It was time for us to upgrade to a new version of our blogging software, WordPress. It’s been long overdue; I’ve just been really really busy getting the new version of WorkingArtist, WorkingArtist4, written and ready to go. As a result of the cleanup and upgrade, some old old posts were eliminated. They were obsolete and reflected “old thinking” on where we were going. It’s been a long process that I’ll tell you more about shortly.  For now, know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  More to come soon.

Ron

This past summer, I spent some time on the social networking sites participating in conversations involving the business side of art.  A couple of the conversations had to do with selecting software to help run their businesses.  The question occasionally came up as to “who’s got the best software?”.

Fortunately, in the discussions I participated in that also included other software vendors, we were all able to agree that there is really no “best” system for art businesses.  Sure, we all like to think that we have the best product, but the reality is that every business is a little different, and every art system is a little different, and what works great for someone may not work at all for someone else.  There aren’t that many of us software developers working in this niche, and if you visit our websites, you will mostly find that we tell you what we have to offer and let you choose which one is best for you.  Sure, I know of one art software company that seems to insist that they are the “industry standard” and that they have more customers than anyone else, and if they want to believe that, that’s fine.  But, you know, I worked in the area of industry standards some years back, and there are “standards” that nobody uses, and there’s really no way for someone to tell how many customers we all have, even if you believe that selling the most product means you have the best product.  You can make reasonable guesses, but that’s all they really are.  In any event, aside from the occasional exception, I think you’ll find that we all realize that what’s “best” is really kind of like “beauty”, it’s in the eye of the beholder.

So, my message to you today, dear artists, is that if you are in the market for some software to help run your business, do your homework.  Most, if not all, of us offer free trial versions of our software. Try a couple that look like good fits for you, and see how they really work.  That’s the best way to tell.  And then, make your selection, put your money down, and get moving.  The one thing that all of us software guys can agree on is that we want all of you to be successful.  That’s good for all of us in the long run.

Have a good day.

One of the things I’ve had in the back of my mind for some time now is improving communications with our artists.  I think we do a good job of following up on questions and the like, but that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’d like to have better communications with the whole WorkingArtist community so that they all know what we’re up to, what new things are coming, etc.  And I’d like for us to be able to talk not only artist to “me”, but also artist to artist.

Back when WorkingArtist was first offered to the public, and the website was created, it really was state of the art.  Online ticket system, email, a user forum, we have it all. But, they are older systems now, and not well designed for use in today’s world of social networking and the like.  I’d like to think that if we combine WorkingArtist together with our aggregate knowledge of the art business, we’ve got a winning combination that can be helpful to all of us.

With that in mind, we’re going to be replacing our current “Phorum” system with one that is more interactive, lending itself to more artist-to-artist communications.  We’re looking for a new system now; I don’t have a firm date for when the new system will be available, but I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve found something.

I’m also going to start providing a periodic “newsletter” of sorts to spread the word about what we’re up to, for those folks who don’t have the time to visit the website, or don’t know that we’ve added new things there.  I don’t plan to do this frequently; I don’t want to just be more “spam” in your email box.  But, this will provide me with a way to set up a 2 way dialog with our artists.  I’m going to be sending out an initial “Hi” email, which will provide you with the opportunity to “unsubscribe” if you’re not interested in further communication.  Of course, I hope that you’ll decide to hang around, but that should always be your choice.

Lastly, we’re shortly going to be putting ourselves on Facebook and Twitter.  I’ve actually been on Facebook for some time now, but I want to open a page specifically for WorkingArtist.  So, we’re going to do that.

Have a good evening.

Hi all,

As we celebrate MayDay (which, by the way, has its historic roots right here in my hometown of Chicago), a question comes up that relates to something I’ve been working on for awhile. That question is, “What would I do if a disaster struck my business?”.  What would *you* do, as an artist with a business to protect?

Now,  I feel like I can speak to this topic with some level of authority. In a previous life, I worked on the technology side of banking for, well, a long time.  Bankers, for the most part, are a risk-averse kind of folk.  (Now, that doesn’t include the silly folks who run the biggest banks that played a part in the financial meltdown, but that’s another story).  They *despise* risk; hate it; run away from it as fast as they can.  So, they spend a lot of time thinking about what could go wrong in their businesses, how to avoid it, and how to fix it when it happens, because something will almost certainly go wrong at some point.  There are people who make their living thinking about what can go wrong and what to do about it.  Big businesses will run dress rehearsals to practice what they’d do in case of an emergency.   That was part of my job for a long time.

