I’m a journalist, editor and information architect with a broad range of experience working for top-level media, commercial and government organisations.

I started out in journalism straight from university and (with a brief detour through a local authority library service which has stood me in amazingly good stead) worked in local newspapers for a decade, doing every job from writing village notes through to interviewing the Prime Minister. The former being by far the most socially useful. Hang on – I think I did actually manage to avoid covering Sunday morning football.

And then the Internet was invented

In July 2000 I left my job as the political correspondent of a regional evening newspaper to become a freelance web editor and producer. I got my first regular work on the emerging website of The Independent and went on to do similar jobs for organisations like ITN, the Times Educational Supplement and Channel 4 News. It was a wonderful few years, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But I’ve got an entrepreneurial itch that has become progressively harder to ignore and it was becoming increasingly evident that I needed to swap freelancing for my own company, in order to have more control over my working life and the kinds of projects I took on.

I did that by way of some freelance and contract work that allowed me to gain invaluable experience working on big public-sector projects, largely involving content migration for the websites of government departments. One of the lessons was how to get things done in an organisation with a culture of wide consultation and necessary policy approval. I’m grateful to have had the experience but it wasn’t getting me any nearer to my goal of business self-sufficiency. Which is how you come to be reading this.

Taking opportunities

We all have something that we are great at. I can do magic with words, and I’m not too bad with code either. I’m a terrific problem-solver and lateral thinker thanks to the fact that my brain is probably wired up a little bit differently to most. When they invented the profession of information architect, or librarian of Web 2.0, then I found my ideal occupation. And so far Onlineability has brought us some great opportunities including making a WordPress-based site for a City regulator, working with the lovely folk at the Screech Owl Sanctuary in Cornwall, going briefly back to my former occupation of interviewing government ministers (at least, when they lead alternative lives as racing drivers) and chatting to the chief engineer of a Formula One team.

Life’s all about grabbing opportunities. ‘Opportunity-taker’ is a reasonable English translation of the French word ‘entrepreneur’ in fact. So, if you have something you’d like to discuss with us, get in touch.

Best wishes – Lisa

Five key skills:

• I have superlative writing skills honed in a demanding newspaper environment and successfully adapted for use online, in commercial and in public-sector settings. Education and technology are my specialist subjects.
• I am a very experienced editor with a strong command of the English language, the ability to assimilate and apply a style guide quickly and a keen sensitivity in preserving tone and style.
• I am an experienced and proficient information architect with experience of organising the navigation and labelling, categorisation and tagging, content strategy and taxonomies of all kinds of sites, right up to big public-sector projects.
• I understand the Internet inside-out including all the pros and cons of using blogs, wikis, social networks, interactivity, open-source software and freely-licensed content.
• I’m a superb problem-solver able to bring a fresh perspective, lateral thinking and solutions that you may not even have thought of.

Five key achievements

• Being successfully self-employed for the last nine years with clients including international media organisations, brands and government departments.
• Creating and running a highly-regarded motorsports website which is recognised by marketers, sponsors and even Formula One teams as an emerging leader in its field. Expanding the brand to take in new areas like cricket and, in the future, boxing and sportscar racing.
• Working as a web editor, writer and producer for several national newspapers and broadcasters and coming to be regarded as reliable, absolutely trustworthy and a key team member in each case.
• Developing a career as a political journalist which culminated in a post as political correspondent with a regional newspaper and included interviews with the Prime Minister, opposition leaders, key cabinet members and opposition spokespeople.
• A member of a two-person team that took part in Perplex City, a pioneering online alternate-reality game run over two years by games company Mind Candy – beating around 50,000 players in 92 countries to its £100,000 prize. This took research, imagination collaboration, problem-solving, perseverance and initiative.