It’s 10:39pm Sunday night. After 6 hours of solid cleaning, the studio is finally back to clean, ready for another fantastic week!
Rockstar’s annual Orientation took place last Friday, and it was an absolutely awesome event! The fifth one we’ve ever run, each year keeps getting better and better. Orientation is Rockstar’s way of welcoming, training and making comfortable our new creative staff. See all our photos and videos on our Facebook page.
Before starting Rockstar, I worked in a few large and small companies. The moments that really mattered to me, were the ones were my managers went out of their way to connect with me: My boss at Westpac, taking the time to explain how the “real world” workforce worked. My Volvo boss allowing me to drive his flash new S60. My Zurich boss letting me take extended time off for personal reasons, and my Deloitte partner taking me out to lunch on my first day. Oh… and the bar tab… I remember processing the concept in my head for the first time, that I was the recipient of a bar tab – where my boss had put his credit card, and I could drink all I wanted… Oh the grin on my face…. Those moments are priceless.
I’ve carried on those traditions at Rockstar. On everyone’s first day at Rockstar, the whole team go out to lunch in North Sydney. Lately we’ve been having yum cha. It’s hilarious seeing Westerners (I was born here, but parents are Chinese) try to use their chopsticks, and destroy the food. Most of us work part-time, and it’s also pretty funny how the team tend to magically turn up to work on days with a new starter. The record is still held by the lovely Jess in 2007/8, although Chris this year is getting very close.
Oh, we’re doing a lip dub soon for a really cool Year 12 grade. Can’t wait for it to happen!
When you’re a nationwide company with divisions in every Australian state, how do you overcome the problem of team-cohesion when the majority of employees have never met face-to face?
A yearbook, of course!
Increasingly, workplaces and companies are looking for new ways to improve communication between employees and to enhance the corporate cultural environment, and a yearbook is a great solution. Divisions of the National Australia Bank including Asset Finance, Financial Planning, nab Business and nab Transaction Services have all created yearbooks with the help of Rockstar over the past three years.
Congratulations to the nab Asset Finance team, who have just completed their yearbook for 2010!
It’s a 108-page publication, A5 in size and landscape in orientation. Featuring the theme “Back to the Future”, the yearbook includes profiles of team members in which they answer questions about their past, present and future. ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ photographs of each team member reflect the passing of time, yet the “Back to the Future” theme highlights that the nab team’s commitment to good business has not changed.
The yearbook was custom-designed to be in-keeping with the theme proposed by the editor, and showcases moods and themes typical of decades past as well as futuristic visions. From sixties flower-power to seventies geometric patterns, from eighties disco lights, to space age paraphernalia – the yearbook design visually tracks trends of the last half century and beyond.
Well done to Sabina, a new addition to Rockstar’s design team, who worked on this project!
It’s nearing the end of second term of the Australian school year and Winter holidays are just around the corner. Mmm! Sipping tea curled up on the couch with a good book! If you’re a school yearbook coordinator or editor, things will probably be pretty calm at the moment but come Term 3 and Term 4 you’ll be overwhelmed by exams, school work and the general flotsam and jetsam of life, meaning your yearbook project will start to slip out of your control…
So what’s the secret to a stress-free yearbook project? Planning! It’s time to get dead serious and talk DEADLINES!
A common complaint we hear is: “People never respect the deadlines I set! Someone is always late with their article and it pushes back the whole project!”
You also may feel mean setting deadlines, having to harass people constantly to finalise their content. But don’t feel bad! You are in charge of the project, and at the end of the day it will be on your head if it does not get done.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret – as an editor, you can set any deadline you want! Assume people are going to be late and be clever about it, manipulating this to your advantage. Set the deadline two weeks before you actually want the content to arrive! That way, you’ll be ahead with getting content from the keen beans, and have those two weeks to bring the stragglers into line by sending out reminder memos and emails!
It’s the same if you have a separate team laying up and designing pages. Ask them to finalise pages two weeks before you wish to start the final editing process.
Let’s assume you want your books in the hot little hands of students by the end of November. Allow two weeks for printing + delivery, and work your deadlines backwards from there. Use a calendar and assign due dates early on in the piece so you can quickly see if the project is running behind schedule.
As a general rule of thumb, you should spend the first half of the year (up until June) planning your yearbook and sourcing potential content and contributors. Make sure everyone who you want to write an article knows that this is expected of them! Ensure photos are taken at major school events like sports carnivals and excursions.
