• Better Than Sliced Bread

    September 17, 2014

    What did we ever do without BrandMaker? BrandMaker is the marketing resource management tool that our in-house agency uses to automate project workflow. Looking back at the jobs we used to outline on scraps of paper and the index card boxes full of projects at every stage of completion, it’s hard …

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  • Collaborating on Creative Reviews

    September 15, 2014

    There are lots of challenges that go along with project workflow, particularly during the creative review and approval process. Oftentimes creative content is reviewed by a group, not a single individual. And groups of reviewers tend to have different perspectives on how content should be revised, …

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  • A View from the Top

    September 08, 2014

    Workflow. Look it up on dictionary.com. It’s defined as “the flow or amount of work to and from an office, department or employee.” Scroll down on the page and you’ll also see it used in a sentence: “But even after years of practice and experimentation, her workflow remains breathtakingly …

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  • Licensed to Drive

    September 02, 2014

    There’s this terrific quote from the book Slammed by Colleen Hoover that goes: “As I make a final right-hand turn onto our street, my GPS informs me that I've reached my destination. ‘My destination,’ I laugh aloud to myself. My GPS doesn't know squat!”

    This month at IHAF, agency workflow and …

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  • Finding Nirvana

    August 04, 2014

    Finding the right workflow tool is a popular pursuit with in-house agencies. It’s the one tool we hope will bring nirvana to our everyday work. (Ah, if only…) While workflow tools can help tremendously, they also pose real challenges—especially when you’re trying to switch from one to another …

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  • Advancing Your Client/Creative Relationships

    June 16, 2014

    Relationships between creative team members and clients can be good, bad or downright ugly. Whatever it is, your goal should always be ongoing improvement of your client relationships.

    The interaction between clients and creatives during projects often invites opportunities for conflict. When …

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  • Balancing Creativity with Practicality

    June 09, 2014

    • by John Jacobin, IRS

    Considering how fast organizational needs are changing, it has never been more critical to be flexible and creative in problem solving and decision making. We've seen many adaptive organizations survive who have embraced their workers’ creative thinking as a core business practice and we have seen …

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  • Seizing Opportunities for Improvement

    February 24, 2014

    Seven months ago, I was given the opportunity to lead the Corporate Marketing team at Nationwide. Prior to this, I served as CMO of our Property & Casualty business unit and most recently, led of our Financial Services marketing team.

    Now that I’m on the “other side of the desk,” there are …

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  • Our Constant Evolution

    February 19, 2014

    The in-house team at Boston University has changed a lot in recent years. We’ve gone from a customer service group to a project management group to an account management team. And we're going to change—or should I say, evolve—even further.

    Early on our group was exclusively focused on print-design …

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  • Meet Two New Board Members

    February 17, 2014

    This month, IHAF is exploring the topic of Operational Excellence and what it means to in-house agencies. As part of this series, I asked the two newest members of IHAF’s Board of Directors, Mark Gibson, Assistant VP of Creative Services at State Farm and Wayne Barringer, Director of Creative …

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