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

Back about 6 weeks ago, I said that I’d have a final decision about what direction we’d be going with WorkingArtist in a few days.  Well, you know, to be honest, I’m still thinking about that.  There are so many options, and so many risks as well as opportunities, that this isn’t going to be a straightforward decision.  The one thing I can tell you is that I won’t be moving WorkingArtist to the Filemaker platform anytime soon.  At the risk of starting a holy war with the Filemaker fans out there, I’m just not sure that it’s mature enough to do the things that I’d like to be able to do with the WorkingArtist product line.  It’s kind of a nebulous decision because I can’t point to one particular thing that bothers me about it; I’m just not that comfortable with it as a platform and that’ll have to do for now.

I remain just as committed as ever to providing a version of WorkingArtist that will run without the need of “helper applications” on the Mac and possibly Linux. I’m just not sure yet what’s the right way to do it.  This is a *humongous*, gigantic change, so I want to err on the side of caution and take as much time as I need to select the right platform going forward.

So, here’s the plan.

I have a growing list of enhancements that I want to add to WorkingArtist.  To get that out the door in a timely manner, WorkingArtist will remain on the current development platform, although I’ll be moving it to the most recent version of that platform, which will allow us to do some new things in and of itself.  So, WA4 will remain a Windows product for now, with the usual ability to run on a Mac with the assistance of other software.

Once that’s out the door, we’re going to continue and complete work on a new product for the management of art fairs that I’ve been discussing with a local arts group for some time.  That will be a web-based application that will allow you to  sign up online, as well as communicate images for judging, etc.  There will be a web-based back end as well for handling back office activities.  There will be a direct link between WorkingArtist and this new system to ease the ability for our artists to sign up and coordinate the tasks needed to participate in an art fair.

We have 2 more “varieties” of WorkingArtist on the drawing board as well, and I need to make a final decision on the development platform of the future before we start actually building those.

So, for those of you who would like to have WorkingArtist on a Mac, and for those loyal users who have gone the extra steps to be able to use WA on the Mac, I have to ask you to remain patient.  We’ll get there, I promise.

We’ll talk again soon.  Enjoy Spring!

Well, I’ve been hard at work working on the next version of WorkingArtist, which will be WA4.  You might have seen in a previous post that I want to have WorkingArtist available for the Mac market without having to purchase additional 3rd party software.  I said then that that was going to be a large project.  It’s turned out to be even larger, and more painful, than I thought.  So, just for a moment, join me here in software development land.

WorkingArtist is currently built on top of Microsoft Access, a database development system that has been around for a long, long time.  It does many things very well.  One of the things it doesn’t do very well is run on the Mac operating system.  Well, actually, it’s not that it doesn’t do it very well, it’s that it doesn’t do it at all (at least, not without some help).  So, in order to have WorkingArtist available on the Mac “natively”, that is, without something like Parallels, we have to completely rewrite WA on a new development platform.

I’ve been looking very closely at a product called Filemaker, which is the most popular database program on the Mac, just as Access is the most popular database program on Windows.  It’s a nice looking program. The problem is, until a couple of years ago, it really couldn’t match Access in capabilities, and even tho the newest versions of Filemaker are getting better and better, it still doesn’t, in my mind, match up with what Access can do, looking at it from a developer’s standpoint.  So, in order to move WorkingArtist to something like Filemaker, I not only have to learn Filemaker, I have to learn all of the creative tricks that developer’s have come up with in order to match what Access has done for years.  Now, not all developers will agree with this assessment, especially Filemaker folks, and that’s fine.

There are other development platforms out there, and I’m taking a look at those as we speak.  There’s another way to solve this as well.  On the drawing board right now is a web-based version of WorkingArtist.  Anyone with a browser will be able to use it, whether it’s on Windows, a Mac, Linux, or what have you.  So, we could continue to have the “desktop” version of WorkingArtist be dedicated to the Windows platform, and have the web version for “the world at large”.  The newest versions of Microsoft Access have tools that should make a transition to a web version fairly painless, as these things go, anyway, and that might be the fastest way to get there.

