Archive for June, 2009

Employee Champion goes to… Jenny!

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

 

 

Funny that just last week I posted the New Employee Spotlight on Jenny and this week she’s awarded the Belt for her outstanding work this month. She wastes no time at all!

 

Jenny had joined the team a few months ago, but proved herself after only a few weeks at the PMA Tradeshow in Las Vegas. She was a real rockstar that week. From the very beginning, we were confident in Jenny’s success here at ScanDigital. And look- only months later, she’s earned the Champion Belt for her super-sonic scanning abilities!

To highlight some of the silly get-to-know-you questions that Jenny answered last week- did you know her favorite food is toast? That her favorite movie is Borat? Or that she has a deep rooted fear of ghosts? I didn’t think so.

 

You can find her on Twitter at @DevirianSD if you’d like to say ‘Congrats!’

 

 

As the Employee Champion, I asked Jenny some additional questions about being awarded the Belt. Here’s what she had to say:

 

 

What was your reaction when you were first awarded the Belt?

            I was surprised, I wasn’t expecting it.

 

How does it feel to rule the office as the employee champion for the month?

            It feels great!

 

Do you have any special plans for the belt while it is in your possession?

            I’m going to wear it everyday!! Haha just kidding.. its chilling on my desk.

 

What skills or traits do you possess that you think were important for winning the championship belt?

            You have to stay focused and try not to get distracted.        

 

Your super-sonic scanning powers tipped the scale in your favor this month – how do you pull it off?

            I don’t know I guess I just try to prioritize my time well. Like I’ll update the work flow and upload orders in between scans to save time, instead of doing it after.

 

You drink a lot of coffee, do you think this has helped you become the employee champion?

            Haha yeah, Ashley and I were just talking about that this morning… I definitely notice that I work faster after I’ve had my morning coffee!

 

Did your new lucky bamboo plant help score you this honor?

            Well I actually gave it to my boyfriend, but maybe it helped for the day that I had it.

 

What is your advice for other employees that may want to be champion some day?

            Just try your hardest and you’ll do well.

 

How will you use your authority as employee champion?

            Hmm, I’ll have to think about that one…

 

Take a Peek into Our Process: Scanning Negatives

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Traditionally, negatives have served as an imaging safety net in case anything was to happen to the actual printed photograph. However, negatives run the identical risks as printed photos and deteriorate at the same rate. The only way to guarantee the safety of your memories is to preserve them digitally. That’s why I’m happy to share our process for scanning negatives.

 

 

First, check out this video for a quick demonstration:

How To Scan Negatives from Pamela Weiss on Vimeo.

There are many steps in our negative scanning process. First, I have to take negatives and clean them with compressed air and when necessary, carefully clean them with non-abrasive, lint free wipes to remove any dust or dirt off of them. I then take one negative strip and feed it into the Nikon scanner and preview each image. Previewing is done to make sure the negatives are cropped correctly and not placed into the machine backwards. Then I select the the resolution and press the scan button. After the scan is complete, I go into the image folder and carefully examine each image to make sure I have captured a clean and balanced scan.

 

 

To begin our editing process for negatives, we use a special setting within the scanner that is called Digital Ice. Digital Ice uses infrared cleaning to detect scratches and dust during the transparent film scan. This removes a lot of those minor scratches that deter from your image. After all the images are scanned and had Digital Ice used to clean them up digitally, they are passed along to our editors who then further enhance each individual image by hand.

 

 

When a photo and negative are both available, we usually suggest scanning the negative because it is the purest form of the image. A photo is essentially a copy of a negative so when scanning a photo it’s like making a copy of a copy. Our top of the line editing equipment and our focused editors can enhance and repair a photo either way but it is recommended to start with the raw image.

 

 

Converting your negatives to digital format is one of the best ways to ensure the safekeeping of your images for a lifetime because let’s face it- sometimes there are unforeseen circumstances, like a fire or flooding. And who wants to take a chance of losing irreplaceable memories?

 

 

If you have any questions about scanning negatives, you can reach me at 888.333.2808 or on Twitter at @AshelyMillerSD Hope to hear from you soon!

Afffiliate Spotlight: Chantale Bordonaro!

Monday, June 8th, 2009

Hello summer!  And hello to our ScanDigital affiliates as well as those interested in learning more about our affiliate program. I’d especially like to recognize all our new affiliates that have signed up this past month. We are excited to have you as part of our team and look forward to working with you!

My name is Whitney Van Pelt, I am your new ScanDigital Affiliate contact. As you know, everyone here at ScanDigital is dedicated to making your experience as an affiliate as simple and as successful as possible so if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.  You can reach me by phone, email or find me on my Twitter account:

Phone: 310.683.0434

Email: whitney@scandigital.com

Follow me on Twitter: @whitneySD

How Does the ScanDigital Affiliate Program Work?


