How Software Updates Turn Creatives Into IT Departments

Fixing Fixes Instead of Creating

    Ever sit down to create… only to spend the next two hours fixing the thing that’s supposed to help you create?

That’s the trap of modern software...

One overnight update removes the export queue, the next update patch hides it behind an icon that doesn’t respond. Suddenly, you’re not an editor, designer, or storyteller; you’re a part-time IT department keeping your own tools alive, trying to figure out workarounds for an app that literally worked fine yesterday.

The irony? None of us asks for a smaller footprint or a faster workflow on paper. We ask for stability. For things to just work the same way they did yesterday, improve the features, but not at the expense of existing features that are necessary and in use. Instead, every other session seems to start with the same sort of ritual: drivers, reinstalls, toggles, resets, reboots. By the time it’s fixed, the creative spark has already flickered out.

The latest time vampire: Topaz Labs’ Video AI: a brilliant tool for upscaling and enhancing low-quality video, but their newest update flat-out removed the export queue. Why? No one seems to know. Topaz is already slow to render, and if you need to stop a process, you used to do it in the queue. Not anymore. Now, apparently, exports run blind; no control, no stop button. Meanwhile, my machine sits with all cores and RAM blazing away on a file destined for the trash. The only way I knew something was going on was that the fans in my laptop ramped up to 90rpm. No indicator. No progress bar. Just white noise that filled the room, that was my rendering indicator.

~

So here I am, forced to leave the room while my system grinds pointlessly, literally at 90-to-nothing, on nothing.   

~

🚨 Developers, stop stripping away what works and start building software that empowers creativity instead of burying it with your “improvements.”

#endofrant

PS... I wrote this all the while my laptop cranked away in Topaz. When I finished the rant, I force-quit everything and shut down for the night. This morning, Topaz's export window is back! I'm not going to ask questions, just happy it's back. (But I'm not going to let all those words above go to waste, the struggle is real.)

###

Is Ebay a Remarkable Communicator or WHAT?

[Time Travel Warning – From the Archives]

This little gem dates back to 2011—yep, 14 years ago. I was selling odds and ends on eBay (still am, now under RemoteYardSale, if you’re curious), and I got stuck dealing with a buyer who somehow “won” an auction but didn’t think paying was part of the deal. What followed was this jaw-dropping email from eBay support.

At the time, I figured it was just outsourced customer service gone sideways. But in hindsight? It smells a lot like one of eBay’s early, glitchy attempts at an automated bot response. Either way, it’s worth preserving for the sheer grammatical chaos.

Enjoy the cringe. Original post here untouched and just as baffling as ever!

 

I've Attended A Loan Mod Hoedown; Going Again Soon

   As I gather my documents for what will be my sixth home loan modification attempt, thoughts of past attempts' successes and failures have begun to surface. I am going to journal this adventure now before these memories suppress themselves again. My hope and prayer is that through my adventures and misadventures with the mortgage moguls, you future loan mod attemptees will gain a better understanding of what your dancing partners could be like.

There were and are so many players at this shindig that it would make for a boring and ineffective read to leave out the names. If this were print, I'd think twice about it; however, I will dodge the libelous bullet and state now that truth is my defense.

Let's face it, if you refinanced your mortgage between 2005 - 2007, you are most likely in a train wreck of a loan. Those are not my words. These words were told to me by an agent at Washington Mutual who took over our loan in 2007. She said that they had this new thing called a "loan modification" and that I needed to do this if my family and I planned on staying in our home for the unforeseeable future.


A Train Wreck Of A Loan

It was sold to me in 2006 by a third-party outfit called Sunwest Mortgage. They made it easy to get in to, easy to cash out. What I didn't realize is that they put in for a 3.5% margin plus early-termination penalties ($17k). I'm sure it was all in the 200-page contract. Seriously, it was 200 pages. Who wants to read all of that legalese when it's just oh so easy to do? I had no choice, really. To keep the business in the black, it made sense at the time regardless of the penalties.

Back to 2007 and WaMu (as they began to be called).... Seriously. what were they thinking? What a silly name for such an intense time. Could it be that this poor branding choice contributed to their demise? Alright, I digressed....

Back to 2007... Linda at WaMu sent me a small contract of around 4 pages. My wife and I signed and notarized and BAM! It was done. Our monthly payment immediately went down by $850. Good news: no penalties, low margin and APR; bad news: it's an ARM. Regardless; God bless you Linda!