Recently, I’ve been asking myself if, by putting so much effort into creating a Mac-friendly version of WA, I’m slowing down the development of new enhancements that could be of use to all of my artists already using the system.  Is a Mac-friendly version worth the effort? I have no idea how big the potential market for WorkingArtist is on the Mac.  We’ve had a handful of requests over the years, and there’s always that nebulous comment about “artists really like the Mac”.   I think digital graphic artists like the Mac; whether the rest of the arts community does is open to discussion.  The fact of the matter is, most folks buy Windows-based PCs.

So, where am I right now, you might ask? Well, I think that the prospects of moving WorkingArtist to the Mac via Filemaker are dwindling fast.  I have a few other options that I’m walking through right now.  But, unless something pops up that allows me to move forward pretty quickly, what I’ll probably do is keep WA on Access and provide a web-based version for everyone else.  That would meet my main goal of having WorkingArtist available to the Mac market without having to buy any 3rd party software, and would allow us to get more enhancements into the next version of WA.  I already have a pretty long list of enhancements that are going to be in the new release.

I’ll have that decision made in a few days.  Regardless, there will be a new version of WorkingArtist coming out, and we have new products being worked on as well, all being done with the intent of helping our artists enhance their business prospects.  I’ll talk more about those new products soon.

Have a nice day, everybody.

Hi, and Happy New Year to you all.

In the coming weeks, we’re going to be adding to our communications capabilities with our customers and friends. Among those additions will be some updates to the WorkingArtist Website.

We’re going to change the look and feel a bit to freshen it up.  We’re going to be replacing the WorkingArtist Forum with a new tool.  The Forum is only lightly used, and I’d rather that we had a tool that helped to build the WorkingArtist community.  Once I have that in place, we’ll close down the Forum area of the website.  Of course, all of our current support tools remain in place and open for your use.  We are dedicated to making WorkingArtist the best tool you can have for managing your business, and that includes our support efforts as well.  We’re going to review all of the Knowledgebase Articles as well.  Some are getting a bit aged, and those will be removed, while others will be updated to reflect current knowledge.

More news to come. We’re continuing our work on WorkingArtist4, and we’ll have more news for you on that topic in the coming weeks.

Have a safe and happy New Year, and may the coming year bring us all a better economy in which to support our businesses.

Ron Gafron

WorkingArtist

Hi all,

Well, it’s been awhile.  Best laid plans and all that. I started this blog to keep you all up to date on what’s been going on with WorkingArtist. Turns out, the work on WorkingArtist took up so much time that I ended up not having time to tell you about the work being done on WorkingArtist.  In the meantime, all sort of freaks and weirdos starting dumping things onto the blog comments.  Wasn’t very pretty, unless you’re impressed by Viagra ads.  But, finally, I’ve worked out a schedule that will let me do a better job of keeping things up to date here.  Just spent a couple of hours cleaning up all the cr*p that had been dumped here.  Now, I’d like to tell you about….

WorkingArtist4!

Kathryn Townsend, the original developer of WorkingArtist, had actually started working on WA4 some time ago.  When Kathryn turned the company over to me, WA4 came along with it.  I could have released it as is, and that would have been a pretty cool update. But, no! I can’t just leave well enough alone, so I’m back in development mode, doing some significant work on WA4.

The biggest news, I suppose, is that WA4 will be available for Windows and the Mac.  So, for all of you who occasionally ask if there will be a Mac version of WA, the answer is yes.  Now, this is a pretty big job, so it’s going to take a little while to get it all done. Right now, I’m planning on releasing WA4 for both Windows and the Mac late in the spring of next year, but I’m not going to let it escape into the wild until I’m happy with it.  I’ve got a pretty sizable list of new features that are being added, and I’ll be talking them over the next few months as I get to work on them.  In the meantime, I’ll have some news for you on other work that’s being done.

I hope that you all had a great Thanksgiving, and will have a wonderful holiday season.

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