Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

Social media’s a great way of stirring the pot on ideas, which, I suppose is exactly why we’re here.

The other day, Wan-Ifra retweeted a link to an article by the noted media commentator and Guardian blogger, Roy Greenslade, who was himself passing on some information from another respected media figure, Peter Sands.

Peter used to be the editor of one of my former local newspapers, The Northern Echo, who has also been a director of training for the Press Association, Britain’s national news agency. He’s also been involved in redesigning newspapers and I’m pretty sure he’s done some work with our colleagues at the MNA from time to time.

Anyway, that’s where Peter comes from, but what prompted Roy Greenslade’s blog comment and the subsequent Wan-Ifra retweet, was Peter talking about newspaper subs being able to work from anywhere.

Peter had made the comments first in his blog (http://sandsmediaservices.blogspot.com/) on Friday, August 19 when he was talking about some work he’d done for the Irish Examiner while on holiday and about the fact that pages for the Evening Herald in Dublin were being produced from Castres in the south of France.

In his piece, Peter says: Subs don't all have to be in the same room, the same building, the same town or even the same country... which is why all the fuss in regional newspapers about moving production sites from one city to another struck me as nonsense.

“In future I reckon all newspapers will be produced this way. Who needs complicated management systems?”

He adds: “Bedroom subs armed with a computer, a set of stylesheets, the right fonts, broadband, a piece of software (doesn't matter if it's Quark or InDesign) and Distiller will be contracted to do so many pages per day to deadline.”

I’d say ‘amen’ to most of what Peter says, because I know a Midlands-based publishing software developer who  has a system that allows subs to do just that. It was designed that way. It’s not that complicated either, just smart.

We’ve created it at PCS. It’s called Knowledge and we’ll be showing it at Ifra Expo in Vienna from October the 10^th to the 12^th. If you’re going and you fancy a demo, get in touch with my PA, Michelle McClure at mmcclure@presscomputers.com to arrange a slot.