New Assignment

10 Apr 2012

So i have been with APN Education Media in Sydney since beginning of February.

It has been an invaluable experience coming in the middle of a lot of change for this organisation and being asked to take charge and bring some stability to the front.

And while I was still finding my feet in a new work place, there has been a lot of issues which needed to be resolved.

Two months later as I get ready to move back to Auckland, I can proudly say that the organisation is a lot more settled than it has been in the last few months. However the job is far from complete and unfortunately, i wont be here to see it through. Nevertheless, I do believe that things will only get better with time.

On a lighter note, the Easter weekend in Sydney was brilliant and I kicked it off with Salsa dancing on the thursday night. This was followed by an epic BBQ on friday, some R&R on Saturday and then another BBQ on sunday, followed by some more much required R&R on monday. Where did the weekend disappear!

Monkey-ing around

 

Good bye but not yet....

 10 Feb 2012

I am nearly at the end of this Fast Track program. Cannot really believe that it has been almost 24 months since we started this journey.

Where does that leave me? I have had a good opportunity to go through and examine the last two years and can gladly say that I do not regret applying for and accepting this position.

I have had the good fortune of meeting with some amazing and some not so amazing people but each interaction, each project has taught me a lot.

Don’t worry this is not my good bye post but just a precursor to that.

The time is near….

Group Catch up

24 January 2012

Just came back from a week in Sydney catching up with the Fast Track family. We went through a presentation by each person which gave us an insight about what they had been working on. It was also a good opportunity to gain some feedback about my own presentation.

Sid took a workshop on finance topics and it was easily one of the best i have ever been a part of. Good job Sid!

The whole week flew by really fast and before we knew it, we were heading home. Thank you Tracy for organising the whole thing.

One and done

7 November 2011

I was in Sydney over the last week finalsing the ending of my project with BDO and Robert Skeffington. It has been a truly learning opportunity and I thanked Robert for all the help and support her had given me over the last few months.

Unbeknown to me, it was also the time of the Melbourne Cup and it was great to see how the city comes to a standstill over a horse race. We had a few tables at the local pub booked out for the event and from around 1pm everyone ended up watching the pub. There were quite a few keen punters wondering if Americain (the favourite) could make it two in a row. While Americain didnt end up winning, one of the people from work did put in $10 for a trifecta and ended up getting a whopping $7995 for it! A very happy Melbourne Cup to him!!

It was an enjoyable afternoon and it was a great way to complete my project in Sydney.

With the APN crew watching the races, Sydney 2011

I will now be focussed solely on the APN Online part of the project and keep working on that till my leave at the end of November.

Juggling act continues

26 October 2011

The juggling of two projects continues as we head to the end of the year. The work for the BDO team under Robert Skeffington marches on and I am making contributions as best as i can, helping the team.

The other project for Online has taken an interesting turn where i have been challenged to come up with a new solution (the previous solution wasn't acceptable to the CEO) to solve the problem without throwing any more money at it. I have thought of a few ways and will be interesting to work that through.

I am also going on leave at the end of November so i am looking forward to having that time off.

The rugby world cup just finished here in NZ and we are the proud champions. I was fortunate to share this tournament with my dad and we ended up going to all the All Black games, then watched them beat the Argentinians in the Quarter finals, the Aussies in the Semi and then the French in the final.
An amazing opportunity to be a part of history!!

Well done All Blacks!! So proud!

Been a while

5 October 2011

It has been a while since i last penned er typed my thoughts on here.
Two main reasons for that really: Workload and laziness.

I have been working on two projects for the last few months. Spending my time between the Business Development Office in Sydney (reporting into Robert Skeffington) and the other half, working in APN Online (reporting into Spencer Bailey)

These two projects are quite different from each other and i am not at liberty to discuss in detail about either of them so no more info on that front.
Safe to say that they are both very challenging in their own rights and deadline driven which is proving to be a handful.

On the social front, New Zealand is going crazy with the Rugby World Cup and it really is very festive here. The crunch time is upon us with the quarterfiinals slated for this weekend.

Dan Carter is now out of the tournament with a groin injury and the whole nation has suddenly been brought back down to earth to consider the unthinkable, "what if we DONT win the cup?"

I must banish these thoughts as quickly as i have had them!

Best of luck to all the other nations still in the running, may the best team win! *coughAllBlackscough*

What is this Corporate Strategy all about?

24 August 2011

So I have now started work with Robert Skeffington and it has been quite challenging. I feel that i'm being asked to look at facts and issues in a whole new light.
Robert has a favourite "SO WHAT?" rule which is a really good gauge of whether a fact or an issue is relevant or not. This one rule alone has really made me reconsider a lot of facts and its usefulness for our business.

As part of this corporate strategy piece, also in the team are Brooke Krumbeck and Tash Meinertzhagen who are both Sydney based. I am learning how to work efficiently in a virtual team environment with me being the only one based in Auckland and so it is not without its challenges. We start the day with a quick email outlining what we are working on for the day. Then I log into skype and keep in touch with Brooke through IM and depending on what's going on, Robert usually checks in with a Video call.

The issues I am dealing with are both macro and micro (to a certain extent) and my understanding of the business so far does hold me in good stead as there are a lot of insights that can be gained when one has working knowledge of the department or good relationships with key people in those areas.

On a seperate topic, the new fast track group has also started after their week long induction with Danielle and Gabe posted to NZ Magazines and NZ Herald respectively. Sid too has just started his new project with NZ Media and is also in the building. We're taking over this place...!!

ps. the Rugby World Cup is now just a little over a fortnight away and i can't wait. Go the ALL BLACKS!

Overlap - comes with the territory

27 July 2011

Apologies for not penning er typing my thoughts down earlier but the last fortnight has been quite manic.

While my project for Jeremy (APN Online NZ) continues, I have also been in talks with Robert Skeffington (APN Director of Strategy) and David McGrath (APN Director of Content) about my next project.

I am in an enviable position where there are a lot of opportunities available to get involved in different projects and after much discussion it was decided that I would try and juggle my responsibilites with Robert's Corporate Strategy team  while I'm wrapping things up at Online.

I am very excited about being a part of this team as it will give me an insight of how Corporate Strategy is created in a methodical fashion rather than the usual gut feel that appears in most businesses.

I have also decided to continue my Master's study by picking up a paper for the semester. This means that I cannot be based in Sydney for the duration of this semester of study.

On the other front, the new fast track group start their induction from Aug 1 before they move into different areas of the business.

Last week I got a chance to watch my very first Ice Hockey game live when Canada took on the USA in an exhibtion match at Auckland's Vector Arena. It was an exciting night with a sold out of crowd of over 10,000; 90% of which were Canadian supporters (yours truly included)

Canada went on the offence early, taking a 2-0 lead before the americans hit back hard and looked in charge at 3-2. Canadians scored in the dying moments of full time and the game had to be decided on sudden death which saw Canada win it!

Dad and I supporting Canada at the sold out Vector Arena, Auckland

New Team announced

11 July 2011

The new batch of recruits to the Fast Track program have all been made offers and they have now all accepted. So congratulations to :

- Gabe Atkinson (NZ)
- Danielle Dunn (NZ)
- James Fogelberg (NZ)
- Andrew Cohen (Aus)
- Georgia Knox (Aus)
- Ian Lenehan (Aus-Internal)
- Joe Cook (Aus -Internal)

They will all be in Sydney on 1st August, ready to go! Cant wait to meet up and congratulate them in person.

Well done to all of you.

Assessment... check. Review....check.

27 June 2011

The last fortnight saw the Auckland assessment centre come together. Having been part of two previous assessment centres in Sydney the week before, i thought that this one would now be pretty simple but it wasn't.

