{"id":11427,"date":"2022-06-21T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvsnightingstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=11427"},"modified":"2022-06-21T10:01:57","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T14:01:57","slug":"nightingale-magazine-issue-1-retro-what-we-learned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightingaledvs.com\/nightingale-magazine-issue-1-retro-what-we-learned\/","title":{"rendered":"Nightingale Magazine, Issue 1 Retro: What We Learned"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Now that the Spring 2022 issue of Nightingale Magazine<\/em> is showing up in mailboxes all around the world, the editorial team wanted to share some reflections about what we learned during the process of making it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we created the first issue of Nightingale Magazine,<\/em> we knew we would share our learnings along the way, but now that it is here, the process has seemed so long, and yet so utterly natural that I fear my comments may read more metaphysical than practical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all started with a simple idea – wouldn\u2019t it be great if there was a magazine for dataviz? Over the years I\u2019ve set out on more than a few entrepreneurial projects – record labels, music festivals, I even co-founded a startup a decade ago. I have learned a fair bit about how to establish a brand and then make progress towards lofty goals.  This is what I want to emphatically share with people – it\u2019s not about dreaming the dream, it\u2019s really more about having the confidence and persistence to make something happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barring chance opportunities or unrealistic financial windfalls, making something happen is really a daily ethos of hard work and investing in people. Yes, it is a lot of work, but that work is deeply joyful. It\u2019s a process of perpetual learning, of finding time to collaborate, and embarking on a journey of creating something together and this is where the investment pays off – in the act of co-creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure we learned a lot of practical lessons and made loads of mistakes. Sure, we squabbled about details – but we never compromised our collective vision to focus on the community and bring a new standard of design and editorial quality to our approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The long list of contributors to Issue 1<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Let me end with a story of transparency and resilience. When we started we assumed that it would be easy to sell advertisements. Unfortunately, it turned out to be extremely difficult without having a clear example to point to – after all, a dataviz mag like were planning was quite novel. We put our heads together and realized that we could generate the necessary funds by appealing to the community with a subscription drive. That 1,000-member subscription drive was what made Issue 1 possible. It proved our financial viability and reinforced just how strong our community is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you all SO MUCH for your support, we are thrilled to continue on the journey with Issue 2! (And reach out to advertise – Ha! nightingale@datavisualizationsociety.org<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Jason Forrest<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ll admit that, at the start, the prospect of developing the magazine was overwhelming. Several of the steps I knew we needed to take were things none of us had experience with and I couldn\u2019t see the processes: developing a magazine framework, fitting specific content to design\u2013and vice versa\u2013at a sizeable scale, converting membership information into shipping details, and finding print and fulfillment partners that could ship to 53 countries in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable cost. Both the budget and the delivery timeline were essentially fiction until we had nearly completed development, which felt profoundly uncomfortable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Printing is a chicken or an egg dilemma (pun absolutely intended!): how do you know what quantity of a print run to commit to if you don\u2019t know how many orders you\u2019ll have? We had to start the process by fundraising to get a sense of the demand, but that meant delaying design. Getting truly started on the deliverables took several months and it pushed back our delivery timeline. We had TONS of content to choose from, but we needed to organize it, re-edit it for print, and obtain image rights — or replace images. We underestimated the coordination those steps required.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We did not<\/em> underestimate the shipping challenge. We explored shipping from both the US and Europe and we found an awesome German printer with a shipping partner to handle fulfillment. However, shipping from Germany meant a tradeoff in postage costs in order to deliver outside Europe in a ~10-day window. (The alternative was 8-10 weeks and we were worried about subscribers that had already waited for months.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In-production photos sent by the printer in Germany<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We had always planned to package the kids\u2019 content in a fun and kid-friendly way, but we went into the design without a set vision. Julie came through under extreme pressure with the wonderful \u2018zine format, but that added some unanticipated time and cost. Finally, we faced some constraints using the technology platform we had to collect shipping details — the lag time to fulfillment meant that several folks had address changes. We were not prepared for the data cleansing requirements and, since we\u2019d selected the fulfillment partner after we collected data, there were several data transformation steps necessary to meet the shipping label requirements. (I know many of you can relate!) Here, I am eternally grateful to Claire and her Excel magic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is against this backdrop that working with people you can trust and depend on is so critical. Together, we devised a content organizer from which we were able to better understand our progress and next steps. (We\u2019ve got a version in place for Issue 2 and we are filling it up already.) We prepped digital content for print by mobilizing our editorial committee volunteers. We learned what we needed from each author such that we now have a print submission checklist to avoid having to go back to each of them several times \ud83d\ude42 We have a process in place for staging pieces in InDesign. We now know what works best when we\u2019re communicating with our German printer and shipping partners. In fact, they helped us source sustainable paper and encouraged us to pay Mehrkosten: compensation costs to offset the emissions from printing so the magazine could be CO\u00b2<\/sub> neutral. For Issue 2, we have a better idea of our deadlines and what we need to do to ship sooner. And, yes, we need to adhere to a hard deadline \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, as it turns out, that\u2019s how you make something. Someone has the courage to voice a big, beautiful vision and other people have to begin to see it and commit their time and talents to it. Soon, a community supports it and patiently waits for it. And then it becomes tangible and we all get to hold it in our hands, beaming with pride. Thank you for your extreme patience. We hope you think it was worth it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Mary Aviles<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We always knew the first issue would be a learning process. How do you make a magazine anyway?? We started out with so many questions, but eventually, we ran out of things to Google and had to just dive in and begin. I\u2019m an inveterate planner who thinks everything ought to be organized by a color-coded spreadsheet, so the idea of trying to pull this off without a plan was terrifying to me. But there were no instructions to follow, so we just kind of\u2026 figured it out as we went. And it worked! (I feel like there\u2019s a life lesson in there somewhere.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Design work behind the scenes (screen capture from datacitron)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Now, with some hindsight, I can say that two of the most important things you need to make a magazine are patience and perseverance. (But also a color-coded spreadsheet.) The process involved a ton of trial and error, iteration, and frustration, but also joy and excitement and inspiration. Every time something went awry, we made a note of it so we could do better next time. For example, a few things we learned: <\/p>\n\n\n\n