Before Christmas, I had the opportunity to hang out with some graduate students at Columbia's Journalism School. I was surprised at their optimism in regards to their profession, their career prospects and the role of traditional media houses. That surprise meant I  then jumped at the chance to talk to Sherry Noik, an editor and writer at Sun Media about what she does all day. 

Sarah: Sherry, what do you do for a living?
Sherry: I'm an editor and writer (print and online) at Sun Media, a media chain based in Toronto. I also occasionally write articles for other (non-competition) publications.

Sarah: Did you always know what you wanted to do? How did you end up where you are today in your career?
Sherry: It's funny, when I was a kid, there were exactly two things I wanted to do: work in radio and be a writer. So that's what I did. First, I spent 10 years in radio in Toronto (sometimes on the air, mostly behind the scenes). Then I switched careers and have been a writer/editor full-time for eight years.

In both cases, I started at the bottom, so to speak. In radio, I interned at a station and was lucky enough to be hired on. When I left, I sold a few articles to newspapers (I'd already had a few articles published over the years), and then kept at it. Oh - and I majored in English in university. See? You CAN do something with an English degree.

Sarah: What do you enjoy most about your job?
Sherry: I get paid to read, write, tweet, travel and talk to interesting people!

I recently tried to come up with an estimate of how many actual words I read in a typical day. I think it's probably in the neighbourhood of 20,000 (that's 1/3 to 1/2 of a short novel!). That's articles I'm editing, articles I'm reading, research and keeping up to date with multiple "news" sources (blogs, social media, etc.).

By the way, having to keep up with blogs and social media and whatever memes or trends are making the rounds is also a really enjoyable part of the job.

Overall, it's that no day is ever the same, there's no routine. I might be quietly working away at fixing subject-verb agreements one day, then get offered a great interview the next. Occasionally, I get to travel somewhere interesting in order to cover a story. At the office, it's a dynamic work environment, full of intellectually curious and creative people.

One final thing: I still get a kick out of seeing my byline on a story!

Sarah: I'll have to follow that up by asking what you enjoy least about what you do! Is there anything you wish wasn't a part of your job requirements?
Sherry: What I least enjoy: bad writing and sloppy writing (not necessarily the same thing). Did I mention I read, like, 20,000 words a day?

Sarah: The way people consume news and media is changing. Where do you see Sun Media fitting in with people's changing habits?
Sherry:I've been here a few years, and I've seen the print and online sides of the business begin to collaborate much more effectively. We're all watching what's happening in the marketplace, and trying to respond to it. That's become easier with the digital side of publishing because you can track, in real time, what content is resonating most with readers.

As a company, Sun Media is keeping its hand in print publishing, digital publishing, television and mobile apps, so I guess the strategy is to stay diversified and provide content to people wherever, and in whatever form, they wish to consume it.

As individuals, my colleagues and I are constantly adapting to and embracing the new tech tools at our disposal. We have reporters shooting BlackBerry videos, print editors creating online slide shows... And, of course, everyone (almost) is following the goings-on on Twitter - more than any invention since the printing press, it has changed the way news and content is done.

Sarah: What do you see changing in your industry over the next year?
Sherry: That's a tough call, and everyone wishes they knew the answer. Clearly, digital is the way everything's going. The trick will be how to monetize it profitably. I think crowdsourcing and user-generated content will continue to grow - but I still firmly believe we will always need trained journalists and editors to filter out the noise. (There is A LOT of noise.) Maybe I'm biased.

Thank you so much for the interview Sherry. If you'd like to know more about Sherry, you can follow her on Twitter, or check out her blog, a place for cunning linguists, teehee!

I met Ira through twitter. He has what I consider to be a really cool job. He spends his days listening to music, developing content around music and being all strategenius for Corus Entertainment's interactive radio properties. Ok...that's the simple version of what he does, but don't panic, he explains in detail below!

Sarah: Ira, tell us about what you do!
Ira: No. You tell me. Ha. I’m the Creative/Content Director for Corus Entertainment's Interactive and Integrated Solutions and am the Brand Manager for ExploreMusic. I help develop content and strategies for Corus Entertainment's stable of interactive radio properties, specializing in social media, community building, content devlopment and mobile experiences.

Sarah: How much new music do you listen to each week?
Ira: A lot. Everyone says that, but I seriously listen to a ton of music. For a music lover, that’s a good thing I guess. I’ve always listened to a lot of music. I can remember listening to CHUM AM back in the day with my dad, driving around town or back at home where he’d slap on some Dave Brubeck on the hi-fi system. I owe my eclectic taste to those early experiences I guess. I’m pretty fortunate to work in a field where I have to listen to all kinds of music for work. Not just the artists we get to feature and talk to for ExploreMusic, but people have started to send me stuff to get my opinion on their sound, their marketing, etc. Band managers, artists, record labels, all kinds of people do. I’m often sitting at my desk at work with my headphones on. And really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg. I’m constantly digging up, scrounging for new music. We’re also working on these cool emerging artist platforms which are a total howl, cause we get to hear bands in their earliest, rawest form. I love that. Truth is, for me, it always comes back to my faves. If you’re on my Blackberry or Ipod Touch, you’ve arrived for Ira Haberman. That’s what I usually listen to on my commute to and from the office.

