A Disney production

SuperConference, where the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) brings together newspaper technologists from four disciplines -- pre-press; environmental health and safety; packaging and distribution, and press and materials -- will be Jan. 7-12, 2001 in Orlando, Fla., at Walt Disney World.

Each discipline has a track and each track runs for about a 1¢ days, some concurrently.

Speakers will include Dave Underhill of Intergroup Development at Chicago's Tribune Co., Albert Schultz of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. of East Amherst, N.Y., Jonathan Markey of The Record of Hackensack, N.J. and Andrew Barnes of Florida's St. Petersburg Times, who is the chairman of NAA.

The sessions begin on Sunday, Jan. 7, with primers in the basic techniques of writing AppleScripts and a presentation by Cynthia Roth of Ergonomic Technologies Corp. of Syosset, N.Y., on how newspapers can meet new federal ergonomics regulations

For more information on the SuperConference, send e-mail to superconference@naa.org.

Newspaper Association of America, (703) 902-1880.

-- dmc

"But it's ironic that computer problems may have helped save us from mistakenly reporting a Bush victory like other papers did. And we must thank The Associated Press for its caution."

-- Ted Daniels, associate editor for reader relations at the Indianapolis Star, whose nightly front-end system backup caused the paper's computers to "crawl" when the paper attempted to put out a replate with the headline "It's Bush," despite the fact that the wire service hadn't called the election.

Bit bucket ...

Thirty: When the editors of the San Francisco Examiner decided in 1980 to attempt to make the processing of election returns easier in the newsroom on election night (see story Page 2), it fell to San Francisco Newspaper Agency Systems Engineer Mike McMillan to work up an estimate of how long it would take to reconfigure the paper's special election typesetting formats. As a longtime programmer on typesetting systems from System Integrators Inc. (he had worked for the company itself in the early '70s and had been a systems engineer at the nearby cold-type pioneering San Rafael Independent-Journal), McMillan knew that the editors' requested changes would take at least a week of his programming time. When the head of computer systems -- not someone versed in newspaper production -- found out, he asked how frequently the formats would be used. "One night," McMillan nonchalantly said. The systems boss almost bust a gut: "A week of programming effort that will only be used once! I won't allow it." McMillan calmly explained -- through a prism of his years in newspapers, tempered by a tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Vietnam -- that it was important for papers to be able to quickly, easily and accurately report election results. Summing it up, he said, "It sells papers." The computer honcho relented and McMillan spent four days doing the programming, instead of the five he estimated. In 24 years with the Agency (and its successor, the San Francisco Chronicle), McMillan implemented production and editorial efficiencies too numerous to recount. Following a stroke in late October, McMillian died Nov. 2; he was 54. ...

The world needs more consultants: After a 31-year career in newspapers that started jogging papers in the mailroom -- with stops in editorial and production along the way, including a stint as the first vice president of field operations at USA Today, a publisher's chair at the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., some time with suppliers such as Harris, a veep of production role at Ohio's Dayton Daily News and the last five years as director of production technologies at Thomson Newspapers -- Tom Shafer has decided to get a real job as a newspaper consultant. First on his agenda is starting up Cmyk-U, a 5000-square-foot learning center for newspaper reproduction technologies at Dauphin Graphic Machine's facilities near Harrisburg, Pa. Shafer's consulting business, OpsFusion, will focus on issues of newspaper operational workflow and will be based in Satellite Beach, Fla. ...

New media mavens: At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Hyde Post has been named editorial director of ajc.com; previously, Post was innovations editor of the paper and has been asked to "dramatically expand the breadth" of the paper's on-line efforts. ... At Cox Interactive Media of Atlanta, Tom Viall has been named site manager of the Rhode Island web site, Ocean State Online (oso.com); previously a senior producer at the site, Viall was formerly with Wprn/Wnac-TV in East Providence, R.I. and Wnac-TV in Rehoboth, Mass. ... At the New York Times, Micheal Oreskes has been named assistant managing editor and director of electronic news; previously, he was Washington bureau chief and metropolitan editor of the paper. Oreskes will be responsible for television ventures and collaborations with the parent company's on-line division, New York Times Digital. ...

