Hello. I am Jeff Tyrrill, current Director of Publicity (Kumoricon 2007). I also hold the position of Website Administrator (which is a position under the director in the org chart).
For Kumoricon 2006, I was the Copy Editor in the Publicity department. I wrote several documents, created most of the main con program and pocket guide, managed the online voting for the second of the two mascot contests that year (the one to select the 2007 mascot contest), and created the code for the 2007 web site.
Here is my plan and schedule for the Publicity department for 2008.
Within, are the dates I am targeting for each milestone. These are necessarily subject to change due to changes in work that needs to be done, unexpected difficulties, or other unforeseen factors. However, this basic schedule will be my plan, and if I am elected, the department's progress overall can be judged by how closely it meets this timeline.
A few important dates will be upgraded to "deadlines" once the con year begins, such as dates for finalizing the schedule that goes into the con book, ordering the books, submitting a budget to the board, and others as needed. These will be communicated well in advance to the staff who need to know them, if applicable.
Con books and swag bags• 2007-10-26—Ad rates posted
• 2007-11-16—Con book ad for Kumoricon 2008 ready for swaps with other cons
• 2008-04-25—Ad solicitations sent and swag requests sent (latter might be done by relations instead)
• 2008-06-13—Final push for book advertising
• 2008-06-13—Mostly complete design, layout, and template for book
o Hotel map
o Restaurant map and times
o Art
o Photos
o Clip art
o Material not dependent on scheduling
• 2008-07-11—Mostly complete schedule, blurbs, data from programming; guests from relations; letter and photo from chair
• 2008-07-21—Drop-dead date for content CHANGES from other departments, ads, staff list
• 2008-07-28—Submit to printer
Mascot and cover contests• 2008-04-16—Open of contests and entries, rules posted
• 2008-06-18—Close of entries
• 2008-07-02—Open of voting
• 2008-07-09—Close of voting
Web site• Continuous:
o Maintain timely news and information on all pages
o Post relevent information in a timely manner for other departments as needed
o Maintain event calendar
o Maintain image galleries
o Improve at-con event scheduling system
o Maintain and continually improve technical components of web site and forum systems
• 2008-08-25—Graphic mockup or detailed design plan of 2009 site finished
o This may be pushed sooner if needed depending on site complexity
• 2008-09-21—(or sooner if ready) 2009 site launches
Kumoricon 2008 graphic design• Initial version will be incorporated in 2008 web site prior to elections
• 2007-11-06—Posters and flyers with updated version submitted to printer
• 2007-11-16—Posters and flyers ready for pickup
• 2008-02-15—More design elements finished for newsletter, press kit, con book
Street team• Informally can begin as soon as have posters and flyers
• 2007-11-30—Formal "policy" will be finished and street team "officially launches"
o Street team distribution letter finished
o Policy on swag and bag advertising complete (sooner if necessary)
o Some parts of street team policy may be dependent on con-wide policy concerning volunteers decided by new board
Press• Newsletter and press kit will be created in tandem and overlap in content
o Newsletter targeted toward attendees and potential attendees
o Press kit targeted toward press
• 2007-11-30—Initial press/publicity page on website with instructions for requesting press badge
• 2008-02-15—If possible, received from programming department summary information on major and minor events they'd like to promote
• 2008-03-07—Initial press outreach (any press releases for guests of honor, etc. may be sent prior as needed)
o First version of press kit and first newsletter finished—ready to give to interested press
o Expanded press/publicity page on website with links to press coverage and press releases
• 2008-06-20—Review completed of press materials (press kit, outreach emails) to determine that they are "press-friendly" for maximum attention
• 2008-06-27—Press outreach for magazines, weekly newspapers, monthly events/newsletters—second newsletter issue finished
• 2008-08-18—Press outreach for daily newspapers
• 2008-08-25—Press outreach for TV and radio—third newsletter issue finished
• 2008-08-29—Reminder for TV and radio
Information outlay• 2007-11-30—All general background and historical information on website for five years of Kumoricon history—can be cited in Wikipedia article
o Venues
o Counts for attendees, staff, and volunteers
o If possible:
■ Vendors lists
■ Charity auction donors
■ Sponsors
Merchandise• Ask for interest in promotional merchandise during pre-reg, or even take orders for items with registration (particularly T-shirts)
• If interest, may create some merch much earlier than below schedule to sell at events—however, would prefer t-shirts at con because that is tradition for cons
• 2007-11-30—Initial outlay and planning complete for budgeting purposes
• 2008-05-30—Design, items, and quantities planned for most items—located vendors for most items
• 2008-06-27—Finalization of all of above, including vendors for all items including unusual ones
