Linda Griffin Kean is Associate Publisher of the International Monetary Fund. Prior to joining the IMF in 2004, Linda worked for a number of think tanks and ran a communications consulting practice in Washington, DC.
The IMF has been using Typefi since 2010. While the organisation’s main business is not publishing, its annual periodic reports—the World Economic Outlook, the Fiscal Monitor, and the Global Financial Stability Report—analyse global and regional macroeconomic and financial developments, and are crucial in advancing a shared understanding of policies needed to promote global economic stability.
In this presentation from the 2017 Typefi User Conference, Linda shares the challenges associated with successfully implementing Typefi at the IMF and ultimately reducing publishing production time for the annual periodic reports from six weeks to six days, in an environment with ever-shrinking deadlines, no in-house production staff, and a range of vendors with varying wants and needs.
Trying to change an editorial workflow is almost harder than trying to change anything else. You need a change agent who has the trust of everyone involved. You have to be the honest broker—make it clear to everyone what the goal is, and understand that everyone’s incentive structure is different.