Candidate Q&A - Director of Publicity 2016

[kjayers]

This thread is for questions and answers for the candidates for the 2016 Director of Publicity of Altonimbus Entertainment.

Please remember the following when participating in the Q&A threads. The normal forum code of conduct applies, except:

There is a partial exemption to the rule that forum discussion cannot be about a person. You may incorporate personal comments, including praise or criticism, into your election questions and answers, and ensuing discussion, but only regarding candidates who are running for a position, or about another person if it is directly entangled with an issue germane to the outcome of the election. In so doing, you must still exercise standard courtesy, and refrain from profanity, disruption of the discussion, excessive vitriol, and irrelevant comments. Please keep in mind that there will be an opportunity for spoken comments at the elections meeting.

[kjayers]

In most departments, the director does not need to be a subject matter expert; instead, the department needs to be led by a people-manager who hires subject matter experts.

What resources have you used to develop your managerial style?  What should your direct reports expect from you as a supervisor?

[TanisNikana]

What resources have you used to develop your managerial style?  What should your direct reports expect from you as a supervisor?

In my experience and capacity not just managing people, but teams of people (both in conventions and in the professional world), I've always found that it's helpful for everyone under the department to have an idea of what the big picture looks like. I know the feeling of being stuck under a boss who will always offer me disjointed individual tasks to accomplish with no context and no information about where they fit in the grand scheme of things. More unity and cohesion can be obtained if the project's milestones, tasks, and subtasks are laid out for everyone to understand.


In a Publicity environment, not everyone is working on the same project, and some sub-departments won't even have a running project (i.e. merch). While it's good for everyone to see the big picture and know where they stand and what other work is to be done, it may not be useful information for people who are touring events and selling Kumoricon-branded merchandise.


I'm fond of delegation and I like to keep my hands out of the pot wherever possible. I've minored in a whole bunch of trades, but that's not worthwhile when there's a whole bunch of masters underneath me. And honestly, proof-checking everything that Publicity does will only slow the department down as a whole. When I assign a manager a task, I don't need to check in with the coordinator on it, unless special circumstances arise. I can simply rely that the manager will look everything over and submit it to me before the deadline.


Finally, I've often found that rewarding people often breeds confidence and action, whereas punishing people disincentivizes those very same behaviors. I've seen what happens when people get railed by their boss so hard they're terrified of sitting in their cubicle. I've seen what happens when subordinates instead get lauded on a regular basis for good, solid work, and that their work becomes even more reliable, prompt, and correct. It's an all-around better way to manage.


I offer the big picture so everyone knows where the milestones stand, I reward on completion of major tasks and some of the more arduous subtasks, and I avoid completing work myself when I know there's either someone designated for the position, or there's someone with a better skill than me.

[Kerensky18]

If elected, how would you drive interest for Kumoricon 2016?

[Rosien_HoH]

How has your previous experience as a Kumoricon staff member prepared you for this position? Especially work outside the department you're applying for?

[Bresslol]

There is a significant change coming to the convention which is both exciting and very challenging in moving to the OCC.


Give us an example of how you intend to use this to your advantage in a public facing role.

[TanisNikana]

If elected, how would you drive interest for Kumoricon 2016?

I have a four-point plan to generate substantially more interest and attendee volume for Kumoricon 2016:


Outreach and Promotions staff will be responsible for scheduling, planning, and attending at least one booth staffing event every month somewhere in the greater Portland / Salem Metro Area. Ideally, where possible, I would suggest that Outreach and Promotions focus on smaller regional fairs and festivals and away from larger cons, except Sakura-Con and NewCon PDX.


The Publications staff will have enhanced duties, including fliers, posters, and cards left in key spaces where attendees are likely to be. These can also be given to the Outreach and Promotions staff for easy distribution and posting. In addition, I would like to offer a smaller, business card-sized promotional handout for all staff, for all those times where prospective attendees wonder what Kumoricon is.


