Society for News Design Spring 2013 Board Meeting
Saturday, April 27, 2013, Louisville
IN ATTENDANCE
Officers
Rob Schneider, President
David Kordalski, Vice President
Lee Steele, Secretary/Treasurer
Stephen Komives, Executive Director
Jonathon Berlin, Past President
Directors/Committee Leaders
Joe Greco, Region 4 U.S.
Frank Mina, Region 2 U.S.
Kyle Ellis, Web Publications
Darren Sanefski, SNDF education chair
Ryan Hildebrandt, SND Louisville workshop chair
Via Skype: Sarah Sampsel, Region 1
Jason Chiu, Regions 9&10
Gustavo Lo Valvo, Region 12
T.K. Sajeev, Region 22
Douglas Okasaki, Region 20
Jeff Goertzen, Training Director
Melissa Angle, 34th edition coordinator
Ryan Sparrow, Digital Competition director
Cristobal Edwards, International director
Absent: Karsten Ivey, Region 3
Oscar Santiago, Region 11
Anders Tapola, SND Scandanavia
Javier Errea, Region 14
Michael Agar, Region 15
Stefan Knapp, SND DACH
Svetlana Maximchenko, Region 17
Lily Lu, SND Chinese
Ron Johnson, Print Competition director
The meeting began at 9:48 a.m. CDT
President Rob Schneider called the meeting to order and the participants made introductions.
Executive Director Stephen Komives reviewed the minutes of the Fall 2012 Board Meeting in Cleveland. Three motions were made and carried at that meeting:
- Rob Schneider made a motion to hold the SND annual workshop in Frankfurt in pending a formal letter of intent.
- Motion to appoint a 3-member subcommittee to develop a corporate membership structure that applies to the United States. The subcommittee would have a Nov. 15 deadline to propose three levels of membership that bundle membership costs/prices.
- Motion to approve up to $10,000 for a grant consultant to help seek funding sources.
Digital publications chair Kyle Ellis moved to accept the minutes of the Fall 2012 meeting. Region 4 director Joe Greco seconded the motion. Komives noted a quorum was not present.
Without a quorum at the meeting, the motion was tabled, pending formal approval by the board at its next meeting.
Two newcomers were formally introduced: Greco of Region 4, and Darren Sanefski, the SNDF education chair.
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OFFICERS’ REPORT
Rob Schneider reviewed “a challenging 2012, in terms of cash flow.”He stated the situation was much improved this year, thanks to grant support, but cautioned that “fundamental problems exist moving forward, we’re losing about 100 members a year.” He said SND should not be reliant on a membership model for revenue in the future.
He said SND would hold, in addition to the workshop, 8 training events this year, around North America, plus four SND Graphics Garages, with the first in Orange County, Calif., in June. He said training provides the best outreach SND can provide.
Schneider said he is committed to SND communicating better with members, to build on past president Jonathon Berlin’s yearlong Conversation about Design, and wants to position SND as the “Visual voice of reason around the world. We owe it to journalism to preach the principles that created SND in the first place.”
He said Paul Wallen of the St. Petersburg Times is close to completing a new edition of Design magazine.
Schneider summarized the outcomes of the competition, with a winter storm wreaking havoc on the print competition on February in Syracuse. He praised Berlin and Executive Director Stephen Komives for their efforts to cut costs on labor.
He said Steve Layton of Indiana University is working on the design of the book. He said in the future he would like to see more students involved in the judging, and a greater educational component to the event.
He praised digital competition organizers Ryan Sparrow, Jeremy Gilbert, Joey Marburger and Tyson Evans for their work in evolving the competition. He also praised the board for their efforts to identify candidates in the World’s Best category – SND Russia director Svetlana Maximchenko submitted Ru.Ria as a candidate, which wound up winning recognition.
Schneider said work is under way to create digital components for the last two books: 33rd coordinator Josh Crutchmer is producing an eBook for that edition, and Steve Layton & IU students are at work on a “robust digital experience for the book.”
Schenider also mentioned ongoing global activities: Malofiej in Spain, an upcoming SND quick Course in China, the recently compelted SNDS competition, SND DACH’s preparations for Frankfurt 2014, SND20’s work’s to create a regional competition, and the first-ever entries in the SND competition from the India region.
He praised the preparations in Louisville for the November workshop and said he hoped to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the Society and honor its history, perhaps through partnership with another organization.
He spoke of a web site hackathon coming up in Washington, organized by web editor Kyle Ellis, to improve functionality, including installation of a new job board.
Schneider praised Komives’ efforts in securing the three-largest grants in the history of the Society over the past 6 months, more than $65,000, all geared toward training efforts.
He said much work was to be done in fund-raising for the Foundation.
He noted that membership continues to decline, noting that the emergence of design hubs had taken a toll. He said there are possibilities at the high school level that SND needs to explore.