Our Affiliate Program is a relationship where you get paid a commission for driving sales to our website. When you refer ScanDigital to your family, friends, customers, or clients, you will earn 15% on all revenue generated! You will give them your URL and/or Coupon Code to use when they place their order and all orders are automatically tracked through our site. It’s a really easy way to offer additional services and make money at the same time. Best of all- it’s free to sign up, so there’s no risk. Learn more about our Affiliate Program here.



ScanDigital Affiliate Spotlight

 

In efforts to honor one special affiliate each month, another ScanDigital tradition has blossomed: (Drum roll……..) The Affiliate Spotlight!!!

 

The First ScanDigital Affiliate Spotlight Is: Chantale Bordonaro!!!! (applause, applause, applause…)

 

Chantale Bordonaro is a Certified Professional Organizer (CPO®), founder of Simplicity Source and LA’s Chapter President of the National Association of Professional Organizers. As a relocation specialist and a professional organizer Chantale follows her passion to make people’s lives simpler. She really knows her stuff!

Chantale paid us a visit last month to give ScanDigital  and our customers tips on how to best organize your photos and home movies. Please check out her tips in Spring Cleaning Tips for Your Photos and Home Movies here to help ease the frustration of such a daunting task.

Thank you Chantale, you’re the best! Thanks for being such an inspiration and a great help to us all! You have kept ScanDigital very BUSY!

Creating Your Own Masterpiece with ScanDigital

Friday, June 5th, 2009

 
When we started ScanDigital more than two years ago, part of our fundamental purpose was to not only provide an easy, user-friendly way to have analog materials converted to digital, but also to provide tools to enhance our customers memory keeping experiences and abilities.  We have worked hard to create a wonderful customer experience and I am pleased to extend that even further today with the release of our Canvas Print Console.
 
When we decided to offer canvas prints, I knew that the only way to do this would be to place our brand and name alongside someone who is known for a comparable level of detail and quality.  I spoke with a number of potential canvas print partners before ultimately settling with Harvest Productions.  After looking at numerous sample canvases from a spectrum of sources, I can honestly say that Harvest is the hands down leader in the canvas print industry.

Check out the video below that gives insight into the Harvest process: 

Harvest Productions has traditionally serviced the fine art market by working with world-renowned artists and publishers to reproduce their art in a way that sets them apart from their competitors. As Harvest has begun to branch out into the Commercial and Décor printing markets they have found that these markets share many of the same requirements as the fine art market. And now, due to developments precipitated by the incredible demands of fine art market, ScanDigital is in a unique position to bring Harvest’s technology and quality to the consumer market.
 
Now, I know what you’re thinking…  I admit I was skeptical too and thought to myself: “This sounds great, but it must cost a fortune!”  But that is not the case.  Through a 50,000 square foot facility, Harvest has optimized its workflow, leveraging expertise, capacity, material sourcing, and volume discounts to offer a superior product at a competitive price.  Amazing, really. (For more insights into how they do this, please see the video below)
 
How can this extra quality be free?  Using Iris, Roland, Mimaki, flatbed UV and Vutek technologies, Harvest delivers the highest quality on demand printing available anywhere. The unparalleled quality of the products produced by Harvest Productions is achieved by strict adherence to the their quality standards throughout the digital reproduction process. From image capture to artistic enhancements, no detail is overlooked nor flaw accepted.
 

Creating the ability for our customers to take a photo from its newly digitized form into a physical product and then have that product in their hands in a matter of days, not weeks was also important.  With that in mind we’ve built an incredibly easy system. Simply log into your account, select a photo or series of photos and check out within a couple of minutes. About a week later, an incredible canvas print will arrive at your door.
 
I am truly excited about this product offering and I hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to create something new for your home or office from something old.  We continue to be proud of the service and products we offer and this latest integration with Harvest Productions is yet another extension of our core philosophies.
 
Please check out our new console.  As always, our friendly customer service representatives are standing by to help should you need any help.

 

 

Customer feedback: “The results were fantastic!”

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

I just found a great blog post from customer Bonnie Jones, who recently used our service for her first time. She said she’s wanted to have her collection converted to digital format for a while now, but it wasn’t until her good friend suggested our company that she took the plunge to do so. Bonnie sent us a bunch of her negatives and raves, ‘the results were fantastic.’ Awww, thanks Bonnie!

It’s always amazing to hear from happy customers. There’s no better compliment!

Seeing some of her photos for the first time in years, she admits that she had almost forgotten the scene in her photograph below. That’s the beauty of our service- we are literally bringing your memories back to life.

Bonnie is an amazing photographer who updates her website BonnieJonesPhoto regularly. Her husband is in the military, which has caused them to make a series of moves in the last couple of years and her photography shares an insight into her life as she explores her new surroundings. She says, “Luckily, nothing makes for good pictures like a new place.”

