments to work performed.

Don’t slow-pay freelancers just because they have less clout than other creditors. Causing cash flow problems is an easy way to become a least-favored client, subject to being dropped when a better one arrives.

If you use a contract, make its terms and conditions appropriate for writing/editing/design tasks at hand. For example, a software development contract may discuss intellectual property or indemnification issues that don’t apply to editorial work. Simpler agreements may meet both parties’ needs without requiring legal review.

The Golden Rule rules: negotiate the way you’d want to be dealt with; it’s hardly unusual for today’s editorial or publishing staffer to be tomorrow’s freelancer. And you might be working for the freelancer you’re hiring today!

It happened to me recently. I was solicited to write for a nationwide Web site. There were several red flags, the reddest of which was that during the recruiting/vetting process—during which I spoke to at least five people of increasing seniority in the organization—nobody would show me a contract. That’s only available after the whole startup process, when you’re ready to post your first item, when you can read it and click OK.

So I wrote two short posts, got ready, logged on, saw the agreement—as usual, a long document visible through a tiny window. I printed it out and read it. It explicitly noted that no payments would be made; that if the Web site decides to establish a paying relationship, it will require a separate agreement.

Of course I didn’t start writing for them. But I know at least one person who’s doing it, who accepted the document without reading it, was promised payments and hasn’t received any. I suspect that more than a few people did this.

In fact, just about any freelancer you hire can tell you a story like this. But on the other side of the coin, if you treat your skittish freelancers fairly, making your expectations explicit and paying on time, they will stick with you, because they know what a mean world it can be.