The Hired Guns Blog

Asking “Can’t We Just … ?” Won’t Get You What You Need from the Digital Team

Lisa Schneider on February 1, 2012

I hear the phrase “Can’t we just . . . ” around the office a lot. Actually, I should correct that. I used to hear that phrase a lot.

Now I have a Post-it on my computer with those words in a circle with a line through it, and I’ve pointed to it enough times that I hear it less often.

Here’s what used to happen when people said that: I’d take a deep breath. Downward glance to compose myself. Pause-filling smile. Another pause filler, maybe sip my tea, or save my doc, or anything to buy a few more seconds to still my beating heart.

Transitioning to Digital

Lisa Schneider on November 30, 2011

We’d like to welcome to the blog Lisa Schneider, who works in the digital part of her organization but who brings to it knowledge honed from a past working in print. She’ll be writing about just that sort of move, whether it’s about how to transfer current skills to a digital area, manage digital employees, or get a purely digital career off the ground in organizations that might not be completely up to speed themselves. She’s here to help you keep up, so that you and your career stay relevant. And in such a rapidly changing field, we suspect that you’re likely to have your own questions. Please feel to either put them in the comments below or to ask them via Twitter.

Having successfully made the transition from print to digital over a decade ago, I’m sometimes approached for advice on how to make that leap today. People who’ve been happy to leave it to the tech department until now are realizing that they ignore digital platforms at their own peril, since even non-techs must show an understanding of and facility in this area just to keep up: editors are creating or optimizing content for multiple platforms, marketers must master getting their message out via number of channels to show a reasonable return on investment, salespeople are asked to sell multimedia packages, and the list goes on.