Weinstein’s Wisdom
He enjoys “working with all parts of the company to figure out the issues (e.g., content management, multiple deliveries, process/workflow, costs, etc.) and moving the department and company forward,” he says.
Sharing the Wisdom
Weinstein feels strongly that people entering publishing today should be prepared to utilize technology extensively. “Technology is a very broad term, and that could mean functioning really well in the world of spreadsheets and databases, the world of InDesign, or the world of XML workflow and simultaneous distribution of content,” he says. “One of the great things about publishing now is that you can get the knowledge or skills to go wherever you want to go [by utilizing technology].”
Weinstein says that another staple you can expect from the industry is constant change. “The role of the publisher [in relation to] the author, how customers want to receive content, the time frame allowed to deliver that content, technologies used, workflows, custom and on-demand publishing—these items and many more have changed greatly, and will continue to change at great rates,” he says.
In fact, Weinstein says that technology’s impact and rate of change are the most significant catalysts he has seen during his career.
“I caught the tail end of hot-metal typesetting, and we’ve already zipped through compositors and desktop publishing, and gone on to self-publishing and simultaneous multiple-channel distribution,” he says. “The changes on the print side have been just as huge—going from film to PDFs that are preflighted online … to digital printing and plate-making machines … .”
Weinstein says that finding “even more” efficiencies in time and money is currently the greatest challenge he faces.
“Production directors are always being asked for more,” he says. “We need to serve the needs of our company without putting our vendors out of business. It means being more creative … ,” he says.