It was a long day for the participants who dug deep and gave it their best shot and for the examiners as well as every one had to follow a very tight time schedule to ensure that things would go according to plan. The day started at around 7.30 and finished around 7pm where we got a chance to head over and have dinner with Tracy Martin, Andree McSweeney, Siddharth Rallapalli.

It was a good way to end the night and while Sid and my involvement with the Fast Track Group intake for 2011 ended here, Tracy and Andree have a lot more work having to go through the assessments and picking the candidates to make the offer to in the near future. For those who made the cut, Congratulations and I hope you accept the offer.

While that assessment was going on, my own assessment for Jeremy was on its way to be completed too. I got all the final pieces of the puzzle together and managed to put it all down on paper too. Fiona Bunn (HR Administrator) was very kind enough to bind it all for me in a neat little book. I say little, but the pagecount ended at 70!

As part of the next steps in my involvement with APN Online, Jeremy has teed up a phone conference with David McGrath (Head of Content) and Kate Bedoe (Product Director) later on today to see how we can maximise my involvement and feed into the bigger projects that they are currently involved in.

Very excited. Can't wait!

Back in Action

14 June 2011

I'm back after spending last week in Australia.

My first stop was in Brisbane where I got an opportunity to spend time with the Australian Regional Media Online team particularly with Heidi Costello (Online Day Editor) and Steve Zeppa (Group News Editor) and got a really good insight on how they operate and the way that content is loaded for the 27 websites that fall under their department.

I also got a chance to talk to Belinda Reilly (Managing Editor - APN Online Aus) and share some insights on the project that I am working on at the moment with regards to content loading and management. We also agreed to share information and I look forward to completing my report and send her a copy (with Jeremy's permission, of course!)

From there, I moved on to Sydney where I had booked a few meetings with people to introduce myself and get to know them a little bit better.
First on my agenda was David McGrath (Head of Content). I had done some work for David and we had exchanged emails and a few phone calls so i took this opportunity of meeting with him in person. It was a great meeting and hopefully, i will get a chance to work on a project with him in the near future.
Then I also got a chance to meet with Katrina Stone (in charge of Corporate affairs). We had a pretty candid chat about my experience thus far and shared my thoughts on what a person on the coal face probably thinks but doesn't have the avenue to tell the decision makers. She is a wonderful person and was very encouraging in the interaction. She has asked me to elaborate on some ideas and I will get back to her on those.

With these meetings done, it was time to get ready for the assessment centres for the Fast Track recruitment program.

There were 2 assessments in total in Sydney and included both internal and external candidates. They were all from a wide variety of backgrounds from practising lawyers to teachers to sub editors and ranging from Brisbane to Perth to Tasmania!

It was a very enjoyable experience albeit a difficult one as there was a lot of things that needed to be done precisely and each of us had to play a part in it.

In two days time, the third and final one will be held in Auckland and should give Rob and Tracey with enough firepower to get Fast Track 2 underway for this year.

To all the assessment centre participants thus far, best of luck. The hard part is now done.. time to sit back and wait for the results.

As I write this up, the country is reeling from another aftershcock in the Cantebury region and this was measured at 6 on the richter scale. More damages have followed and some people are looking at rebuilding their houses and property for the third time! Keep the faith Christchurch. Our thoughts and prayers go out to you.

Assessment draws near...

30 May 2011

This is true on two counts. Firstly, one of my project deliverables was to provide an assessement of the current state of APN Online's content loading procedure. This was to encompass all masteheads that fell under the APN Online banner including, nz herald, nz magazines and nz regional media websites.

As part of this, i have been spending a lot of time talking to the people who are involved in the states of both content creation and loading and gettting an understanding from them about what is working and what isnt.

While all this has been going on, the Fast Track recruitment has been going on as well.

So, I will be heading into Australia next week to tee up with the Australian Regional Group News Editor and if possible, drop over to Brisbane to see how they do things there before I head over to Sydney to prepare for the Fast Track Assessment centres which are scheduled for the week of the 6th (june).

To all participants, who have made it thus far... Congratulations and best of luck. The assessment centre will be one hell of a day..it will challenge you, it will push you and by the end of it you will be physically and mentally drained. It wont be easy.. but hey, if it was, it wouldn't be worth it :)

It's elementary my dear.....

19 May 2011

My investigation has continued on for this week as well where I have now had a chance to sit down with key people involved in the loading of the content as well as key people in the creation of content.

One of the people I got a chance to sit down with was Shayne Currie (Deputy Editor of the NZ Herald) and pick his brains on how stories are created and why certain stories make it and others dont; which stories are front page news and which aren't; and also what the relationship between nzherald.co.nz and the NZ Herald print product is.

It was very heartening to find out that ALL reporters are expected to file their report with online to make sure we capture the breaking news as quickly as we can.

I was also invited to the afternoon news brief where the chief reporters meet with Shayne along with a representative from Online (Nik Dirga -NZ Herald Production Editor) and Newspaper Sales & Marketing and they go through the stories that are being worked on to prepare for the next day's newspaper including what should make the front page and headline. A very interesting meeting where I felt like I was from the future since I knew what the front page of the paper would look like next day. A bit far fetched i know but it was fun!

So the reason why I am doing all this is to be able to deliver certain things to Jeremy Rees as part of the project.

The Project deliverables include:



• An assessment of the current systems and processes; including step by step guide on how to load content in each area (herald, regionals and magazines)


• Noted strengths and weaknesses of the above


• Recommendations for ‘quick wins’ that come out of the assessment


The NZ Budget is being announced today and it is going to be streamed from a box set up on my desk so I am currently operating out of half a desk and right in the middle of it. Exciting times, if you're into the budget or wondering about how live streaming works!!

Online and ready to go

11 May 2011

My project revolves around reviewing current content management tools and processes and providing a fresh perspective on what is being done well and what could be done better.

So, before I can give any recommendations, I need to understand what the system currently is and how it works. And for this reason, i have spent all of this week, meeting with people who are part of the Online content management team in Auckland.  These individuals are part of different teams where they are responsible for what goes up on the websites for the different mastheads for APN NZ (namely, nzherald.co.nz, all regional websites, NZ women's weekly and NZ listener).

It was a good learning process where i got the chance to sit down with both the online editors to see what they do on a day to day basis as well understand why a certain story which shows up on the front page is there. You would be surprised at the thought that goes into this instead of updating stories as they flow in.

The remainder of this week will also be quite similar where i will continue this journey to firstly understand why things are being done the way they are and then, how exactly do the people who do this, do it?

If that hasn't confused you enough, please feel free to come back in about a week's time where I should have some more clarity!

On a separate note, the Fast Track positions are now shut for 2011 intake and the recruiting company is now vetting these applications as they go through a series of steps before they are shortlisted down to the final assessment centre in June.

Best of luck to everyone who applied.

Sid is also now in Auckland and has started work with The Radio Network and will be here for the next three months. I look forward to showing him around my city and a healthy dose of kiwi hospitality :)

A new desk and a new audience.

5 May 2011
Before I give you all an update on my new project, I would like to touch briefly on my experience yesterday with The Radio Network where I go an opportunity to present to a group of people who were interested in the Fast Track Program. I gave a presentation that was structured by Sid Rallapalli and then added to by Tracy Martin. I modified the content to suit my style of presentation and then invited discussion from the group on what they could expect from the program while trying to be as clear as I could about their queries.
This went on for about an hour and 15 mins and the feedback that I got was that everyone in that room felt quite comfortable with the next steps in the process and what to expect from the program itself.

Mission Accomplished!