The Social Media staff, under the Promotions Manager, will be tasked with creating the content and layout (in tandem with the Publications staff for design) of a newsletter. This newsletter will start as a every-other-monthly newsletter, but will accelerate in frequency as more news and announcements are made. The newsletter's main goal is to drive word of mouth via email (which up to now hasn't been adequately addressed).


Merchandising options will be carefully re-evaluated to offer both attendee favorites and new and interesting goods for purchase at Outreach booths and Kumoricon events (including the con itself). I would like to revisit a Kumoricon umbrella concept, as well as to introduce new Kumoricon wall scrolls, featuring our mascot!


In order to maintain these four points, delegation of responsibilities is mandatory, and in my position as Director, I will be overseeing all aspects of these points. Although they aren't too unusual, they change the current modes of operation enough that we'll have to provide more reliablility and scheduling. However, I believe that with these points in place, we can have an incredibly substantial growth of Kumoricon in the coming year.

[TanisNikana]

There is a significant change coming to the convention which is both exciting and very challenging in moving to the OCC. Give us an example of how you intend to use this to your advantage in a public facing role.

Our move to the Oregon Convention Center has been hotly anticipated for quite some time, and in this time, any number of rumors and both good and bad mentions of what it could mean for Kumoricon have been made. Simply put, there is no apparent downside as far as Kumoricon attendees are concerned. There are four reasonably impactful changes that need to be made that Publicity should be concerned with.


First, and most obviously, we should be featuring the OCC as an incredibly strong selling point. It should take up substantially more space on the flier, handout, or poster, and be larger on the website as well. Where possible, we need to remind people that we are not in Vancouver this year, and we also need to specifically call out our city as Portland. We may also need to produce new signs and banners as such (I remember that Publicity still has a banner stating that Kumoricon is on the Columbia River, somewhere in our possession).


Second, in previous Kumoricon materials, we used a stylized city backdrop in most of our handouts. This should be updated as to include the two spires of the Oregon Convention Center, and then be included into all of the annual publication materials (as well as any annual merchandise such as shirts; timeless merchandise should be exempt though). This includes the website, fliers, and other promotional materials.


Third, we need to make sure that the attendees and propective attendees are aware that there are an incredible number of hotels in the surrounding areas. Eight of them, in fact, within an eight-block walk to the OCC. Thre have been allegations from the attendees both this year and in previous years that "there are no hotels near the convention center", which is patently untrue, and we should make this heard.


Fourth, once our footprint has been established in the OCC and we know how much of it we're actually renting for the weekend, we can make a series of statements across social media and the newsletter I mentioned above about just how huge our space is, how much larger it is than in previous convention years, and how much easier it'll be to move around in it.


We'll have new copy incorporating the location and new date into all materials, we'll also have an updated graphical package which includes references to the OCC, we'll make sure that the attendees know there's nothing to worry about in the new move to the OCC, and we'll let them know just how big and awesome it's going to be.

[DarkStar]

One of the marketing items that has been missed over the years is traditional advertising.


My first question to candidates is if you have any experience with working with advertising brokers and/or working directly with local media outlet ad sales departments? My second question would be what percent of your budget do you expect to spend on advertising media buys (in-kind and cash)?


If you have an advertising timeline or media buy plan that you could share I would greatly appreciate it.

[TanisNikana]

How has your previous experience as a Kumoricon staff member prepared you for this position? Especially work outside the department you're applying for?

As Kumoricon's Copy Coordinator for the last two years, I've had insight into the workflow of information that passes through most departments of Kumoricon. Editing the program is a great place to learn how the con works, and who performs what duty, and how they interrelate. For example, Relations contacts a guest, and once they sign that guest, that guest presents Relations with assorted copy and panel descriptions, which pass through Programming for scheduling, and then finally to Publicity for editing and placement in the program guide. Operations sends its rules and expectations to Publicity, again for editing. Facilities includes maps. While none of the information outside of Publicity is in-depth, it does make apparent how Kumoricon moves as a working machine composed of many parts, while providing a generalized overview of the functions of the entire convention as parts of a gestalt.


