Creative Manager Pro Gets All Whatchamacallit Whosiwhatsit Workamajig-y

Comments

Process + Creative Thinking = Shit Creative Thinking.

I have to admit I have a bias here as a member of the Push team, but your logic doesn't flow. Should Google have been called "Amazingly Fast Analytical Search Engine"? Or maybe Apple should have been called, "Fantastically Designed Computer With Simple Operating System". Or maybe Target should be called "Great Discount Store with Style".

Only a part of the brand has been revealed, yet all sorts of judgements are being made. Let it roll out and then judge. FYI, when running an analytics of the launch on AdAge yesterday, they had 3X the click through of the average click through on AdAge.com. We're pretty happy with that.

And by the way, thanks for the exposure. Workamajig is getting its name out there and people are paying attention to it.

Well then it's a win-win for all:-)

Just please don't call it late for dinner.

:^) -- Roger D.

Amen. Workamajig? Smells kind of like CM agreed to trade out services with one of its subscribing agencies only to be pushed to the bottom of a very long list of clients who were actually paying for good strategy. "Workamajig" was all they could come up with 12 hours before the presentation after using all their juice on real clients. Someone had too much coffee and thought this was a good idea.

P.S. to the member of the "Push Team" that responded... I see what you are saying, but please note that the brands you mentioned are just so much smarter. Apple? = the solution to every problem. Remember one a day sends the doctor away? Target? = exactly what you were looking/hoping for all in one place.

Don't compare your laziness to great branding, please.

The new brand id system looks like an AGENCY.COM rip off. Check out the work at Pushhere.com and then go to AGENCY.COM

Further, Workamajig has to market itself by squatting on others search terms. If you type in OfficeZilla into Google you come up two ads ProjectApps.com and Workamajig.com, both are promoting Workamajig.

I figured if this works for Workamajig then it should work for me too. So I put an ad on the search term Workamajig in the spirit of fair play.

So Workamajig gets all worked up and has a lawyer call me. Great Workamajig, advertise two ads on the search term officezilla (had to be from two adwords accounts because you are not allowed to double serve) and then have a lawyer call me and tell me that I can't have an ad on your search term?

Not sure what your smoken Workamajig but email me at gscott@officezilla.com when you have removed your advertisments from the search term officezilla so I can take off my advertisement from the search term Workamajig.

We're Silent Partner and we have been for over 20 years. Thankfully our reputation precedes us and have no need for a name change to divert our potential customers attention . When in doubt, do business with a company that has a solid reputation, great customer service and a product that is second to none. www.esilentpartner.com

Thanks Jason,
Good Point. But when you use SilentPartner in a sentence close the space between Silent and Partner as that is our official trademarked name.

- The Brand Police (LOL)
www.esilentpartner.com

Thank you "Brand Police", that is true we are SilentPartner...and as we all know from the letter received from the Workamajig lawyer(s) (yes, we received one too) a brand name is very important! My question is why are they so worried about protecting workamajig on Google but not their parent name Creative Manager...very interesting

Who are some of workamajig's competitors? Seems like they pretty much own the space from what I can tell...

they don't even remotely own the space, we are one of their biggest competitors. They have been around for about 5 years we have been in business for over 20 as have most of their competition. www.esilentpartner.com

Oh okay. My mistake. I agree the search term thing is annoying. We've been looking for an "all-in-one" solution to project management/timekeeping/DAM/CSV and until recently, haven't had success. I will definitely give esilentpartner a try. We had the workamajig folks give us a demo and the entire creative team seemed thrilled with the feature set. In fact, we've had a hard time convincing folks of anything BUT workamajig lately. Unfortunately, many of the demo's offered by other companies fall flat (Workgroups 2007 in particular seemed unimpressive comparatively speaking). THe workamajig folks were able to address all our issues and seemed to come at the solution from our perspective, which was refreshing. We started here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_project_management_software and found some additional resources that people recommended. Granted, they had asked many questions up front and had a sales representative tailor the presentation to what we were asking, but having that personal attention goes a long way. We'll be looking at a few others, hopefully maintaining an objective eye. Thanks for the info adn we'll definitely give esilentpartner a looksee.

I'm with a company called Function Point and we're a direct competitor. Creative Manager Pro is an awesome solution. The functionality and feature set is very extensive (I was shocked when I heard about the name change). That being said, no creative industry specific solution can come even close to Function Point. Of course I am bias. However, I have spent close to 100 hours exploring demos of systems including CMP and nothing even comes close. I liked SilentPartner better than CMP because it's a lot easier to use(Jason I think we met at a conference in Tucson) but it just doesn't measure up to Function Point.

I can see it now...
"What's that?"
"Oh this? Its Workamajig."
"Whatchamacallit?"
"That's over there. This is Workamajig."
"Well, wheredyagetit?"
"Not here, but whatshisname is. He sold it to me."

My favorite part of Workamajig?

When you type the word "Workamajig" in any of the forms, the software underlines it as a misspelled word.

Would you call that "Brand Unrecognition"?

Our company uses CMP and now unfortunately Workamajig. That old mantra, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," is one that they apparently never heard. Workamajig is actually, if possible, worse than CMP. As a flash based app, it doesn't keep any information as an autofill feature the way CMP did. For example, I work for one client, and in CMP when I would type the first letter of the project name, which is the first letter of the clients name, it would auto fill the rest and I could just change the project number. Now you either have to use their crappy search feature, or type out the clients name for each project you work on during the day.

