Flash Magazine

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Nafissatou Camara Alex MacDonald Miah Pagan Emily Steinberger Shane Raftery O’Neil Syracuse University MGT 248 M001 Prof. Joel Carnevale

lash MAGAZINE MAY 2021

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verview

Flash magazine is a small magazine publication company that provides entertaining content to our amazing readers. Specifically, Flash magazine targets the youth and Gen Z and Millennials. Our company is made up of 30 creative employees who are skilled and knowledgeable in their department.

It is important to note that imagery, short messages and vibrant colors attract the attention of today’s youth. Thus, we ensure to implement these additions into our magazine to encompass both the light of the youth and the news around us, which can be dull and extensive. Flash provides both current local and worldly new stories and updates in the cultural trends to the youth to close the breach of the unknown.

Perception is the way one interprets the external world and how they gather data to construct reality. In other words, we live in a world full of ideas and opinions, and when we encompass these viewpoints, that is what creates reality. But one could ask how do we create reality if all we see is our relative consciousness? It is easy to ignore global issues if it does not affect your life;

however, we as human beings tend to be oblivious to the idea that there is a string that ties all of us together. Predominantly, much of today’s youth lack the cognitive skill of creating reality because they are still growing up. Thus, Flash’s vision statement is to increase competent individuals by being the synapse between all consciousness.

Flash magazine’s purpose is to encourage creativity and promote diversity in the media industry. We strive to show the youth different types of bodies, skin tones, people, different points of views, etc. so that we can include all types of perspectives and people from around the world. We want to show younger generations that you don’t have to look a certain type of way to be a model, a photographer or an editor. Our mission is to promote inclusion while also celebrating one’s individuality through art. We plan on doing this by having hiring events that are aimed to include different groups of people, like having hiring events focused on finding plussize models or people of color. Flash Magazine will promote creativity by having all forms of art in our magazine in outlets such as photography, poetry, drawings, etc. As a promise to this, Flash Magazine will have yearly competitions for young adults that will allow them to win scholarship money and a full page on

one of our monthly editions to show off their talent.

Our values at Flash Magazine include diversity, creativity and inclusiveness, thus, it is important to have an office design that is conducive to productivity, efficiency, and teamwork. To go more in depth, we have three main branches that make up the majority of our company: editorial, visual, and marketing. Within the editorial department, there are three different teams that would write on different stories and topics in order to keep the magazine content diverse. To promote collaboration while still giving the teams independence, the editorial staff would be located in the same section of the office while still having their own spaces and team rooms to work on their individual stories.

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We want to show younger generations that you don’t have to look a certain type of way to be a model, a photographer or an editor.

In between the editorial team and the visual team is the important position of digital manager. As they mediate and control the work between the departments, it would make sense for this position to have a space in the office

physically located in the middle of these two departments. This positioning would make communication to and from both teams extremely easy.

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Our mission is to promote inclusion while also celebrating one’s individuality through art.

In the visual department, there would be some different spaces so that the team could work efficiently. The two directors would have their own space where they could easily oversee work being done by the rest of the team throughout the day. The three print designers and two web designers would also have a space to themselves. Since their jobs are closely linked, having them work together to promote consistency in design for the magazine would be important. The photographers and videographers would not be far. Each member of that team would ideally have their own workspace so that they could upload and produce their own work to be sent to the designers and editors.

The marketing team for Flash Magazine is relatively small. For this reason, they do not need an extremely large space within the office. For functionality, they would be located closer to the visual designer team. This way, the teams are able to work together to produce strong brand

images that will promote Flash Magazine in the marketplace. Additionally, they would not be far away from the photographers and videographers. If Flash Magazine promoted online or on television, it would be important to have the very best images to create a lasting impression about the brand.

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If Flash Magazine promoted online or on television, it would be important to have the very best images to create a lasting impression about the brand.

Unlike many other industries, the media industry does not involve many suppliers, but more deliverers, such as the printing press to print the magazine and the postal service to deliver the magazines.

Generally there is a large threat of potential entrants because there are few entry barriers, so it is relatively easy to create a new media company. Similarly, there are a lot of competitors in the industry already, so the most difficult part will be making a brand and a name for our publication. However, we will decrease the risk caused by the high threat of potential entrants and the large number of competitors by finding a niche in the market and catering to a narrow consumer base.

With the rise of technology in recent decades, media has become increasingly popular. With this being said, magazines have many substitutes such as newspapers and entertainment/ news networks on television. In order to counter this potential threat to the business we plan to not only share our media via hardcopy, but also through online outlets such as social media in order to decrease the threat of competition while targeting our intended audience, Gen Z and Millennials. The primary content within the magazine would be current events, updates on influencers and celebrities as well as updates in the world of popular culture.