And now on to my new project. Something that I have now become very familiar with is introducing myself to people. For the next 3 – 6 months I will be based at APN Online (NZ) and working with Jeremy Rees on some content management recommendations. I cant disclose much more as I still need to get to the nitty-gritty of it myself.


The deadline for applying for the fast track intake is fast approaching for internal candidates. I am looking forward to seeing who makes it to the assessment centres in Auckland and Sydney!

One more over...

29 April 2011

Wrapped up the ARN  Project on the 21st of April and headed back to Auckland the morning after. The plan was to give my parents a surprise as they had no idea I was coming over. Worked out wonderfully in the end and was a good way to come back home.

There is still work to be done in ARN as my project wasnt completed but with the limitations that I had with time etc, we got it to the best shape that we could and I am quite confident that Chris (who will start his new role with ARN from monday 2nd May) will have no issues in completing this quickly after the meeting we had as part of the handover process.

So the question is what's next in line for me as part of this program.


The plan is to go see Jeremy Rees at APN Online and get myself a project in that area. More on that in the coming days.

There is also recruitment ongoing for the new batch of Fast Track peeps happening as we speak so definitely looking forward to seeing who will join us for 2011.

10 working days left

7 April 2011

The countdown has begun with 10 working days left before I sign off from ARN in Sydney.

There are still a lot of things on my to-do list that needs to be completed before I can sign off though.

The marketing project is still ongoing and while i refer to it as the 'marketing project', it is in essence 4 different projects in one.

The main components are:

1. Stationery - Going through and changing everything that has an ARN or a MIX FM logo on it. Went through an entire network audit and it came back with 284 items that had logos on it!
There were 13 different kinds of letterheads alone!!

So the plan was to collate and combine wherever possible to achieve consistency, cost effectiveness and a strong brand presence.

End result:
284 logo/branded items down to 98

Envelopes : From 29, down to 3
Letterheads: From 13, down to 1
Complimentary slips: From 13, down to 1
Presentation folders: From 10, down to 5

Now that this was done, we searched for and found the best costs associated with printing the entire suite of stationery again. We have made some very considerable savings on that front.

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the designs to send to the printers to print.

2. Merchandising - In terms of merchandising, it is quite astounding to find out that there hasn't really ever been a formal spending process dedicated to Merchandising for the various stations. It has been quite adhoc and as and when required for a special promo. With me taking over, it gave the promotional managers across the various states to give us feedback about what they would want to give out and have in terms of merchandising.
What was amazing to see was how grateful were even with small things such as caps which were not available previously. Really gave me a personal high knowing that I had made a difference !!

So, we compiled a list of most common merchandising items and then got all the promo managers across the network to give us their feedback on what would be a 'must have' and what would be a 'nice to have'.

This we shortlisted to 10 items and worked out the quantities that would be required.,

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the total quantities per item and confirm designs for the merchandising
3. Outdoor Broadcasting Branding - From time to time, all radio stations go through and broadcast from an outdoor venue like the recent one that Mix 106.5 FM did for the house giveaway. Here, have a look here
For this purpose, there needs to be quite a few different things that are required to host a successful broadcast (and we are not talking about the electrical/music items). The items in question here are branding items. Common examples are Marquees, corflutes, outdoor banners, etc.

So, the question that we had was "what makes a successful outdoor branding?" I didn't know and neither did Jodie so we asked the people who made this possible. Once again we headed back to the Promo managers in the various states and asked them to give us lists of each item that would be a must-have if there was to be a successful outdoor broadcast in terms of brand presence.

The teams have been so co-operative and helpful which has been a bonus because without them I would be more lost than I currently am!

Once we had the list down pat, the hunt for the suppliers began and that included going through very many suppliers. I even tapped into my contacts at GSP from my previous project and they are going to create the corflutes for us at a very special rate!!

Current stage: Waiting to confirm the main supplier for the bulk of the items and drawing up an invoice for the same.

4. Signage - As with any new logos, there has to be changes on all items that have the old logos on them. This extends to buildings and structures as well and is probably the hardest of the lot to complete.
We have radio stations across Australia and each of these have ARN and MIX logos in varying ways. Unlike a letterhead or a business card this is not as straightforward as getting the printers to print a new batch.
As I found out the hard way, each of the items outside and inside the building have been commissioned individually!!

To change each of these would take atleast 3 weeks after the quote has come in.

Current stage: Finalising the quote on all the items that have logos on them that need to be changed.


End results required:
1. Stationery - New suite of stationery printed and handed to various admin managers across the network
2. Merchandising - All items delivered to various promo managers across the market.
3. Outdoor Broadcasting Branding - All items delivered to various promo managers across the market.
4. Signage - All new signage in all buildings and across the offices throughout the network.
As you can see, there is still a lot of work to be done and its only 10 working days to go. No pressure, hey!

Pressure is one thing you expect constantly with this role and then you learn very quickly how to deal with it too.

Crunch time at ARN

31 March 2011

There have been two projects that I have been working on at ARN.

First one is the marketing one, that I have talked about earlier, in which I am assisting Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director) but more on that later.

The second one that I have been involved in was with providing a solution to aid Internal Communications, here at ARN.

As part of the communications projects which I christened , 'Project Listen' (as you do) I was asked to move away from the usual suspects when it comes to internal communications; namely the mass email, the newsletter, the webpage or the intranet and asked to come up with something new and with the times.

After speaking to Tracy Martin and doing some research, the only thing that fit the bill was social media. In layman's terms, imagine facebook for work.

Now just to make it clear, this is not THE facebook that we tend to check every day (some more so than others!) so this is not about creating a page on facebook but acquiring a software that helps create a facebook environment at work.

There are quite a few businesses operating in this area but two that fit what we were after were Yammer and Yackstar.

Yammer is the US big brother of all business social networking that is run at many Fortune 500 companies. I investigated this and when i was satisfied that this would be something that ARN would benefit from then I got a web-meet set up with members of the Leadership Team to have a look at the software.

After the meeting the common consensus was that this was a good software but there was a general hesitancy of getting this into the organisation due to various reasons depending on which area you headed.

Overall, most of the comments seem to be coming with people wearing their black hats.

I enquired the cost and it was quite expensive at $50 USD per user per month. So for a workforce of 500, one would be looking at spending $360,000 USD annually. I knew straight away this would not go through based on cost alone.

The second option was Yackstar. This is an australian clone of Yammer and for a fraction of the cost, does virtually the same thing. Yackstar quoted us at at $5 AUD per user per month. So for a workforce of 500, one would be looking at spending $30,000 AUD annually.
Cost would not be a problem.

While we were going through working out the details of Yackstar, the ARN intranet which was hosted on Sharepoint 2003 crashed and virtually all data on it was lost.

Now there was a project to install Sharepoint 2010 before this happened and this event kinda pushed it even further. Add building renovations on top of that and people across the business are already swamped with what things that needed to happen 'yesterday'.

The solution: I wrote down a project scoping plan which highlighted all the research that was done for this project and the steps involved in case this gets picked up by someone else in the future.

Logo launched

8 March 2011

The logo was launched on friday 4th march to all staff in a rather unique way.
Rather than the usual way of sending an email or a speech from the CEO, the logo was launched with a video. We got funny duo Ant & Becks from Sydney's Mix 106.5 to come up with a concept to unveil the logo to all staff and they did not disappoint.
I was watching staff reaction when they got the video and everyone thought it was funny and original.
A great result!

While I try and get permission to upload the video here, i will leave you with the new logo. I think its a great change from the 'old' ARN

Into week 3,,,,

23 Feb 2011

I was going to write about what I am upto here at ARN and instead I cant help but think about watching the horror unfold in Christchurch.