He said SND has “made great strides in building stable financial platforms – the competition, the workshop have been restructured. The final piece is the membership equation,to build long-term strategy.”
He said the officers had discussed shifting to a spring workshop schedule beginning in 2015 makes sense for a number of reasons: it affords a better opportunity to use content from competitions in the programming; and would make planning and budgeting easier for news organizations interested in the training opportunity; it might work better with academic schedules and move us away from competing workshops.
He said the spring 2014 board meeting would be held in Orlando.
Kyle Ellis made a motion to accept the reports of the President, Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer. Past President Jonathon Berlin seconded the motion.
The motion was tabled, pending review and online vote by a quorum of the board.
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HEADQUARTERS REPORT
Komives said membership numbers had fallen to near 900, down from 976 in the fall. He emphasized that the resulting loss of revenue could compromise SND programs and urged a coordinated membership drive effort.
Komives said he had attended a meeting in Washington in March with other journalism association directors, including ONA, SPJ, AAJA, and others. A key lesson: other organizations are MUCH more aggressive in retention of members, using up to a dozen number of “touch points” to connect with those about to lapse: beyond renewal notices and emails, regional directors personally contact members whose memberships are expiring. Some organizations are boast retention rates of 80% because of their aggressive outreach. He said it’s past due for SND to devote serious energy to the issue.
He said eight iPad/tablet quick courses were in the planning stages, thanks to a $25,000 grant secured in February from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. The first was slated for Northwestern’s Medill campus in Washington D.C., in May, featuring Chris Courtney, Joey Marburger and Yuri Victor as speakers. Other courses were planned in Toronto, Montreal, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Chicago, and two sites yet to be determined.
Komives said SND finished 2012 in the black, largely thanks to aggressive expense reductions and successful grant and sponsorship endeavors. He said he had prepared in December all program budgets for 2013 and anticipated another successful financial year in which the reserves would not be touched.
DK made a motion to accept the past president’s and headquarters reports. Rob Schneider seconded the motion.
The motion was tabled, pending review and online vote by a quorum of the board.
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REGIONS
Sarah Sampsel of Region 1 said she is planning a UX and responsive-design oriented event in Washington in June or July, suggesting it be held at the Washington Post. She listed possible speakers and said responsive design audience, although it skews very digital, really involves the whole newsroom so there should be a broad audience available. Komives noted the first of the iPad/tablet quick courses would also be held in Washington at the end of May.
Frank Mina of Region 2 said the region’s Facebook and Twitter accounts are doing well and feature daily content from the state leaders. He said he plans to stage monthly meetups in his area and to work with state leaders to create them throughout the region. He said he was planning to hold an iPad/tablet quick course at the San Francisco Chronicle building in September.
Mina said new state leaders include Jim McBee in Wyoming and Rachel Orr in Arizona.
He said SND should be exploring more what it can do to use the force of the organization for good, mentoring programs, illustrator auctions, internships, consulting opportunities were among the areas the Society could explore.
Joe Greco of Region 4 reported on major media news in his region, including the possible sale of the Tribune Company, staffing cuts at Advance Publications, reformatting and redesigns at the Columbus Dispatch and Cincinnati Enquirer.
He said he as planning a meetup in Chicago and using social media to provide outreach in his region.
Jason Chiu of Region 9 & 10 discussed industry developments in Canada, including recent buyouts at the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail, and redesigns and product launches at small weeklies. He discussed the recent tablet app launch by La Presse, a strictly-for-digital product that represents a hallmark in the industry. He said paywalls were expanding on media sites across the country. He said two quick courses had been slated for Canada, with dates TBA, in Toronto and Montreal, and was working through Roland-Yves Carignon in Montreal and SND HQ due to conflict-of-interest issues.
Gustavo Lo Valvo of Region 12 said he had “good news and bad news,” the good being Brazil and Peru, which had seen circulation gains, the bad coming in Argentina, where government crackdowns on press freedoms were curtailing journalism at some major papers. He said El Comercio in Peru hoped to involve SND in a conference to celebrate its 135th anniversary.
TK Sajeev of SND India said he was at work trying to organize the first news design competition in India. He said there would be no entry fee the first year as he hopes it will build awareness in the region. Sajeev said India’s first entries in the SND annual competition, while ther did not win, created a lot of talk among Indian designers; a post on the SND site about the Indian pages elicited dozens of comments. Sajeev said 2014 would see the second South Asian News Design conference, under the auspices of WAN-IFRA, and that he was looking to lead SND involvement.
Rob Schneider reviewed the reports of several regional directors not present at the board meeting. He noted: Oscar Santiago of Region 11 is at work on the third Mexico World Design Summit in September, which SND officers have attended the last two years; Anders Tapola is helping coordinate the SNDS workshop, titled “Wrong,” in Copenhagen in September (the theme stems from the idea that “the industry went wrong because we tried to do everything right.”), and noted the extraordinary work SNDS does with it membership and its publications; Javier Errea of SND Mediterranean just wrapped the 21st Malofiej Awards in March, in which National Geographic emerged with the highest honors; Michael Agar of Region 15 is working to build brand identity in Great Britain; Stefan Knapp’s report from Germany detailed the legwork he has done to secure sites and approach potential sponsors for SND Frankfurt in September 2014.
