Archive for Career

Never Too Good to Dig a Hole

// June 9th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Career

Digging a hole

Photo by Steve.Wilson

I once worked with a flash designer who created a site, but refused to develop the ad media that was going to promote that site because it was a “waste of (his) time”. Another former colleague didn’t want to do anything junior because she had “already worked there a year”. Their point-of-view was that once you are regularly doing certain tasks in your job, doing more junior tasks should be assigned to more junior people.

I tend approach work with a different philosophy.

If you have a certain skill and that skill is needed, using it (even if it’s not part of your regular duties) shows that you’re willing to help out in a crunch and that you have a range of valuable skills. Refusing to help when you can could have the opposite effect.

Take a company like FreshBooks who believe that customer service is core to their philosophy. As such, everyone works on basic tech support, even the principles of the company. A company’s mandate can turn a “junior” task into one so important that everyone needs to participate in it.

There’s nothing wrong about a renowned graphic artist laying out a business card. There’s nothing wrong about an Executive Producer responding directly to a question about his TV show on Facebook (true story). And there’s nothing wrong when a landscape architect gets her hands dirty digging a hole in the dirt to lay the foundation of a new project.

In fact, I’d say there’s everything right about keeping your most basic skills polished and helping where help is needed.

What’s an Interactive Producer?

// June 1st, 2008 // 6 Comments » // Career

many hats
Many different hats. Photo by Franco Folini

“What’s an Interactive Producer?” I’ve gotten this question a few times when I tell people my job title. To answer it in 5 seconds-or-less, I compare it to other types of producer jobs often explaining that, in the same way a Television Producer is ultimately responsible for a show, an Interactive Producer is often the person in charge of web sites or mobile projects.

It’s primarily a content-focused job, but depending on the company you work within, you may be producing very different types of content (writing, audio, games, video, etc.). For example, in the past week I have fulfilled the role as…

  • blogger
  • photographer
  • video producer
  • director
  • editor
  • script writer
  • marketer
  • designer
  • front-end developer
  • community engagement
  • strategist
  • new business developer

Yes, just this past week — and these aren’t the only tasks I’m called upon to do.

Every Interactive Producer I know has a different background and each of these backgrounds is a strength. As you can see from my list of tasks this week, we’re called upon to do a lot of different things. Lines blur between roles and as such a developer could be just as good of a producer as a writer or photographer.

I recently found myself explaining my job to someone who really wanted to break out of communications and into the interactive industry. She was worried her skills wouldn’t translate. Fortunately, due to the communicative nature of our industry, her skills will be quite valuable. My advice to her and to anyone who wants to work in the new media industry is to simply learn as much as you can about lots of different interactive pieces. You never know what you’ll be called upon to do, so every skill is a strength.

The jobs page on this site should be up & running shortly. I’ll be focusing on posting jobs that relate to the new media industry and offer some tips about working within it both as staff and entrepreneur.