We hope that our magazine will be sold on college campuses around the country. Our main competitors would be magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, The Hollywood Reporter and Teen Vogue.

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ganization

Flash Magazine organizationally consists of three sections (editorial, visual, and marketing) and thirty employees, all managed by us, the editor-in-chief. The editorial section includes three editorial editors (one for each section of the magazine), three copy editors (one for each section), nine writers/reporters (three for each section), and one digital manager. The visual section includes one design director, three print designers, two web developers, one director of photography/videography, and four photographers/videographers And the marketing section includes one director of sales/marketing and two sales/ marketing specialists.

The editorial section produces the content, the stories and articles, for our magazine. Our magazine produces three categories worth of content (culture, politics, and lifestyle), and each category is run by an editorial editor.

The editorial editor is the leader of their specific section; they are responsible for producing quality content both online and in print. To accomplish this, they each lead their section team, which, for

each section, includes a copy editor and three writers/reporters. As head of their section, they ensure that their team meets deadlines and that the content they are producing is of stellar quality.

They read and edit stories one last time before we, the editor-in-chief, read and edit for the final time, and then they post stories online. They report to the editor-in-chief, and keep us up to date on stories and progress, and together we work on constantly improving their section. Along with the copy editors and writers/reporters, the editorial editors also pitch and write stories.

Directly below the editorial editors are the copy editors, who report to their section’s editorial editor. They act as the link between their editorial editor and their writers/reporters, ensuring that the deadlines and goals of upper management are communicated to and met by the writers/reporters, and assuring that writers/reporters have their voices and ideas heard by upper management. They also act as advisors to the writers/reporters; they help writers/ reporters flesh out their articles, help them develop specific angles, and go through the first round of reads and edits.

Like the editorial editors, copy editors also pitch and write stories.

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Director of Sales/ Marketing Sales/Marketing Specialist

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Each editorial section also has three writers/reporters. They produce the bulk of the content for each section, and their main focus is coming up with interesting story ideas and writing these articles.

Because a lot of the story ideas come from the writers/reporters, the editorial sections emphasize a bubbling-up of ideas. They work with the copy editors, who help them further develop their stories and they work together to turn a pitch into an article. Additionally, they help create social media content, as their articles are frequently posted on multiple social media platforms.

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They produce the bulk of the content for each section, and their main focus is coming up with interesting story ideas and writing these articles.

On the border between the editorial and visual side of the publication is the digital manager, who oversees Flash’s presence online and on social media channels. They report directly to the editor-in-chief, and although they do not have anyone working directly under them, they oversee all aspects of the visual and editorial sides. Mainly, they help link between the editorial side and visual side, as they help the editorial side brainstorm ways to enhance their content

through visuals, and they communicate these ideas to the visual sections so that the visuals team can execute them.

They also keep track of analytics (who/ how many people view certain stories, who/how many people interact with social media posts, etc) to ensure the entire staff knows what’s working and what is not working, what content readers enjoy and what they do not. As a result of the analytics that the digital manager summarizes and relays to the staff, the staff can ensure that they are producing content that is newsworthy for their audience and can better address problems if Flash is not addressing this goal.

Flash’s design, which is represented on the visuals side of the publication, is led by the design director, whose main priority is ensuring that all content is visually appealing and enhances the message that the textual content is telling. Because our publication is both online and in print, the design director is responsible for making sure that the design needs for both platforms are met and that stories are visually consistent between platforms, and they ensure that this happens by overseeing both web designers and print designers. In addition to their responsibilities as managing the web and print designers, the design director also creates design content for print and web. Finally, because design takes a lot of time and is also usually one of the, if not the, last steps in the process before sending the print product off to the printer, the deadlines set by the design editor help form the deadlines for the rest of the staff.

The design team includes two web designers and three print designers. The web designers create digital graphics such as visual posts for social media and data visualizations to embed in online articles. Additionally, they do some HTML coding for our publication for parts of articles that need to be coded into posts and when the website requires some redesigning. They report to the design director, who helps ensure that their visuals work well with the articles that they are creating for, and the web developers also pitch their own ideas for visualizations that they believe are best fit for the content they are creating for.

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The print designers report to the design director, who helps bridge the gap between designers and the editorial side and also ensures that the print designers meet their deadlines.

