The job titles: Site Manager and Content Project Manager for Clip Art & Media Site (CAM), on Office Online
What kind of stuff are you two working on?
Beatrice: My job focuses on working with our engineering and business development teams to plan and implement Microsoft’s Clip Art & Media website features and partnerships with content providers.
Natalie: I manage the programming of the daily site, and acquire content. I’m involved with acquisition, where we purchase content … although we are moving away from that model. Beatrice is involved with attribution, where we obtain content for free, in exchange for attribution with our partners, and I am working more and more in that arena as well.
B: You’re more the designer’s eye, and I’m more the structure and the process.
N: She’s more technical than I am. But you’re an artist too!
B: But the lines are blurry.
What kinds of files cross your desks daily?
N: All kinds of imagery and sometimes sound files, too. We’re always trying to build up more photography in our collection. Right now it’s about 20%. The rest of it is illustration — more “clip art,” which is a phrase that we don’t like to use.
Why not?
B: Artists and designers hate it. It has this stigma. If you look on the web, you’ll see people say “Clip art is crappy. It makes your presentation look cheap.” There’s this ’90s feel that we’re trying to get away from.
N: …That said, we do still have a lot of that illustrative content from the past, and some of it is still very popular.
What do you call it now, if it’s no longer clip art? What’s the new term?
N: Well, we still call it clip art at this point. Officially, “Clip Art and Media” on our site.
B: …But in Office 14 we’re making a taxonomy change and calling it “Illustration.”
Let’s see some before and after shots – stereotypical clip art vs clip art nouveau.
Do you guys feel like you’re changing the face of clip art? Are you bravely doing battle to change the global impression of cheesy stick figures?
B: We’re trying!
N: We’re definitely trying. For example, I feel really good about the fact that we’ve recently built up our collection of “green” art — recycling images, all kinds of professional, rich imagery related to the environment.
B: We have a large international, multicultural audience, so getting more culturally diverse content has been a big priority.
How does it feel to produce the images that people worldwide are using to illustrate their ideas? Does that feel like a big responsibility?
B: It’s fun. You’ll be in Japan, eating at a restaurant, and you’ll see that they’re using one of your clips on their menu!
N: It’s an honor, I am happy to be a part of it.
I know you both have outside creative projects — Natalie, you’re the bassist for a surf rock band, and Beatrice you’re an artist. What of your creative skills do you use on the job?
N: I’ve been a bass player in a Surf band called The Mercury Four for almost ten years. And then I just became involved in a new project, a spy/lounge group called ‘The Band From U.N.C.L.E.’ I definitely apply some of the marketing skills from my music into my career.
B: It’s kind of the opposite for me. I use work skills in my creative work. I’m an artist and I do illustrations. Never professionally — just on weekends. Whenever I prepare for an exhibition, I actually find that I’m program managing it. I plan it and schedule it like a project — you know, the milestones, the resources, the plan, and delivering, and stabilization. It’s really geeky, but it works.
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