When the NZ Herald website slowed down, I had to go to skynews website to get my news. The raw video they had on there was just unbelievable. Buildings smashed, cars crushed and with it the loss of life and limbs.

All I could do was stare at the computer screen in disbelief.
I have a couple of friends in Chch, i got hold of one of them and she said she was fine except for the fact that roads around them had literally opened up which meant they couldnt use their cars. Atleast she was safe.

Another mate of mine, is unaccounted for. I pray he is found alive :|

Anyone reading this blog... i see facebook and twitter filled with thoughts and prayers for Christchurch residents.

Thoughts and prayers are well and good.. but they do not put food on the table or mend broken houses. DONATE!

Lots of places available to do that. Every dollar helps.

Day 1 ... ARN

8 Feb 2011

Yesterday was my first day at the Australian Radio Network (Sydney).

I arrived at ARN on Day 1 and met with Bluebell Rae (Executive Assistant to CEO and CFO) who had very efficiently planned out my day which was spent meeting with the National Leadership Team at ARN and getting an understanding of what their role was in the business.

Recently, ARN has gone through a restructure which has resulted in a national approach for the company as opposed to regionalised decision makers.

As big a step as that was, it was only step 1 of the changes that are about to happen here. Not only in the way business is handled but the physical premises itself is getting a facelift and renovations are happening everywhere in the building. This has resulted in a lot of people/teams having to move desks/offices and finding places to sit to continue work.

I walked into this environment yesterday and can feel the buzz on the floor… Very excited about being part of this change.

Working with NZ Mags was an opportunity to be a part of a different kind of change and this will help me not only learn more about Radio and marketing but also how change is applied to different parts of a business.

I will be involved in a series of mini projects starting with assisting Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director) with the branding application of all of ARN’s stations and the company itself. Geraint Davies (National Operations Director) has got each station on each site around the country to send through in soft and hard copy, anything and everything that has a logo on it.

This has now resulted in a big basket of samples from across the country and an itemised list of the same via soft copy.

My job in week 1 is to make some head and tail of all of this and provide recommendation on how we can be consistent and cost effective with our branding and print runs.

Time to start sorting!

Block 2 completed

28/01/2011



Last day today at GSP and today will be spent putting the finishing touches on everything and saying goodbyes.

I am quite happy with what we have achieved during the three months here but at the same time, I will miss the place and its people. They are a warm bunch of hardworking people who took me in as one of their own and I was made to feel comfortable from day one. Special thanks to Peter Piccione (for all the travel and general advice, a sound sounding board for all my wacky ideas!), Jennifer Jefferys (provider of solutions when i had any problem) and Stephen Rudgley (lunch buddy and going out of his way to drop me home, time and time again!)

Flying home today for a week of rest and then heading back to Sydney to start work with Australian Radio Network (ARN) after that.

I went to meet with Jodie Koning (National Marketing Director, Australian Radio Network) yesterday and she briefed me in on the specifics of my next block.


This has been an amazing learning experience. This block gave me an insight on the outdoor/pos print industry, marketing and organisational behaviour.

I look forward to see what ARN throws at me next!

Frantic pace on its way

12/01/2011

First post for 2011. Writing err typing 2011 feels weird. But then i suppose every new year feels weird as time seems to be flying past. As a group we are almost at the 1 yr mark for this program and looking back it has been interesting. I have been fortunate enough to be involved in a huge project (in NZ Mags) and now with GSP, it is again a totally unique learning experience.

Over the Christmas break, Tracy had managed to get me in touch with Ciaran Davis (CEO, Australian Radio Network) and he was kind enough to offer me some challenging projects which will form my next block.

Before I start thinking about that, there is a lot of work at hand here at GSP.

There are still a lot of things that need to be ticked off and time is running out. One of the biggest major is finishing the website for GSP which I was putting together. Everything is running and completed except for the contact form on the website. This is the part where an interested customer fills in their details, presses submit and the information comes through to an email address here at GSP.

Tried to get some help from the IT team but have been told that there is a freeze and nothing will be done before 17th Jan. Guess, we will have to wait and see what happens after the 17th.

The weather is quite bad here in Sydney with constant rain and changing seasons but nothing as bad as what we are seeing in Queensland.

My thoughts and wishes are with those devastated by the raging floods in Queensland. Its hard to fathom that so much destruction can happen so quickly and without warning.

End of year

10 December 2010

End of the year is fast approaching and things seem to getting even more hectic here at GSP.
All the end of year orders combined with New Year requests means that there are some very highly strung pressured individuals around.

Work is continuing on at this end. I have created templates for the letter head, PowerPoint presentations, envelopes, business cards. All of these need final approval from Peter Piccione and then we would be good to go.

The website is another matter altogether. While it is ready to go live, there are still some pictures that we require and finalising some of the text. The aim is for this to launch in the New Year and so far we are on track.

If I don’t write again before 2011, here’s wishing you all a very happy and safe holidays.

Port Stephens and taking the initiative

29 Novermber 2010

I visited Port Stephens over the weekend. Its about 3hrs away from Sydney and is a quiet beach town with some very beautiful beaches.

The best part is that after every few kms you get a different beach. There is a lot of water activities to do or you can just laze in the sun.

Now back at work, feeling refreshed and getting back to finalising the website.

One of the things that came up was to see what to do with the current GSP website. The original developers wanted a $150/hr for any changes that we were proposing and we would be dependent on them every time for any future changes.

I then looked up the APN directory and started calling people with web developer as their job title with the hope that we could make use of some people from within the organisation and I was right.

I had been in touch with some experts in APN at different sites and can confidently say that the new GSP website will not only be better than the previous one, it will also be future proofed at virtually no cost.

Just shows that there is so much expertise around this organisation. One just needs to take the initiative and ask for it!

Week 1 finishes in GSP

10 Nov. 2010

Right, so here I am in Prestons in Sydney.
For those familiar with Auckland, this is the area near East Tamaki or the Airport; a mainly industrial zone where unless you have a vehicle at your disposal you wont really get around very far.

I said my goodbyes and finished up with NZ Mags on the 29th of October and packed my bag and headed over to Sydney on the 31st of October.

Day 1 at work was on the 1st of November. Luckily yellow pages had helped me secure a hotel which was about 10 mins walking distance from GSP, for which I was eternally grateful.
Like I mentioned earlier, not having a vehicle was a serious setback.

GSP is a specialist printer for large-format printing. They produce out-of-home advertising and point-of-sale. They are the only large-format printer to have in-house equipment for every part of a campaign - from screen printing to wide-format digital.

All the nerves disappeared by the end of day one as I met and Andrew Thornberry (Client Service and Traffic manager) who firstly, took me for a tour around the massive 5000m2 purpose built facility and then introduced me to the rest of the team at GSP and then we caught up with Peter Piccione (General Manager).

We quickly got on to business and got an overview from Peter and Andrew about GSP. The way the business had been shaping up; how it fits into APN and the financial results and trends.

Outside of work, Week 1 was spent trying to find accommodation and I was lucky to sort that out with great help from Tammy and Tracy.

So the current situation is that work goes full steam ahead with GSP and I catch a bus to and from work which takes me an hour each way.
Can’t remember how long ago, public transport and I last met up!!

Happy Birthday

14 October 2010

Today is my 30th birthday. A lot of people ask me if I feel older. Apparently the ‘big 3 oh’ is what changes things. Still trying to figure out what these “things” are.
I feel exactly the same as I felt yesterday with just a lot more attention. I hope that whatever changes this is supposed to bring in my life, happens, and are good changes.

