Mike Bracken steps down from GNM

Rather like spin doctors becoming the story, you’d rather people were talking about your technology rather than your technology department, but over the weekend there has been some coverage of Mike Bracken stepping down as Digital Development  Director at GNM. I wouldn’t be at the Guardian if Mike hadn’t hired me for twenty days when I was a freelancer, and then used them to convince me to stay permanently.

If you want some idea of the kind of things that we achieved whilst Mike was here, you needn’t look much further than the presentation he gave at the Gartner 2010 Symposium at the end of last year: From Publisher to Platform: 14 ways to get benefits from social media.

For a more personal insight into the man, he wrote this painful and moving first-hand account of being at Hillsborough for the paper on the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Of course, the only constant in technology is change, and I wish Mike all the best in what he goes on to do next. Provided it isn’t another media company ;-)