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 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 :)

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 :)

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.