This Sunday (2/28/10) is my 10 year anniversary with Gannett Co. I am amazed at how that time has flown by. I have flashes of the jobs I held before Gannett (and there were a few), but I feel my career really began to take shape while at Gannett.
In the decade I’ve worked here, my positions have ranged from IT Manager to Project Manager to Content Manager (and a few others thrown in there), but I’ve always had the same common goal, making a difference. I spent the largest span of my time with USA WEEKEND (~6 years) and each year created new workflows, implemented new policies, rolled out new applications and systems (some custom-built by me) and changed the game there. The multiple shiny glass trophies and awards on my shelf remind me every day that I did that. But I remember the simple emails saying ‘thank you for your help today, you were a life saver’ meant more to me than anything else.
In my time at USA TODAY I worked as a telecommuter out of my new home office in Las Vegas. I had a few projects to keep me busy, but my main goal was to help seamlessly move some of USA WEEKEND’s systems and processes over to USA TODAY’s for consolidation and more importantly an improved support structure. The thank you emails were fewer and farther between, but came occasionally. This job was more about helping people without them realizing they were being helped. That’s a bit trickier. Promising that uprooting their day-to-day workflow would eventually lead to a more streamlined process and that, in the end, that’d be happier and more productive… well, not everyone believes you. I think the folks at USA TODAY were glad for me being there, if for nothing else, they didn’t want to have to learn all of USA WEEKEND’s nuances to be able to figure out where synergies existed. That job was not as personally rewarding, but incredibly necessary and I was glad to be able to make a difference.
Currently I am with Gannett’s new ContentOne initiative. My main focus is in social media. I have other content related projects, but my passion really lies in helping Gannett’s 80+ newspapers and 20+ TV stations navigate the social media waters. I have talked about this before here on this blog and on my ‘Jodi is Social‘ blog, so I don’t need to go into the nitty-gritty. Times are different, and the shiny glass trophies are a thing of the past, and that is ok. I received an email yesterday that I have printed and placed on the shelf next to my 2001 President’s Award. The email was from someone at one of our newspapers and simply said:
“I just wanted to say thanks for being so enthusiastic and encouraging all the time. You have a knack for bringing the right people together at the right time, and it doesn’t go unnoticed out here in the local markets. I hope people tell you that often.”
Receiving that, on the week of my 10 year anniversary- well- who needs an anniversary gold watch anyway!