Douglas Okasaki of Region 20 said that while he was disappointed a planned workshop in Lebanon had not come to pass due to political strife in neighboring Syria, he had turned his focus to planning an event at American University in Dubai in July or August. He hopes to secure two international speakers for the event. He said he is also working on a Middle East design competition, and is looking to stage an event in Johannesburg, South Africa. He said he hopes to contribute to Michael Stoll’s planned work on the history of Infographics, to be published in 2014. He said he would like to build more of a presence for Middle East work on the SND main site.
International director Cristobal Edwards used the opportunity to seek clarity about his role. He said he is eager to find ways to enhance the projects of the international region directors. Komives talked about the need to keep apprised of scheduling issues and ovoid overlap, and mentioned several initiatives in South America in particular where Edwards’ oversight would be helpful.
Training director Jeff Goertzen gave a recap of his plans to hold four Graphics Garage events during the year, in Orange County, Calif., Dallas, Chicago, and Louisville. He said the Orange County event would be held at Chapman College in July. The Dallas event would be held at University of Texas at Arlington in September, and the Chicago event date had yet to be determined. Goertzen said the events would be advertised to the public and he hoped to draw 150-200 people in Orange County.
Darren Sanefski said Lisa Donato of the University of Oregon had been selected as the SNDF intern, and would be paid from Foundation funds to be a summer intern at the San Francisco Chronicle. This is the third year the Foundation has funded the intern program. Sanefski said the travel grant program would be reviewing submissions at the end of May.
Web site director Kyle Ellis said he had several strategies in mind as he prepares to revamp the web site, based on feedback from users. He said he wants the site to be more accessible and do a better job surfacing content. He said he wants the web site to mirror that of a professional publication and to help thought leaders better own their subject matters. He also hopes to build a more deliberate social media presence that more actively engages members in conversation. He mentioned that longtime member Tippi Thole is working to develop a section of the site called “Design is Life,” focusing on inspiration and side projects. Ellis said metrics for the first quarter showed traffic down slightly year over year, but that it was projected to finish very strong the rest of the way. He said a key challenge moving forward will be to spread the work, as having 2-3 volunteers handling all site development would not be sustainable. He also spoke of building specific areas of the site out for different member types.
Kordalski talked about creating special content for the members-only area. Perhaps competition databases and the job board belong there, he said. Ellis spoke of possible revenue to be realized by making the job board a pay-to-post model.
Kordalski gave a brief review of print publications, saying that Paul Wallen of the Tampa Bay Times had stepped in for Suzette Moyer to finish the most recent Design magazine. Kordalski said he was communicating with Julie Elman of Ohio University to explore the possibility of producing four digital editions of the magazine a year. blications
Frank Mina motioned to accept the reports from the regions. Joe Greco seconded the motion.
The motion was tabled, pending review and online vote by a quorum of the board.
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PROGRAM DIRECTORS’ REPORTS
34th edition coordinator Melissa Angle said this year’s print competition in Syracuse marked the first time the main judging and world’s best had been held simultaneously, and that it had been a success. She said her goals were to help finish the book and help build a Best of Show panel for the workshop. She is also working with the competition committee on a guide for team captains and with 33rd edition coordinator Josh Crutchmer on updating the judging list.
Schneider said he wondered why competition coordinators don’t keep the role for more than a year at a time. Komives said historically it had been done for conflict-of-interest reasons and because there had always been a high number of volunteers seeking to take the role.
Ryan Sparrow said the Best of Digital competition at Ball State had drawn about 500 entries and seen more than 150 awards given, the highest ever. He gave credit to Jeremy Gilbert for his organizational skills and said he is seeking ways to get students more involved, suggesting he might create a series of presentations by judges next year to make the judging more “workshop oriented.”
Book editor Steve Layton of Indiana University said he and students are hard at work on the book, and that volunteer Larry Buchanan was working with them on java scripting to create a digital version of the book as well. He said a key lesson from his first experience in Syracuse this year was the “need to do more air traffic control.” He said he planned to have a draft of the book ready by mid-May.
Ryan Hildebrandt, site chair of SND Louisville, made a brief presentation on the workshop, with dates of Nov. 7-9. The Gannett Design Studio is playing host to the event, with the programs to be held at the Muhammad Ali Center, an opening reception at Churchill Downs and a closing site to be determined. Following the successful precedent introduced in Cleveland the year before, the workshop will feature streamlined programming with a focus on creativity and digital. The nearby Galt House is to serve as the primary hotel.