Was at work today doing what I do best, putting out fires. We went out for lunch to Grasshopper today. Grasshopper is a Thai restaurant on Albert Street (near the Stamford Plaza) and the maitre d' is a wonderful lady who knows me quite well by now since I frequent her restaurant.

She found out that it was my birthday today and at the end of the meal she brought in a very special surprise and even sung me a happy birthday song. This is what she brought out for me. A wonderful surprise!



I will also catch up with family over dinner tonight.
The plan is to have a big night tomorrow which is also the weekend.

Peace out

Where do you think you are going!

11 Oct 2010

It has been an interesting weekend.

Spoke to Tracy on Friday arvo and was told that the project in Brisbane didn’t make it through the final budget proposal and was cut at the end. What that meant was that I no longer had a project to work to from the 18th of October.

I hate to admit it but I was disappointed. I was mentally prepared to say goodbye to NZ Mags and Auckland this weekend and had readied myself for the new challenges ahead and this was a sucker punch that I had not even though of.

Tracy was nice to have told me this on the Friday rather than today and she even managed to get hold of Sarah to inform her of the same.

Sarah was very kind and sent me a lovely text on Friday night saying that she was jubilant that I was going to be here longer and not to be too crestfallen. The weekend gave me time to re-evaluate and get my thoughts sorted to the coming weeks here with all the uncertainty.

No one said this was going to be easy and I am very determined to take on anything that is chucked at me.

Caught up with Sarah in the morning and she has asked me to assist Jo Elwin (Custom Publishing Manager) with a new project. That will be me for the next 2-3 weeks depending on when I get word on what happens with me next.

Its the final countdown...

8 October 2010

One week to go.
Time is fast approaching as I get ready to leave NZ Magazines for my new destination.

We had lunch today with the transition project team as a way to say thank you for everyone who had put in a lot of work (some even working right through the weekend) to make this transition as smooth as possible. It was a great opportunity for everyone to sit around some yummy Thai food (Thanks Sam and Sarah!) and not talk about work or the challenges with the project.

Andrew at lunch asked me a question; What would I miss most about NZ Magazines? This is actually a very tough question and as I pondered over the answer, I realise that its impossible to put down the one thing that I would miss most about this place. This experience has been amazing to say the least; challenging, rewarding and a big learning opportunity.

Time to start looking for accommodation. Sydney gets the usual bad rep for being expensive but Brisbane is at par, if not worse!

Day 3 after Go live day

06 October 2010

This past weekend has been hectic. Everyone pitched in and it was fantastic to see the team working as one…. facilities with IT; IT with production. Excellent!

We shut down Pacific Magazines on Friday morning and started the move process. The movers were in there early and things started getting underway. In the mean time, the IT boys were working hard to make sure that they were ready when the equipment was shifted over to APN premises.

A lot of people worked right through the weekend to ensure that come Monday, things would be ready to go.

I walked in on Monday with an expectation that a lot of things would go wrong. Probably sounds pessimistic but just the scale of the move and the time that we had to get it done wasn’t filling me with a lot of confidence. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that as of home time on Monday, we had a few teething issues but nothing major.
The new staff were in, looking around at the new environment. The NZM staff were probably as curious as them and it was surreal watching the interaction.

Having said that, Things overall were running smoothly! It was an amazing feeling.

There are still a few things here and there that need to be tidied up but I am happy with how this has come about.

Now that this project comes to an end, I can start looking at the next one that is coming up in Brisbane. More on that in the coming days

Something off topic

30 September 2010

Recently, a really good friend at work showed me a clip of Eddie Izzard's Death Star Canteen skit that someone had set up using Lego.

I havent seen anything that funny in a long time and before long after innumerable repeats, I pretty much know the whole skit verbatim. This has led to a lot of inside jokes between us and we now look for random moments to insert a line here and there and break out in laughter, whereas the rest of the people in the scenario kinda look at us and probably think, "whats wrong with you two!"

You can view the video for yourself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv5iEK-IEzw


What do you think? :)

The final stretch beckons...

27 September 2010

The last fortnight has been spent trying to knock off the little, usually forgotten, things done. These have ranged from business cards to car parks, to credit cards and system log-ins. The reason why these get forgotten is not because they are not important but because there is an assumption that 'someone' would do it and that 'someone' is usually someone else.

Friday arvo showed a whole flurry of activity as discussions were being raised around specific software and who did what. This was thankfully resolved within the hour with some timely placed phone calls to some key people. I love technology!

The big picture items have been ticked off and as we come onto the final stretch this week, its all about getting those aforementioned details ticked off so that nothing is left to chance.

The team move over this weekend and they came over to have a look today to the new site. Come Monday the 4th of October, it is going to get a whole lot noisier!!

Back to work then.. time's a running!

Project Rook continues…

14 Sep 2010

The last fortnight has been a bit of a blur. Once the announcement took place, there has been discussion all around with almost everyone taking their own view of what lies ahead. We had gone through and created a FAQ document before the announcement to anticipate questions that people might have from all departments and try and answer those. This was a great help and definitely assisted all of the management team to give correct answers when asked.

I asked Andrew if I could sit in when the announcement was made to his team and was glad that he agreed. It gave me an opportunity to see first hand, the reaction of the team and the kind of questions that people asked and whether our FAQ was adequate or not. It felt great to see that almost all the questions that were asked were ones that we had covered! The team were quite positive and looking forward to having Pac Mags on board.

So what has been happening in the last fortnight? We have had our weekly project meeting which I chair and involves all stakeholders right across the project (from facilities through to IT; advertising through to finance and everything in between). The main thought process behind this was to make sure that people understand the impact their task has on the next area and the flow on effect it creates if not done.

Happy to say that everyone has been quite positive although I can imagine it would be a bit ‘boring’ for people who have nothing to do with another area to sit and listen. I am hoping that this will create a better understanding of what each department does and also how to work better in a collaborative way to be successful. It amazes me to think that these meetings might be the first time that these key people in the business had a chance to get together in a room!

The NZ Mags move has also happened with the new floor layout and desks and people being shifted. As is to be expected, some people are openly unhappy with their new surroundings, the way their desk is facing and I even got one complaint about the colour of the desk not being right!

Things coming up next….

My next project block seems to be pointing to Brisbane but will require a few more finishing touches before its ready to go. Once I get that sorted, I am planning to make a trip to Tauranga and Whangarei to get an understanding of the operations there and build some relationships with some key people there too.

I have just received a meeting invite along with Sarah to give an update on the project to Martin Simons (Group Publishing Chief Executive) and Phil Eustace (Finance Director - NZ) on Monday 20 Sep. Looking forward to it!

Project Rook unveiled

01 Sep 2010

Finally!
The announcement has been made.
Months of working behind the scenes has finally paid off as we managed to get this licensing deal between two organisation without any security leaks.

You can read more about the market announcement here

After creating a meticulous project plan involving various stakeholders and a very detailed communication plan, it does give me immense satisfaction when I saw the pieces falling through as planned. There were some changes as you can expect but overall, we moved well with the information that we had.

This has taken a whole lot of thinking, consulting and being detailed oriented about anticipating what would be required at the task level for every area.

Now that the announcement has been made, the next part of the project begins and the ‘real’ hard work starts. So far it was mostly about planning. Soon we will be moving into the action phase of getting these products up and running seamlessly in the APN environment.

Sarah has been an immense help in this whole process, right from the beginning where she wanted me to not only be part of this project but take lead as project manager. I have learnt a lot so far and as we keep going through the transition phase, the learning and the lessons will no doubt continue to grow.

