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K4 Guides Northstar to a New Collaborative Workflow

Popular editorial system helps industry-leading travel publisher chart a new course
Northstar Travel Media and K4 Case Study

When Northstar Travel Media bought the K4 Publishing System, it was a happy answer to a problem that had lingered for years: Upgrade or start over? With K4, starting over turned out to be cost-effective and surprisingly smooth. It also energized staff to work together to find new ways to get things done.

Before switching to the K4 Publishing System, Northstar Travel Media was settling for less.

What sold them on K4:

  • New state-of-the-art software for less than upgrading
  • Very little maintenance after installation
  • SQL database a better fit
  • Powerful Adobe design applications
  • Smooth transition, easy to learn
  • Shared workflow speeds production AND encourages collaboration

What's on the horizon:

  • XML-Exporter, for online production
  • Caption&Credit, to manage images and cutlines
  • Web Editor, to link contributors from around the world

Just a few years ago, the Secaucus, N.J., publisher of numerous industry-leading travel magazines and meeting guides, was in need of a new editorial production system. The company had run a Quark Publishing System for years, and even though it considered upgrading its existing software, the project was never realized. Cost estimates were close to $1 million, and, after all, Northstar’s publications were still getting out, albeit inefficiently.

The company was having a problem that countless other publishers face: The existing system worked, but with limitations. Northstar needed a catalyst if it was ever going to undertake its publishing system upgrade.

“The old system limited the staff to do more with less, be flexible with file formats, and be creative with workflows,” said Northstar production director Robert Brai. “Each year we put the project on the capital list, but it got rejected because there were other priorities.”

Meanwhile, Quark stopped supporting the version Northstar was running, and it was unclear when an upgrade would be available.

At Travel Weekly, smooth sailing

Travel Weekly, which calls itself "the national newspaper of the travel industry," is the preferred source for industry news articles, features, in-depth analysis and opinions among its nearly 200,000 readers. TW's editors and designers were quick converts to the new K4 system.

During training, Managing Editor Rebecca Tobin was so wowed by the possibilities of K4's palettes and queries that she considered adding a second monitor to her desk so she wouldn't have to close any of them. "K4's collaborative features really complement the Travel Weekly workflow," she said. "Our editors like to work on a whole page at one time. The Page Objects palette makes it easy to do that, because we can easily check out all of a page's objects in the same window. At the same time, it allows everyone to keep an eye on who's doing what."

TW made the transition to the new system in about a month. And even though they were still learning, the staff got its first all-K4 issue out on deadline. That was a good morale-booster, Tobin said.

She added that she appreciates being able to export pages as PDFs, which allows the editor-in-chief to see them in "two seconds."

Creative Director Kent Lau immediately recognized K4's collaborative power, and enjoys having the freedom to work on the magazine's design at any time instead of having to wait his turn while editors tweak text. "We love the multiple-user idea," he said. "Overall, from the design end, we're really happy. K4 has definitely sped up the production process. With the old system, I'd just sit here and watch, waiting while others worked on the pages."

Lau also likes K4's simpler association process, which allows multi-item check-in — not on a time-consuming, object-by-object basis. And he's impressed with the stability and features of InDesign. "We've tried some complicated, layered layouts, but it's been smooth," he said. "The system just works."

At the same time, Brai noticed that Adobe was improving its InDesign product. He started pushing the company to look into systems that would integrate with InDesign.

 

In December 2004, Northstar’s staff watched a demo of the K4 Publishing System, and they liked what they saw. Brai said one of the system’s immediate attractions was its SQL database, which was a good fit for Northstar’s existing setup. Ultimately, Northstar concluded that switching to an entirely new K4 system would actually be easier and more cost-effective than doing a QPS upgrade.

“When I looked at what we were getting and the cost, the value was much better with the combination of K4 and Adobe products,” Brai said. “We were able to get a system that was based on all new software and was still costing less than upgrading what we had.”

Brai said the decision was also based heavily on the reputations of the companies involved. “K4 came recommended by people I trusted,” he said. “We knew with the companies we selected — Adobe, MEI, SoftCare — we were going to have the support we needed to get this done. As the project went through, those expectations held up.”

K4’s stability and functionality saves Northstar time and effort that can be put to better use.  “We’ve been running the server since January, and I haven’t heard one instance of the system crashing,” Brai said. “It has saved us time, but more importantly, it has provided us with new tools and a chance to be more creative, You always want to give an artist the best paint to paint with. K4 and Adobe really just offer better products that allow us to do new things in production.”

And as the staff works, they learn more about K4 and collaborate to adapt it to their needs. “We want to be streamlined, to have all the important stuff right there and easy to see,” said Rebecca Tobin, managing editor of Travel Weekly, Northstar’s biggest product. “Working with other people has helped us all get used to the system. We all share best practices, and learning has been easy and quick.

“The good thing is that we use it our own way, but there’s potential to use it for so much more.”

Northstar also invested in K4 with the future in mind. Brai is getting ready to add K4 XML-Exporter to help streamline repurposing print content for the Web. Travel Weekly Creative Director Kent Lau is looking forward to incorporating Caption&Credit, an enhancement he expects will improve the “important but clunky process” of keeping cutlines and images together by linking a picture’s metadata with its caption.

The company is also eagerly anticipating the promised K4 Web Editor, which provides a Web interface so users can work with the K4 database from around the globe — exactly where many of Northstar’s travel-business contributors are.

Not that Brai minds how things are going now.

“The thing that tells me that everyone is satisfied is silence — I haven’t heard anyone complain,” Brai said. “Everyone has really adapted to the new system. They see the immense functionality of these products and have made extra efforts to make this integration happen.

“It really couldn’t have gone any smoother.”

Northstar Travel Media Online: www.northstartravelmedia.com