• 2008-07-04—Placed orders for and begin creation of most merchandise items (earlier if needed)
• 2008-07-11—Placed orders for all merchandise items unless specific reason for delay on particular item
Promotions• 2007-10-19—Contact any cons for ad swaps that are coming up soon
• 2007-11-30—Initial report on planned promotions for year—for budgeting and planning purposes
o Must weigh factors such as interest for potential new attendees, fun for current attendees (which promotes interest ultimately leading to new attendees) vs. cost and staff effort
o Best source for new attendees remains Portland and Oregon
o Opportunities
■ Tables at local events
■ Online advertising and trades
■ Con ad swaps
■ Con table swaps
■ Con flyers swaps
■ Clubs
■ Event listings and calendars
• Continuous
o Continue above
o Seek out press opportunities
o Contact local anime clubs for promotional trades
Signage• Will work with staff doing publications to create sign appearance
• 2008-06-13—Mostly complete template for various signs (same date as for con book design)
• 2008-07-25—Mostly complete list of signs around the convention
• 2008-08-01—Most signs designed and ready to print
• 2008-08-08—Final list of any remaining signs, and change requests—signs can be printed and assembled
Organizational• 2007-11-16—Detailed job postings up on forums for most unfilled positions
o Job description, tasks, and skills
o Requirements and responsibilities
o Evaluation criteria
• Date that board sets (typically January or earlier)—Budget submitted to board
Policies• Regular reports with managers
o Spending and budget needs (especially before budgets finalized)
o Progress reports
o Needs (staff, assistance, information, meeting, etc.)
o Processes
o Staff comments (particularly good contributions by staff, problems with a person on staff, etc.)
• Regular reports to public (general meetings)
o Progress on issues in publicity plan
o Staff positions open
o Volunteer opportunities available
• General staff expectations
o Follow con-wide staff policies and attendee policies
o Fulfill responsibilities in specific job description
o Stay in communication (respond to emails)
o Meet deadlines when given
o Stay aware of general Kumoricon news, and attend meetings (general or otherwise) if and when needed
o Professionally represent Kumoricon, when applicable
•
The above will be emphasized in postings for open staff positions.Org chart• Promotions manager
o Assistant(s)/staff as needed
o Photography coordinator
■ Actually take photographs and video
■ Additional staff as extra photographers and/or editors/producers (as needed based on workload)
■ Work both at and after con, and at and after promotional events
o Event coordinator (as needed based on workload)
■ Plans appearances at promotional events
o Contact coordinator (as needed based on workload)
■ Contacts press, organizations we can partner with for promotion, clubs to discuss opportunities
• Publications manager (oversees con book, press kit, newsletter, printed material, graphic design of web site)
o Design/layout coordinator
o Content coordinator
o Writer/copy editor
o Sign coordinator
• Street team manager
• Merchandise manager
• Web site manager (oversees technical administration and manages software development)
o Programming/administration staff
o Forum moderator (under discussion)
Volunteer opportunities (non-exhaustive)
• Street team
• Promotional table manning
• Merchandise staff
• Press accompaniment at con and promotional events
• Photographer (can be done on volunteer basis, or as staff if commit to significant agreed-upon body of work and/or coordinator position)
Answers to questions asked of the nominees:
What do you feel was the worst thing to go wrong this year?I'll answer this regarding the Publicity department: We did not get enough advertisements in the program book. The potential income from these advertisements is significant and helps fund the con. Due to not having a clear schedule in advance, and me getting behind on things, solicitations for advertisements were sent out much too late, and it was clear that some companies would have advertised if they had had more warning so they could budget for it. A second problem is that the department was understaffed.
What would you do, if elected, to keep that from happening?The plan you see above is what I am doing to keep that from happening. Having been Director of Publicity for a year, I have a much better idea of the timeline of all the tasks and am now setting appropriate deadlines for each component.
To better manage and attract staff,
(a) I am publishing the organizational chart in advance of elections, and
(b) I will publish in November (see timeline above) detailed job descriptions so people interested in becoming staff and volunteering know what opportunities are available, and what is expected of them in terms of type of work, requirements, skills, responsibilities, and timelines.
What was/is/will be your major in college?Computer Science. Graduated in 2005 from University of Washington. I currently am working as a software developer.
What managers and ancillary staff do you plan on recruiting for your department?See the org chart above. I will focus on filling all important positions. Some positions remained unfilled this year.
