In-Reply-To: 
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-online-news@marketplace.com
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO
X-Status: 

It is an article of faith among management consultants that questioning
staffing practices in any organizations will make the fur fly.  Too often
traditional labor distinctions become a sacred cow.  The tone of this
thread proves the point.........there is considerable sensitivity out
there.  Ask yourselves, if the point were so "patently" misplaced, why
would anyone bother to be troubled enough to respond at all....much less
respond with effort or vigor.  

On Thu, 29 Aug 1996, Chip  proclaims:

> Our company was founded in 1994, not 1900 or 1950. And yet, we have a
> PARTICULAR division of labor along writing, editing, production, design,
> and engineering lines. We even have an advertising department which sells
> the ads, quaint as that notion may sound.

Advertising does not sound quaint to me, but as I understand it, and I do
pretend to follow this issue as closely as Chip may, ...perhaps...., but
HotWired, despite solid ad sales, surprisingly was not turning a profit.
(has this changed?)  That is, its expenses exceed its income.  So, the
fact that it might prefer a particular division of labor, which might
arise in another era,.... as do other online pubs, one must hasten to add,
would hardly seem a vindication of that practice.

> I've visited and/or spoken to
> managers at plenty of other Web news and entertainment sites which aren't
> tied to existing media organizations, and they all do the same.

They ALL follow the exact same staffing formula....?  Or they all have a
division of labor?  As I have mentioned before, in some detail, it is not
the fact of division of labor that anyone calls in question,....  but
rather the PARTICULAR division that insulates most writers from HTML
considerations.  Writers that have html skills are more valuable in the
(web pub)  long term than those who do not, most other factors being
equal.  This is a simple point which seems non-controversial.  But there
is considerable bad feeling erupting........one might try deconstructing
the reasons for this.
 
> People who have skills useful across several departments are incredibly
> valuable to us, and we certainly give preference in recruiting to writers
> and editors who know how to code HTML. But they still end up specializing
> in the interest of efficiency and speed.

My question is whether "efficiency and speed" are actually the motive, or
whether there are others.  Cross-trained staff can be very efficient, and
quite flexible.  But threatening too, to their less flexible peers.

> The reasons for this are patently obvious to anyone who has actually
> produced news or entertainment.

Oh much too obvious to enumerate or discuss....so we'll label them
patently obvious and skip to the ad hominem.....how facile.  Is that what
we term attitude and style......or merely bombast?  How about some orange
fonts on a mauve background to lend authority and weight?

> The argument being advanced by Finer that
> "rice bowl" motives and other forms of political featherbedding - which he
> "suspects" are at the heart of this staffing arrangement is a straw man,
> and a tiresome one at that. 

I'll wager it is especially tiresome to anyone who needs to argue the
issues with a publisher's financial staff, period after period....why a
body could get plum tuckered out....   ;-)

Of course, such motives NEVER intervene in staffing decisions.  How silly
of me.  There is no record of such a thing happening in organizations
around the globe, public and private, across the centuries.   I just
dreamed it up to annoy Chip.  How kind of him to accommodate.  News
organizations would NEVER let work-rule barriers interfere with
efficiency.  NEVER.  8-)

There are organizational problems in staffing new media.  Ignore them,
deny them, mock them, slander the messengers, it makes little difference
to the reality (or me either).  In the long run, folks who treat the issue
honestly and directly will grow stronger bottomlines. 

Leaving the laptop while away for a bit o' fresh air, so I'll let each and
sundry ponder their own inky labor, red or otherwise. 

ciao 

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
This message was posted to ONLINE-NEWS. http://www.planetarynews.com/o-n.html

From owner-online-news-digest@marketplace.com Fri Aug 30 02:26:16 1996
Received: from marketplace.com (majordom@marketplace.com [206.168.5.232]) by cnj.digex.net (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA23753 ; for ; Fri, 30 Aug 1996 02:26:08 -0400