It’s a great idea to set clear Guidelines which people submitting articles and images are to follow, such as:
Word limit for text; file size for images
Document type (e.g. .doc or .jpeg
Clear instructions for naming files (e.g. not PIC10045 but Swimming Carnival 1.jpeg etc)
Limit number of images – ask for 5 or 10 of the best, not an entire reel which you as editor will have to sort through
Spell & Grammar check before submission
Email content as an attachment
Mid-July, start organising your yearbook folders. Have one folder per double-page spread, and store any images and articles relevant to those pages within that folder as they come in by email or USB.
Spend August reminding contributors to send in their content by the due date, and start designing how the yearbook will look so pages are ready to have content dropped in. To ensure all content is received by the end of August, remember to set the deadline two weeks before, in mid-August.
You’ll then have September and the first half of October to lay up and create the first draft of the yearbook. Spend the second half of October editing all pages – it’s a good idea to have a print-out because it’s easier to see mistakes with the physical document in your hands. Split up the task and assign different people 4 pages each to edit – if one person edits an entire document (and yearbooks can be upwards of 60 pages!) there are more likely to be mistakes that go unnoticed.
Aim to have the final document complete by the first week of November, leaving one week for essential changes.
Mid-November is the point in the process where you just have to let go of the project, PDF it up and send it off to print. Breathe a sigh of relief and twiddle your thumbs for the two odd weeks it takes for printing and delivery. There’s nothing like the feeling you get when handing out copies of the yearbook to all the students, on time and stress-free!
Rockstar believe in Yearbook Happiness. Here’s 7 reasons to choose us to help you…
1) Best Quality Guarantee
We use the newest proven technology and materials to make the highest quality yearbooks. Every single Rockstar yearbook is quality checked before being boxed and sent to you. On the off chance you find a problem, we’ll fix it free of charge.
2) Best Prices Around
We print tens of thousands of yearbooks each year, and pass on savings onto you. We’re confident that our yearbook prices are the lowest around. If you find a quote that is priced lower, we’d love to be able to beat it – please let us know!
3) We’re actually located, and print in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
On the off chance that something goes wrong, we can visit you and fix the problem. Be careful – other yearbook companies are located far out in Western Australia and South Australia, have really expensive delivery changes, and others have gone broke (taking $thousands in deposits with them).
4) Trusted by Hundreds of Schools
Since 1999, Rockstar have been trusted by tens of thousands of students around Australia. Student groups and schools keep coming back to us for a reason. Read some testimonials from students, teachers, and school principals.
5) The Best Service in Australia
We create yearbooks, only because we love them. This makes a big difference in our motives. Rockstar’s purpose is not to make a quick buck, but instead to help people capture and celebrate their experiences. Sounds corny, but it’s true.
6) We’re Yearbook Specialists
School photography companies are only suddenly desparate to help schools, because their photography services are declining. We’re also often told by teachers that “Magical Online Yearbook Builder” systems are terrible: limiting, ugly, and very frustrating to use. Chat with us about the real way to publish.
7) Supporting Young Australian Designers
The Rockstar Yearbook Design Team are young, talented, and love to design amazing yearbooks. Our team are hand-picked from Australia’s best design colleges, and trained to amazingly implement your design brief! Unlike other yearbook companies, we do not source workers from 3rd world countries (+unethically pay them). Rockstar only proudly employ, train and pay Australians, helping keep our local industry strong.
Hear from others have to say!
Thousands of students, teachers, and school principals can’t be wrong. Hear it from them…
Whatever happened to that kindy class photo, fabulous dinosaur drawing from art class, friendship bracelet, trophy for winning the school soccer competition?
These treasured keepsakes can so easily be lost and forgotten, if there’s not one special place to store them all…
In mid 2007, we had Karen join us as a student graphic designer. She was a little different in various ways. We like different. Karen was obsessed with Courier New, but left us after a couple of weeks. I later found out that she told some of the others that I (the boss) was “missing something upstairs”.
She’s completely right. I probably am – but that’s another story that I will privately share with my specialist.
Anyway, while Karen was still here, another Karen graphic designer joined us. In all my geekdom, the first thing I thought about this second Karen was: “oh noess.. how is her e-mail address going to work!!! – we already have a karen@rockstar…”
Karen #2 found out about Rockstar from another one of our designers Margareth, who is awesomely talented and funny. So by default she was in – and didn’t have to sit the full job interview. Inside I would hope that she would hang around for a while.
She ended up hanging around for over 3 years, and grew to be the most amazingly awesome, professional, hard working worker, ever. The type you really really really want to find as an employer.
Much to our sadness, and happiness, Karen headed off to Japan earlier this year to follow her dreams and study and live in Japan. She’s doing fine and dandy, and you can read her blog here.
Sometimes its good to think about how you’ve grown up, and reflect on your life “memoirs”.
