[Ron Lindeboom]

Hello Jessica,

You will get timely help for these questions in the Sony Vegas forum. Please post these kinds of questions there.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

I see what you are talking about now, Noah. I will have Abraham debug it in the morning when he gets in.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

It is doing what it’s supposed to do, Noah. Unfortunately nobody is going to post in the GoPro forum and so we have it set to function as a “you’ll find all the GoPro chat in the COW consolidated here for your convenience” forum. You can originate things there but so far it’s doing what we thought a dedicated GoPro forum would — nothing — as the COW tends to get this kind of discussion everywhere else except the forum of the product itself. For example, there is tons of RED camera discussion in the COW but very very little of it happens in the RED forum.

But we can turn it off the GoPro forum if it’s too irritating.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Neil Hurwitz] “Please explain How you GIVE your people IRA accounts? It has always been my understanding that this is a vehicle for the individual to set up,hold and keep with their money either with before tax dollars (tradional IRA) or with after tax dollars (Roth IRA)”

Maybe “give” was a poor choice of words, Neil. What we do is match what our employees can legally withhold and delegate to their IRAs. The bookkeeper is not here today but as I recall, it is up to 3% of their gross that they are allowed to put into their IRA and then we match it. Not great but better than nothing.

[Neil Hurwitz] “The surprise here was that this was a very successful firm for decades, with substantial high paying clients and reputation. So the bigger question is exactly what went wrong? Was it their Business model(great studios,equipment,people)? Owner starving the company to maintain lifestyle? The cost of providing a living wage? Medical Insurance? Lease renewal on the studios in NYC? I think laying the failure of this type of company on the catch all phrase of “Business Model” is an oversimplification at best.”

Surprise is one word I’d NEVER assign to a situation like this. Why? Partly because of chaotics, a phenomenon that is happening in the world today and when understood, it holds great analytical merit for planning and strategic decisions. Books like Philip Kotler’s Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence hold great value and I think anyone who doesn’t read it wants to kill their own business.

Much of what is happening is due to disruptive technologies (turbulent innovation) that redefines the rules by changing the competitive business landscape through upheaval that actually makes a company’s long standing investment and advantage work against itself, as low cost new tools and new competitors enter a market with much less investment and cost.

Yes, many will fail but in the end the “march of army ants” will redefine the market, and companies that have been asleep at the wheel — counting on their long held position at the top to hold them safe through the chaotic period of equilibrium — will find themselves like Gulliver, staked, tied and overcome by those they consider Lilliputians.

It is happening everywhere and the book “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen does a brilliant job of explaining the process by which these onetime giants fall prey to poorly equipped and under-capitalized “Lilliputians” because of “disruptive technologies” — or as some refer to it, disruptive innovation.

If you read these two books, Neil, you will see a great view of what is happening in the world today.

Your friend’s company was a victim of the forces clearly outlined in The Innovator’s Dilemma.

You don’t want me to get started on what’s wrong with the schools today, it would just anger both your wife and her bosses — though I would agree, the problem is not your wife.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Mark Suszko] “Did they confirm if Paul McCartney is really dead?”

Paul McCartney has been dead for years. Just listen to the music if you need confirmation.

;o)

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

Hello David,

Better yet, we deactivated the thread. It’s all gone now. ;o)

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

Neil,

We meet with our CPAs quarterly and we pay big money for taxes, insurance, legal services and a whole lot more.

We pay VERY good wages to our employees and they have taken to giving it a name, THEY say that we “pay career money, not wages.” I take that as a compliment.

We also pay 100% of their health insurance, paid by our company.

We do NOT hire permalancers. We have full-time employees, thank you.

We also give our people IRAs and we pay all withholdings and workers compensation.

BUT…

That doesn’t mean anything in a world where things are changing so rapidly that companies like Howard Schwarz Recording fall like dominoes. And before you chide me as having not been around for 38 years, you did say you don’t think people should speak unless they’ve been around HALF that long, and I’ve been doing this 16 years (not exactly half but close enough in a world where speeds accelerate greatly year-to-year and so I think 16 years gives me a bit of perspective on this issue).

If you disagree with that, I will throw in the this year I was named one of the 40 most influential publishers in the world of print, chosen by the leading print magazine journal, and so someone must think I am doing fairly well.

With that said, I’d like to tell you that the world is changing so fast that EVERY company that isn’t consciously and actively trying to put itself out of business and replace itself with something better is just working itself slowly towards the cliff…

We are in a time of such chaotic and turbulent change that the death of companies like Howard Schwarz Recording is no surprise to me, in fact I am surprised they lasted this long with the business model they were using. Truth be told, they were probably feeding it money for years, waiting for things to “turn around.”

This isn’t a recession and it isn’t a bump in the road. This is the New Normal and welcome to the future that none of us wanted.

Me, I do not bemoan the death of companies as much as I bemoan the collapse of our educational system, which is completely failing in its duty to educate our young people to know how to compete in today’s world.

Now that’s a tragedy…

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Bob Zelin] “so, when Apple releases FCP-X, and you get 500,000 hits on the FCP forum that first day, and flames start to shoot out of your servers as they crash, are you prepared with the appropriate insurance ?”

I had to chuckle reading this, Bob. Yes, we are insured, by Lloyd’s of London to be exact. But it would take a lot more than 500,000 FCPX users logging in to take the COW to its knees. Over the years we have built a huge load-balanced server farm that is capable of serving up some mighty healthy bandwidth. It can handle the huge user base of the COW’s forums, and simultaneously serve up full 1080p reels and shorts to many thousands of users concurrently without breaking a sweat. So I think we can keep the fire extinguishers in the wall mounts for now. ;o)

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen

[Ron Lindeboom]

I like to have more control than I can get using some of InDesign’s masking tools. But in the end, it is use whatever tool works for you. This has never been a one-size-fits-all world.

If you get satisfactory results, Dawud, I would love to see what you come up with. I always like to learn new things.

Best regards,

Ronald Lindeboom
CEO, Creative COW LLC
Publisher, Creative COW Magazine

Creativity is a process wherein the student and the teacher are located in the same individual.

“Incompetence has never prevented me from plunging in with enthusiasm.” – Woody Allen