Where do you stand on the issue of benefits for volunteers? Should volunteers be given the same benefits as staff? Should volunteers be given the same right to a vote that members of Altonimbus (staff) have, without necessarily becoming members?"Staff" is a special status that needs to have certain benefits reserved for itself, and not given to all volunteers. It is true that
all people who put on the con are volunteers, but a member of staff has accepted a certain scope of responsibility and agreed to a set of policies that apply specifically to staff. There are penalties for not meeting these responsibilities including removal from staff, which includes having to pay the difference between staff and attendee price to attend the con, or remain at the con, if they are removed during the con.
All staff implicitly represent the con, even if their job description doesn't relate to press or PR, or put them in a position of explicitly giving direction to attendees (yojimbo, reg staff, etc.). This is one reason why there is a special demarcation of benefits and responsibilities for this status.
Voting rights is an important part of this demarcation. It's important to the long-term direction and stability of the organization that those people putting in the work and taking on areas of responsibility are the ones making decisions, notably voting on elected officers and other issues such as amendments to the bylaws. This most emphatically does
not mean that the opinions of those who cannot vote don't matter. This is why all general meetings including the elections meeting are open to the public, and any member of the public may speak. But the system of elections put in place by the bylaws is a structured system which needs to assign certain rights and powers to certain positions and reserve some rights and power to certain positions, and reserving voting rights for only staff is a component of this.
However, I also recognize that some volunteers work extremely hard, rivaling the amount of some people who become staff. Also, some staff positions don't have an adequate amount or clearly-defined level of responsibility. Therefore, recognizing these multiple issues:
(a) I support volunteers getting some benefits in recognition of volunteering, but not all or even most staff benefits.
(b) I don't think volunteers who work a set number of hours should automatically become staff, or otherwise receive all staff benefits. This doesn't qualify as an area of responsibility.
(c) I made a long post about this issue earlier this month, proposing a re-organization of some staff positions and of how volunteer opportunities are treated. It provides a route for those working a specific commitment of "volunteer-style" jobs to become staff. It also makes many organizational and logistical improvements to the con. I suggest all who are concerned about this issue read
my post.
How do you think non-performing directors should be held accountable? Should they be held accountable by the board? Should their performance be discussed by the staff during mid-year? What kind of failures do you think justifies forcing an elected director from office via a recall election?Currently, the bylaws specifies that board members are removed from their position only by a vote of the body that elected them (2/3 for board-elected positions, and majority (over 1/2) for membership-elected positions). I would support changing this so that
either the entire voting membership,
or just the board, can remove
any board member with a 2/3 vote of those in attendance at an official meeting where notification has been given in advance of the vote. The bylaws do not specify specific reasons where a board member must be removed, or where the electing body should remove a member. This is legally difficult to do. Currently, and in my opinion it is best to remain this way, the body with this right can exercise it for any reason at all. I think giving both the entire voting membership body, and the board, the right to remove any board member with a 2/3 vote is a good system of checks and balances. Either body can remove a board member if it feels they are not doing a good job, or are otherwise not helping the organization. 2/3 vote is a high enough bar, most likely, to prevent frivolous removals, but it can be practically attained when it is necessary to remove somebody.
I think going into the 2008 year, it should be made abundantly clear among the board that neglecting the following things is cause for removal of a board member:
(a) Not submitting a budget on time. I think there should be a "draft" date, and a "drop-dead" date. If you miss the "draft" date, you were late, and should have a good reason, but it can be tolerated. If you miss the "drop-dead" date and never submitted a quality draft, you should expect another board member to initiate the notification procedure for a vote of removal for the next board meeting. (If you submit a budget in the meantime, then it's still up to the board to decide what to do.)
(b) Missing meetings without making arrangements with an assistant to give a report and handle important business. This doesn't mean you can't ever miss a meeting, even at the last second (sudden car break-down, illness, etc.). Unforeseen circumstances happen. But we can tell whether you are making the appropriate effort or not, and making arrangements if you can't be there. If two or three missed meetings go by without you making arrangements, the board should be asking what is going on.
(c) Not being reachable via email or other means. This is a required part of the job (not just of board members but all staff, and especially of directors). It is understood that we can be flooded in email and things can be missed or forgotten. But ignoring urgent issues and/or follow-up reminders is unacceptable.
Finally, I think the 2008 board should continue the attempt starting in 2007 to deliver regular department reports to the chair. This fizzled this year, but it needs to happen for 2008. Not only does this increase communication and facilitate business, but it prevents board members from not doing their job and nobody knowing whether they are doing their job or not. The exact format and frequency of these reports should be determined by experimentation. It could be written, or done via online chat, for example. If the reports are written, then most likely, these reports will go to the chair, but will be viewable by the entire board. Portions might also be visible to all staff, or to the public.