When we think about what makes us, us, we can perhaps see ourselves as a byproduct of our:
natural personality
family and upbringing
friends and influences
external social environment
I’m (Nathan, one of the people who work at Rockstar) 29 – and to me that sounds really old. Earlier this year, I used to frequently think sh** I’m turning 30 later this year!!!!…omg omg world is going to end at 30.
The thing is, I really and truly feel like I’m still 22 inside – but a bit wiser.
Some things I’ve come to realise in getting to 29 include:
You think that you’ll eventually hit this point in life, where you’ll be 100% happy and have it all. You don’t – we’re all programmed to always want more
Everyone else’s life seems to be happier and better than yours – but everyone actually get as miserable as frequently as you.
As you get older, you just work it out – stuff just starts working without having to think about it too much
As you get older, you get more confident. Without really trying you just naturally trust yourself more
The value of your individual friendships becomes far more important than the number of social groups you hang out in.
You start to truly work out what love really means – in all it’s various forms.
As I write this post, and try to work out why it’s being posted on the Rockstar Blog (and not my personal one), I suddenly feel the urge to post some tips to some whipper-snappers in their late teens or early 2os…
Old (but short) 29yr-old-man Nathan’s tips for late teens/early tweens (who are probably much taller than Nathan)
Travel independently and go backpacking by-yourself, overseas – you’ll discover so much about yourself.
Do crazy stuff if you feel like it. In a worst case scenario you’ll probably have time to recover. Society just frowns at you when you want to do crazy stuff when you’re older.
You haven’t learnt what love is, until you’ve lost it. You won’t realise it or really care at the time, but you’ve learnt the most, the first time you lose love.
Keep your social networks strong. Keep in touch with a wide-net of people. Life’s opportunities mostly come from who you know.
Be careful when mixing money with friendships and family.
Don’t go with the flow. The flow is average – mediocre – normal. You don’t want to be just another pleb right? Follow your gut, your heart, your positive voice inside, and you’ll make it. You will.
Buy Rockstar Memoirs Yearbooks.
Yeah! That was an awesome link back to Rockstar.
Edit: I just watched the first episode of Glee (research for work), and there was a part towards the end where the dude teacher (can’t remember his name yet) said a couple of things that resonated:
“I knew half-way through that we/I was going to win“
“At that moment, I knew who I was in the world“
“The only life worth living is one that you are passionate about“
You live for the moments you realise this. Anyway enough preaching for now.
(As a side-note – why are Asians always typecast as weirdos or martial arts experts in mainstream tv ? Lucy Liu, that chick from Greys Anatomy, the Asian chick from Glee, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, etc etc… There are “normal” ones too you know…)
Hello to the staff from schools we met at the School Resources Expo (SRE), at Rosehill Racecourse. It was lovely meeting so many enthusiastic staff on Friday!
I thought I would write a post from the perspective of an exhibitor – half way through the event, with one more day (tomorrow) to come.
While I’ve been involved in organising stands for expos and shows before, the SRE was Rockstar’s first ever show. We have been really excited about the event, as it gave us an opportunity to showcase who we are (fun + open + happy), as well as provide a productive non-negotiable deadline to get our many marketing materials together.
We had a total of 9 Rockstar staff attend at various points. It sounds like a lot for a 3×3 metre stand – but we had planned big things – namely putting on a musical in one of the seminar rooms. More on this later.
I had been warned on many occasions prior to the show, that the type of people visiting these shows aren’t often the exact target market you are seeking. The organisers of the SRE promised plenty of representatives from both government and private schools.
The reality was; the staff we met on Friday were lovely and fantastic, but they were few and far between. With over 250 exhibitor booths with an average of say 2.5 staff per booth (approx 600 exhibitor staff), I’d estimate a total of no more than 100 visitors walked through the door on Friday. Best case – that’s a 6 exhibitor:1 visitor ratio THE WRONG WAY!!
It felt extremely empty all day, and from an exhibitor’s business point of view – very disappointing. The ratio from the ground felt like 20:1.
Nevertheless, I think our team made the most of it. Thanks to awesome training provided at my old job at Student Marketing, we organised a fantastic plan to have our best foot forward.
Rockstar is a business lucky enough to display personality, have some fun, and enjoy the happier lighter side of life. To reflect this, our “uniform” comprised of custom designed bright yellow T-Shirts with “CHAT WITH ME” written on the back.
A key strategy was to have staff roam around the Expo with a specially made “Spongebob Yearbook” suit made of cardboard. We proactively approach visitors, and invited them to attend our seminar musical, with custom tickets handed out, advising of the time.
This tactic of roaming around with intersting outfit worked extremely well. We had fun mingling with the (few) visitors as well as other friendly exhibitors! We also had Happy Lion make an afternoon appearance with Spongebob Yearbook, which was fun too.