The last few weeks have been spent working for Project Rook in somewhat obscurity so as not to divulge any information about the project. Add to that, the trip to Sydney and subsequent presentation and it quickly becomes apparent that the last few weeks have been quite busy.

Quick update

03/08/2010

The last fortnight has zipped by very quickly as I get more and more involved in Project Rook.

Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to divulge details about this project yet but safe to say, this is the biggest thing I have ever been involved in and every day I am learning many new things. Thank you Sarah!

My thoughts do go out to where my next placement will be and what I will be doing next.... will it be as challenging as this current project?

In the capacity of Project Manager I have had to interact with many different parts of the business, dealing with some very high level execs along the way.

The next couple of weeks are looking to be crucial with a lot going to happen at the same time. I envisage quite a few late days at the office making sure everything goes through smoothly.

I have a catch up with Tim Catley (CIO & Head of Group Services) today and it would be good to meet with him and introduce myself.

Time for a coffee... Flat white.. no sugar. thanks!

Bye bye outsource

21 July 2010

A week has passed since the last update and a lot has happened since then.

Firstly, a quick update on the Outbound project. I received an email from the outsourcing company who were not very happy with the responses that they were getting from their team and now that the change of remuneration had gone through (refer to previous post) they felt that maybe this wasn’t worth their while as they weren’t making enough sales.

I had a chat to Chris who agreed that it is probably best to cancel the agreement straight away if that company didn’t have their heart in it anymore. So I made the call and called off their involvement.

And all this, after I had gone down there last week and took their sales team and their team manager through a sales coaching workshop spending half a day. Oh well..

This was a learning experience as I had never been involved in negotiating rates and setting service level agreements at this level, and had definitely never cancelled contracts before.

NSM are still going ahead and we will continue to work with them on the remaining leads on this project.

Now if you thought that my workload would come down, oh boy, were you mistaken!

Earlier, Sarah pulled me aside and said that she had discussed my term at NZ Mags and was happy to inform me that I would be there until (possibly) the end of September. This meant that I was able to take back the project lead for Project Rook, which is going full steam ahead.

I found myself in two to three meetings every day, all of last week ranging from topics of HR to Properties; Technology to Sales, and this trend will probably be continuing for the next month, it seems.

There is a lot on the plate which means that my musings online will be reduced.

I got an email today from Bosco with the link to his blog (http://mbaoflife.blogspot.com/), his style of writing and the purpose of his blog is very different and should make for an interesting read. So if you haven’t already checked it out, do so. I am sure he would value your feedback as would I.

Peace out!

Life goes on..

13 July 2010

There has been development in the Outbound campaign.

We were reviewing the incentive payouts and realised that total sales being paid out for were not matching the verified sales that we were getting in the system. I spoke to both NSM and the Wellington provider about this issue and they were both very helpful in understanding the predicament of paying out for sales which do not materialise. We have since then changed our policy and will only pay out on verified sales from now on.

As part of this exercise I will need to pop down to Wellington to catch up with the troops and hopefully push them to generate some more sales than current. Our overall conversion rate is about 1.5% which is industry standard but very far off the 5% which we had originally aimed for.

On a different note, I got an email last night mentioning that Brendan Hopkins (APN Group CEO) has now resigned and will be leaving at the end of the year. He was a big supporter of this program and with his departure, one questions what the future for this program will hold.

I guess time alone will tell whether the incoming CEO will continue to see value in this exercise, in us….

It's getting harder and harder to breathe..

08 July 2010

Things have been going full tilt since ive been back.

A variant of the originial project has started in which I am working with Arthur Lennsen from Manukau Print to document all of NZ Mags schedules and pre-press set up with an aim to create efficiencies.

This is a big learning curve as I have had only limited exposure to production in my previous role but I am getting to learn new things and that is what this role and project is all about.

As Maroon 5 once said, "its getting harder and harder to breathe!"

i'm back !

29/06/2010

After an eventful but fun holiday I am now back in Auckland and its time to get back into work again.

The holiday itself started off with Qantas losing my baggage and I had to spend 3 days in Toronto with no luggage!

If that wasn’t bad enough, the trip to NY from Toronto started off with the security guards singling me out for some "random" checks.

What was even crazier was that the amount of security to get in to see the Statue of Liberty was greater than when I entered the country.

Las Vegas and LA was nice and hot and great fun.

Coming back to Auckland in this cold is a huge turnaround from the weather across the pacific I am now checking up on the outbound campaigns and seeing if there is any tweaking required to the original offer.

Its mom's bday today so here's wishing you a very Happy Birthday Mom!

Holiday!!

On leave now... will resume once i'm back!

First Sale

2/06/2010

Spent most of the second half of yesterday finalising the NSM side of the deal so that they would be ready to start making calls from the evening. Everything seemed on track and about 80 calls were made last night with one sale. The first sale!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking…. the conversion does not look all that impressive but look at it this way. This was a monumental sale as this is the first time that NZM have actively solicited to grow subscription.

Lawrence assures me that it would only get better as time went on and I agree. I asked Chris if he would be up for giving some added incentive to the NSM teams with a movie money book and he agreed so I have passed that on to Lawrence today.

I started yesterday meeting up with Tracy for breakfast. She is here to meet with some people within the organisation and also working with the feedback of the employee survey results. It was a good catch up and I gave her an insight of things that have been working well so far me on this block and how this experience could be enhanced. The weather has been dreadful so hopefully it will get better for her as she moves on to Whangarei to meet with the team there.

I also got an email from Rob Lourey asking if I was free to catch up for a coffee today.

Rob and I met in the foyer and then headed off to get a cuppa. It was great seeing Rob and getting some insight from him about what people in my place in the past have experienced.

He did ask me if there was something that he could do to add to this experience for me and I cheekily asked if he could get me a ticket to the Exec meeting to which he replied, possibly not haha.

Hey, nothing ventured nothing gained so I’m going to try my luck again at some point and hopefully get a yes out of him ;-)

In the meantime, I am quite excited about my upcoming leave.. here’s wishing that the kiwi dollar picks up against the greenback so I can get some decent foreign exchange for my savings!

Final touches

31/05/2010

Wellington was cold and windy. As expected.

The outsourcing company was warm and friendly and being a small operator it meant that there weren’t layer after layer to go through for me to get the right message across.

After spending some time sitting down and working through the requirements and stressing upon the importance of maintaining customer relationships, I felt quite comfortable with what they had to offer NZM.

The Wellington trip was quite exciting as I realised while in Wellington that I had lost my cardholder and all my cards with it. A frantic search of my jacket and trousers confirmed this and when the people at the airport said that nothing had been returned back to them, I feared that all was lost.

So on the way back, I was very pleasantly surprised when the stewardess came over and informed me that they had indeed found my cardholder and it was ready to be picked up at Auckland airport.

I rushed straight to the counter upon my arrival and identified myself to the attendant.

She confirmed that such a card holder had indeed been found but she needed my ID to confirm that this was indeed mine; The fact that my driver's license was IN the cardholder wasn't good enough.

After a lot of convincing she agreed to (do me a "favour" and) open the cardholder and lo and behold there i was smiling back at her on the plastic driver's license!

Back to work: Things are looking good as they have sent through the contract which I have forwarded on to Chris to check and sign off so we can get this project underway.

NSM on the other hand is ready to kick this off from Tuesday.

We are all waiting very excited to see the results that come from this exercise.

The negotiator

27/05/2010

Yesterday was all a bit of a blur as a lot of things happened at the same time.

Chris and I both agreed that the pricing quoted by the outsourcing company was a bit steep for us as it brought our cost per sale quite to more than what we were prepared to invest in at this time.

