The Fetch Blog

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Tag: books

Featured job: Client Support and Digital Content, Bolinda Digital, Melbourne — January 31, 2014

Featured job: Client Support and Digital Content, Bolinda Digital, Melbourne

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books

Bolinda Digital has revolutionized the way people access and consume books. They are Asia Pacific’s No.1 audiobook publisher and a leader in digital media, combining the dynamism of a four-year old digital startup with a reputation for excellence built over 25 years in publishing.

They’ve added eBooks and impressive mobile apps to an already amazing digital solution in the past 18 months. They won the 2013 Australian Book Industry Award for Innovation (like the Logies, but way cooler), so know what they’re doing and do it very well. Their head office is in Melbourne (Tullamarine and South Yarra; these roles are based in Tullamarine) and they also have offices in the UK, USA and NZ.

Putting it simply: Bolinda is growing and moving very fast and is looking for high achievers who can keep up with the pace – or help them increase it. What’s a high achiever? Driven, hard-working, ambitious, wants to play a genuine role in helping drive the company forward, a master at ‘getting it done’ and has some runs on the board from past roles.

They need two Client Support Specialists and two Digital Content Assistants to fill crucial roles in the digital team:

Client Support

  • Look after existing clients over the phone, by email and sometimes in person to answer both technical and other questions about the digital solution and content (technical experts provided!), fix problems and recognize sales opportunities;
  • Be responsible for the on-boarding process – taking clients from sale to ‘go-live’;
  • Deliver training to staff at libraries, schools and universities; and
  • Move into a leadership or sales role if you shoot the lights out.

Digital Content

  • Be responsible for on-boarding new publishing partners – they partner with the world’s best and biggest publishers;
  • Manage the ingestion of digital content – preparing their partners’ digital content for their download solution;
  • Be responsible for the enrichment and enhancement of metadata – essential to driving usage by end users;
  • Be responsible for quality checking all content before they set it ‘live’;
  • Move into a leadership or sales role if you really impress.

What you bring to the table

Surprise them. They’ve had a marine biologist in one of these roles before, and she was awesome. Why? Because she was someone who:

  • Loves people, has a sharp and logical mind, business acumen and an ability to see the big picture;
  • ‘Gets it done’ – i.e. produces results, is effective, no procrastination or excuses;
  • Is tech-literate and loves learning new things;
  • Loves giving client/partner support so good it leaves them amazed;
  • Could write ‘how-to’ books on written and verbal communication;
  • Has very strong time management, prioritizing and personal productivity skills (you will be pushed!); and
  • Can use initiative and work independently but loves being part of a team.

They’d love if you could tick a few of these boxes too:

  • Some experience in customer service, client support or account management;
  • Tertiary qualification in one of these or something similar: business, management, communications, editing/publishing, IT;
  • Skills with Adobe Photoshop (rest of the suite a bonus); and
  • Resourcefulness, ability to be agile and to think creatively and laterally.

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At Bolinda you will:

  • Work very hard with a young, driven team and work closely with the owners and decision makers every day;
  • Be constantly challenged, coached and mentored so you will develop professionally and personally – you can build a career at Bolinda;
  • Be able to shape the direction of key projects and see the impact you have on the business;
  • Work in a flat organizational structure where you will be given responsibility and be accountable for your own results;
  • Always know how you are going in your role because of constant feedback;
  • Be exposed to and work in different areas of the business – great experience because Bolinda is a complex business on a smaller scale (45 people);
  • Be unlikely to do the same thing two days in a row and be way too busy to get bored!
  • Have fun, bring your personality to work with you, and have a voice.

—

To apply, email your resume to Brendan Norris, the Business Executive, at brendan@bolinda.com and explain why you’re perfect for the job.

Follow Bolinda on Facebook and Twitter.

Image credit: Katherine Hardy

Interview: Melbourne local, Jennifer Frahm — November 9, 2012

Interview: Melbourne local, Jennifer Frahm

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This week Jacqueline Shields chats with Jennifer Frahm – founder of Conversations of Change, change manager and communications pro, author, Bricoleur and eternal optimist.

