She said it so offhandedly, but my ears perked up immediately when Christine Diemert spoke the following words: "We have great IT folks."
The managing editor for news of
GlobeandMail.com, the online site of Toronto, Ontario's
Globe and Mail, was singing the praises of her team's tech staff during a recent Poynter seminar, "Strategies for Online Leaders."
Diemert talked about how easy it was to brainstorm and execute new ideas on the site because her IT team worked in close partnership to make things happen. When I hear something like that, I automatically want to dig into the story behind the successful working relationship.
It's not that I expect bad blood, but I'm aware that in some organizations, the journalists and the tech experts can get on each other's nerves. Ask the engineers in TV or radio stations. Ask the IT wizards at any medium's Web site. They'll tell you that they're sometimes taken for granted. Sometimes the last to know about a project that's been in the pipeline for a while, one they could have improved with early input. Sometimes treated as support staff to the idea people, rather than knowledge workers themselves.
Let's face it: Journalists break things; tech folks fix things. Journalists want things NOW; tech folks know that everyone else does, too. Journalists get bylines and air time; tech folks toil in the background. Journalists converse in news-speak; techies say smart things that only they understand.
So, with all that potential for tension, whats going right in Toronto? I asked Christine if she'd face my SuperVision camera and spill all her secrets. Bless her heart, she said "yes":