I then took it upon myself to call the director of the outsourcing company and explained the situation to her. She understood our position and resent the proposal with a much better pricing option which we were happy with.

While this was happening on one end, I was busy working with NSM putting the finishing touches on that front so we can get this underway next week. I sat down with Sati (NSM Trainer) and gathered the requirements from him and liaised with Nicki Steers to get updated collateral for NSM. Sonali is comfortable with the cost structure and we are all set to go!

I also got tickets booked to go down to Wellington today to meet with the outsourcing company and finalise the deal.

All in all, it was a bit of a lesson in juggling for me and I felt quite happy with the way that I had handled the situation, especially proud of how I negotiated the price to an acceptable level.

Time to head off to Wellington now. Ciao!

Change of scenery

25/05/2010

Acting upon a suggestion by Alice, I relocated myself to the Crème magazine area earlier today.

First day here and I have increased the male population in my area by 100%!

So what have I learnt in my 5 hours of being here? So far I have found out who Emily Blunt is and how she is the ‘bestest’ and why Michael Bublè is not hot!

And oh, one of the girls agrees with me that Robert Pattison (the Zoolanderesque vampire off Twilight) cannot act to save his life. Unfortunately, she is the only one in this area so far that agrees with me.

What is amazing is how these talented girls can have all this fun while still working incredibly hard!

I have a feeling it will be fun getting to know this side of the business :)

And now, back to the NZM project…. Tristan, Lawrence and I sat down to discuss the reporting requirements for the project. This was to ensure that we would be in a position to replicate the same requirements from the outsourced agents if we were to go down that path. This would ensure parity when it came to analysing the results at our end.

We decided upon the requirements and now I will need to get that across to the Global Connect if we were to go down that path.

Decision times a coming

24/05/2010

The catchup with Listener did not take place due to all the reporters being in Wellington for the govt’s budget announcement. I will go to the one that will take place this week.

I did go to the Crème WIP catchup and got a feel of how the editorial team work with advertising. It was quite different to most meetings I've been to, not only because I was the only guy at that meeting but also just watching the way they work through things. Alice (crème editor) is one cool chick and has even offered me use of one of the empty desk in their area if I wanted. I might just take up that offer!

The proposal from the outsourced company in wellington has come through and I will need to discuss that with Chris to see if it is a viable option for NZM. Also caught up with Sonali, Lawrence and Sati (NSM Trainer) to discuss the NSM side of the project so we can get things underway by the 31st of May.

Custom Publishing

19/05/2010

Had my catch up with Sarah yesterday and it was quite good. She asked me not to be afraid to challenge her department’s way of working. The discussion then turned to styles of getting work done, basically influence v authority. And since I currently don’t have any authority to get my work done, I need to be using and building on my influence skills.

We discussed a few scenarios in which certain approaches would work better than others and Sarah also shared some examples where she used a certain method which worked for her.

The outbound project was also discussed and I bounced a few ideas off her around the customer offer and it was great to see her challenge my line of thought.

Today has been a very different day altogether. I got a chance to sit down with Jo Elwin, the Custom Publishing Manager, who gave me a very good insight on what she does and what her area works on. Jo has over 16 years in publishing and she is what is commonly called a ‘generalist’.

A generalist is one who has a rounded approach to publishing having usually had significant experience in all aspects (editorial, advertising, production etc) of publishing. As it sounds, there are very few generalists around so it was quite a treat to pick her brains on different things. She has also been as kind as to ask me to join her in some editorial meetings which should help give me a better understanding of how things work in her area.

Tomorrow I take on another step in my quest to learn more about editorial as I have been invited by Pamela Stirling, the Listener editor (kinda forced myself upon poor Pamela really!) to join her team at their team meeting.

New start to new week

17/05/2010

Its getting very close to D-day as Tristan is now working on using MaaX to generate the leads for the telemarketing campaign.

I am still in two minds about going in-house or external. Will probably sound this out with Chris or Sarah and see what their take on this is.

Today was spent chasing up the loose ends and pretty much everything is on hold until the leads are ready to go. The Women's Weekly side of this will not happen until c.o.b Wednesday and the Listener will probably take another day or two.

Based on this run rate, we are still more than a week away before the first call is made to a lead.

Over and out!

Gaining momentum

12/05/2010

Today just really flew by.

There was a lot of following up to do on the original scoping report and started getting information on getting a new one off the ground.

I also spent time with Angela Blair (Advertising Strategy Manager) who is currently working on a CRM project for APN. She was really helpful and gave me some good tips on project management and common pitfalls to avoid. She also offered to be available in case there was anything in the future that I might need her assistance for.

I also spent time with Sonali around working out what the best way going forward would be to get telemarketers in for the new project. There are a few options to consider (whether to go inhouse with temps or outsource) which I shall work on in the coming days.

I really want this new project to get enough data so that it can be used as a test case for future activities.

Tired now..and its raining again (lucky I got my umbrella!)

Working on report

12/05/2010

Chris and I went through the project as it stands right now.

I was quite upfront with him about waiting on information from various sources and asked for his help to push that along since he knew how these people worked.

Chris has been very helpful about this and really wants this project to work.
I am finalising the report this week and should be able to hand it into him, information pending, by Friday at the latest.

Most of the day was spent yesterday reading and proof reading the report and I suspect today will be much the same.

Just found out that India have been knocked out of the T20 world cup which is a bummer :|

End of the week...

7/05/2010

Friday was all go right from the beginning of the day.

It started off with meeting up Tim Mooney and Madelina about how MaaX assists them in the subscription marketing side of the business. One point that keeps coming through from everyone that I have spoken to is that MaaX has helped them get a better understanding of their business. It provides the transparency and information in an easy format.

The day ended with the monthly drinks here at NZ Magazines in which Sarah invites nominations from everyone in the department for a star of the month award. Then based on the various nominations, Sarah decides upon a winner who gets a little memento and $50 worth of gift vouchers of their choice.

It was a good way to end the week getting to know people away from their desks.

Subscription sales insight

7/05/2010

Sonali and I had a really good catch up yesterday around NSM and the way it operates it subscription sales. MaaX has delivered a lot for them both in not only ease of reporting but also helping generate warm leads which only upto a year ago was non existing.

I still need data from Sonali to confirm the positive impact MaaX has had on them and she has agreed to send that through to me soon.

Sonali also introduced me to Tim Mooney (Subscriber Manager) who deals with promotions and campaigns in the paper. I have set a meeting with Tim for today to discuss his role in further detail and get some insights on what MaaX has done for his team.

The timeline is getting very tight for handing in the report and I am yet to get information on quite a few things. Will keep Chris updated on that as I go along.

Had a brief catch up with Bosco yesterday after he was done with the meetings in Digital and had enough time to catch up for a coffee before his taxi was due to pick him up to take him to the airport. It was good seeing him and I look forward to catching up with the rest of the boys at some point.

Today is the monthly drinks here at NZ Magazines and it should be a good opportunity to meet some more people in a more social environment.

Checking in

5/05/2010



Today started with Chris and me catching up and updating the Outbound Project. I also checked to see if I was on the right track and got his input on how things could be tweaked a little better.

I am happy to find out that I am on the right path and can continue ahead with some minor adjustments.

As part of the next step, I have arranged a meeting with Sonali Banerjee (NSM Contact Centre Manager) tomorrow with a view to see NSM subscriptions in action and pick her brains on certain areas.

I have also been putting together a report with all my findings and recommendations on MaaX and will continue to work on it in the coming weeks. There are a lot of blank areas in it at the moment but if all goes to plan then it should all come together by the end of the project.

