Content strategy

Audience engagement

Both as part of and beyond my main roles, I have been regularly called upon by various ABC divisions to participate in developing strategies specifically aimed at growing or improving audience engagement. Examples of these are an experimental second screen project, an iView product review, and any number of specific program and station strategies.

I've also helped other businesses and startups devise and execute strategies which are aimed squarely at truly engaging loyal and invested customers.

Disaster coverage

For some years - since my reporting days - coverage of emergencies and disaster situations has been an important passion of mine. It's also inspired some of my most ambitious ideas.

Over the years I've contributed to high level discussions about content usage in emergencies, and at times pushed the boundaries as I reported from the scene. As the ABC's social media coordinator, I drove a groundbreaking project to coordinate social media reporting on emergencies across the whole of the ABC. This meant establishing new lines and means of communication, and coordinating collaborative efforts to minimise double handling and overlap. The goal throughout was ensuring that the ABC communicated all relevant information efficiently, with all divisions' accounts following a clear logic to minimise confusion among the audience at critical times.

Program strategy - television, radio, news

I've helped to form and revise content strategy for numerous programs and initiatives across the ABC's Television, Radio, News and Innovation (now Digital Network) divisions.

Throughout, I've had to be nimble in my thinking, responsive enough to pivot and change direction as fresh challenges present themselves. Working on ABC News 24's newly minted (at the time) News Exchange program strategy was fun: not only was there an open-minded and energetic team at the helm, but the program was keen to break new ground melding digital with TV broadcast, which offered up all sorts of possibilities.

Generally speaking, while it's satisfying to turn less successful ships around, some of the more satisfying experiences for me have been opportunities to work on a program strategy from scratch. ABC Fact Check was one such opportunity: it was a fascinating experience contributing to strategy and sitting at the nexus of content production and digital strategy in the formation of a plan.

Major content development

In 2009, I dreamt up a big idea for the ABC: an ambitious content-based proposition that involved pulling together a vast collection of ABC content and making it much more useful to the audience than in its current forms by offering tools and interfaces with which the audience could interact. I did it largely on an inspired whim, but the idea was picked up by management and soon I was asked to make a detailed bells-and-whistles proposal to the ABC's Directors. Sadly, technical limitations meant that this project couldn't happen at the time. It was a lot of fun dreaming it up, though!

Brand campaigns

I've made formative contributions to numerous brand campaigns over the years, both at the ABC and for other independent brands.

At the ABC, two brand campaigns I particularly enjoyed helping with were the all-of-ABC brand revision in 2010, and ABC News' 'Know the Story' campaign.

I've genuinely enjoyed the challenge of marrying the need to satisfy lofty brand ambitions with making a genuine connection with audiences or customers.