I've served several years as assorted Yojimbo staff, including a year as a roaming Operations Office staff. Interacting with attendees at their level has shown me in a personal way what they expect from Kumoricon, and what they hope it can eventually become. Being "down in the trenches", so to speak, has given me an incalculable amount of face time with numerous attendees -- the very attendees I'll be working to add to in the coming convention year.


I've also performed as the Director of Publicity for MEW Con, and in that particular year, I was able to raise attendance of the convention 41% in its final year. Utilizing a monthly schedule of booth attendance plus numerous smaller advertizing media, including bookmarks, fliers, handouts, and other assorted MEW Con booth swag, I was able to grow MEW Con so large it needed to occupy a new hotel, and I'll definitely do everything I can to fill the Oregon Convention Center to capacity!

[TanisNikana]

One of the marketing items that has been missed over the years is traditional advertising.

My first question to candidates is if you have any experience with working with advertising brokers and/or working directly with local media outlet ad sales departments? My second question would be what percent of your budget do you expect to spend on advertising media buys (in-kind and cash)?

If you have an advertising timeline or media buy plan that you could share I would greatly appreciate it.

There are two things that Altonimbus Entertainment has to consider when advertising Kumoricon: the interest of the target demographic, and the location of the same demographic. If we're not targeting anime fans, geeks, otaku, and instead we're targeting the general public, we're going to lose out as most of our advertising impressions won't cause enough interest. At the same time, if we're advertising out of the region, then we're really only advertising to the people with enough money to actually come here for Kumoricon.


For example, when we consider a Kumoricon billboard placed prominently on I-5, we're targeting everyone who's on that interstate, whether or not they're fans. It's going to have a really low conversion rate when the people who just aren't into anime and geeky stuff are factored in, and could potentially be a waste of thousands of dollars.


On the other end of the spectrum, if Altonimbus Entertainment were to run ads in Shonen Jump, our audience is nailed perfectly. Every last single person reading that magazine is totally ready to come to Kumoricon. The only problem is, they're scattered evenly across the nation and beyond, and we'll only convert the local ones or the ones with the finances to be able to attend the convention.


To that effect, we'll need to target our advertising appropriately. Kumoricon heavily relies on word of mouth and minor publications, like posters and fliers. We have been growing from year to year, but perhaps not fast enough.


If I'm given the opportunity to explore this, I would love to be able to look into advertising with TriMet on their vehicles. It targets the region perfectly, and they're visible to everyone in the area over time. Continuously, even. If we were to advertise only on one train, thousands and thousands of people would see our ad daily. However, I haven't seen the budget, so I'm not sure how feasible this is from a financial perspective.


Basically, we need to make sure our advertising attempts pass two tests: a regional test, and an interest test. If we can pass both, we've got potential gold waiting to happen. I have plans for that, but I'll need every last staff member here to back Kumoricon up on this, as word of mouth is the most effective advertising, and the cheapest. That said, I'm always up for further investigation of non-persued methods of advertising, provided they can pass both tests.

[Chryssaia]

In most departments, the director does not need to be a subject matter expert; instead, the department needs to be led by a people-manager who hires subject matter experts.

What resources have you used to develop your managerial style?  What should your direct reports expect from you as a supervisor?

Jo, I completely agree with you. The best way to succeed is to have a team full of subject manager experts, and managing them in what they do best.

I have gained my managerial style from a variety of jobs in the past. I've been a Store Manager for a fast food restaurant, a Subject Matter Expert in a call center, a Team Lead in a restaurant, a Kitchen lead at Boy Scout Camp, an Area Head/Manager/Coordinator level staff for conventions, a Director on various non-profit boards, and most recently the Assistant Director of Publicity for Kumoricon.

When I was in these positions, I tried my best to learn not only the good things to do, but the negative behaviors to avoid. I've had some pretty amazing influences. There are a couple of major things in common with all of these positions that I plan to utilize in this role, as well as other smaller ones.

