I’m leaving the Guardian
The title says it all - after three-and-a-bit years I’m going to be leaving the Guardian.
I’ve had the chance to work on some great products with some great people, but it is time for something new. The digital department has a great set of product managers, and an extremely talented and passionate tech team who I have loved working with. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with fantastic people across the organisation, especially our community co-ordinators and moderators, and a brilliant crop of young digital journalists who I hope will get the chance to shine and flourish at the Guardian.
The Guardian’s open approach to journalism and to technology means I’ve been able to run the Guardian Beta programme to test out new features and new ways of telling stories, and to talk about what we have been doing in Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Prague, Atlanta and at events like London IA, Hacks/Hackers, news:rewired (twice) and FutureEverything.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with thoughtful designers like Mark Porter, Andy Brockie, John-Henry Barac, Akemi Tagaki and Ben Wuersching as we have taken Guardian content from print to web to mobile devices, trying to provide the best experience for our audience whilst keeping true to the design and journalistic heritage of the Guardian and Observer.
Of all the things I’ve worked on whilst at Kings Place the Guardian Facebook app has been most fascinating, and I’m also very proud of the work I’ve done around sign in and registration on the site, and in helping to introduce user-centred design principles to the organisation. I started there as the first person they’d had with “Information Architect” as a job title, and now run a user experience team hosting UX drop-ins about what we do and testing things guerilla-style. Best of all has been working with Karen Loasby, Alastair Jardine and Lynsey Smyth - they’ve given me amazing support and done brilliant work.
And then there are my favourite achievements that won’t end up quite so high on my CV...
- Getting an Easter Egg into the sign in and registration system
- Talking about a giant penis you could see from space in morning conference
- Writing obscure articles about H.V. Morton, Delia Derbyshire and Killing Joke
- Slipping a reference to Karen Spärck Jones into the search help text
- The 3D wireframes
Last time I blogged that I was leaving a big media organisation, back in 2005, the post was full of my future plans. Not so this time, as I haven’t made them yet. So, if you feel you might have an appropriately @currybet-shaped opportunity, do drop me a line...here is my CV, my Facebook journalist/brand/page/timeline/thing, and my LinkedIn profile.