Last year, on a whim, I opted to post the self-assessment my boss has us write every year. So i thought I'd share it here again this year.

Self-assessment for Jake Sherlock
Friday, May 1, 2009

Tom,

Remember last year when I applied for the job over at RJI? I am so glad I didn’t get it. I don’t think I could have done what I did this year anywhere but the Missourian. They may call it the futures lab over at RJI, and while I’m sure they’re doing wonderful work over there, I think we have plenty to toot our own horns about over here.

With that said, here’s a rundown of my toots (not to be confused with a tweet):

• The opinion section: I’ve worked hard this year to breathe new life into opinion, and so far I’ll have received is positive feedback. I’ve tried to make it the destination point for community conversation at the Missourian, and so far the results have been wonderful. We’re giving voice to community members and to students who want to learn the fine craft of column writing. Highlights from the past year include:
• A redesigned print page. Emily Ristow has crafted page templates that save me the time of designing the section, plus the new elements give us an opportunity to bring the best of the Web-only content to print. 
• The Beat. I’ve worked with the folks at KBIA to bring a regular podcast to ColumbiaMissourian.com. 
• Today’s Question. This has given our advanced reporters more opportunity to practice their skeptical writing skills while also engaging readers with topics they’re talking about on local blogs, Twitter, the radio, et al. The next step is getting them to interact online with readers through the comments field, Twitter and Facebook.
• Comments. The new voices column is a collection of short e-mails, comments and tweets about local issues that readers send our way.
• Twitter. I’ve worked with reporters, copy editors and TA’s to harness the potential of Twitter and give us a strong presence in the local Twittersphere. This year has been all about experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. Now that we have a pretty good handle on that, I’d like to start implementing more Twitter usage in the newsroom.  
• Newsroom “tech guy.” I answer a lot of basic technology questions for folks around the newsroom, which keeps Rob and his team free to tackle more of the bigger things that come up, like getting new computers online. I’m also our primary trainer for django. I’ve also tried to put more of my software skills I’ve acquired this year to work helping reporters with their convergence projects. 
• Enriched Web site content. We’ve been much better about immediacy this year, and we’re getting pretty good at SEO headlines and linking. It’s been a growth area for us, but we can do better. 
• Trainings. This year, I’ve sought training through attendance of the 2009 ACES conference, plus I’ve spent time on Lynda.com sharpening my skills in Final Cut and Dreamweaver.  
• Instruction junction. Academically, here’s a brief list of what I did this year:  
• Teaching. I taught all of 4406 in the summer, the editing portion in the fall and the design portion this spring. This coming summer, I’ll have my first chance to teach Advanced Copy Editing and Design for Joy. 
• FIGS. I continue to stay involved with FIGS to get the word out about the Missourian and how we’re moving into the future a little faster than the industry is. 
• Graduate academics. I served on two graduate committees this year (Allison McGee and Emily Mead). 
• Neighborhoods project. I’ve been leading an effort to make an archived database of all neighborhood newsletters we’ve published so far, plus I’ve worked with Nanette to bring some of the radio interviews to the neighborhoods page. I hope to have a whole neighborhoods page “sub section” soon on the Web site. Most of the hard work on this was done by our work-study freshman and a couple of copy desk staffers.
  

In addition to keeping the momentum going on the aforementioned toots, here is a list of projects and trainings I want to accomplish in the coming year.

• More interactivity in the opinion section. We have a solid readership with our opinion section, but it could be better. I’m hoping that by building more interactivity into the section, they will come. Here’s how I plan to do this:
• More promotions for opinion. 
• Explore ways to engage readers through multimedia. There is a convergence student interested in doing an independent project with us next semester – I’m hoping I can work with her to bring more voices to the section through video, Flash, slideshows, etc.
• Continue finding diverse voices for guest columns and letters. 
• Be more “assistant-professorly.” I hope to join the graduate faculty this fall, plus I’d like to get more involved in academic committee work. 
• Continue learning new software. Every year in this space I talk about how I need to learn Flash. Every year I push it off for something else. Not this year. This is the year it gets done. 
• Public Access Network. This was a project assigned to me several months ago that I just haven’t had a chance to sink my teeth into. I hope to rectify that soon. 
• Be flexible. Things change, and too often our editor team is slow to react and/or slow to accept that times they are a changing. Besides not falling into that trap myself, I want to help encourage other editors not to be scared of Twitter, video editing, multimedia storytelling, et al. And if I can offer some tips along the way for handling things more efficiently and saving everyone time (I doubt you have any self-assessment claiming someone is underworked), that would be great for our newsroom.
  

In closing, this year has ranked as one of the most rewarding and fun years of my career. It’s going to be hard to top, but I’ll find a way.