All sorts of unexpected things

I’ve always enjoyed creating stuff. I would construct endless Lego houses during the school holidays at my grandmother’s place. She’d dutifully admire them and take photos of me with each one.

I used to dream about buying ugly houses to save them from demolition and turn them into swans, like Three Birds Renovations do.

I love getting a floor plan and pondering how I would make the space more user-friendly.

But for some reason I became a journalist rather than an architect or an interior designer.

There wasn’t much call for building things in print journalism and there were designers to bring the stories to life, but now I’m a communications manager I’ve learned lots of fancy digital tricks.

The website I manage has what’s called a headless CMS.

According to Google: “A headless CMS is a back-end only content management system that separates the content repository from the presentation layer, making it accessible via APIs for any device or platform. Unlike a traditional CMS, it focuses solely on managing, storing, and delivering content without dictating how it is displayed. This allows for flexible, omnichannel experiences, where content can be published to websites, mobile apps, smart devices, and more from a single source.”

I have no idea what that means, but I do know how to build pages and articles within it.

My major project this week is to create a digital version of the annual report. The annual report is 140 pages, so it’s a big job.

When I’m finished it will be like a mini website, filled with sections and articles and images and graphs.

It’s a hard slog, but once it’s finished I imagine there will be a sense of achievement. Sadly there will be no Nan to dutifully admire it.

Last year, I had someone with much better headless CMS knowledge than me to help, but he’s gone on to bigger things.

I’ve checked how he did it and now I’m madly recreating and upscaling it. I will share the link when it’s done, although I find most people think annual reports are frightfully dull.

Since working on my second one I’ve become a bit evangelical about how good they can be. I’ve put all my old magazine skills to use, especially on the cover.

This was last year’s …

I also set aside my fear of criticism and listened closely to what the judges had to say about our entry in last year’s Australasian Annual Reporting Awards.

Fingers crossed this year’s effort addresses some of their feedback.

It feels good to have learned so many new skills in the past three or four years. You don’t expect to do that in your late 50s.

I know how to write media releases and speeches, launch and manage websites, edit annual reports and all sorts of unexpected things.

It’s a buzz considering they’d only just introduced computers to the newsrooms when I became a cadet reporter at The Newcastle Herald.

All my new skills would have come in very handy 10 years ago when I couldn’t get a job. I reckon my age and lack of university degree would hold me back now.

Ageism is a bitch and while a few people at my high school reunion said their main memory of me was that I was smart, it feels a bit dumb not to have a degree.

But it’s not something that ever appealed to me – I’ve always loathed studying – so I reckon I’ll just stumble along without one for the last few years of my working life.

Speaking of stumbling, it’s time for me to get ready for work – the insomnia was savage last night so it’s going to be a blurry one.

Song of the day: Alice Cooper “School’s out”