Earlier, Bosco had sent through a link to APN’s company records including the webcast of the 2010 AGM which took place not so long ago in Sydney. I took the time to listen to it and I must say it was very interesting to not only hear about the results being explained by Brendan Hopkins (Group CEO) but also the manner in which the directors and chairman answered the questions asked by the shareholders on the floor. It was definitely a learning experience
(Tip: keep a spare set of head/earphones in your laptop bag/desk as you never know when you might need it.)

Outbound project continues....

04/05/2010

Went and met with Brad and Nicki Steers (Research Manager) and discussed with them my reasons for meeting with them, starting with the background of my role, the project that I am doing and how they fit into the scheme of things (Tip: Always try and give a big picture view to people so that they can come on the journey with you rather than just provide a task).

They will get back to me by the end of the week with the reader profile that I am after so I can use Tristan’s expertise in MaaX and hopefully come up with proper leads for Chris.

As of right now, the project is well on track (fingers crossed) but the hard part is yet to come when we start getting into the actual deployment of the project.

Also met up with Sarah today who briefed me on a new project that she would like me to manage. This is going to be a biggie and is very exciting as I have never done anything of this magnitude ever. It is an achievement of this program that Sarah is showing this level of faith in my abilities.

To get some tips, Sarah has put me in touch with Angela Blair (Advertising Strategy Manager with NZH) who will spend some time with me next week. I am looking forward to picking her brains on this upcoming project.

Got an email from Bosco Tan (my co intern) today saying that he will be in town for a day as part of his project with APN Digital. It would be great to catch up with him and hopefully, have some time to show him around too.

Second week

03/05/2010

Started the week today sitting down with Tristan.

He gave me a really good insight of how MaaX worked and what its capabilities were. Basically any information that was required was available as long as the right questions were asked.

Next step is to sit down with Brad Glading (Research Manager, NSM) to work out the profile of NZWW and NZL subscribers.

I will then bring that information to Tristan and overlay that against the current NZH subscribers and come up with a group of subscribers that can be targeted to increase subscriptions.

The more I understand about MaaX and its capabilities the more questions are coming to mind.

Sarah Sandley has come back from leave today and came over and asked me how I was settling in. We have a formal catch up tomorrow and she also has a project for me so that should be good.

Night at the sulky

30/04/2010

Sat down with Andrew today and sough understandings on how MaaX worked and how NSM were using it. Have to say that this is an amazing piece of software which can do remarkable things. The thing that impresses me most is the ability to really drill into detailed analysis about your query or get a more holistic approach of the same.

But, and this is true with any piece of technology, it is only as good as the person using it. Tristan is the super user when it comes to MaaX within NSM and he has been using the software for more than a year now and is really good at it. Will need to spend more time with him on Monday to see what quick wins we can get for NZ Magazines.

I also asked Chris to work through the project KPIs with me to ensure that I was going down the right path. He has kindly agreed to do that.

Sarah Sandley should be back next week so it would be great to spend some time with my mentor.

I am off to the sulky tonight and not as a spectator only but will also take part in one of the races. For those (like me) who didn’t know, a sulky is “a lightweight cart having two wheels and a seat for the driver only but usually without a body, generally pulled by horses or dogs, and is used for harness races”, (source: wikipedia).

Super cool way to end the week and catch up with some people from the Herald.

Have a great weekend… Catch you on Monday!

This is me on friday night at the Alexandra Park race course. We came fourth (Don't tell anyone that there were only four horses in that race)

Project Outbound

29 April 2010

Today Project Outbound officially begins. I started by formulating questions on what information I required for this project and also clarifying the outcomes that we required out of this project.

Chris put together a meeting with Matthew Wilson (GM Newspaper Sales and Marketing for the NZ Herald) to help us utilise existing technology within the business.

Matthew’s team have successfully utilised data mining software called MaaX to get a lot of wins for newspaper subscriptions ranging from targeted campaigns to automated welcome packs.

At the meeting, we had Matthew, Andrew Niven (Sales Operations Manager for Newspaper Sales and Marketing) and Tristran Calwell (Market Research Analyst) to outline the project and our objectives.

Step one is compiling how NSM (Newspaper Sales and Marketing) have used MaaX so far.

That starts tomorrow.

Research continues....

28 April 2010

Sat down with Chris and gave him the learning’s I sought in this block. This was quite good as Chris now has a clear idea of what I was after and which projects may be best suited to be mutually beneficial. (Tip: Be as specific as possible when noting down the learning required)

Subsequently, after going through the learnings that i seek, Chris has handed me the NZ Woman's weekly surveys that have been completed to get feedback from the market.

Currently reading the 2007 and 2010 readership survey which will give me an insight on what the perception by the readers are and areas of improvement that is sought with the rebranding exercise.
(Tip: Get copies of both competitors, Woman's day and New Idea, in front of you when reading the survey so you can compare in real time what the readers are talking about)

The readership surveys are less presentations and more encyclopaedias! Just goes on to show the amount of research that has gone into this already and how imperative the change is for this publication. It definitely makes up for a good read into the psyche of the consumer. Really important for me as I never really read any of these publications usually!

That’s all for today folks. Have a good night.

*I have decided that I am going to try and update this blog every morning so that I can capture the previous day as a whole and dont have to sit here after work trying to fill this out*

Second day

27 April 2010

Spent most of the time today reading up the remainder of the business cases. Definitely feel a lot more comfortable with the department's burning platform now and will find ways to see that relevance in my projects.

Key thing to note is the ID card situation.

I have been with APN for more than 3 years and am still finding it very difficult to get access to the NZ Mags department loaded on to my card.

The custodian is a fiery scotsman who guards the access with his life, it seems.

After a lot of debate, I have been given access to one of the elevators which "should do the job" but i wont be given access to the other door. Apparently, I do not have the required sign off. Mind boggling stuff but true! (Tip: Get this sorted first to avoid frustrations)

Back to the work stuff.... I have been highlighted 4 projects so far by Chris and have been told of one by Andrew (yet to come) and Sarah has one for me too.

For a block of 4-6 months, it may not be possible to give justice to all projects so will need to work out timelines and priorities before beginning any of these.

The buzz on the Creme magazine side is the arrival of Justin Bieber (who??!!) to the country and the subsequent interview that will be taking place.

Time to get going, its pouring outside and I didnt even bring my umbrella ugh! (Tip: Always carry your umbrella in Auckland)

New Zealand Mags - It begins......

26 April 2010 is the first day for me with NZ Mags and start of the APN Fasttrack Graduate Executive program.

Mixed feelings as I walk back into a building that I was fare welled from only a fortnight ago. Although, I will be on the fourth floor I sense a lot more expectations from me as I am from within the business.

Sarah Sandley, CEO NZ Mags had earlier sent through a most flattering email introducing me and giving an insight about this program to everyone in the department.

Met with Chris Gwin, head of subs and marketing within NZ Mags who is very switched on about the project and what he can use me for. Butterflies slowly disappearing.

Andrew Miller, advertising sales director, has asked me to join him for his weekly team meeting which gives me a chance to see how the team operate and also meet them in person.

The set up is quite unique with the sales managers responsible not only for their people and specific products that they champion but have sales targets on their own too. A most efficient system.

Initial feelings are that this is a fast paced and happy place where people seem to get along with one another.

Have been given business plans for NZ Mags and then each individual title and been asked to go through these as the starting point to get a better understanding of the business.

I have spent most of the day doing that today; Writing down questions for any and everything that doesn't make sense and have filled up about 3 pages of it. Some are jargon related, some strategies and some are just curiosity based (Tip: being ignorant is acceptable)

Also, another good thing that I have been told is that you make your own hours i.e. no one is going to sit and count the clock.

Time to go home...