Coordinate logistics for productions or events
Little of this can be handed to software today.
The reporting and paperwork around management automate well. Directing, developing and evaluating people does not, and people do not accept it when it is attempted on them.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Managing, training and developing people |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Enterprise platforms |
| O*NET activity | Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates (4.A.4.b.4) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Collaborate with engineers, mechanics, and other technical experts as necessary to build and install creations.
- Participate in design and production of multimedia campaigns, handling budgeting and scheduling, and assisting with such responsibilities as production coordination, background design, and progress tracking.
- Plan for location-specific issues, such as space limitations, traffic flow patterns, and safety concerns.
- Resolve personnel problems that arise during the production process by acting as liaisons between dissenting parties when necessary.
- Act as a liaison between talent and directors, providing information that performers or guests need to prepare for appearances and communicating relevant information from guests, performers, or staff to directors.
- Serve as liaisons between directors, actors, and agents.
- Act as liaisons between engineering and production departments.
- Coordinate travel arrangements and travel with team to away contests.
- Coordinate and organize tours, or hire touring companies to arrange concert dates, venues, accommodations, and transportation for longer tours.
- Collaborate with a manager or agent who handles administrative details, finds work, and negotiates contracts.
- Locate guests to appear on talk or interview shows.
- Arrange interviews with people who can provide information about a story.
- Arrange public appearances, lectures, contests, or exhibits for clients to increase product or service awareness or to promote goodwill.
- Arrange for typing, duplication, and distribution of material.
- Reserve audio-visual equipment and facilities, such as meeting rooms.
- Perform administrative duties, such as preparing operational reports, distributing rehearsal call sheets and script copies, and arranging for rehearsal quarters.
- Contact agents and actors to provide notification of audition and performance opportunities and to set up audition times.
- Schedule use of studio and editing facilities for producers and engineering and maintenance staff.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Buy nothing. The reporting and paperwork around management run on whatever you already use for documents, and the part that is actually managing people does not automate at any price.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Enterprise platforms
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Audio and Video Technicians
- Broadcast Announcers and Radio Disc Jockeys
- Coaches and Scouts
- Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
- Media Programming Directors
- Media Technical Directors/Managers
- Music Directors and Composers
- Musicians and Singers
- News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists
- Producers and Directors
- Public Relations Specialists
- Set and Exhibit Designers
- Special Effects Artists and Animators
- Talent Directors
- Technical Writers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.