Today we’d like to introduce you to Tim Roberts.
Tim, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Our company, Wieck, launched in 1991 with the New York Times News Service as our first client. The four founders were all veteran wire service journalists. We provided a variety of content distribution services before the Internet changed everything. We pivoted to include web distribution and began developing digital newsrooms for clients in the late 1990s as companies became aware that all types of media files could be digitized and distributed via the Internet. Today, we are leading the charge to create digital newsrooms that are true digital content hubs.
These are multimedia digital destinations where brands can publish not only the expected corporate announcements, product and service launches, bios and background, to the media, internal stakeholders, and a curious public or fan base, but innovative stories and features keyed to the past, the future and current events. We have done this for clients in such widely diverse fields as airlines and airports, education, energy, entertainment, golf resorts, government, healthcare, food, insurance, motorsports, public relations, and tourism. Our software platform and human intelligence expertise have been measurable in terms of driving traffic and building awareness for brands. For example, one US manufacturer we work with now attracts over 150,000 visitors per month to their newsroom compared with just over 10,000 visitors per month before we took over.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Not surprisingly, the road has been a bit bumpy, but not overly so. As a startup in the early nineties, we were very lean and continued plowing our revenues back into the company to grow and develop. By the late nineties, when the web began to show promise as the new way of doing things, we grew a little faster, pivoted, added services, and staff. We have reinvented ourselves a few times over the years while staying true to our roots as journalists. Everything we do has some element of journalism embedded in it. We have had typical small business struggles in cycles…bootstrapped, lean operation, sales challenges, market challenges, and finding talent. We have always tried to do the right thing by our employees and our clients. That is the reason the New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation is still a client 29 years later and why we have survived the dotcom bust, 9/11, the great recession, and now the COVID-19 pandemic.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Wieck story. Tell us more about the business.
Having pioneered the online newsroom, Wieck has been managing and distributing content for decades. Admired for its speed and agility, our editorial desk team is trusted to publish and deliver vital content on behalf of leading global corporations, including Nissan Motor Company, Southwest Airlines, and Mercedes-Benz USA. We design content management systems, purpose-built corporate digital newsrooms, and content hubs for the digital age. Our specialty is blending our software platform with human intelligence so that our clients get the tech-powered speed and efficiency with a human-centric user experience.
Ever since we earned our very first client, the New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation, back in May of 1991, we have existed to help the world’s best news organizations and public relations, marketing, and communications teams tell, share, and monitor their stories. Companies come to us when they need guidance on how to manage their digital newsrooms to earn the best possible results. From creating the best storytelling environment to technical how-tos and troubleshooting, our team can advise on best practices as well as the latest trends and developments in digital newsrooms. Our team has an extensive background in the news business as well as technical research and development, and we maintain a continuing association with news and information groups, public relations organizations and societies, and various tech groups.
We always have tried to do the right thing by our employees and our clients. On 9/11/2001, when our country was attacked, we were the only New York Times News Service content distributor who stayed operational. All others suffered catastrophic outages when New York was attacked. We immediately understood the significance of the events unfolding and had our entire staff report in. Our technical staff tweaked The NYT News Service servers, adding resources to all distribution channels. Our team manned hotlines to assist customers of the Times news service – magazines and newspapers from around the world who purchase and re-publish the content. We even relayed photos from The NYT to The Associated Press, located just blocks away Manhattan, because inner-city communications had failed, but interstate communications continued to work. We saved the day for the Times and her clients.
I am proud to say we also consider our clients our friends. We know many of them personally because we have had such long relationships. Those friendships develop while working closely with them to create digital properties to help them do their job better and more efficiently, giving them back time to do actual PR. We were the first to place the downloadable broadcast-quality video on a digital newsroom. Our newsrooms have won national and international awards. I think I am most proud to say that we have a long-tenured staff that enjoys their work and enjoy working here.
What sets you apart from others?
Wieck is different from most digital newsrooms because we provide editorial services for clients who need them—and we have from inception. Most companies have limited resources and skill-sets to properly focus on the non-daily, often sporadic, chores of preparing and loading documents, image, audio, and video files to ensure proper placement, visibility, and data recording. A corporate PR team is not in the business of updating websites, so we take over the hassle of daily management and give the teams time to do their jobs. For all our clients, our editorial team provides backup for those occasional “oops” moments when things go awry. Our editors are top-notch, dedicated to excellence and have well-rounded skill sets in editing and proofing broadcast, graphic, photo, text, and video files.
We also understand that no two companies have the same goals, priorities, and requirements when it comes to their online content needs, so Wieck uses a team approach to first develop an ideal strategy, then a workflow, and finally, an integrated design for the client’s custom digital platform. Since corporate communications often need to move fast, we also have standard, at-the-ready tools for building something quickly when a particular need arises, e.g., multiple-platform live streaming, single-page quick sites, dark sites, digital asset management systems, and social media monitoring systems.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1651 N. Collins Blvd., Suite 100
Richardson, TX 75080 - Website: http://wieck.com
- Phone: (972) 392-0888
- Email: tim@wieck.com
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wieck/about/
Image Credit:
Wieck
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