Jennifer Frahm. Photo by The Itchy Eyes

Name: Jennifer Frahm
Website: http://conversationsofchange.com.au
Twitter: @jenfrahm

You have decided to buck the trend, say no to negativity and focus on sharing stories of success in business and industry. What was the tipping point that motivated you create a forum [called Bright Spots] where we can hear first-hand from those who have overcome challenges?

Thank you! The tipping point? A partner in crime! It was a passionate conversation with Steve Vallas of Honey Bar. He was “over it”, (the negativity) – and I’m a firm believer in don’t complain, if you are not going to do anything about the subject of complaint. So we said “let’s do it!” Let’s turn it around! So we decided to create an opportunity to celebrate the positive and optimistic stories of business and industry in person and online by case studies.

At the Bright Spot meetups, we’ll have three people talk for 10 minutes on the challenges they have faced, how they countered the challenges and how they are smashing it in a time that the news headlines say they shouldn’t. And we’re particularly interested in the quiet achievers — those that don’t have a big PR machine behind them. There’ll also be facilitated networking. You’ll leave with more than just three great stories, you’ll have a whole handful to refer to and counter the negativity that you hear. It’s no cost to attend for those interested and initially, we’ll be holding the events at The Honey Bar in South Melbourne. We’ve had interest across the globe, so we’ll treat the first one in Melbourne as a pilot and then look at what it takes to roll it out further. We are busy identifying three speakers to get the ball rolling. So stay tuned for a date.

Through Conversations of Change you assist people deal with change on a micro level through coaching. Overall, what have you found are the main issues faced when introducing change to an organisation or overcoming resistance to change?

Change cynicism is the big one at the moment along with change overload. It’s fair to say we have a long way to go in building resilience within environments of continuous change.

Employees are increasingly cynical about the “next change” and that takes some work unpacking that. Often you hear “people don’t like change”. I would challenge that. People are often fine with change if it is introduced and managed well. When you have had people in the workforce who have been subject to poorly managed change over successive decades, you see a lot of cynicism about future change (“oh that again?, yeah we tried that”). Responding to change cynicism means having leaders who are prepared to offer acknowledgement of past transgressions, validate the negative experiences and demonstrate how the future change path will be different.

Your book The Transformation Treasure Trove offers insights into change management and communication. What are your top three and why?

OK, these are my top three because if you understand these ones, you’ll cope much better with introducing change and not get so frustrated.

  1. It’s not about you! Stakeholder engagement doesn’t start with getting armed with your key messages. It starts with an attitude of humility and a willingness to learn about your stakeholder.
  2. When you engage with resistance to change, you receive valuable feedback on how well your program is progressing. Be appreciative of the feedback – it’s the silence you need to be worried about.
  3. Patience and Persistence – the key to successful change? It’s pretty simple, patience and persistence. Be graceful, and determined. You’ll get there.

For those toying with the idea of becoming a change manager what pointers would you give for the uninitiated so that they reach for the Perrier instead of the Pinot Noir?

  • Be endlessly curious, accept nothing you are told, keep asking why.
  • Be proactive in professional development, seek out course, read books and articles.
  • Be prepared to have a lots of coffees. That’s how we do stakeholder engagement.

Being immediate past President of the IABC (International Association of Business Communicators) Victoria, how have you found the members managed the explosion of social media right across the business landscape?

There absolutely is a much greater appetite for social media today than three years ago when IABC first started really driving social media awareness and understanding among members globally. The questions and discussions being held amongst the members locally reflect a much greater maturity and more relaxed stance on the issue of “losing control”. IABC Victoria now has many member organisations that are doing really interesting work in this space. Corporate members like Telstra who have significantly resourced up on social media teams are seeing tangible benefits in customer service, and creating sales opportunities with their monitoring of conversations. Alcatel Lucent is doing very interesting stuff with employee engagement and Yammer.

