Professionalism

Guest post written by Micahel W. Dean, co-author of YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts

Basically, a large part of being a success on YouTube is interacting with everyone in a professional manner. It’s often the difference between being well employed and being unemployed.

I remember several years ago talking to a guy I know who is an amazing hot-shot rock drummer. We were talking about another drummer who is less flashy, much more stable a person, less prone to mood swings, and always punctual. The hot-shot was complaining to me that the other guy was constantly employed as a session musician, even though the hot-shot was technically a better drummer. The reason the other guy was more employed was that he gave the producers what they wanted, and was easy to work with. The hot shot always tried to make his drumming noticed, whereas the other guy ”served the song.“ The other guy didn’t play like a robot, wasn’t a staunch yes man, would give his opinion when he felt it helped the project, but didn’t try to insert himself into the project. That guy has professionalism; the hot shot didn’t.

A big part of professionalism is how you communicate with people. This can range from keeping your word, to having good e-mail netiquette, to simply working well with others, to delivering regardless of what’s happening that week in your own life. People like to hire and collaborate with folks who make their lives easier, not harder, so you should practice “playing well with others” in all that you do.

Keep Your Word

If you commit to deadlines on long-term ongoing projects, meet them. Don’t let a bad day (or month) get in the way.

Alan and I are meeting our deadline for turning in chapters this week even though he and his girlfriend broke up last week, and I have a really bad backache that makes it hurt to type. That’s not us suffering for our art, that’s us keeping our word. People who keep their word get hired back.

I was wrapping up a three-year project, putting it to bed with creating and shipping the art files for the cover shipped off to the DVD distribution company the week my daughter died. I finished the DVD project, even though it was very hard to do so. Again, this isn’t suffering for art; it’s getting art done and keeping your word.

Have Good Netiquette

Spell check e-mails, and read them before you send them. Don’t spam people. Don’t cc when you should bcc. Be careful what you forward to people. Don’t send e-mails when you’re in a bad mood. Step away from the computer if you’re not feeling civil. Keep your communications short and to the point; remember that a lot of people dealing with a large workflow read e-mails very quickly. Have a short, descriptive subject line that tells the reader what the e-mail is about. Change the subject line to a new descriptive thread when a conversation changes course.

And don’t tell the person you’re dealing with your whole life (or even week) story:

Don’t say ‘I’m sorry that I’m going to be a day late on this upcoming deadline, but my car got a flat tire and I had to take the car in and then had to have my friend come pick me up and we got stuck in traffic on the 405 because there was an overturned big rig and my girlfriend has the flu and I had to go pick up some fruit for her because that’s all she can eat without throwing up right now and these deadlines are making me crazy and I want to scream!’

Instead, say, ‘I am going to be a day late on the deadline this time. I hope that’s OK, and I don’t see it happening again for the duration of this project.

Also, don’t cc everyone involved on a project on every back-and-forth e-mail, unless you’ve been instructed to. It just makes more effort for everyone involved and takes up time that could be spent doing something else.

Don’t forward crap that people forward to you (jokes, cat photos, stuff like that) to people you’re working with, unless that’s how they roll. (Although if they roll like that, chances are they’re not terribly well-employed, and you will probably be better served to look for other people to work with in the future.) You don’t have to be a robot in your communications; there is a little room for levity, but keep in mind that in a huge ongoing project that will require thousands of e-mails over a year’s time, all the crap you forward is going to slow the work down a lot.

Don’t get overly chatty with people and send a lot of nonwork-related e-mails, unless it is how they do things. (OK, I did send my editors on this project a couple of e-mails that were just photos of my cats doing cute things, but that was two out of a few thousand work e-mails. And they both have cats, and related cat stories that made me giggle too.)

Know that some people, once a project is rolling at a high rate of speed, use e-mail more like instant messenger, and don’t have a salutation and sign-off on each e-mail. This isn’t them being rude; it’s them optimizing time and workflow.

If you get anything you do reviewed in a major publication, send the person a thank you e-mail, short and to the point. And hold on to their e-mail address, but don’t spam them with every little thing you do. Send them a press release e-mail when you’ve got something big happening, something that will make a good story for them. I probably do this once a year or less with people like that. I save it for the big stuff.

Check Your Work (Have someone else check your work too.)

You should not only spellcheck and read each e-mail before sending it, you should also spell check anything that’s going out to the public or being mass produced in any way, and then have someone else check it. A second set of eyes is always helpful; a second person will find mistakes that you don’t find in something that you wrote. There is little more embarrassing than printing 10,000 promotional postcards, mailing them out, and then realizing you spelled your company’s name wrong. (I’ve seen it happen!)

I am constantly amazed at how many companies’ actual names contain typo’s. I mean typos.

Having everything checked by a second set of (smart) eyes is especially important with anything that’s being self-published, where you don’t have editors on staff to look at it later. You typos won’t correct themselves on the store bookshelf, ya know? The Internet won’t correct them for you.

But I also run everything I do by someone else before sending it to anyone (usually my wonderful and very smart wife, since I live with her, she’s good at proofing, and she likes to help), even when it’s going off to a team of editors, like with this book.

Be Flexible

Understand the dynamics of the people or organization you’re working with, and be able to adapt.

I may often be critical of Microsoft, but I do like the fact that anyone at all who works there can go into Bill Gates’ office with a good idea, without an appointment.

I told that to my friend who’s a government economist, and he said, ”If I wanted to have a sit down with even my boss’s boss, it would be really out of the ordinary, people would be a little concerned, it would require paperwork and a couple weeks’ notice, and there would have to be several other people in the room when I met with him.“ (Maybe that’s part of why the economy is screwed up?)

Some organizations and projects are free and easy, and you can talk to anyone at any time about anything. Others have high end protocol. Most are somewhere in between. While it can be frustrating, as a light-on-your-feet art ninja, to have to deal with corporate go-betweens in your interactions within a company or project, you have to be willing to do so sometimes. Learn to quickly grok the structure of each organization or group you work with, and adapt to their rules, rather than trying to impose your own.

The real pro art ninja effect comes into play when you’re working on two or more projects concurrently, and can seamlessly jump between the protocol requirements of the team in one to the requirements of the team in the other, and back, many times a day, with each e-mail, phone call, or face-to-face meeting, without making people upset, and without feeling like you’re going crazy yourself!

Do Great Work, Always

As I’ve said before, and will say again, maintain a high level of professionalism, whether you’re doing a free logo for a friend’s blog, or directing a multi-million-dollar-budget film. The truth is, if you don’t behave as a pro in the former, you’re unlikely to ever get to do the latter.

Treat People As You’d Like to be Treated

The Golden Rule that we’re taught in kindergarten works even more so in the grown-up working world. If you want to remain employed, be decent. It goes without saying, but people re-hire moderately talented hard-working people that they like working with more often than they hire high maintenance emotional geniuses.

Michael W. Dean

YouTube Page: http://youtube.com/kittyfeet69

Nestlandia: http://nestlandia.com

Full bio: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/3220

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