WeddingWorkflow

Your Contracts

Joe sent us a note which has spurred some thought about contracts. Joe's issue was that he wanted the header of the contract to use his Business name and not his own personal name, "joe" in the contract. For now, he is working around this by putting his company name in the company info preferences in place of his personal name. This is a good work around for the time being. We will make it possible to have your business name placed in the contract instead of your personal name in the update.

Another issue Joe had was that he would like to have each page of his contract initialed. Here is what I do. I put an initial line into the contract itself on each section. So when the client reads a section of the paragraph, they initial the paragraph. We made the initial line on the package page so that our client would have to initial the package itself. After that, you can put as many initial lines into the body of your contract as you like, so we didn't add the initial line at the bottom of each new page of the contract.

These issues lead me to thinking about contracts in general. So, I have made a new thread called "Contracts." If you have any thoughts about contracts that you would like us to address, please feel free to post there. Also, if you have example paragraphs in your contract that you would like use to consider as we work on the contracts portion of the software, please copy them into your posts.

The Search for a Simple System

As the release of Wedding Workflow 1.0 progresses, I have been thinking about what drove me to create this software and the philosophy that guided the process. I think that sharing some of my thinking on this will help new users to approach this software with the right perspective to succeed with it.

First of all I am highly passionate about systems. I am actually a poster child for ADD and naturally lacking in organization. On the other hand, I am possessed of an over-active imagination and the ability to hyper focus on things that interest me. Because of this strange combination of attributes I have developed a knack for imagining systems for simplifying complex tasks and building efficiencies. I have had to do this, or risk being thought of as a total screw-up by my clients.

Here is the basic philosophy behind my systems, Wedding Workflow in particular:

I strive to create the simplest system that will get the job done. The process of creating Wedding Workflow, has always been one of simplification. I look warily at any feature and constantly ask myself, do I need this feature to get the job done? Is there an existing system that can do the job better, or as well? I feel best when I am combining or removing features. That is when I know that the system is getting simpler and easier to use. In future versions of Wedding Workflow, we will add only features that deliver big benefits of time savings, or added capabilities.

People work fastest in a linear, single-task oriented system, so a good system follows a step by step process leading to a desired result. I try to imagine the uses that a user will put the system to and the desired outcome and I strive to make a system full of straight paths from use to desired outcome. Instead of a buffet of things you can do, imagine tasks served in courses, in the order you usually like to get them. If you want to skip to the desert, fine, but the system isn't designed to serve the desert and the soup on the same plate. So many softwares are just big bags of functions, without thought given to creating an easy and quick path toward a desired outcome.

At the same time that a good system predicts how people like to work and presents those tasks in an intuitive fashion, a great system will always be on the lookout for ways to get additional uses out of every task performed. Take for example the itinerary. It is a good idea to speak with the bride about the flow of the day so you know where you need to be when. This is a great opportunity to ask for a list of the vendors your client will be working with.  By spending a few minutes adding the vendors to your contact list and filling out your itinerary you can provide a helpful PDF document to your client that communicates the itinerary you went over together, this inspires a lot of confidence and trust in you. In the same time you have taken to perform this task, you have simultaneously added to your vendor network, created a call sheet for the day of the wedding which you can both use yourself and email to an assistant, entered data that can be easily exported to your calendar and phone and made a log of vendors associated with the event so you know who to send samples to afterwards--the time you invested to enter those vendors yielded a lot of value.

A good system adapts to the needs of the user as much as the user adapts to the use of the system. By keeping the steps of any process flexible and not locking the user into non-essential components, the user can decide the degree to which they want to use the system. Five to ten minutes of work might yield sufficient organizational results to keep you organized, in ten more minutes you might exceed your clients expectations with outstanding communication, ten more minutes might keep you in touch with key vendors and bring in future job opportunities. According to the level of work you put into the system you will achieve different levels of desired results, but the system does not force you to complete the thirty minute job when the ten minute job meets your immediate needs. This flexibility creates a low barrier to entry to the system with immediate gains in organization and efficiency with the possibility of future gains as you take advantages of the other uses of the system.

A good system is rigid where it needs to be. It's important for a system to be flexible when it makes tasks faster, but it also needs to be firm when there is just one good way to do things. For example, Wedding Workflow presents the same table of data for every event or vendor, forcing you to think about what data you should get from a client or vendor to be in good contact with them. Wedding Workflow, forces you to create a catalog of items and assign prices to them if you want to create packages and insert them into a contract quickly. Wedding Workflow forces you to enter your company info into the preferences if you want it to appear on your contract. Good business practices are consistent across businesses with the same business model. Part of the mission of Wedding Workflow is to establish Wedding Photography best practices. That is why we are giving away copies and seeking your feedback.

A good system doesn't reinvent the wheel. It is important too know what your strengths and your weaknesses are. Here are a few types of software that we didn't feel we could improve on and think are an important part of a good workflow:
• Calendaring (iCal)
• General contact management (Address Book)
• Phone syncing (Missing Sync)
• Accounting (Quickbooks)
• Email marketing (Constant Contact)
• Raw workflow and digital asset management (Lightroom)
• Photo Retouching (Photoshop)
There are other softwares we use, but you get the idea. We specialize only in managing clients and vendors to make sure that work is performed and delivered on time, and accurately and good communications and relationships are established and maintained.  We  feel that Wedding Workflow is the simplest and most effective tool for accomplishing that task.