About four months later Linda gives me a call saying it looks like interest rates dipped again and they can reduce the payment by an additional estimated $500 per month. The cost to do this was $800. So a no-brainer. She sent a document to sign, we returned it with a check. She got a commission, we got a lower payment an that fee was recouped in less than two months.

She called again a couple of months later. Same pitch, lower rates, lower payment (~$350.) lower cost to initiate: $500. So we did it. She's a costly one to dance with, but well worth it.

That was the last time I ever heard from Linda. WaMu tanked. It was the largest American bank failure in history, no less. So that was their problem; little did I know, mine were just beginning. My new statements came from Chase Home Mortgage, a division of JPMorgan Chase.

Let's get this straight right now: I do not like Chase Home Mortgage. There is no one like Linda there offering me a 4-page deal and calling me "hun" in a southern accent on the phone. I believe to this day that Washington Mutual saw this mortgage mess coming and were doing what they could to fix it on their end- and they knew it was futile. Too little, too late.

Life with Chase Home Mortgage
By early 2008, I could see that Linda's band-aid fix for our loan needed to have a little modification love. Rates were lower, and it became widely known that mortgage banks desired to get the existing ARMs modified to a fixed-rate product. Great. Time to do a mod. Even greater: Chase has a full-on modification department and it's all done on-line. Begin.

Over the next 9 months I old-school faxed some 400 documents to Chase Home Mortgage. Usually, I only found out they needed updated information when I called and asked. They NEVER called or mailed giving me a progress report or requesting an update for my file.

One fateful day I received a letter from Chase Home Mortgage that simply said: "Under President Obama's Making Homes Affordable plan, you do not qualify." WHAT!? My ARM payment is 48% of my income. How can I not qualify? The form letter went on to say that I was disqualified because I owned a small business. Great. Another example of American Small Business Owners being punished. The letter also invited me to re-apply for a loan modification. Like I want to do that again.

To this day, (Chase and Obama) I believe I had a great case for a modification: an ARM; steady income; a mortgage payment that had grown to 48% of our gross and 4 years of personal and corporate tax statements that proved all of this.

Time To Get Serious

After some time passed I inadvertently got "hooked up" with Glover Law, a firm that specializes in getting loan modifications for borrowers that have been previously been turned down. They sold me on their pitch; which made sense. I researched them, they looked good, so we engaged.

Now this experience started out pleasantly enough. I discussed matters with them on a regular basis. They emailed when updates were needed. They emailed progress reports.There was solid two-way communication between us. But this did not last.

I began to discover that Chase had never received information from Glover Law.
WHAT?! We were well into this for six months and they had no dialogue going, apparently. When I confronted my contact at Glover, he said that Chase Home Mortgage is so big that certain divisions do not know what others are up to. Chase INSISTED that they know what ALL departments are up to and that no-one from Glover Law had EVER contacted them. I confronted Michael Glover, Esq. and got the same answer from them as before: "Chase is big and complicated, the people you call cannot interact with the people we call." I asked for the names at Chase they talked to and never received an answer. Some time went by and I quit getting updates from Glover. I asked again for the Chase names and got nary an answer. Okay, good bye Glover Law. I withdrew what was left out of my escrowed payment to them and closed the account.

Maybe this was a scam, maybe it wasn't. I cannot say. They did seem to try really hard for the initial few months. My gut feeling is that they could NEVER make contact with Chase, so they simply gave up. Like Watergate, the problem is the cover-up. Again I can neither prove nor disprove this. The pundits at Chase insists to this day that they've never heard of this law firm.

The Right Relationship Is Everything
Yes Chase, that's a great tag line you had in 1997. It's not hard to figure out why it was dropped. I wish I could say that I have had a "right relationship" with you. Regardless, I'll be asking you to the Annual Loan Mod Dance again soon. Why do I feel I'll be left standing at the punch table again getting, well… punched?

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Not about Work: Things I've Learned About Ants

   Earlier this year our home started being invaded by ants. Fortunately, these were not the fire ants like we had back in Texas that want to tear flesh from your bones. These guys were just looking for sweets and have no defense, so I decided to do a set of experiments before calling in the pros.

I will not go on about the set-up and tests, just the results:
(I'll use the term LOVE and HATE here because attracted-to and not-attracted-to are much too clinical and do not encapsulate the drama I witnessed in the ants.)