The main responsibility of the print designers is to create layouts for the print magazine. Although some aspects of the print design, such as typefaces, must be kept the same in order to maintain consistency throughout the individual magazine and its issues, the print designer has the creative freedom

to use design to tell the story. The print designers report to the design director, who helps bridge the gap between designers and the editorial side and also ensures that the print designers meet their deadlines.

Also on the visuals team is the director of photography/videography, who reports to the editor-in-chief and manages a team of four photographers/ videographers. The director of photography/videography also works closely with the design director to coordinate visuals for stories, and together they work with the editorial editors to make sure that the visuals they conjure fit well with the actual stories.

In addition to managing the team of photographers/videographers, the director of photography/videography takes photos and videos, but the majority of their work includes editing and processing photos and videos to ensure that they are ready to accompany stories.

The photographers/videographers, of which there are four, report to the director of photography/videography, and their main responsibility is to take photos and video for stories.

Occasionally, they process and edit their own work, but most of the time either the director of photography/ videography does this or they do this with the assistance of the director of photography/videography. Stories are passed from the editorial editors to the director of photography/videography and finally to the photographers/ videographers, who are assigned stories and go out to photograph and film for

them. With the director of photography/ videography, they brainstorm the best way to visualize the story.

The marketing section of the publication includes a director of sales/marketing as well as two sales/marketing specialists.

The director of sales/marketing reports to the editor-in-chief and oversees the sales/marketing specialists, and their main responsibilities are to promote the publication and sell ads to other organizations. As the leader of the sales/ marketing specialists, the director of sales/marketing ensures that the sales/ marketing specialists are selling enough ads and promoting content in a way that makes the company profitable. Although the director of sales/marketing is not in charge of financials for publication, they help bring money into the company.

The director of sales/marketing manages the sales/marketing specialists, who promote Flash and sell ads to make money. They primarily work with other organizations in order to promote content on other platforms and get other companies to advertise in Flash. Not only do they sell ads and promote content, but it is imperative that they maintain relationships with the companies they work with in order to ensure that they will work together again. Alongside the director of sales/marketing, the marketing section leads fundraising campaigns in order to attain money from other sources, such as donors.

Due to the nature of the industry that we are operating in, it would be most efficient for our firm to lean

towards centralization as opposed to decentralization. This is because there is a natural chain of command in which multiple people have to approve content before publication, whether that’s a web design, print design, article, etc.

For example, if one of our writers was to attempt to publish an article in Flash, they would have to first run it by their corresponding copy editor, who would then send it to that section’s editorial editor. Finally the editor-in-chief would have to give it the final approval prior to publication. Although we value the input of lower level employees, it is vital to our organization that our most experienced workers get the final say in publishing decisions as they are best equipped to act in our best interest.

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Although managers are only responsible for a small number of employees, we still expect our culture to be strong enough where employees can be expected to make impactful decisions on their own.

As far as the span of control, with the exception of us, the editor-in-chief, our organization holds a more traditional

view on the span of control. In other words managers don’t have more than 6 subordinates that they have to supervise.

Although managers are only responsible for a small number of employees, we still expect our culture to be strong enough where employees can be expected to make impactful decisions on their own.

This helps with the efficiency of the organization allowing it to run more smoothly.

Formalization, which refers to the structure of employee behavior, is not a priority within the publication. Our organization prides itself on its creativity as well as versatility with different topics and platforms where we provide content to our consumers. This means that we have a lower formalization because the tasks that we ask of our employees are more open ended and less rigid. For example writers are given topics that they have to work in, yet they have the ability to write freely within that topic.

As far as departmentalization, Flash Magazine breaks its departments down based on function. In other words, we designate each department based on which jobs involve similar activities.

This would include a visual department with designers and photographers/ videographers, a writing/editing editorial department, as well as a sales/ marketing department. The chain of command is illustrated in the diagram above. Each employee oversees those that work directly below them. This gives the authority to the employees that oversee others. However, this does not necessarily dictate who has power

in the company as that comes from an individual’s ability to influence the decisions of others.

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Our audience expects innovative content and therefore, our publication would suffer greatly from robotic production.

Finally, due to the fact that Flash Magazine relies heavily on creativity as well as adaptivity, it is only natural that the specialization levels within the firm are very low. Our audience expects innovative content and therefore, our publication would suffer greatly from robotic production. Low specialization will be highly beneficial to Flash because it will allow employees to expand their repertoire while staying efficient within their work.

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roblem

In order to increase sales and promote growth, we at Flash Magazine want to introduce a business section to our publication. In order to ensure that this is the right decision to make, we will enlist a group of people to serve as a task force to research and evaluate this decision.