You can read Bonnie’s post below and also find it on BonnieJonesPhoto. Check it out:

ScanDigital

June 3, 2009 by bonniejonesphoto

I’ve got piles and piles of negatives and I am still shooting with film – so for a couple of years I’ve wanted to begin the job of getting these images (the good ones) into digital format. I finally did it! I sent a batch of negatives to ScanDigital, a California company my friend Barbara recommended. Their prices were extremely low compared to local lab rates. It took about 10 days, including shipping both ways, and the results were fantastic. So good that I wanted to pass ScanDigital on. I’d eventually like to invest in a scanner but for the moment I’m packing another box to send away:)

Taking stock of my photos also inspired me to give my website a makeover! Check it out here. I’d love feedback if you have any thoughts.

Here’s a pretty photo from my time in England in 2006 that I just got digitized. I’d completely forgotten this scene…

Daffodils, North Yorkshire, England

Photo by Bonnie Jones

 

 

 

 

Take a Peek into Our Process: Tracking

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

 

We know where your memories are from the second your package leaves the doorstep. And we never lose sight of your order until it arrives safely back home to you. It’s our responsibility to monitor and care for your material and we take our job we take our job VERY seriously. That’s why we’ve decided to let you take a closer peek into another aspect of our process: Tracking.

 

Check out the video below of Anderson describing our tracking process. If you’d like to reach him personally, whether to ask a question or beg for the bloopers, you can find Anderson on Twitter at @AndersonSD.

 

 

Our tracking process begins right when you place your order online. Our site automatically generates a UPS shipping label, which can easily be printed and secured on your package. This label has a tracking code that is copied into our system, so we are able to fully track your material from the second it leaves your doorstep.

 

In route to our facility, UPS scans and records the barcode throughout all stops which ensures we know exactly where your package is at all times. Once your package arrives at our facility, we then check-in and inventory your material. If you missed our first installment of Take a Peek into Our Process, you can catch up and watch the video here: How We Check-In Orders.

 

When your order is checked-in, it is logged into our EssentialTracker, which is our internal tracking system. This system was built to monitor your order within our facility and to give our customers insight into which exact stage of our process their order is in. As your order moves throughout each stage of our 12-step EssentialTracker system, it is automatically updated in the status bar in your account. Updates are made in real-time, meaning you can log into your account at anytime to see the current status of your order.

 

So that’s our tracking process in a nutshell. Hope you’ve enjoyed it!

 

If you have any questions about tracking process or our service in general, feel free to contact our team at 888.333.2808 or find us on twitter at @ScanDigital.  We’d be thrilled to hear from you!

 

Want to know how we do what we do? Stay tuned for the next installment of ‘Take a Peek into Our Process.’

New Employee Spotlight: Jenny

Monday, June 1st, 2009

 

 As a new ScanDigital tradition, every just-hired employee will be subjected to answering silly get-to-know-you questions. Mostly, we just want to introduce our employees to one another and to our customers, but some would argue it’s a form of mild hazing. But hey, it’s all in good fun. 

 

First up- Jenny Devirian. Jenny joined the ScanDigital team a few months ago and we’re really happy to have her on board. After only weeks of working with us, she agreed to join Anderson, Matt, and me on our business trip to Las Vegas for the PMA Tradeshow. She was a real rockstar that week and proved she’s an awesome team player. From the very beginning, we were confident in Jenny’s success here at ScanDigital.

 

Learn a little more about her below:

 

 

Name:  Jenny Devirian

 

Previous Work Experience: Office Assistant at ABC Promotional Marketing

 

Places Lived: Palos Verdes Estates, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Isla Vista, CA

Favorite Travel Spots:  Greek Islands

 

Favorite Food:  Toast has always been one of my favorite things to eat.

 

Favorite Drink:  Water but I definitely can’t live without coffee.

 

Least Favorite Food:  Broccoli is pretty gross also seafood and red meat.

 

Best Vacation:  I can’t pick one because I’ve had a lot of good vacations that were all good in different ways.

 

Favorite Restaurant: I have a few… BJ’s, Cheesecake Factory, and Pascucci in Santa Barbara

 

Biggest Regret: I’m the type of person who really thinks things through so I don’t have any major regrets.

Favorite Movie:  Borat

 

Proudest Moment: Graduating College

 

Ability I wish I had: I really wish I could play the piano and also speak other languages.

 

Last book read: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

 

Favorite Music:  I have new favorites all the time, but I’ll always love Dashboard Confessional, The Used, Taking Back Sunday and The Fray.

 

If I won the lottery:  I would travel for a while.

 

Something Few Know: I’m terrified of ghosts, earthquakes, lightening, and flying.

 

If I were stuck on an island, I would bring: a watch, music, and a super long book

 

 

Toast, Borat and a fear of ghosts- oh my! Some of the information is borderline TMI (Too Much Information), but gives a good laugh nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed getting to know one of our new employees!

 

Welcome to the ScanDigital family, Jenny!