Everyone’s situation is different, and so the solution to emergency preparedness, also called “business continuity planning” in the biz, varies from business to business as well, but there are some basics that everyone needs to know. Among them are…..

- Some sort of business insurance; yes, it’s an expense, but for most businesses, it’s a small expense compared to replacing your business without it.

- Keeping legal papers in a safe place; safe deposit boxes, etc.

- Protecting your most important business assets.  There are a variety of ways to do this, depending on what your business is.  What are those assets? Inventory catalogs, contact lists, etc., as well as the physical assets themselves, ie, your artwork, supplies, etc.

What you do to protect yourself from a disaster and the aftermath is always a balance of risk vs the cost to avoid the risk.

Now, we of the WorkingArtist community have a leg up when it comes to disaster recovery. Why? Because WorkingArtist is already holding much of the truly critical information you need to survive a disaster.  You have a catalog of your work and where it is. You have a list of your suppliers. You have a list of shows and fairs that you are participating in. And, you have a list of your business contacts.  That is a *great* start towards being able to truly survive a disaster.  If you don’t do anything else, keeping a copy of your WorkingArtist data in a safe location can go a long way towards helping you get your business up and running again.

One of the things that’s commonly missed in emergency planning is what to do after the disaster is over. My studio has burned down. Luckily, I have insurance, and they’ve already cut me a check. What now? Where do I order supplies? Where is my artwork?  This information can all be within WorkingArtist.

I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and working on a solution for us that may help out a bit. Over the summer, I’m going to be releasing a new product specifically for disaster planning. Basically, about 30 years of practical experience into an easy to use guide for protecting yourself from a disaster as best you can, and how to recover when something bad happens.  Honestly, 90% of it is common sense, but having one place to go to get that information can really be a “brain saver”.  Large businesses all have a “business continuity manual” if they have any common sense at all.  Why not artists? The guide will have a place to put your critical information, ie, what are the first steps after a disaster.  We’ll leverage what’s already in WorkingArtist.  The upcoming WorkingArtist 4 will have some enhancements to streamline this as well.

The idea with a disaster guide such as this is to fill it out once, and put it away in a safe place, knowing that if you have disaster, you pull out the book, and start at page 1, which will tell you what to do and in what order.  It may sound like obvious stuff, but in the heat of the moment, it’s nice to have something that takes some of that worry out of your head.  Update the information as needed; some things need to be updated more often than others.  Once a year or so, go back and review everything to make sure that it still applies.

For now, if you do nothing else, when you back up your WorkingArtist data (and you *are* doing that, right? ), make a copy of that backup and put it someplace away from your PC.  Ideally, you want it in a different building, but at the very least, keep it outside of the general area where you have your PC.

Have a good weekend, folks.

Ron

Pick the career of your choice.  Most likely, you can find a good education on that career at the school of your choice.  They’ll teach you all of the theory, the techniques, etc.  Chances are, tho, they’re not going to do as good job as they might in teaching you how to turn all of that knowledge into a successful career.  Sure, if you graduate and find yourself work at a studio and the like, you can shield yourself to some extent from having to know what’s really going on.  But, if you want to go off on your own and make a living as an independent artist, you pretty much have to learn at least the basics of how to run a business.  Well, you don’t have to, but your chances of being successful are probably going to be severely limited if you don’t know how to manage the business side of your artwork.

So, what to do?

Well, If you’re lucky, you know someone who is already a working artist, and can help you learn the ins and outs of setting up and running a business.  If not, you can find yourself one of the workshops that are taught by working artists, who will teach you the basics of the business of art.  And failing that, you can visit your local library or bookstore and look for books about the business of art.

Every art medium is a little bit different than every other in how you go about selling your work and maintaining your business.  Luckily, they also have a lot of things in common.  No matter what kind of art you create and sell, you’re going to need to keep track of your income and expenses; that’s a basic part of any business, whether you’re selling sculpture, water colors, or diesel engines.  You can keep track of it on lots of pieces of paper, or in something like a computer spreadsheet, or in bookkeeping software, ie, something like Intuit Quickbooks and the like (not a recommendation, just an example).  You spend more as you go up the ladder of tools, but you gain the advantages of those tools.