We plan to hire six new employees (three data analysts and three university students) and have two of our current employees serve on this task force. The job description that calls for data analysts will be different than the one that calls for university students, as the job description for data analysts will list prior experience in data research and interpretation as a required skill. The job description for university students will be listed as an internship. Potential candidates will be expected to have interest in pop culture, current events, and issues facing Gen Z and Millennials to ensure that the students are part of our target audience. Students will be expected to conduct the surveys and help interpret the data, as well as facilitate a debatable environment. For both job descriptions, we will list that this will be a temporary job and not a full time job, and that they

should work well in teams since this task force will be a group effort.

In order to get a variety of perspectives on our new readership category, we want our task force to be composed of a variety of different people with different skill sets. We will have a total of eight people on this task force, including three data analysts, three university students, and two of our current employees.

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We will have a total of eight people on this task force, including three data analysts, three university students, and two of our current employees.

The data analysts bring researching and data interpretation skills to the table.

They will be able to help the task force properly collect data and interpret the data in a meaningful way. We decided on three data analysts because the purpose

of this task force is to conduct data research, so it is important that we have enough people on this team who can do that well.

The three university students bring the “average reader” perspective. At Flash Magazine, our target audience is university students across the country, so having a few university students on the task force is imperative. Although these students won’t speak for all university students, the students can provide an interpretation of the data different from that of the data analysts. The university students will be pulled from across the country, and we’ll choose one student who currently reads our content and two that share similar interests, but do not read our content, in order to help us understand some of the ways we can better cater to the section of our target audience who is not reading our magazine. We’ll plan to offer this as a 3-week research opportunity for students so that they will have some incentive to participate in this task force, and depending on their insight, we may even consider hiring them onto our staff after the task force completes their goals.

Lastly, there will be two of our current employees on this task force. We chose the director of sales and marketing as well as the digital manager to participate in this task force. As leaders of Flash, both will provide a lot of knowledge on our company culture and values that the analysts and university students wouldn’t be able to provide. Additionally, we, the editor-in-chief, will participate in this task force to get a better understanding of

how we can improve our publication and to act as a tie-breaker if there’s ever a disagreement.

We believe that it is best to use the Big 5 personality measures, as this tool is reliable and best represents realistic characteristics of individuals. The Big 5 consist of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The job specifications for this position are best suited for individuals who are open to experience, conscientious and are extroverted.

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The job specifications for this position are best suited for individuals who are open to experience, conscientious and are extroverted.

Openness to experience measures the degree of curiosity, intellect, preference for variety. In relation to the job description, we need someone who is a critical thinker and who is open to all proposed ideas to determine whether this business section of the magazine will be a good idea to pursue.

Conscientiousness measures the degree to which one is reliable, responsible and takes obligations to others seriously.

We need someone who is committed to

the goals of the job, in that they will not waste time but instead work diligently and efficiently to get the job done.

Extraversion measures the degree to which a person is sociable, talkative and assertive. This is important because this job requires everyone to share ideas, strong opinions and justification on whether or not we should implement a business section. Furthermore, one of our values here at Flash Magazine is teamwork, and we need people who are sociable and who can create relationships with others in order to share and build great ideas.

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Furthermore, one of our values here at Flash Magazine is teamwork, and we need people who are sociable and who can create relationships with others in order to share and build great ideas.

While agreeableness may be a good trait to have, it is not needed for this position.

We are testing to see if the new business section is going to be successful or not by analyzing whether the section would be interesting to our target audience.

Thus, agreeableness is a good trait so that these individuals are easy going and emotionally intelligent and trusting, but this is a temporary position where we need an environment that facilitates the sharing of strong opinions.

Furthermore, neuroticism measures the degree to which one is very emotional; this will not be needed since this job involves individuals to be logical and assertive on ideas despite biased emotions.

It is important for any successful company to establish a strong company identity through its employees. At Flash Magazine, it is especially important for us because we are a new publication. To recruit employees for this new task force, we would employ tactics such as creating web advertisements on professional websites like LinkedIn. We would also display advertisements at colleges and universities to attract any prospective employees who will soon be looking for job experience after school.

Once Flash Magazine has a good pool of applicants, we would begin conducting interviews. These interviews would be standardized for consistency and no different questions would be asked to different applicants. This way, the results would be easy to compare and there would be no special treatment given. We would also give our task force employees performance situation tests to prove their competency in data analysis situations.

This part of the selection process would be kept separate from the interview portion since they may conflict with each

other and muddle results. Hopefully with these tests, we would be able to avoid rejection errors and accept errors and hire a task force team that has the ability to effectively work together and create a productive work environment.