It’s not just the large organisations though. Many of the independents and smaller agencies are much more adept at using social media for community engagement, social recruiting, and online marketing. Once questions at IABC Victoria events would have reflected “what is [insert platform] and how do you use it?”. Now they are prefaced with an example of direct experience and questions on alternative perspectives on how to manage the outcome.

Do you believe change is as good as a holiday?

Hmm. Perhaps not. I guess it depends on if you are the thrill seeking bungy jumping kinda holiday seeker, or whether you want to be lying on a beach with a beautiful buttery chardonnay. I guess the difference is that the holiday yields immediate benefits, change often takes some time to see the benefits.

Where is your favourite stakeholder engagement location (café)?

Locally, I frequent Lava on Carlisle St, Balacalava. In the CBD, you can’t go past MOAT under the Wheeler Centre.

And finally, what is a Bricoleur for those readers who may not have googled the word as yet?

A bricoleur is some-one who uses what ever is at hand to make stuff. Part creative, part innovator, and part experimenter.

I tend to think of myself as having a very broad knowledge base (psychology, sociology, management, communication, change, sales, gleaned from multiple industries). When someone comes to me with a problem, I take a bricoleur approach, I draw from a number of experiences and give it a crack. I don’t tend to focus in one area or one methodology. It’s representative of my twitter experience too – I follow a wide variety of conversations, and tweeps from really varied backgrounds. It keeps me from being stale!

About our Ambassador // Jacqueline Shields. Luckily Jacqueline is not a cat. She’d be on her ninth life. Her inquisitive nature sees her say yes to pretty much anything – a  Tough Mudder, an African Safari, sailing down the Nile in a felucca and even a HTML workshop. And each and everything she tries, she takes great joy in writing about. You can connect with Jacqueline on Twitter @hillrepeats.

Interview: Melbourne local, Lachlann Carter — October 25, 2012

Interview: Melbourne local, Lachlann Carter

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Deep down in the cozy book-lined dungeons of the Wheeler Centre, Community Ambassador Deb Itzkowic sat down with Lachlann Carter (left) to chat about the imminent launch of 100 Story Building, an inspiring social enterprise that he co-founded with Jenna Williams (right) and Jess Tran (middle).

What is 100 Story Building?

100 Story Building is a social enterprise and centre for young writers. Based in Melbourne’s inner-west, it’s stated mission is to  “provide opportunities for the most marginalised children and young people in our community to build literacy skills, confidence and a sense of belonging – the key to their future success.”

The projects implemented by 100 Story Building connect students with creative professionals from all aspects of the literary world, who undertake to share their passion for storytelling, demystify the creative process and support students to write, create and explore their literary skills.

Of utmost importance to Lachlann, all of 100 Story Building’s projects have authentic outcomes and honour students’ work so that they have an opportunity to see their work being celebrated in a professional space. Lachlann is also proud of other positive side-effects of the literary programs which include building students’ self confidence and engaging their natural creative spirits in an effortless way.

Once upon a time… (Or ‘tell us about the seeds for 100 Story Building’)

Four years ago, Lachlann, a primary school teacher (amongst other talents) who had been working with disadvantaged students in Melbourne’s inner-west primary schools, teamed up with Jenna, who had her feet firmly planted in the publishing world, to pursue a shared vision that combined their love of kids with their love of the literary arts.

Together they followed their pied piper (Dave Eggers) to undertake a three-month internship at 826 Valencia in San Fransisco, an organisation whose mission it is to support students writing skills and help teaches get their students excited about writing.

This was a role model organisation for Lachlann and Jenna’s vision and the best place to soak up the skills and experience required to implement a like-minded organisation in their home town, Melbourne.

On return the pair founded Pigeons Projects, a not-for-profit organisation that delivered creative writing workshops to primary school students. Over the past four years they have been busy nurturing and growing the literary skills of marginalised children in Melbourne’s inner-west.

Fast forward four years later and Pigeons has written itself into a new story called 100 Story Building, where the lead authors include Alice Pung and Michael Pryor who are the Ambassadors of this visionary social enterprise.

