Everyone has their own best practices and tools for getting the job done. Some include holding onto their iPhone for dear life or learning how to stay organized even during the chaotic times. Our recurring segment “It Works for Me” features business professionals sharing their secrets on how they get the job done. Next up is Evan Scott, VP Production at Levitate Media.
Company Name: Levitate Media
Job Title: VP Production
Where do you live? Frederick, MD
Where do you work? Frederick, MD
What is your office environment like? “Cozy”, but functional office. I like to be able to close myself off when needed, but have access to shared spaces for collaboration, meetings, or to just break it up.
What technology do you use at work? Currently a 13” Macbook Pro R connected to dual 27” monitors. I maxed the RAM (16gb) for this and the SSD hard drive which works very well, as I typically have a million things running. We use Google Drive company-wide and I have a “local” folder which syncs locally, and archive folders that don’t sync to move projects to when complete. It’s been a good setup so far and Google is constantly making improvements. I haven’t made the switch to Mavericks OS yet. I typically wait about 6 to 12 months for OS upgrades so the bugs can be worked out.
What technology do you use at home? I bring my Macbook everywhere (why I went with the 13” instead of 15”), but probably use an ipad a little more. I’ve also been using a Chromecast hooked up to a 50” TV to review videos from the couch. I can broadcast from my iphone or ipad, it’s very convenient.
On a scale of 1 (never) to 10 (always), how often are you connected to your smartphone? Probably a 9, smartphones are a blessing and a curse that way. My 18 month old son keeps me in check though. Whenever he sternly says, “Daddy…phone down!”, I happily oblige.
What is your favorite organizational tool? We live on Basecamp. While there are collaboration platforms with more bells and whistles out there, I think Basecamp did a great job of creating a platform that clients can run with easily. If you use the “templates” and “to-do list” features correctly, it can really provide great visibility.
What is the latest website/app/tool you are obsessed with at the moment? Definitely ProofHQ… a video proofing tool that integrates with Basecamp. This was a game changer for us, and allowed us to dramatically cut production time.
Can you recommend a book? Just read “The Future of the Mind” by Michio Kaku – I think the most interesting part of the book to me was some current initiatives that are using sensors to read images in the brain. When this becomes available, I’m sure it will replace ProofHQ as my tool of choice!
What’s your best time management tip? In production, it’s definitely making sure the next step for every project has a defined next action and target date. The date can move after it’s defined, but the specific action/deliverable needs to be documented somewhere.
My team employs this, and it took some discipline to get it going, but now it’s muscle memory. When one is clicked off, it’s immediately replaced with another. Overseeing hundreds of concurrent productions, it allows me to look in and quickly see if the next step is identified. If it’s not, that’s typically where you’ll find issues.
What’s the strangest thing in your office? Me!
Levitate Media develops captivating video for the technology market and beyond. Levitate was #237 on the Inc. 5000 list in 2014.