August 1st, 2006

Filed under:
Technology, Vancouver
4 Comments »

For the Locals: Interesting Job, Boring Company

Just got an email from Derek Miller about a job that sounds pretty cool. Sadly, it’s for the BC Securities Commission:

Web Content Strategist, Information Management
We are looking for a self-motivated information professional to lead the content management, usability, and information architecture for the BC Securities Commission’s websites.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe the BC Securities Commission will make somebody’s heart sing. It’s just not my particular bag of kumkwats.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Andy K
August 2nd, 2006
1:18 pm

Maybe I’m being snarky, but isn’t that just a webmaster req? It looks like all duties and work of a webmaster surrounded by HR embellishments to make it look like the ideal job.

Maybe it is a decent job and being the lone web developer guy or gal in a financial company has its appeal. But in the end it’s likely to be the same old grunt work, dealing with the same impossible constraints and probable corporate dysfunctions. People embellish their resumes, companies embellish their positions, because people sell their ideal not their reality.

Darren, you do marketing, you should know this.

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darren
August 2nd, 2006
2:23 pm

Andy: Well, the job sounded cool to me.

If they’re looking for a webmaster, I doubt they’d ask for “an information professional with at least two years of applied web management experience and a degree in information studies/science, publishing, or communications.”

Trust me–most publishing and communications graduates aren’t equipped to use SSH.

Also, none of the webmasters I know “work with authors to design new content for the website”. Maybe your definition is different?

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Andy K
August 3rd, 2006
12:30 pm

I guess there’s a whole range of activities that fall under different definitions of webmaster, content strategist, and informantion manager. I suppose the webmaster is more conventionally in charge of machines, web server software and protocols, whereas this position doesn’t seem that technical.

My point was that this position is specifically not about authoring content (just working with authors), so it must be more about designing the layout and making sure the content is communicated effectively. And in my definition, the person who makes the pages (because it says nothing about managing people to do the work) is awfully close to the webmaster. In a small shop it could be the same person.

Not having worked in small shops or with webmasters, I probably shouldn’t have commented. But BCSC seems to be a larger enterprise with a small web presence, and I do know something about the way big companies try to make their grunt work look good. And I’m probably prejudiced, but I think the tendency is worse in financial and other non-technological fields.

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darren
August 3rd, 2006
1:34 pm

Fair enough, it may be a webmaster job. I don’t think it sounds like one, but they could just be dressing it up. “Who’s the webmaster?” would definitely be a question I’d ask.

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