Role and key responsibilities
I look after all interaction with our users. That covers everything from thinking about how we set up community standards and what the policies and procedures are for dealing with our users. It involves thinking about the experience of being a user on our site and how we improve that through editorial, technology and community management methods.
Half of my time is spent in meetings, usually with editors talking to them about specific projects they might have going on and the other half is spent working through guidelines and policies; trying to distil what users, staff and contributors are experiencing on the site (and what I've experienced and noted) and turning those insights into patterns and models for improvements and best practice.
I also spend a couple of days a month out talking to external organisations, finding out what they're doing and talking to them about what we're doing with social media - building relationships.
Your job is quite unique and not found in many other organisations, is it?
There are bits of the job that do exist in lots of different companies and industries. I think my job is at the centre of a Venn diagram of lots of different roles across different organisations. It's a little bit of journalistic/editorial development, a bit of community management, a bit of social media/technology strategy, a little bit of public relations and communications, a little bit of user experience consultant and a tiny bit consumer product development. A little bit of everything.
The only reason I'm doing this very unique set of things is because - happily for me - it has become a very Meg-shaped job. Over time, I've been able to shape it into the sort of thing I enjoy and am really good at, which luckily dovetails nicely with what we need as an organisation.
What 5 steps since leaving school do you think have led you here?
Well, I wouldn't recommend my career path as a model for getting involved in community experience management, but there are some key steps which have influenced the direction of my career.
Step 1
Specialising in anthropology and linguistics at uni
I think one thing that has positively influenced my career development is studying anthropology. Having a good understanding of people and processes and learning about how to spot patterns for behaviour in everyday life has been very relevant.
As part of my Latin American studies degree I spent a year in Bolivia writing my dissertation about communities, specifically highland Bolivian communities, and how they perceive and express membership of a community: the rituals and the linguistic things they do in order to recognise each other and increase bonds.
Step 2
Working in a cyber cafe
After uni, during my MA I started working in the first cyber cafe in the north of England. I was really interested in the way people were using the internet, not just to contact friends and search for things but also to spend time in chat rooms and expressing themselves creatively on homepages.
When the time came to write my thesis, I couldn't get funding to go back to Bolivia so I took a different approach and decided to do field work on the internet. I wrote my thesis on redefining community and the need to redefine notions of culture in the age of the internet. It was about how people who have never met before come together to talk about stuff that is important to them.
Step 3
Putting my thesis online
I put my thesis online because I thought 'if it is about the internet it should probably live there', and through this taught myself how to build web sites, though some years before I'd picked up basic HTML from a teach yourself book. In 1997 I applied for a job with AOL in London and because they'd searched for my name and had found my stuff online, they said why don't you come down and talk to us?
Step 4
First job as producer with AOL UK
I worked on their Local Life channel which involved engaging local communities and conversations plus listings and classifieds. It was very editorial, quite technical and had absolutely no requirement for any anthropology whatsoever.
Step 5
Working my way up through AOL
I stayed with AOL for 9 years - working my way through from being a producer to being senior producer on AOL UK to head of commercial development and then I moved over to AOL Europe as consumer experience lead for social media projects and initiatives - so after all those years in the tech and commercial wilderness, it started to come back to social media again.
Then I came to the Guardian in 2007.
But the two things which have been most relevant to my career path were actually doing things that I'm personally passionate about online - blogging, sharing photos and building web pages have helped me to understand other people's passions - and having a solid academic grounding: having the right kind of approach to research, talking to people and field work essentially.
Personalities and skills best suited to your line of work
You need to have a good analytical brain, be able to spot patterns in the most unlikely places and think two steps ahead. You also have to be a self-starter - no-one is going to tell you day-to-day what to do, so you need to be able to figure it out for yourself, and prioritise.
The best career advice you've been given
Someone once told me to find a job that fits you rather than trying to fit into a job.
Advice you would give
Whatever you do, don't just do it for work. You have to love the thing that you do as well. I've met and interviewed so many people who talk about the internet as 'it's a job thing' but I think the most inspiring people who have jobs on the internet or in digital are those who genuinely love the medium. You can see it in their hobbies, what they do, the way they talk about or organise their lives, how they communicate with friends and strangers, search for houses and holidays and all of that kind of thing. Don't just work on the internet, live on it.
Do stuff for fun; blogging and Twittering and stuff like that can really help you to understand how people engage online, and why. But be aware when someone does interview you - just like they did for my job at AOL - they may look you up on the internet. It's important to take control of your online reputation by creating it: don't let someone just infer things about you from your digital trail.
Since this interview, Meg has become head of social media development for the Guardian.