Wasn't the purpose of this change to make things more effective? This is a worse blunder than New Coke.

As a side note, I wouldn't have as much problem with Workamajig if when i typed in an actual project number into their project number search feature, it actually gave me any returns, instead, I have to type in the entire project name with the number to get anything at all to come up. This was a problem with CMP as well. It is such a joke.

All that, and the fact that when they launched this mockery to project management, it had so many bugs it rendered it virtually useless to a point that the company told us to go back to using CMP until they could fix it. That was months ago, and it still doesn't work right. It leaves me with absolutely no faith in this product. Alas, as we have been using CMP for the last 3 years, we are far to invested to start over with another product.

In the words of SNL Weekend Update Financial Expert, Oscar Rogers: FIX IT!

We work hard to continue making improvements to our ad agency software. The recent overhaul of our software from html to Flash was a huge endeavor, and with over eighteen thousand users, there are bound to be those who are so used to the old way of doing it, that the new way is just a big hassle.

Since most of our clients love the new interface, and most do find it easier than the previous version, we feel we have a winner, albeit not with Devin's consent. The Flash interface is much faster than html, and the technology has the promise of making the interface even faster.

While Devin has every right to feel left behind, we do need to move our software forward, to keep up with the demands of the majority of our clients. We will continue to invest large sums in improving our software, to keep it on the cutting edge.

While it's hard to tell if Devin is a real client, or one of our competitors posting random rants, since we're not in business to alienate ANY client, we invite Devin to communicate his frustrations with our support team.

Devin, you're important to us, just as all of our clients are. We invite you to work with our support team to help you through any and all of your frustrations, whether they are large or small.

I use Workamajig as well and cannot believe the amount of billable hours wasted on explaining bugs and problems to support. Sure, they are all very nice (once you get past their not-so-funny voicemail) but let's be honest... does a project management software really need to be fun and sexy? the boring, non-flash based program worked just fine. One big thing: the program moves MUCH slower now that it's based in flash. Timesheets time out halfway through, lose projects after it takes a long time to find, and take 15+ minutes to complete for one day. Their response? "Our timesheets work fine over here!" .... Lucky them.
I guess the most frustrating part of it all is that the users are treated as some kind of beta test. We send in bugs and are told "eventually" changes will be rolled out. Hours of our data was lost and no one from Workamajig offered to discount our services, help us rework our project history, or walk us through timesheets. The biggest issue is that the system should be easier to use, but the Flash based system actually inhibits its functionality. It grinds to a halt frequently, freezing Firefox and destroying any hope of productivity.
I can assure you I'm a real client and I have talked to Support many times, just wanted to send a word out to any potential customers who are software-savvy: beware!

I use Workamajig as well and cannot believe the amount of billable hours wasted on explaining bugs and problems to support. Sure, they are all very nice (once you get past their not-so-funny voicemail) but let's be honest... does a project management software really need to be fun and sexy? the boring, non-flash based program worked just fine. One big thing: the program moves MUCH slower now that it's based in flash. Timesheets time out halfway through, lose projects after it takes a long time to find, and take 15+ minutes to complete for one day. Their response? "Our timesheets work fine over here!" .... Lucky them.
I guess the most frustrating part of it all is that the users are treated as some kind of beta test. We send in bugs and are told "eventually" changes will be rolled out. Hours of our data was lost and no one from Workamajig offered to discount our services, help us rework our project history, or walk us through timesheets. The biggest issue is that the system should be easier to use, but the Flash based system actually inhibits its functionality. It grinds to a halt frequently, freezing Firefox and destroying any hope of productivity.
I can assure you I'm a real client and I have talked to Support many times, just wanted to send a word out to any potential customers who are software-savvy: beware!

I was part of a team that researched a project management solution for our 20 member creative office 4 years ago. At the time, CMP was definitely the most sophisticated and capable solution. Their customer service was responsive and "real" instead of some schmoozie salespersons. I was a self-proclaimed evangelist for CMP whenever anyone would listen. However, fast-forward to this summer and I must admit that I did NOT like the user interface of the new Flash-based Workamajig. Moreover, I had the same initial thoughts of why in the heck did they call it "Workamajig"? Anyway, my biggest concern with Workamajig is the black & white icons are much harder to decipher than the previous colorful icons. And the interface is simply hard on the eyes. As I start with a new company (soon I hope!), instead of going immediately with CMP, I'll actually feel compelled to research other competitors as well. Great company though.

There are lots of great alternatives. One such alternative is Intervals, a web-based project management tool created by a web design agency for other creatives services firms.

We just implemented Rebus as our new project management system. Our London office uses it, (oddly called Paprika over there) and we love it. While the implementation wasn't painless, they have been really hands on and supportive. I have nothing but good things to say about the software and the team that worked with us.

The lawyers have zero interest in preserving the trademark. This is a legal tactic to oppress competition. My guess is they are hurting from the rebrand and the onslaught of better web-based alternatives.

Workamajig is actually a perfect name for this convoluted "solution". If they wanted to convey a piece of software that makes you go "WTF" nearly every time you log on, then the name nails it. We've been using the software for over 2 years and are still amazed at how counterintuitive and difficult to integrate it is. Seriously searching for a better alternative now. All the branding in the world can't help this bloated, slow and expensive software.