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In order for a group to be cohesive, they must share a collective identity, have a sense of shared purpose and communicate effectively with one another.

Although we are extremely confident in the task force that we have chosen to conduct the market research, one potential drawback to our method would be a lack of cohesiveness within the team. Cohesiveness could possibly be an issue because this team has not yet worked together and therefore may have a harder time getting on the same page and as trusting one another. In order for a group to be cohesive, they must share a collective identity, have a sense of shared purpose and communicate effectively with one another.

The first thing that we decided would help create a sense of unity is making the group small; therefore it consists only of eight people. We based this decision on

the idea that generally smaller groups tend to be more cohesive than large ones. We also feel that it would be in our best interest to have the leaders of the task force carry the responsibility of holding team members accountable and providing support with any issues that they have. Our leaders will also attempt to maximize productivity by aligning the goals of our team with those of our organization. This will help the team run smoothly as it starts getting accustomed to working effectively as a unit. Another policy that we will implement within this group will be weekly meetings to get everyone on the same page. This will consist of the team leaders meeting with the students and the analysts separately first and then coming together for a larger meeting. Our hope is that these meetings will work out any issues within the smaller groups and then resolve all issues with the task force as a whole.

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onclusion

Our publication, Flash Magazine, caters to today’s youth, providing them with current news and culture to help them push barriers and reach new heights.

We aim at bringing global problems to local levels so that our readers, the next generation of leaders, can make a positive impact on the world around them. Our vision is to be the connection point between people and ideas, and our mission is to promote inclusion and celebrate diversity. We value diversity, creativity, inclusiveness, and strive to create an environment that prioritizes efficiency, productivity, and teamwork, and the physical layout of our office reflects that.

The layout of our office is designed to give everyone their own space but also encourage communication across sections and across the 30 team members and us, the editor-in-chief.

The 30 staff members are divided into teams including the editorial, visual, and marketing sections. The editorial section is led by three editorial editors and also includes three copy editors and nine writers/reporters. The visual

section is led by the design director— who leads two web designers and three print designers—and the director of photography and videography, who leads four photographers/videographers.

There is also a digital manager who works with both the editorial and visual sections. The marketing section is led by the director of sales and marketing, who oversees two sales/marketing specialists.

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Our organizational structure includes a natural chain of command and therefore follows a centralized structure, but also allows for ideas to bubble up from the bottom.

Our organizational structure includes a natural chain of command and therefore follows a centralized structure, but also allows for ideas to bubble up from

the bottom. We have a flexible and diverse array of ideas flowing through our publication and therefore have low formalization, and since our team is broken up by section, we have high departmentalization. Although all of the staff members have a lot of skills that benefit them in their positions, the positions themselves are not highly specialized and require innovative thinking to keep the positions and the publication evolving.

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Our problem was to determine how we at Flash Magazine would hire a task force whose main purpose was to determine if it was a good idea to add another section to our publication.

Our problem was to determine how we at Flash Magazine would hire a task force whose main purpose was to determine if it was a good idea to add another section to our publication. We decided that our task force should be composed of eight people: three data analysts, three university students, and two of our own employees (which we decided would be the digital manager and the director of sales and marketing).

We formulated a job description and specification for these positions, which highlighted the Big 5 traits that we believe are essential to this position. Openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion are needed for these positions as the members of the task force should be open to hearing others’ ideas and available for healthy discussion, while also being respectful of one another, as the team’s main goal is to make progress on whether or not Flash should add another section to the magazine.

Agreeableness and neuroticism, however, are not necessarily needed for these positions, though agreeableness may be an added bonus.

To recruit the members of the task force, we will post the job description and specification on sites such as LinkedIn and around college campuses. After we get applicants for the task force, we will interview applicants with standardized questions as well as give them a performance situation test. Although we believe this recruitment process will limit the amount of rejection and accept errors, one problem that may arise is a rift in team cohesiveness. The members of the task force did not know each other beforehand and are not working together for a long period of time, so to overcome this challenge, we will work on having the team leader help align individual goals to the goals of the group and the publication so that we can decide whether or not the addition of a new section will be an important step towards enhancing Flash Magazine.

R

eferences

Condé Nast. (n.d.). Entertainment, Politics, and Fashion News.

Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/.

Condé Nast. (n.d.). Teen Vogue. https://www.teenvogue.com/.

Hearst. (n.d.). Cosmopolitan. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/.

Robbins, S., Coulter, M., & DeCenzo, D. (2020). Fundamentals of management.

Pearson.

The Hollywood Reporter. (n.d.). The Hollywood Reporter. https://www. hollywoodreporter.com/.