Here are some things my direct reports can expect from me:

Growth: I want to make sure that the people who are in the positions WANT to be in the positions and that they are in the best position to help them grow. To facilitate this, I would talk to my staff, learn about their experience, and work with them to find a position that fits what they want to do. For my staff that want to be more than general staff, I want to talk to them, find out what their goals are, and put them in a position that will help facilitate their goals if I can.

Learning: I don't expect someone to come into a position and know everything right away. I care less about how well someone does something on the first try, and more about how I can help them learn what needs to be done so they can be successful. I want to take my staff member's experience as well as my own to build expectations for the position and make sure they know anything that might not be known already. On top of the con related things, I want to make sure my staff continue to learn life skills in their position, if possible. Any way I can help this position be beneficial to my staff, I want to strive for that.

Collaboration and Delegation: One of the biggest things I want is for my team to feel like they can do their job without having to check in at every step. To do this, I want to collaborate in the beginning, set clear guidelines, and let them do their job. If I have a manager overseeing a project, I want to give them the information they need, talk about what the end goal should be, and let them manage their staff to succeed in this. I will work together with my team to follow-up and make sure I can help if there are any difficulties, but I don't want to be over-bearing or micro-managing in any way.

Clear Communication: This is a big one. I think communication is KEY to success in this department. While I don't want to micro-manage my team, I want to set clear deadlines, and follow-up to make sure they are met. With Publicity, there are a lot of art and print deadlines, but there are also schedules for outreach, website, social media, and multimedia. They are all different, and I want to communicate well with my team to make sure they know what I expect of them, and can feel comfortable asking me if they need anything. On top of that, when someone talks to me, I make sure I respond. Even if I'm only telling the person that I don't know the answer at that time, but that I got their question and then give them a date that I should have the answer by. I think it is important to be honest with my team, and some answers won't be solid until after a meeting happens. I feel that it is important to make sure my staff don't feel like they are being ignored or forgotten.

Those are the major ones I want to use. The last thing I want to set as an expectation is that I will tell my team how they are doing. I live by a "When you see it, say it" mentality that I learned in food service. If I see someone do something well, I say it, and usually publicly. People like to be recognized for doing well, and I think it encourages them to continue doing well. On the flip side, if I see someone doing something incorrectly, I still say it. On those instances, though, I try to pull them aside and talk to them privately. I don't think calling someone out publicly for doing something wrong facilitates growth very well. I want to make sure I still communicate it, but in a way that will foster growth and change.

 

[Chryssaia]

If elected, how would you drive interest for Kumoricon 2016?

There is a significant change coming to the convention which is both exciting and very challenging in moving to the OCC.

Give us an example of how you intend to use this to your advantage in a public facing role.

I think both of these easily go hand in hand, because there are aspects of both that will go together. I'm going to break this down by current sub departments on how I want to utilize people to do this.

Publications: We've taken some concept photos and are wanting to include some iconic Portland skyline into the designing this year. Taking that and our amazing new mascot, we talked about using the theme a little to get people more on board with the date change. The graphics side would be a little subtle through the site and the advertising, but definitely bringing a touch of Portland into our convention graphics.



Multimedia: Taking some of the videos and pictures from the past years, I want to use the hype of the content and fun from past years to fuel us into how awesome it has been and how much more awesome it is going to be. We have some amazing pictures this year, and with the amazing video team, we also have recap videos from this year. I want to use all of the multimedia that we have and keep reminding people of the fun they have had.

Promotions: In 2015 we went to a few more cultural and local events than we usually do, and I want to keep in line with that. I want to bring our outreach team to new and local places that we can use to get our name out there and make connections for our event. I'd love to have a closer relationship with local Japanese culture with PSU as well as potentially Tokyo International University in Salem. There are a wide varieties of events around us and while I think the convention scene is great for us to promote at, I want to bring it all a little down home as well. Get Portland excited that we're going to be here. Within this we also have social media, and I plan on beefing up our social media team to get our presence more noticed online. I want to allow them to run the ship with moderation from us higher up. With modern communication tactics and promoting a ton on facebook and twitter, we can get our name even further out there.


