Think Like Your Customer

[by Todd Joyce]

There are a lot of resources out there on business that unless it’s about a photography business, we don’t seem to want to pick it up…  I have news for you.  If you’re not treating your business like a business, then you’ll likely be out of business soon.   There’s a great book that has nothing to do with photography – other than it’s a business.  It’s called “Think Like Your Customer” and it’s a must read.

This book changed how I approach my clients.   If you aren’t looking at what your client thinks and needs, you’ll always be seen as wanting something.  Are you a cost to them or a solution?  Until you can see things from their perspective, you’ll always just be a seller to them.   Start thinking like your customer.

Todd Joyce is a recent Past President of ASMP and specializes in conceptual people photography for advertising. See Todd’s work at joycephotography.com and contact him at todd@joycephotography.com

Liber Liberum Aperit (one book opens another)

[by Sean Kernan]

I’ve been riding a long slow curve from the activity of making photographs through the question of why I pursue it so hard, visiting the question of how we create, and winding up (for now) at the question of why we create in life-size our versions of how everything should be, using photos, movies, novels, art of all kinds, and also our life stories and beliefs.

So my reading list includes:
First, The Making of a Midsummer Night’s Dream, a diary of the rehearsal of the landmark Peter Brook production of Shakespeare’s play. The rehearsal process was a culmination of many inventions in the way theater discovered a play and what was in it, and people who saw the play say it changed their lives. It certainly changed the way theater was done. But the fascinating thing to me was that whole rehearsal was extremely uncomfortable for those involved. No one really had any sense of the scope of what they were doing or how it would influence things going forward. The experience was sometimes exhilarating and more often frightening at the time, and often seemed doomed…until the play opened and the amazed responses began to come in. I usually feel insecure in the middle of projects too, so this book reminds me that that is what I’m supposed to feel if things are going as they should.

Also, Laurie Robertson-Lorant‘s biography, Herman Melville, whose a vision so great and so far advanced, and his insistence on it so complete, that he gradually cut himself off from those around him. Of course, he didn’t know he was writing the Great American Monumental Novel, and that might not have been a compensation? Did he even have a choice?

And Son of the Morning Star, Evan Connell’s reading of the national psyche’s that led up to Custer’s demise and the exploitive mythmaking that followed. I read it as another kind of insistence, that of a young nation forming its identity by pursuing a belief in its own “manifest destiny” and remaining blind to the consequences on others and on itself. (This is something Melville was particular critical of, as he witnessed missionaries and diplomats taking it on themselves to “civilize” the cultures of the Pacific.)

The thread that I have followed through all of these is that there is often—or always—something behind what we’re aware of that is bigger than anything we have in mind, that leads to a much fuller outcome. It can be for good or ill, but it is there. Can a wider awareness harness it? That’s the next question, isn’t it? Anyone know any good books on the topic?

But I have all of Stieg Larsson series in front of me too. Maybe I’ll run a little sidetrack into that next, lest things get too serious. On the other hand, knowing new stuff is fun too.

My Number One Reading Recommendation

[by Gail Mooney]

#1  Reading recommendation:
From Still to Motion by Richard Harrington – Peachpit Press

Harrington has written 27 books on everything from Photoshop tips to Final Cut Pro and other software applications.  In his current book “From Still to Motion” he documents a field case study creating a video with the hybrid camera Canon 5D Mark II.  This book is a must have for any still photographer who is thinking of moving into motion.

Gail Mooney runs a video production company www.kellymooney.com.

Summer Reading List

[by Jay Kinghorn]

There’s no doubt that the business landscape is tough for photographers right now. Still, every day, green shoots are appearing in the publishing and advertising industries that will allow well-positioned and technologically savvy photographers to make and impact (and a good living) as the recession subsides.

Here are a few books I’ve found valuable in thinking about my business, assessing the services I provide clients and getting through my to-do list.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. I find new insight from this book every time I read it. Blue Ocean Strategy offers clear guidance to rethink one’s business to focus on untapped markets and new opportunities.

The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change The Way You Do Business by Clayton M. Christensen. In researching the panel questions for the ASMP Copyright and The New Economy symposium this spring, I kept coming across references to this book citing it as an influential source for understanding why well-managed companies, who fail to change to meet new technological needs and client demands, fail. Sure enough, Clayton M. Christensen delivers, offering strategic insights for managing any business through periods of rapid change like we’re experiencing today and giving us both the strategy and the courage to make the leap from our current business model to the new model that will carry us into tomorrow.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity: This is a book I find more valuable with each read. Allen’s GTD method is well proven and will help you focus on addressing both day-to-day tasks and your big-picture business goals.

Our Data, Our Selves

[by Judy Herrmann]

Earlier this year, ASMP President, Richard Kelly, suggested I read Ken Auletta’s book, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It.   Thought-provoking and packed with facts, quotes and well-researched information – I actually pulled out a highlighter pen for the first time in years – it is so well-written and organized that it’s an easy and inviting read.

Auletta, who has written the “Annals of Communications” column for The New Yorker since 1992, uses the rise of Google as the basis for a much broader thesis on the impact of the internet and searchability on business, communications, advertising and the creation, distribution and publishing of content.  He clearly outlines the struggle between old and new Media and his interviews with moguls on both sides of the line provide fascinating insights into the role of content in these vast distribution networks.  My new understanding of the data collected about consumers and how it’s being used to monetize the internet has completely altered my views of the future and how our industry and my business need to evolve to take advantage of these rapidly growing data mines.

We’ve all been Googled in one way or another.  We owe it to ourselves to understand a little more about what that means.

Judy Herrmann, photographer, business consultant and former ASMP national president volunteers on ASMP’s Strategic Research and Web Oversight committees. Learn more about her at www.HSstudio.com

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