You're the one who said "the people who tell us things via the Istock forum are not business people and as such make remarks and comments that lack clarity or any assurance". Now you are saying the only people with clarity and assurance are those who run microstock agencies.

And you're telling us that iStock's owners aren't qualified to run the business because they also own hotels in Dubai? Well, given their track record I might be incluined to agree. However, the general theory in business is that being successful in running one gives you the insight into how to run another. If you were at a high enough level, you would know that.

Your mixing my comments up slightly.The RC's decision was made for the business as a whole.The way it was communicated to the artists via the forum was inept, to say the least, and caused alot of bad feelings.It could have been handled so much better and even if they had sought advice from a third party on how to communicate that difficult decision to the artists.
That bad feeling has yet to subside from what i read on the  MGC forum.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on July 17, 2011, 03:46

You're the one who said "the people who tell us things via the Istock forum are not business people and as such make remarks and comments that lack clarity or any assurance". Now you are saying the only people with clarity and assurance are those who run microstock agencies.

And you're telling us that iStock's owners aren't qualified to run the business because they also own hotels in Dubai? Well, given their track record I might be incluined to agree. However, the general theory in business is that being successful in running one gives you the insight into how to run another. If you were at a high enough level, you would know that.

Your mixing my comments up slightly.The RC's decision was made for the business as a whole.The way it was communicated to the artists via the forum was inept, to say the least, and caused alot of bad feelings.It could have been handled so much better and even if they had sought advice from a third party on how to communicate that difficult decision to the artists.
That bad feeling has yet to subside from what i read on the  MGC forum.

I wasn't mixing up your comments at all. It's true that I extrapolated one to point out that the owners would fall into the category of people you say aren't qualified to run iStock (because you obviously hadn't thought of the implications of what you posted).

First you say that the people who post lack the business experience to hold the correct opinions or to be able to think with necessary clarity (implying that you have business skills superior to those who disagree with you), then when it becomes apparent that some do have business experience you switch your ground to argue that only microstock businesspeople could be considered competent to comment (do you consider yourself one of those?) then when I point out (a) that the owners of iStock are not "microstock businesspeople" and (b) that those who work at senior management level consider that good management skills are universally applicable (which shows that you never worked at that level, or you would know it) you change the subject and start bleating about "poor communication".

Shank Ali: You're fired.

Quote from: shank_ali on July 17, 2011, 04:39

Your mixing my comments up slightly.The RC's decision was made for the business as a whole.The way it was communicated to the artists via the forum was inept, to say the least, and caused alot of bad feelings.It could have been handled so much better and even if they had sought advice from a third party on how to communicate that difficult decision to the artists.
That bad feeling has yet to subside from what i read on the  MGC forum.

I don't give a FF about how they communicate¹ their business decisions.
Crap ("we want to reduce your share and we don't GAD about your sustainability") wrapped in a sugar coating is still crap.
Lies ("you will be grandfathered in") in flowery language are still lies.
What makes you think the bad feeling will - or should - ever subside (apart from what Kelly said in that interview)? No-one in their right mind will trust them again.
¹ Communication has long been a major iStock failure. Their provider and user contracts are totally ambiguous and many phtrases have been debated in the forums for ages without any definite conclusion. I've long called for them to consult the Plain English Society, but that's fallen on deaf ears. One has to assume it's deliberate.

I love that you included a footnote...lol. is that an MSG first?

Perhaps the owners of iStock/Getty should read this and re-think their strategy:
http://blogs.forbes.com/stevedenning/2011/07/16/why-is-the-world-run-by-bean-counters/

This is a new world and calls for a new way of doing business.

Very interesting series of articles, and seems to be the polar opposite of how iStock has been doing things this past while.

Very interesting series of articles

Definitely very interesting! I was gratified to learn that I'm already using some of those principles in the operation of my web development business, but I learned that there is quite a bit more that I could be doing.

Thanks for sharing!

Isn't Mr Klein's track record anything but illustrious? He did so well that his shareholders were glad to grab the money and run when the current owners came in with an offer that would have been laughed at a year earlier.

At that time, he said that the plan was to build value and sell the business on in a couple of years. When that time came, there was no sign of it having sufficient value for anyone to want to buy it, so the owners raised a bank loan against future earnings to try to recover some of their initial investment cash.

That's what it looked like to me. Lots of activity but not much to show for it.

"the demand is still the same it's just that the  supply is outstripping demand"

If they told you that "demand is still the same" they have admitted that they are not adding customers.

If you hire a salesman and he tells you he couldn�t find any new buyers this year while the competition can - would you pay him a bonus?

The world economy hasn�t stopped advertising, there are loads of countries and business that are still not using stock.

They can of course wait until someone else does the hard work of opening up a new marketand then buy the agency with the client contracts. Maybe for Getty that is indeed a cost efficient strategy. Although I wonder why it would still be cheaper in the days of the internet. It should be a lot cheaper to grow organically out of your own business.

But istock used to be really good at growing their own business into new markets. I mean they are adding png and editorial to reach out. But unfortunately at the moment Shutterstock is doing a much better job at attracting the buyers.

This thread however was made to discuss the way redeemable credits were brought in to steady and secure the long term future of Istockphoto.

I believe that istock would have had a steady and long term secure profitable future without these changes. In fact although they may boost the short term profits in the long term the contributor ire and mistrust that they engendered will possibly have the opposite effect.