FreeLists / webproducers / [webproducers] Re: The Web producer "career path" -- are these the right ranks?

["Tom Davey" <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marj writes: 

> To me, everything looks great here, except the early roles.

Xlnt -- only half of my scheme has problems. :-) 

> I guess I find #1 & # 2 somewhat interchangeable and 
> inconsistent across the field, which has come up before 
> on this list.

Agree on the interchangeability. Thus it is in my own department.
I try to preserve the #2 producers from performing production
duties, but sometimes it's the most expedient course to fire up
Photoshop or a markup editor or a database client to keep things
moving along. 

> A "line producer" was always a tv term referring mainly to 
> budgets and production, so now I'm a bit more confused.

Ah, I did not know that. So I should probably not use the term
"line producer"? 

> I have also seen "project lead" used to describe a position 
> that was very technical I believe, but I could be wrong.

Now that's interesting. I'm also recruiting for a position I call
a "Web Technical Producer." I believe that this customarily
describes a client-side programmer, JavaScript etc. I'm using it
in a different, "higher" sense. My Web Technical Producer is a
broadly skilled manager who will oversee programmers, sysadmins,
and service providers like hosting companies and CDNs. This
person will also devise QA plans and run testing. The analogy
isn't exact, but you could say that the Technical Producer is in
essence my Web department's IT director. 

Is that confusing? Is there a better term for this role? 

I should add that I control my own hardware and hosting
environment. If I have a site performance problem or a security
breach, I'm on the hook for it, not the corporate IT department.
Here's my compact with my IT colleagues: they steer clear of the
public websites, and I steer clear of the corporate LAN and
computer desktops. :-) 

> Content Producer: This really must vary across the industry, 
> because where I come from, which is mainly publishing and 
> educational/kid's media, a "content producer" is editorial 
> and NOT technical at all.

Interesting. So the folks who author markup and create/manipulate
graphics aren't usually called producers? How about folks who do
database insertions using a CMS? I believe that in media
companies like newspapers, the CMS workers are indeed called
producers, even though they probably began work at the pub as
journalists. 

Marj, much thanks for these insightful comments. 

-- 
Tom Davey
tom@xxxxxxxxxxxx
New York NY USA  



--


When out of office please set your subscription to VACATION MODE!

Be sure to trim your posts and delete personal information (e.g. address and 
telephone numbers) if 
you do not want them in the public web archive.

To unsubscribe send a blank message with unsubscribe in the subject to 
webproducers-
request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx  (and be sure to reply to the confirmation e-mail)

Manage your subscripton (digest, vacation mode, unsubscribe) at 
http://webproducers.org/join.html