Beyond basic bookkeeping, you need to be able to keep track of the mechanics of your business. That is, you need to keep track of what you have, who you sold things to, where you sold them, contacts you’ve established, etc.  Once again, you can keep track of these things on pieces of paper or a spreadsheet program.  And for very, very small businesses, that might be fine.  General bookkeeping systems can keep track of inventory, but they lack the nuances that make every kind of business unique.  For example, in the world of photography, you’ve got software systems that do something called “digital asset management”, and is called DAM software (provide your own jokes here…..).  I’ve worked in photography, and what you see in the world of photography are artists who have seemingly vast inventories of images.  If you get a notice that Joe’s World of Nature is looking for pictures of laughing gazelles for their next cover, you have to be able to find those images quickly and get them to the publisher, while keeping track of who has your images.  That’s what DAM software does.  In the world of fine art photography, and other limited edition art media, you still need to keep track of where you’re artwork is at, but you’re also tracking things like gallery connections, art fairs, etc.  The needs are similar, but different.  And there are software systems, like WorkingArtist and a handful of others, who fit that niche of specialized use.

The main point here isn’t to go out and buy yourself a lot of software gadgets to run your business.  What you do need to do, tho, is maximize the potential that your business has to be successful, and that’s what these tools do.  Whether you’re working from a legal pad, or a spreadsheet, or a good software program, you’re looking for ways to ease the burden of tracking all the things that have to be tracked in order to squeeze every bit of potential income from your business.  Like it or not, you have to do these things in order to give yourself the best chance of being successful.  It’s worth a bit of your time to review your options and pick the best tools for your business.

Hi. My name is Ron Gafron, and I’m the new face at WorkingArtist.  After a good many years creating and handling all of the chores that go along with running a small software business (know these days as a   “MicroISV”, ie, “Micro Independent Software Vendor”), artist Kathryn Townsend decided that it was time to get back to her artwork fulltime.  Enter me.  I’ve spent my career primarily as a technologist in the financial services industry.  All that stuff you’re reading about right now in the papers about banks? Not my fault, honest .  Along the way, I also spent a good deal of time as a nature photographer. Actually tried to make a living at it for awhile; very tough business; wasn’t able to give up my day job.  More recently, I’ve been working in clay, more specifically, porcelain art tiles.  In the land of clay, I am a relative rookie, to be sure, but I’m learning.

About a year or so ago, I left my job in banking to pursue the life dream of having my own business.  The Internet has opened up a host of new sales channels for artists, and I wanted to be one of them.  So, I put together a laundry list of things I’d like to include in my new business.  It included things like getting back to selling my images as stock and fine art, getting to the point of being able sell my ceramic work, and providing related services like fine art prints of artwork, etc.  On my list also was an idea that I had about writing some software to help artists manage their businesses.  I had done some research and found that there weren’t really that many software packages out there that were specifically aimed at artists.  A pretty small handful, actually.  And so, along with the other things on my list, I started working on a design for such a software system.  I periodically checked to see what the other vendors were doing as a way of vetting my design ideas.  Last June, I was doing such a periodic review when I came across a note on the WorkingArtist website from Kathryn saying that she was planning on retiring from the software biz to get back to her artwork and she was looking for someone to take over WorkingArtist.  Well, to say the least, I was shocked, but not so shocked that I didn’t drop her a quick email to introduce myself and find out more.  Over the course of the next month or so, we traded a lot of emails, discussing WorkingArtist, where it was, and the potential for the future.  In mid-July, I flew out to Washington State to meet with Kathryn and talk in more detail.  In the end, Kathryn decided that I would be the one to take over WorkingArtist.  We also put in place a one year transition plan, during which I’d be taking on more and more of the business responsibilities, with Kathryn there to provide advice and support along the say.  We’re a few months into that transition period now.

After spending some time seeing the future potential of WorkingArtist, I decided to put my other plans on the back burner for awhile and concentrate on WorkingArtist pretty much full time.  I’ll still be working on my photography and ceramic work, but WorkingArtist is for all intents and purposes my full time gig now.  And I better make it work, because my wife really like getting the bills paid!

So, that’s me.  I’ve got plenty of experience in a lot of areas of computer technology as well as the Internet.  That’s different than saying I’m some sort of “guru”. There are so many areas of expertise in computer technology that it’s become, in my opinion, less important to have that knowledge at the tips of your fingers than it is to know where to go to get the information.  I’ve got enough experience in the business side of the arts to have a fair idea of what kinds of things are needed, and at least what kinds of questions to ask.  I know enough to know that there are nuances to working and selling the different art media, and that will play into the future plans for WorkingArtist.

Any Questions?

I’ll have quite a lot to say about WorkingArtist in the days and weeks ahead.  Please stay tuned.

Ron