Merchandise: I want pins to take a bigger role in this, because we have some story ideas that will potentially take pins in a new and awesome direction. They didn't get enough light this year, and I want to change that and use them to help bring us up in the world. Not only with pins, but we started some great momentum with new merchandise this year, and I want our merch for 2016 to continue with that. Giving people something to be excited to have of ours, and really encompass this move.

Press: I want to get started early in getting a press release going and getting it to local press outlets like The Columbian, The Oregonian, Statesman Journal, and The Register Guard. I want to beef up our press even more, allowing for school papers to come in and get even more of the community involved in our event. The city will know we are here, and I want to make them excited.


Website: This one is in conjunction with the website manager and his awesome team. I know there are motions in progress to make the website better, make news easier to access, and I want to let them continue running this site in a smooth fashion that gets people the answers they need. This will help with getting correct information, quelling some fears of misinformation, and bringing out excitement with our new designs!

Shout out to info booth, you're there, but you're at con. Mostly I just want to make sure we have info ready so info booth team can rock it!

[Chryssaia]

How has your previous experience as a Kumoricon staff member prepared you for this position? Especially work outside the department you're applying for?

I actually started my time at Kumoricon in the Programming department. I got to see how they run their things, and through that I was able to observe other departments as well. It's really important to know the other departments, because in Publicity, you answer a lot of questions for people and it's better to have an understanding of what you're talking about rather than saying 'it's not my department".

I worked in Main Events this year while I was Assistant Director of Publicity, and while I ended up doing a different version of that task, I got to learn a lot about the back end of how things work. When people ask about the cosplay contest online, I know the answers. I am also comfortable with who to refer questions to if it needs referring, and in general, I've just learned a lot about the industry in my time working with both teams.

The job that got me into the Publicity Department for Kumoricon was actually Outreach. I loved sharing my passion about Kumoricon with other people. I continue to learn more about the industry that has tables in exhibit halls and artist alleys, as well as other conventions. I think these connections are vital to continue learning from. With outreach, I've also gotten to see a lot more of the culture in the area. I remember getting a ton of elementary school kids excited about an anime convention when we helped out with their cultural event. The possibilities are endless, that's what it's definitely shown me.

Aside from Kumoricon, I've done volunteer work with Nan Desu Kan in Denver and volunteer at Orycon as well. I've been a convention baby my whole life, and throughout all of it, I've learned a lot about the internal and external ways a convention can succeed.

[ldkstar]

To all, candidates.


Publicity's job, is often to manage the perception of the convention, its staff, and it's policies, etc. With the current debate around the move and date change, how would you handle crafting a public stance, answering attendee concerns in a meaningful way, and balancing the needs of the con.

[TanisNikana]

Publicity's job is often to manage the perception of the convention, its staff, and its policies, and et cetera. With the current debate around the move and date change, how would you handle crafting a public stance, answering attendee concerns in a meaningful way, and balancing the needs of the con?

There's a substantial amount of information in the con that we're going to have to update now that we're leaving our old nest behind.


I've mentioned further up in the thread that there seems to be a running myth that attendees don't actually seem to think that there are any hotels around the Oregon Convention Center, when in fact there are actually eight in an eight-block radius. We'll need to push this fact pretty hard, and include lists of hotel availablity in every pre-con publication (i.e. website, email newsletter), so as to make allay the concerns of the attendees.


Dwelling on this point a bit more, we'll want to cooperate closely with Facilities (assuming that they'll be handling the new extended hotel relations and subjects relating to hotels, not just the OCC space) in order to best provide this information on the website.


I would also like to have maps and other geographical information about surrounding restaurants, parks, grocers, convenience stores and other places of interest for the attendees to absorb. The sooner we can provide this, the better. We'll also need to work up maps of the interior of the space. From my understanding, OCC should be able to provide us with basic shell maps that we can fill out as we need to.


As unrelated to the above, we're also going to need to overhaul communication with the date. That means that we're going to need to de-emphasize our relation with Labor Day weekend as much as possible, even sticking a little attention-grabbing sign near the date for a while that should draw people's eyes to it, so that they can plan appropriately.


