Behind the Scenes at Kelby Media Group Headquarters
Last week RC Concepcion walked around our headquarters (located just outside Tampa, Florida) and took shots of our offices, studios, and stuff like that, so we could show it during our live NAPP-a-Thon.
He got to show a few of the images on the air, but I asked RC if I could share them here on the blog, and he was more than happy to. So, here’s a quick visual look at our home base.
Above: This is the view down the hallway when you come in the front door (if you make it past reception. Barb up front forms a human barrier).
Above: That’s Eric, the big chief of our video operations, hanging back between some of the sets. This is where he goes to hide when I come over to his department looking for him. When he’s not hiding, he does an amazing job, and he’s a totally great guy.
Above: This is the area where Matt, Corey, RC, Dave Cross and I work. It’s where all the cool kids work. And Brad. (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself). My office is the last one on the right side. That’s RC’s office straight ahead with the red walls, and you can see a hint of Corey’s to the left of RC’s (in blue).
Above: Just outside my office is our photo studio, and here are some of our crew, getting set-up for a shoot.
Above: This is Juan; he’s a video editor on our team and perhaps the meanest Jib operator in the world today. Juan’s great, and despite his mean look, he’s a really mellow, super nice guy—very talented, and he’s got a great dry sense of humor.
Above: That’s Nicole, a freakin’ unbelievable designer in our video department. She has mad skills.
Above: That’s Meredith, who is interning with us on our video team, and here she’s running a camera with a teleprompter, which to me is just hilarious, since any of you that have watched any of our shows knows darn well we don’t ever look at a teleprompter. Mostly because we don’t know how to read.
Above: That’s Adam—super talented guy, really great guy as well, and one of the only employees we allow to drink during the work day, so he’s usually rarin’ to go!
Above: This is one of my dearest friends, one of the hardest working guys, and absolutely one of the best guys on the planet, my buddy Dave, our Chief Operating Officer. He has a cluttered desk, and he’s trying to look busy, but he spends most of his day playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. We all do.
Above: This is the view of part of our graphics and design department. This is where the team that puts together the magazines, ads, and book layouts works, in these work “pods.” That row of offices in the back belong to the owners (Me, my wife Kalebra, and Jean A.). We have glass fronts so we can spy on the designers. It totally freaks them out. (By the way; we have two buildings on the same street, so I keep offices in both).
Above: That’s another Dave (we have a lot of Daves. Anyone named Dave is hired immediately). Dave lays out all sorts of stuff, but he pretty much single-handedly lays out the entire Photoshop World NYC-telephone directory-sized workbook attendees get. He’s in a cool band, and he plays guitar and sings (he’s good!).
Above: This is one of our conference rooms (we have four, because meetings are so awesome. Let’s have more! Let’s have meetings to plan our next meeting!). I’m not sure these people really work here. They may be paid actors.
Above: That’s Jean A, one of the founders and co-owners. She’s trying to look really serious here, but she a sweetheart, and a great friend for many years. We dig her.
Above: This is where the Kelby Training Live and Online crews live (well, where they work anyway). They’re not at their desks because they’re probably all at Chili’s, the official restaurant of Kelby Media Group.
Above: This is Jessica, who is totally awesome! She designs all my books, and all the books we do with outside writers (like Moose Peterson, David Ziser, and Joe McNally), and she totally rocks! Great designer. Great person.
Above: That’s the wonderful Chris Main, Editor of Photoshop User magazine, who has been with us for more than 10 years. His desk looks like a Sci-Fi convention fell on it. Chris is a really great guy, and he never yells at me.
Above: That’s Fred, who works on our Web team. I hand picked Fred myself, and let me tell you—-Fred is absolutely awesome!!!! I love this guy!!! Super talented, very humble, and I love his designs. We were lucky to get Fred.
Above: This is Tommy. He is the Powerful Web Wizard that runs our Web team, and Tommy is a genius. I’m not making this up. As my son would say, “He’s insane-o smart” and he’s a really great guy on top of it all. He’s somewhat of a hero in our halls.
Above: Ladies and Gentlemen, may I proudly introduce, our Social Media Ninja; the woman behind @NAPP-News, and the International Ambassador of Love (I have no idea what that means), Nancy! She’s not French, but she pretends she is. We go along with her, because we don’t want her to spill her croissants.
Above: I think that’s Allison, from Kelby Training Live, but it’s hard to tell, seeing as her back is turned. She puts mirrors up, so if she’s sees me coming to her desk, she can hide the Web broswer where she’s usually watching Glee.
Above: That’s Felix Nelson, our Creative Director, and one of the most talented, creative, funny, and downright brilliant designers on the planet. I’d put him up against anybody. He creates magic!
Above: That’s another Dave, from Canada, and he’s in the midst of stealing American jobs. He’s a member of the United Auto Workers. While it looks like he’s speaking into a mic, that’s actually an assembly line robot. Dave needs more stuff in his office.
Above: This is my long-suffering executive assistant, Kathy. She’s a Redskin’s fan so she’s not happy today. Her desk is very neat and orderly because she actually does nothing all day. Sometimes she goes shopping for hours at a time. (Totally kidding. Kathy rocks!!! Anyone that has had to put up with me for 8 years deserves a special place in Heaven. She might have two. I’ll bet they’re neat and orderly).
Above: That’s Brad, my photo assistant, who incidentally is on vacation until the end of the year, so while he’s gone we’re going to take all the concert prints down from his walls and replace them with portraits of Matt running in a field. Serve’s him right. Brad runs the studio, too, and he shoots concerts, and he’s a big teddy bear (Oooh, I just heard him cringe all the out in Tennessee).
Above: This is part of our Printer room. We’ve got lots of printers because we print stuff all the time. Plus, if you leave these printers alone in their own room for a while, they multiply.
Above: Here’s where we keep the paper and inks for our printers. What you see here represents about $22 million in paper and ink. It’ll last for 2-1/2 weeks. At best.
Above: That’s Jen—She’s the new kid on the block in our Video Department, and she’s a really good editor, which is her main gig (it’s tough to get a job in our video dept.—to work there you have to totally kick #$% and she does). She’s also a camera operator and she directs us on the set. Once she puts that headset on, and starts talking to the control room, she thinks she’s Francis Ford Coppola. I don’t have the heart to tell her Francis is a man.
Above: That’s Daniel, an absolutely kick-butt editor on our video team. He is really great at his job, and he’s got a fantastic attitude, and loads of talent. But beyond that, he’s a really great person, who’s already done two mission trips to Haiti to help out there. He was a real find!
Above: A view from the other side of our video sets. We have nine sets in all, and one of the key jobs of our video crew is stand there and stare at them, as shown above.
Above: This group shot is of our customer service team, and they are, hands down, the best in the business. They really care about our customers, and we’ve empowered them to do whatever it takes to make our customers happy, so our customers are happy, and our team is happy, because nobody wants to work in a position where they can’t help people. They are a totally crack team, and I’m very proud of them. They’re lead by Julie, (2nd from right, back row), who also is the show director for Photoshop World. Julie is the best. Period.
We have like 60 or so more full time employees you didn’t get to see (like our Accounting dept, HR dept, Shipping, and on and on), because we’d have 60 or so more photos, and you’d have stopped reading a long time ago. In fact, you’re probably not reading this now, but I at least hope you enjoyed this little behind the scenes look (courtesy of RC), and you got to see some of the very special that I feel very fortunate to work with each day.