To what standard would you expect your staff to perform? Do you expect them to work both at the convention and beforehand? At what point would you be willing to fire one of your staff for non-performance of their duties?Please see the above section on "policies". I would use this as a guide for evaluating staff. In my postings for staff position openings, I would make this criteria clear, including evaluation criteria for the specific position, and that removal from staff can occur by failing to meet the requirements. In particular, not responding to communication and reminders, missing agreed-upon deadlines without explanation, and missing agreed-upon meetings or work shifts will count strongly against you, and depending on severity, may result in removal or be considered in conjunction with other reasons in considering a removal.
In the Publicity department, there are many positions where nearly all of the responsibility lies prior to the convention. (However, sometimes there are still connected components that occur during the convention.) For these positions, I would not automatically require unrelated work at con unless the board decided to make this a staff-wide requirement. I don't think there is a need for this, because people vary a lot in their willingness to commit time to the con, and type of desired work, and if somebody is willing to take on a large amount of pre-con responsibility that doesn't easily lend itself to related at con work so they can be free for most of the con, I think that is fair. We have a diverse staff and the diversity of positions allows for this. Keep in mind, that I am referring to positions that don't specify an at-con component. If a position does specify an at-con component, then you will definitely be required to fulfill it.
What new events do you plan on bringing the Kumoricon Street Team to this year?Street team already has incredible coverage. We actually had a business ask us what advertising company handles our flyer distribution! (Answer: None, of course!)
I've been thinking over ideas for making street team more interesting. One of these could be some sort of scavenger hunt that encourages attendees to seek out and locate our flyers. This game would be a promotional tool in itself. The fact that our attendees are strong locally in Portland means that many of them will see lots of our flyers, already. Such a game or activity would also help cross-promote businesses that display the flyers and posters, and encourage more to display them, or display them more prominently.
How do you plan on taking advantage of online advertisements?We had advertisements at AnimeCons.com, Advanced Anime, and Soulgeek this year via ad swaps. I would continue limited online advertising, but it is not a planned large area of expansion, because many sites cannot effectively geotarget to the Portland/Oregon area and ads become less effective in terms of the cost because Kumoricon mostly draws locally for attendance. I would like to continue trades for online advertising because the value gain is more clear. Giving extra con book space only costs us the extra printing cost of that page, as opposed to the cost of buying an online ad outright. Furthermore, anime web sites with whom we trade are more likely to unofficially promote us and mention us due to the shared goals and personal interaction in the trade.
The Advanced Anime trade worked very well as a piece of cross-promotion, so I'd like to pursue more of this type of ad trade.
When do you plan on having flyers and/or posters ready for distribution?Mid-November (see above calendar for timelines). The reason they are not ready immediately after elections is that we are still working on the graphic design for Kumoricon 2008. This will launch on the web site before elections. It will then be enhanced further before the flyers and posters are printed.
Whether I or my opponent is elected, we would likely compare designs and perhaps incorporate elements from them into the final design.
What will your department do during the convention itself?• Greet and accompany press.
• Maintain any online web systems such as the live web scheduling system.
• If we have the necessary equipment, print updated signage and documents.
• Photograph and video-record events.
• Sell merchandise and T-shirts.
T-shirts and other merchandise arrived extremely close to the convention last year, and also at significant cost due to rush shipments and expedited production. How will you make sure this does not happen again this year?I have incorporated merchandise into my above schedule, and will be following it more closely to ensure that all important tasks are done on time including the ordering of the items.
how do each of the candidates plan on helping make sure their budgets get approved in a more timely fashion?By simply doing it by the due date.
To some extent each department just needs to sit down and recognize it as a critical task of the convention, and do the work. More specifically, I would early on review the components of the budget, and do the necessary research in advance if I needed more information to determine the amount to budget for that component.
Um, where are all the nominees from?I live in Mercer Island, WA (15 minutes from downtown Seattle). The distance from Portland is not a problem for me. I attended every general meeting except one in each of the 2006 and 2007 con years (and for both of those meetings, I notified in advance that I would be missing, and had an assistant in my place for the one in 2007). I also have attended other Kumoricon social gatherings in the Portland area which don't coincide with meetings, so I'm quite willing to make the trip to be more involved with the con.
What are your ideas for new content for Kumoricon 2008? Panels, sponsors, groups, anything?I'd like to continue expanding the content on the web site. This includes fun and promotional information (photo and image galleries), historical information (archives of past con books, factual history), and event information (details on what is coming at next year's con).
If the department can get the necessary staff, I would like to make an "upgrade" to the con book so that it has a more polished and impressive graphic design and layout.
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I'm eager to answer any other questions anyone may have, about the timeline, plan, my answers to these questions, or new issues. In particular, please ask if you have any specific questions or concerns about particular dates, or if I missed any questions already posted.
Thank you for reading!