The two main concerns we have are the surrounding area, as well as the date change itself. If we can make sure that both of these are known to the attendees far in advance to the point where they can plan around them comfortably, including hotel, local facilities, and timing, we'll have a much more enjoyable experience for everyone involved.

[Chryssaia]

I apologize for my delay in writing these. I've been having some internet issues that are resolved now.

One of the marketing items that has been missed over the years is traditional advertising.


My first question to candidates is if you have any experience with working with advertising brokers and/or working directly with local media outlet ad sales departments? My second question would be what percent of your budget do you expect to spend on advertising media buys (in-kind and cash)?


If you have an advertising timeline or media buy plan that you could share I would greatly appreciate it.

I wholeheartedly agree on this. I think we really have missed out on this, and I really want to change that for the better.

Not only would I like to advertise to the anime fan-base, but there are a lot of people that would enjoy Kumoricon that aren't in the convention or anime scenes. I would like to utilize the amount of budget that has previously been allotted and never used.

I have not worked with an advertising brokerage before, though I have thought about consulting with a friend that works for one. I have a good understanding of where we could best advertise without using Kumoricon funds to pay for assistance from a brokerage. I would also be taking input from my Promotions Manager and various members of my staff that are knowledgeable in the matter.

As it stands, I know we have talked about advertising at the Convention Center MAX stop (they have decently priced advertising), and we have also looked into pricing for bus and MAX advertising, though it is very costly, and we want to make sure timing and placement is where it should be for this before spending the money on it.

Aside from transit advertising, there are other print advertising sources we would love to use, up to and including: press outlets, YouTube, facebook advertising, podcasts, other various web advertising, posters in public establishments that have places for this, concert-like posters on poles near concert halls, ads in high schools and colleges around town, possibly commercial and radio advertising.

We already have a good niche in convention advertising, and I'd also like to advertise in program books for popular local events like Blazer's games, concerts, and family events around the area like that. By purchasing ads for local events, we get publicity in advertising for local events, but it also shows that we support our local community. A lot of these ad costs go back into helping these local events grow. It'd be a great outlet for us to pursue.

[Chryssaia]

To all, candidates.


Publicity's job, is often to manage the perception of the convention, its staff, and it's policies, etc. With the current debate around the move and date change, how would you handle crafting a public stance, answering attendee concerns in a meaningful way, and balancing the needs of the con.

A lot of this will be done through the website and social media. I'd like to get as much information posted as we can, so that when questions are asked, we already have an answer for it. As new questions get asked, I would want to include those answers in the information we have on the website if it is needed.

It is very much known that there are three major concerns about the move that people have been mentioning:

1. Hotels - For this, I think we need to get an early start on talking about the hotels in the area as well as getting deals set up for out event with them. What's nicer than Vancouver is that most of the nearby hotels are either walking distance, or they already have a built in "shuttle" (Trimet) that runs late into the night. These things work in our favor, and I'd like to get as much of this info posted as soon as we can to quell fears about this.

2. Date - The concern about the date is three-fold. 1. People are worried about it being during school. For this, I'd like to focus on the fact that it is on a weekend and the majority of our events always happen on Saturday and Sunday anyway, even in a 4 day con setting. 2. They are worried about the holiday. I think we can capitalize on the holiday. There will be a lot of local events that people can attend once the con events end, and even with the holiday, I'd love to play on the idea of cosplayers having an event on the biggest costume holiday of the year. 3. Date confusion. We are moving from one holiday to another, we need to make sure there is no confusion which holiday we are on. This can also be good, because we are after our previous date. The missing con on Labor day will help remind people about it, and they won't have missed it.

3. Location - The biggest part I hear about location is that people know the convention center from a Comic Con standpoint. Their worry is that we will become like Comic Con, and lose a lot of programming. This is mostly due to how Comic Cons format their events, and we want to get information and maps up as soon as we have them. People need to see how we plan to use the space so we can change it from incorrect speculation to informed opinions.

With the proper information and advertising, this can all work in our favor, and I plan to work with my team to get the information out there and keep it consistent.