Sugar Ants:

• LOVE Popsicle juice
• HATE gasoline
• LOVE dried Popsicle juice
• HATE Habanero pepper juice
• LOVE Jamacian Rum
• HATE 99 bananas (schnapps)
• LOVE Fantastik® and Formula 409
• HATE Pine-Sol®
• LOVE the freezer (until they freeze to death)
• HATE the oven and grill (when ON)
• LOVE TERRO Liquid Ant killer
• HATE anything that moves

There probably will be no future clinical trials, however; if you have other helpful ant observations, please post in the comments below!

Are you an MBA or a Creative?

   I was at a posh meet-n-greet a few years ago at a prestigious film production co in Hollywood. One of the principles came up to me and inquired, "Are you an MBA or a Creative?" What a strange thing to ask a stranger, I thought; but hey, it's Hollywood. "I don't have an MBA, just 22 year's experience in the industry as a Director, DP and Editor" was my reply; his: "Great, I can talk to you!" What?! Why did he think he could not talk to someone holding a master's degree in business administration? He ran this company, so you'd think that he'd want to talk the business of "the biz" with people in-the-know.

Either that was his ice-breaker OR he really believed that he could not relate to "an MBA" because he himself was so incredibly creative. I firmly believe it's the latter. He was a "Creative". And, as I found out throughout the conversation, he simply viewed himself as only being able to relate to other "Creatives." It's almost like Creatives and MBAs were two different species in his mind— and there were no crossbreeds.

yours truly (far right) on location in Jamaica as part of an in-house production team

In companies that sell a product or service OTHER than video, audio and print media, but have an in-house media department, (I'm talking about a department or team that produces promotional video, print, copy, etc... NOT social media) the employees in those departments simply have this mindset. Maybe not to this extreme, but it's there.

What does this mean for you *non-creatives* and MBAs  in the organization? It means that these people really feel that they can't relate to you. Maybe they're fine in social settings after work, company picnics, etc..., but deep down, at the shop, they can't relate— or they think they can't.

This is one of the reasons I find that it's so important to structure these teams in ways that are, at times, seemingly unconventional. If you are aware of their general sensitivities as creative individuals as well as this overarching and downright fear of *the suits*, then you'll soon realize that these folks function better as individuals and as a team when they are governed in seemingly non-traditional ways.

There's no magic bullet for this media structure. Each plan is different and unique. It's based on individual strengths/weaknesses, work style preferences and workflow practicality. It's also important to understand where various tasks relate and crossover and the ones that do not. For instance, certain tasks in digital media are very quick to happen. Other tasks can take a very long time. I've seen a situation where one team member has the responsibilities of all the time-consuming tasks, while another has all of the quick tasks. If you look at the JDs, it all seems logical if you don't know media production, but the persons designing these jobs wasn't aware of what's quick and what's not. The slow guy looks, well, slow and frustrated. And the young intern appears to outperform. Even though they may function together as a team, they are not satisfied nor efficient. What's more, they are too frightened to speak up. Let's face it, jobs are scarce, so who want's to tangle with the suits and get the axe? Seriously, although it's a cliche', that is the mindset with these creatives.

If you are in HR and already have these people on your staff, it would be very rewarding to take a look at these individuals and learn a little bit about what they do... (in their words, more specific than just the JD). They are (or should be) the experts in this rapidly changing field. You will have to go to them, they will not come to you. Give them the opportunity to write their own JD and see what they come up with. Yes, it could be totally off-the-wall and not possible to execute budgetarily; however there may be elements there that can be. They will take it seriously. And they will operate more efficiently, maybe even optimally even if it's just for your asking and concern.

from www.mashable.com

Lastly, I believe it's getting increasingly important for HR folks to realize these things now and be ready to recruit creatives (if you haven't already) and support these teams or departments in a proper, albeit maybe non-traditional, non-MBA way as this digital media, social media tide keeps rising. It'll be better for them, better for the bottom line.

Consider the facts:

• unemployment is up now, it will bounce back, hopefully with a vengeance;
• the social media engine is primed as an incredible promotional tool, and it's only in it's infancy;
• YouTube® and various other video hosting sites have made valid, credible distribution free and easy;
• WordPress and Blogger have made online publishing credible, free and easy;
• your company WILL, AT SOME POINT, take advantage of these things in some form...

So, will the IT intern handling your in-house creative (web, video, print)? Can your company afford an outside creative agency or contractors? The most logical and cost effective solution for most will be to add the salaried digital media production team and their gear in-house.

Consider what happened in the 90's with the hiring of creatives for digital media. Although that bubble burst because of Wall Street and hundreds of creatives were laid off, it wouldn't have been sustainable anyway because the internet infrastructure wasn't there. It is now. Will you be ready to recruit and structure wisely for the next go 'round?
 

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