September 2009

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Out of the office

September 8, 2009 in General | 3 comments

On a somewhat lighter note to recent posts, I received the best out-of-office message of my career today, from a fellow publisher — you know who you are!

Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office. If this is an emergency, please email me again with the subject line “OMG this is an Emergency!” Otherwise I’ll get back to you on my return.

Utter genius, and completely genuine.

Start with XML

September 2, 2009 in General | No comments

I spent most of today at the British Library, at the Start with XML conference. The great value of the day was that the presentations articulated very clearly not only the significant cultural and organisational challenges in publishers moving to an XML-first production workflow, but also the benefits in terms of increased efficiency. It was also great to see a number of friends and colleagues, many of them presenting their experiences, and to end a very long but rewarding day by having dinner in the expert company of Mike Shatzkin, Ken Brooks and Andrew Savikas. I’ve come away with several dozen pages of notes, a number of interesting tools and services to investigate, and a head full of ideas. Having been on the go for eighteen hours, I feel exhausted on one level, but also hugely enthused and buzzing with the potential of it all.

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