In January Graham Tyrrell joined the team as the University’s new Head of Digital.
With over 15 years’ experience in web and digital work, he’s worked in a number of not-for-profit organisations.
We promised you a post from Graham, to see what he’s been up to so far – so here it is…
I always see the start of a new job like starting a jigsaw. One of those fiendishly hard puzzles where they don’t print the final picture on the box. Oh, and they don’t tell you how many pieces there are. Nor whether they’re all in the box to start with!
So you dive in headlong, start with the corners and then try to build up the edges. Sometimes you put things in the wrong places, sometimes you scrap it and start again, then suddenly you get that little thrill when you see where a couple of edge sections can join up.
I started my job here as Head of Digital in the middle of January and that’s where you find me today, just putting together some of the edges of my work jigsaw. Meeting as many people across the University as possible, finding out what they do, what their needs are going to be from the Digital team, and how they’ll fit into the overall picture.
There have been times already where I’ve had to move pieces around as they don’t fit together how I originally thought they did. But at least I’m starting to understand the general type of picture I’m meant to be creating.
What have I learned so far?
I’ve learned that the Go Mobile project is a mammoth task that has impacts across the whole University. The project names belies a complexity beyond just making the website mobile optimised.
The Corporate Web Team, which I’m going to be referring from now on as the Digital Team, are a friendly, highly skilled and dedicated bunch of people. I’m really looking forward to working with and leading the team.
That it’s totally impossible to find anything via the staff homepage, but that apparently one of my first major projects for me is to introduce a new intranet to the University.
That the Digital Team will be working incredibly hard with NUIT over the coming months to take the University’s digital presence to the next level.
….and lots, lots more but I was always told to keep the audience wanting more.
So what’s next?
Well as all jigsaw aficionados know, once you’ve done the edges the next bit is to start on the blue sky!
Image credit: Jigsaw Puzzle 01 by Björn Larsson licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0
