Done is Better than Perfect with Chatbooks by Zoe Richmond
New Year’s Resolution #137 – Finish kid’s scrapbook. I started “scraping” back in early 2000s when I moved to Central Illinois and realized one had to find indoor activities to stay sane during the winter months. It was a way to showcase my creativity, hoping some day to share my current life with my future children.
Then the children came. I had very good intentions of making each of my boys a beautiful scrapbook but found that I had to focus on keeping them alive. Activities like cooking became a priority. Scrapbooking fell to negative 5 on the importance scale.
Every year, I have a goal to finish those scrapbooks. Every year, I fall further behind.
My friends have suggested digital scrapbooking. I tried using these electronic-make-your-own-scrapbook services and quickly became frustrated. The systems were not user-friendly and would often crash, leaving me with 30 minutes of wasted time and nothing to show for. Not to mention, I had just spent 8 hours in the office looking at a screen, the last thing I wanted to do with my limited free time was slave away over a hot PC.
Enter Chatbooks, which promises to give me the tactical function of a physical book without the glue sticks or the need for an advanced degree in design.
Hard Copy Vs. Digital
Each of my kids got an Instagram account as soon as they where born. I figured it could be a digital scrapbook. But was I missing something by not having a physical book?
“Definitely,” said Rachel Hofstetter, Chief Marketing Officer for Chatbooks and an avid scrapbooker herself. She told me the story of the founder, Vanessa Quigley, a mother of 7 kids, to poignantly illustrate physical scrapbooks still bring value. Quigley made grandiose scrapbooks for her first two children. But by her last child pictures were being taking on phones.
“One day she found her four-year-old holding a little scrapbook his teacher had made for him. ‘I don’t want to grow up,’ he was saying emotionally,” Hofstetter said. “What was giving him these feelings was a photo book. Vanessa felt guilty that she had not printed a single photo of her son. But she also had to be realistic about her life.”
Quigley did not have the flexibility to start a time-intensive scrapbook, but she was already uploading photos to Instagram. The idea was born – taking her Instagram photos and automatically turning them into a book.
Downloading the Chatbooks app links to your Instagram, Facebook or your photo roll. When you hit 60 photos a book is produced, preformatted and organized. Chatbooks sends you an email 3 days before the book ships in case you want to make any edits. Two weeks later your 6 x 6 book arrives at your door.
“Half of our customers choose not to edit and they get their books automatically,” Hofstetter said. That says a lot about the team of designers on the back end.
“We have a great design team who made the perfect template,” she said. “You can add dates, locations and include captions. You can delete photos or edit them.”
Hofstetter personally invests less than 5 minutes once a month on her Chatbooks.
What you can’t do on Chatbooks is add an image of a pink butterfly. For those anxious about losing control of lay-outs or ability to modify, there are still ways to individualize your Chatbook.
Chatbooks does special collaborations from time to time. Most recently with Rifle Paper Co., which is the digital version of picking out a new, limited edition paper. Hofstetter also told me of a customer she knows who handwrites all their captions.
“It adds a lovely element to their book,” she said.
Then I am reminded I can always add the butterfly sticker once I get the book.
Hofstetter also likes to tout the price point. Each book is only $8, compared to other services that can range from $25 to $50.
“At $8 a book, you can love them to death,” she said. “Kids can take them to bed with them. If they get destroyed, you can always order another one.”
Scrapbooks for Real Moms
If you haven’t seen Chatbook’s ad yet, I highly recommended. It seems like a short film based on my life.
“Real Moms are busy. They need to decide where they want to streamline their lives, even when it comes to scrapbooking,” Hofstetter said. “Life gets busy and people feel guilty about not scrapbooking for their kids.”
Here is where we all need to take a lesson from the mission of Chatbooks: Done is better than perfect.
Chatbooks doesn’t see themselves putting scrapbooking stores out of business. They are supplementing what scrapbookers already do or would like to do.
“It’s about different things for different people at different times in life. Where do you put your creative energy,” Hofstetter said.
A beautifully embellished scrapbook is like a seven course meal. But if it’s 4 p.m. and the kids are hungry, you go with macaroni and cheese. Because it’s done it’s better than perfect.
Support your local: digital age version
Besides their humorous ads, the other standout feature about Chatbooks is family friendliness. Their team has grown to more than 80 employees, and being family focused is important for those who work in their main office and other sales and support staff working remotely.
“We are not just family-friendly, we are life-friendly,” said Hofstetter. “People are grown ups, we expect them to live their life. If you have to leave at 2 p.m. for a ballet recital, we know you’ll probably be back online later.”
Chatbooks’ quick success shows that family/life-friendly policies also make good business sense to attract, retain and motivate employees. High morale is a good business strategy.
“It’s not that we don’t work hard,” she said. “We just provide flexibility.”
If you are committed to seeing family-friendly policies succeed, it starts by supporting companies that have them in place. It’s the digital version of supporting your local.
There may be some magical moment in the future where I have 24 uninterrupted hours to indulge in scrapbooking. In the meantime, I just want a way to remember the fun times my family has shared. Chatbooks can help me do that. And it will be perfect, because it will be done.