Having a good system and sticking with it allows you to get faster at the tasks that make up the system. As you practice the tasks within your system you become more efficient and comfortable with them and this allows you to get speedier over time. A great system will give you immediate speed gains over no system, but it will also give you even greater speed gains as you master using the system.

In the end, it is all about having the freedom to do the things you want to do. I for one, would rather spend my time improving my craft then making contracts. Systematizing regular, repetitive tasks increases speed and accuracy as well as improving client satisfaction. After all, building a high level of trust with your clients requires great communication and is a key ingredient in referrals from clients and vendors. Wedding Workflow came about through our quest to fulfill Jared's and my need, respectively, for happy and contented clients who want to recommend us to their friends. Now that Jared and I have spent over two years refining, adding to and simplifying this system, I hope you will put it to good use and with your help we will continue to develop and refine the definitive Wedding Workflow system.

Wedding Workflow 1.0 Is Available

We are excited to officially release Wedding Workflow 1.0 to the public. This first public release is a FREE offer to all who will take a 15 minute survey. This survey will help us to determine some of the additions we will make to the software in the future. Once the free offer has closed we will announce the future of Wedding Workflow and how those who were not included in the original offer can get a copy for themselves. For those early birds who get a copy in this first release, we want to say welcome to the family. We hope that you will enjoy the software and ask that you be very involved here on the blog. The more you request features and report issues, the better future releases will be. If you have a feature you would like to request, simply go to the "Request Feature" link under the Categories list and request away. We will take every request under advisement. If you have bug to report, click on the "Report Issue" link and report your issue. We will watch for issue reports and will try to solve then as quickly as possible. Please make sure to leave an accurate email address, just in case we need to get back with you on the issue. Isaac and I have been using this software for a few years now in its various stages of development. We have found it to be very useful in streamlining our workflow and maintaining organization in our business. It is very simple to set up and simple to use. Most likely, any questions you have can be answered by clicking on the question mark help buttons throughout the software or by visiting the instructional videos at weddingworkflow.com. Please try those avenues first, and if you are still having trouble, then contact us through the "report issue" section of the blog. Thanks for your interest in Wedding Workflow. We look forward to hearing about your success. Sincerely, Jared Platt Wedding Workflow

Adobe Lightroom Seminar

Announcing two Seminars on ADOBE LIGHTROOM WORKFLOW

MAY 17th, 2007 - 6:30 PM: PUG (Pictage User Group) Presentation on ADOBE LIGHTROOM by Jared Platt.

Location: 124 West McDowell Road, Phoenix AZ 85003. Vermillion Studio. (www.vermillionphoto.com)

Lecture Description: This Seminar is an introduction to the Adobe Lightroom Program. You will get a taste of what this program can do for you and your workflow. It is only about an hour long and is FREE of charge. This presentation is brought to you by PICTAGE.

MAY 23rd, 2007 - 1 PM to 6 PM: Adobe Lightroom Seminar with Jared Platt and Isaac Bailey

Location: Phoenix Public Library, Upstairs Lecture Room. 1221 N Central Ave, Phoenix, 85003. (www.phoenixpubliclibrary.org)

Seminar Description: This is it! If you have purchased a copy of Lightroom or have just heard about it, you need to come to this Adobe Lightroom Seminar! This is a 5 hour seminar on Adobe Lightroom with some tips and tricks from the new CS3 Design Suite. We are charging admission to this seminar, mostly to cover our expenses. Both Isaac Bailey and Jared Platt will be your personal instructors for this 5 hour session. You will see Lightroom in action and will be able to ask questions and get personalized training! You will also see a few new tips and tricks that are now available thanks to the new Adobe CS3 Design Suite.

- The Seminar is $50 per attendee. Book your spot today: http//:www.jaredplatt.com/may-seminar
- Each attendee should bring a laptop computer.
- Each laptop should be pre-loaded with Adobe Lightroom (trial version or full version)

Come and learn how to cut your workflow in half or more. This is not just for wedding and portrait photographers. No matter who you are: Professional or Amateur. This Lightroom workflow will change your life!

BOOK YOUR SPOT AT THE LIGHTROOM SEMINAR NOW!

Wedding Workflow Presentation at WPPI

We just got home from WPPI 2007. Many of your visiied us at the Live Books booth on the show floor and watched our Wedding Workflow presentation. We covered a great deal in a very short time. That presentation (given in 30 minutes) is a full two day seminar, so it was a lot to cover.

To help you get started with your workflow, we have posted our presentation online here. To download the presentation in a PDF, simply click on the link below.

Also, we promised that there would be an anouncement coming after WPPI about our Wedding Workflow software. Make sure you send us an email us or fill out the form on www.weddingworkflow.com to ensure that you are emailed when the announcement is made! I promise you will love this announcement! So sign up!

DOWNLOAD the WEDDING WORKFLOW PDF HERE

Attention Early Adopters!

ATTENTION EARLY ADOPTERS!

HERE'S YOUR PURPLE COW!