As students, patients and customers, we all benefit from teachers, physicians, and IT professionals taking part in communities where they gain extra knowledge.
In the new and growing industry of Professional Photo Organization, an association exists to help photo organizers like us grow our skills and knowledge as well as our businesses.
Through the networking and growing membership of the Association of Personal Photo Organizers (APPO), more people are receiving value when professionals help them organize their photos.
Read on to see the ways Picture This Organized’s membership in APPO serves our clients well.
1. Our Clients Benefit from APPO’s Community of Abundance
When Cathi Nelson incorporated APPO in 2009, her own photo organizing business was growing. Other photo organizers learning the craft sought her advice.
Cathi came up with the idea of forming a community of professionals who were helping others organize their photos. This group meets an educational need helping organizers to become better at what they do, as well as support the industry and help it grow.
APPO believes in an “Abundance Mentality.” With sheer numbers, and without reinventing the wheel, APPO members collaborate with each other to better serve their clients.
Our diverse membership includes a blend of:
- Part-time solo business owners.
- Full-time professionals with multi-staff enterprises.
- Experts in the technology arenas like Adobe and Apple.
- Professional photographers, residential organizers, genealogists, archivists and marketers.
APPO members enjoy a spirit of cooperation over competition. For example, a photo organizer may have a client with a specialized project request he or she doesn’t have the expertise to handle. So that organizer will hire another APPO colleague to step in and help.
Julie became an APPO member in May of 2012 and an APPO Certified Photo Organizer in June of 2012. Since then, Julie’s role in APPO has expanded beyond membership. She makes her talents and knowledge available to APPO by speaking at conferences, guest blogging on APPO’s website, and has served in an advisory role within APPO.
2. Our Clients Benefit from Our Attendance at APPO’s Annual Conference
APPO’s annual conference focuses on education and networking. Members receive updates and training on industry trends and change.
In the process, we learn how these changes directly impact our clients and how we can improve our work on client projects.
Julie attends every year, and in addition to the general sessions, she chooses to take every intensive training course APPO offers, selecting topics about the latest software tools and trends that will help her clients.
Then she brings back knowledge to her Picture This Organized team and they can all perfect their skills together.
For example, one of APPO’s Apple expert members provided training on the Apple Photos system. Our entire team had access to the training modules, saving us from researching and purchasing different training materials elsewhere, or creating our own.
Last year, Julie joined the first APPO Master Class, a group of seasoned organizers. APPO added a second Master Class this year. These groups meets for a few days before each annual conference for additional training. They support each other throughout the year and share new ways to better serve their clients.
3. Our Clients Benefit from APPO’s Access to Cutting Edge Technology and Vendors
Another benefit of our APPO membership is our access to vendors that sell the products we use.
At our annual conference, we get to see and touch the products like archival photo storage boxes, photo albums, and wall gallery displays. We talk to the vendor representatives to learn about technology improvements in scanners, cameras, and digital photo frames.
Occasionally, a company will ask APPO members to test their products under revision and help them make improvements.
This year we learned that Epson asked APPO photo organizers to recommend improvements to scanning equipment. As a result, Epson introduced batch scanner improvements based on the APPO member test group suggested changes.
Picture This Organized clients will benefit from our staff using these new scanners in the future. They will streamline our photo scanning and make them more efficient, saving our clients time and money.
Our Clients Reap the Rewards of Picture This Organized’s APPO Membership
Since 2012, our association with APPO has helped grow and develop Picture This Organized into the business it is today.
From efficient organization to luxury heirloom albums, we believe our collaboration with other organizers, and the training we’ve received helps us give our clients a higher level of service.
Read this previous post to find out more about what a photo organizer does and how APPO serves that role.