Here’s some brief info about my employment history.
Summary
I’ve got eight years experience in using the web to reach and engage mass audiences.
I currently work for the BBC as a ‘Superuser’ – it’s a mixture of digital content manager, web strategist and interactive producer.
I’ve also been employed as a web magazine editor, multi-media journalist and writer / cartoonist.
I like making & creating; plans and theory, teams, successful websites, great ‘user experiences’, web communities and lots more.
See also: My profile at LinkedIn
Work – résumé
Superuser
BBC Vision
April 2010 - current
Employed by the BBC as a ‘superuser’ – giving advice to BBC London Factual about using the web to communicate effectively… looking after web projects etc. The job’s a mixture of digital content management, creation of web strategy and interactive producing.
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BBC The One Show homepage
Interactive producer (web manager role)
The One Show
2008 – 2010
A two year project, directly managing BBC The One Show’s interactive / web team in London. Our job was to strengthen the relationship between this ‘flagship’ factual brand and its huge audience, to extend the conversation etc.
We re-launched and then doubled the popularity of the show’s website in the first year.
The site was updated five days a week and was content rich – which meant the commissioning, creation and management of blogs, features, video (often featuring well know celebs), games etc etc.
I learnt a lot working for The One Show. It gave me access to an audience of around five million people per night, five nights a week for two years.
This allowed me to try out web theory and strategy on a mass mainstream audience, and then tweak, improve, retry and repeat.
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2010. Started giving web / media strategy advice to charities through the Media Trust.
Started to write a book about web strategy.
2007. Still creating multi-media content for the BBC and managing web presences.
BBC Crufts website gets officially linked to BBC2 and becomes very popular.
2006. Still creating multi-media content for the BBC and managing web presences.
Also: Relaunched the BBC Crufts website in a CMS. Dogs are popular.
2005. Back to BBC Birmingham – created more multi-media factual / topical content,
managed the region’s web presence as part of a small team. Worked closely with
radio and TV.
Started to make films, often with BBC Video Nation. One of the favourite short
films I made was with Marvin.
Began to talk regularly on BBC local radio – usually about geeky stuff.
2004. Left BBC Birmingham, BBC Black Country and BBC WM and went on attachment
to BBC South Yorkshire. As a ‘broadcast journalist’ I got to create more multi-media content,
took the lead on campaigns, and helped to relaunch the BBC South Yorkshire and
BBC Radio Sheffield websites in a CMS.
Then to BBC Suffolk. I’ve got to mention BBC Suffolk – because during my time there, I led a small team
and was given the chance to try out a few web ideas. We managed to triple the number of visitors
to the BBC web magazine for the region. Suffolk is a lovely place.
2002. The BBC employed me as part of the small team that set up the BBC news magazine for
the Black Country in the UK. Then we filled it with multi-media news / topical content,
created a web community etc.
Around this time, Robin Hamman taught me about engaging successfully with people online, which was useful.
Also created content for BBC Birmingham and BBC WM. We were based at Pebble Mill.
2001. Think it was around now that the Cartoonstock agency started selling my words and drawings.
1999. Set up the first version of Extrageographic – my ‘web mag lab’ in 1999. It’s still going -
which must make one of the UK’s longest running web magazines, even if I only do
update it every six months.
1992. Went online, I think. May have been earlier. I didn’t make a note.
1990. Read about William Gibson’s vision of the connected future.
1984. Tried to do creative stuff with computers since the early 1980′s.
Paper magazines full of code. BBC Basic, Oric Atmos, Vic 20, RM Nimbus etc etc. I was there.