Spongebob Yearbook
Back at our stand (which was fortunate enough to be in the smaller Hall on the ground floor), we took on a proactive approach, careful to always display OPEN and friendly body language. We were also careful to greet with eye contact, a smile, and proactively say hello.
In my opinion, at a trade show where there are hundreds of booths, there’s nothing less appealing or inviting from a visitor’s point of view, than seeing a “bland” person in a shirt + pants, looking disinterested with tired body language, while manning their stall. In my opinion, every business has an opportunity to stand out, if it really wants to. Yes business is serious – but behind every business are people. Staff at expos have an opportunity to be creative and make a difference. Surely, this positive difference shown to visitors greatly helps towards increasing your sales leads? Why be mediocre when you can make a difference with a little effort?
Our experience today culminated at 2:15pm when our musical was scheduled to run. After last minute tech delays, the show went ahead to a massive audience of 12!!!
I’m not being sarcastic with this happiness, as 12 people in the audience was a huge number compared to other seminars. Unfortunately, many others seminars were cancelled as no visitors even turned up. I felt really bad for everyone in this situation, as everyone had most probably put a lot of effort into it.
We had heaps of fun during our musical, and we even filmed it!
Gripes
First and foremost – the ridiculously low small number of visitors on Friday. Their marketing to visitors did not hit the mark on Friday.
Secondly, the public address voiceover was dead monotone and sounded half asleep. Give people a bit of encouragement to go to the seminars! If you don’t sound interested about them, neither will they!
Competitors
Trade shows and expos bring together competitors together under the same roof. I haven’t had much experience with this scenario, and I’m sure my perspective will change as time goes on.
Personally I’m very competitive by nature. When it comes to certain things like sport or business, I’ll be in overdrive by default, and be switched on 100% to make sure my team wins. When it comes to business, it can get a little personal. You may understand this concept a little better if you’ve ever started up your own business from scratch before. After risking it all and investing blood sweat and tears, your business becomes a major part of your life. As a “standard employee”, it’s different – it doesn’t get personal.
Regardless, I believe it’s important to be professional to your competitors at all times. This is a similar concept to respecting your enemies.
At the same time however, if a competitor is not being professional to us, for example: copying everything we do word-for-word (ie: breaking copyright), stealing IP, and doing dodgy things (like getting their mother called Mary to call and pretend to be a client), it makes it very difficult to be nice. There’s a boundary as to what constitutes fair competition, and what constitutes being an idiot (and breaking the law). Unfortunately not everyone understands this boundary.
Another competitor’s company director came right inside our stand, ignored our polite welcomes, and openly gawked at all our materials. It was awkward. If we say hello to you, could you perhaps say “hello” back? If you’re going to go and meet the competition inside their home, at least display common courtesy. It’s really quite rude otherwise.
I think this company soon worked out that he did that bit of recon all wrong, so they sent in a second rep. We said hello to him again, and when quizzed about his in-depth gawking, he justied with the response that “we’re all friends!!”….. hmmmm really? We haven’t met yet, and we’re friends?!?!… Anyway, we continued chatting and he ended up being a really nice guy, who was quite decent and nice about everything. It was nice to meet you Robert
In summary, I’ve so far concluded that yes, competitors may “all be friends” – but you’ve got to earn that friendship first. It doesn’t exist by default. Being a rude and not understanding professional boundaries doesn’t help either.
In general about being nice: I guess there are two schools of thought. We’ve all heard stories of World War II, where Allied and Axis soldiers stopped fighting each other in the trenchs during Christmas Day, to share coffee, a meal, and Christmas Carols. But is this really the right thing to do? Yes it is nice, but I don’t know.. is it right? You can see it both ways. It’s nice being friendly, but are you secretly being taken advantage of? I guess these are issues that business owners/army generals have more to gain and lose from.
Who knows though, I may change my mind in the future with more experience and maturity.
Quick Saturday round up. It was crap. Worse than Friday. Complaint letter to the SRE organisers to come. It wasn’t what we were sold.
Update to complaint letter: The onus and expertise of attracting visitors to the Expo was implied on us – the exhibitors. This was inappropriately done through a template e-mail response + inappropriately angled “survey”. It’s never fun working with organisations who don’t act appropriately to complaints.
Now that we’ve published these thoughts on our blog, I guess that means Rockstar are even more accountable to our clients. We have to practice what we preach! Something we’re happy to step up to the plate with again this year.
? Lucy Liu, that chick from Greys Anatomy, the Asian chick from Glee, Bruce Lee, Jet Li, etc etc… There are “normal” ones too you know…)