Who have been influential in helping get your social enterprise up and running?

Lachlann acknowledged the amazing support 100 Story Building has had along the way from its Board members, philanthropic funding bodies, industry bodies, Melbourne’s literary community as well as the schools and students that they have worked with over the past four years.

One of the main reasons that 100 Story Building has been able to get off the ground was through the support of The Social Traders program called ‘The Crunch’. During the three-month program, Lachlann and Jenna were supported by mentors who helped them develop a feasibility study for their social enterprise. At the end of The Crunch’s program, 100 Story Building participated in a pitch for investment and were rewarded with start-up funding and ongoing mentoring support which ensured that the social enterprise was viable.

Since then 100 Story Building has been awarded philanthropic grants to keep them afloat until a time in the not too distant future that their social enterprise will be self-funding.

Tell us about some of your pilot projects…

Lachlann and his team have recently run a pilot program called ‘In Other Words’ in collaboration with Maribyrnong City Council. Over the course of a term Prep to Year 2, who predominantly came from low socio-economic, non-English speaking homes, were asked to create and tell their parent’s stories. The program was a holistic vision of literacy where parents, teachers and students worked collaboratively and parents were empowered to assist their kids to develop literacy skills.

Each week “storytellers”, including Melbourne literary heavyweight Alice Pung, ran workshops to help the students develop their own story and their own storytelling voice. The program evolved and adapted over time when Bernard Caleo, one of the “storytellers”, introduced the students to ‘Kamishibai’, a Japanese storytelling form involving paper theatre. The students magnetised towards this art form and ultimately their told their stories using words and pictures which were filmed during the workshop. The program improved students’ literary skills by teaching them how to put together a story using a simple character and plot framework and at the same time also developed other skills such as public speaking.

The school community came together at the grand finale film premiere, complete with red carpet and popcorn, which was held in a transformed classroom. (You can check out the students creative genius yourselves at a film screening at Federation Square on Saturday 27 October at 10am as part of the Federation Square 10th birthday celebration.) Lachlann is serious about ensuring that 100 Story Building programs improve literacy and explains that the program is now being independently evaluated for concrete literacy development outcomes and hopes that this successful pilot project will be run again in other schools.

Another successful pilot program was run in collaboration with Harvest Magazine, where students in Year 5 and 6 convened as the editorial committee of “Early Harvest”, a children’s edition of the magazine. Each week the students participated in a workshop facilitated by an industry professional designed to explore the various stages of the publishing process. The students put out a tender for submissions, chose the stories they wanted to include (which included rejecting a number of established adult writers!), edited the articles, designed the layout of the magazine and published it.

How will your social enterprise work?

Lachlann envisages that eventually the literary programs for marginalised students in schools will be funded by a range of writing workshops offered to adults and kids in the general public, using the skills, experience and networks that they have developed. Examples include school holiday workshops for kids, master classes for adults who want to write for children and in collaboration with Hardie Grant Egmont (Hardie Grant’s emerging reader’s publishing arm) the 100 Story Studio will hold workshops where budding writers can present their work and get constructive feedback.

What a fabulous enterprise… how can I get involved?

Currently 100 Story Building is looking for a place to call home in the West Footscray/Flemington area. Once established, the 100 Story Studio will be the hub for the social enterprise’s ongoing programs and workshops. 100 Story Building is currently seeking enthusiastic volunteers passionate about creating it’s literary vision who can help in a range of areas including the fit-out of the studio, administration, marketing and program facilitators. Volunteers wanting to work with kids will understandably undergo a rigorous screening process including completing a working with children check.

100 Story Building will be launched on Tuesday October 30, 7:30pm – 8:15pm at the Wheeler Centre. Find out how the 100 Story Building will support the voices of more than 1000 children and young people in the inner-west of Melbourne, and how you can get involved and help to work towards 100 Story Building’s ‘happily ever after’. RSVP here.

Email: lach@100storybuilding.org.au
Facebook: 100 Story Building
Twitter: @100storyb

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