Newsroom names: At the newly merged San Francisco Chronicle, David Hyams has been named editorial director of technology and planning; previously, he had been the Chronicle's director of planning, though for the last nine months he has been the paper's acting sports editor. ... At the Associated Press (AP) in New York City, Mike Mokrzycki has been named systems editor; previously, he was an editor and election-polling specialist. Mokrzycki will work with AP's news managers to create services for members and AP staff that use the Internet, databases and traditional reporting. ... Also at the AP, Tim Bovee has been named director of projects and technology at the wire cooperative's Washington bureau; previously, he had been the bureau's systems editor. Bovee has managed AP's national election returns since 1992. ...

Times talk: At the Los Angeles Times, Harriet Boyd has been named director of technology administration and planning, Joe Shea has been named director of technical operations, Tom Elsesser has been named director of circulation and marketing technology and Michael O'Hara has been named director of editorial technology. In addition, longtime editorial systems executive Wayne Parrack, who was application systems director and headed the paper's pagination project, retired from the paper on Dec. 1; Dave Rickley has been named editorial project manager of pagination at the paper. ...

Vendor vibrations: At CreoScitex of Bedford, Mass., Kevin Joyce has been named president of CreoScitex Americas; previously, Joyce had been veep of sales and marketing for the division and has been with Creo since 1994. ... Also at CreoScitex, Dan McConnell has been named to head up the company's North American Packaging Group; previously, McConnell was executive veep and general manager of Barco Graphics North America. ... At Digital Art Exchange Inc. of Boston, Katie Matrone has been named manager of marketing communications; previously, she was marketing coordinator. ... At Geac Publishing Systems of Tampa, Fla., David Page has been named United Kingdom sales manager; starting in newspapers as a management trainee at the Westminster Press, Page has been with Autologic, Hyphen and IPA Systems. ... At Kodak Polychrome Graphics of Norwalk, Conn., Linda Vande Ven has been named veep and chief information officer; previously, Vande Ven had been with Honeywell International, Allied Signal and Bridgestone/Firestone. ... Also at Kodak Polychrome, Jeffrey Cook has been named veep and chief financial officer; previously, Cook was with Moore North America and General Electric. ... At NewsEngin Inc. of Narberth, Pa., Virgil Tipon has been named chief technology officer; previously Tipton had been deputy editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Tipton's hire brings the company to five full-timers. ... At Mactive Inc. of Melbourne, Fla., Yvonne Duhart has been named West Coast project manager; previously, Duhart was with System Integrators and has worked at the San Francisco Newspaper Agency and the Modesto Bee. ... Also at Mactive, Aubrey Arredondo has been named to the West Coast support team; previously, Arredondo was with California's Orange County Register. ... At MerlinOne of Quincy, Mass. (formerly T/One), Teresa Martin has been named vice president of strategic planning and business development. Martin, a newspaper-industry trade journalist gone bad (she has written for The Cole Papers), most recently headed up Project Cool, a web infrastructure company and before that was with Knight-Ridder New Media and the Knight-Ridder Information Design Lab. ... At ProImage America Inc. of Princeton, N.J., Rick Shafranek has been named sales manager; previously, Shanfranek had been with Linopress Publishing Systems. ... At SaxoTech Inc. of Rockville, Md., Lou Fifer has been named veep of customer fulfillment and will be in charge of West Coast operations; though most recently with Unisys, Fifer has a 20-year career in publishing and technology, including time spent with IBM, System Integrators Inc. and Logicon-Intercomp. ... At Tribune Media Services (TMS) of Chicago, Nedra Plonski has been named technology director for the recently formed multimedia products and services group; a five-year Tribune veteran, previously, Plonski had been with TMS' Entertainment Product Group. ... At Unisys of Blue Bell, Pa., Bill Stroud has left the company; in charge of sales and marketing at the supplier, Stroud has a 36-year career in publishing and technology, including time spent with the Philadelphia Inquirer. ...

Confabs: MacWorld Expo will be in San Francisco, Jan. 9-12, 2001. Speakers include Author Bob LeVitus, AppleScript Product Manager Sal Soghoian, Hal Hinderliter of Impresse Corp., Alan Oppenheimer of Open Door Networks, Adam Engst of Tidbits and Rick Smolan of Against All Odds Productions. The keynote is by some guy named Jobs. For more information, point your browser at macworldexpo.com. ... The International Prepress Association will meet in San Diego, Jan. 11-14. One of the major presentations at the conference will be a "landmark" study that examines companies that provide pre-press services and who are now successfully offering new products and services. For more information, call (800) 255-8141 or e-mail info@ipa.org. .. #

From THE COLE PAPERS, December 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.