Sarah: What path did you take that led you to where you are in your career?
Ira: A long and winding road, to say the least. When all this started (my career) all I wanted to do was be a sportscaster. I idolized people like Dan Shulman, Elliotte Friedman and Mike Wilner growing up in my formative years, and really thought for a few fleeting moments that one day I would grow up to be like them. I even did some sports reporting for great radio stations like CFRB 1010 and 680 News here in Toronto. The bottom line though, is unless you are one of those dudes or as awesome as they are, it’s a rough ride. So that sucked, but I knew I loved radio, from a very early age, so a few really awesome jobs and experiences along the way led me here. I’ve worked every shift in radio, mostly behind the scenes, but sometimes in front of microphones. I’ve also worked for news/ information and rock stations. Originally I was brought into this division at Corus to work on nationally syndicated programming, like the Ongoing History of New Music and the Legends of Classic rock, but like technology the role has evolved. One thing remains though; I have a great face for radio.

I’ve always been really into making compelling content and most importantly connecting with an audience. I’m convinced that no matter what platform or gadget is cool, if you create compelling content an audience will check it out. And so here I am today, part of a team trying to leverage the power of audio entertainment (radio) and its deep connection with people into a new era. We’re still doing the same sorts of things that Uncle Milty did, but the circumstances are different. People aren’t huddling around a radio in the living room anymore, but instead are connecting with our stations or our personalities on our station websites, on a variety of social media, mobile apps, or their radio (there I said it!).

Sarah:You seem to juggle several responsibilities at work. How much of your time is spent on strategy and how much of it is spent creating content?
Ira: Ha. The ole’ chicken and the egg question. I’d say I attend to each with equal amounts of time, but not all the time. So one minute I could be interviewing some singer-songwriter dude that nobody has heard of, and the next minute I could be talking to one of our programmers about their social media strategy. It really does run the gamut. Does that make sense?

Sarah: What is your favorite part of what you do?
Ira: Evangelizing radio and taking radio into the new digital era (or whatever you call this period). Seriously, I love radio, and still think it has a lot to offer. I’m not talking about the physical radio on your mom’s kitchen counter, or the one in your car, I’m talking about audio entertainment in a more generic way. Our newstalk stations were chat rooms before we knew what that word meant and when done right like the way my pals Charles Adler or Dave Rutherford do it, it’s magical and translates really well on-line, on demand, or as part of a podcast. Charles Adler is one of the most prolific twitterers out there, cause he gets that all of this new tech stuff is just an extension of what he’s already been doing for so long. . Before Pitchfork was hip, people like Alan Cross were the tastemakers, letting us in on what’s cool to listen to. He’s still doing just that for ExploreMusic We’re extending the life of what people in the radio business have been doing for so long.

So yeah, I care passionately about the content our people create, and still think it’s very relevant, and for me, its fun telling people just that.

Sarah: Is there anything that takes up your time that is no fun at all?
Ira: I can’t really point to one thing that isn’t fun. I mean we all have paperwork to do that isn’t the most exciting, but you know what, I’m pretty lucky to have a gig like this. I could be outside in the cold rain and snow right now digging ditches. How fun would that be?

Sarah: Do you have any predictions for us for 2011? Where is the Interactive/Entertainment industry headed over the next year?
Ira: I have no idea actually. Things are moving so fast. It’s hard to predict anything these days. I suspect tablet computing will take off this year in a much bigger way, and that Apps will be the key to our collective existence. I think this also might finally be the year of cloud entertainment. You know, having your junk on a server somewhere, so that you can listen to it from multiple devices wherever you are. I use dropbox, evernote and love them both, because I can access my stuff however I want. Wish I could do that with my music. Believe it or not, the smartphone market is still emerging, and I think we’ll see penetration amongst more and more people. The dominant players in this space will continue to dominate. I’m really excited about these emerging artist portals that we’re building with the radio stations. Seems like a great way to leverage our megaphones and build community around local artists and fans. I’m pretty psyched about new records from Nicole Atkins, The Beastie Boys, Bright Eyes, Robbie Robertson, My Morning Jacket and Radiohead just to name a few. I’m sure there will be some killer indie stuff along the way as well…

Thanks for filling us in on your cool job, Ira! if you'd like to check out Ira's excellent music suggestions, go to his website, ExporeMusic. If you'd like to follow what Ira is up to, you can check him out on Twitter.

I've known James Sherrett for several years now. We met when he was in Calgary for a conference (not through anything to do with crowdsourcing, which is kind of funny). Recently, I was surprised to learn that he wrote a novel a few years ago. Not a bull-shitty marketing book, but a real, honest-to-goodness piece of fiction. How cool is that? I'm not going to lie, finding out stuff like this is one of the reasons I'm loving this blog :)

Sarah: How did you come up with the idea for AdHack?
James: I was a frustrated ad buyer who wanted a better way to do digital advertising. We needed to work fast and deliver great campaigns in days and weeks. Everyone in advertising was talking about the next quarter and the quarter after. It was impossible! So I started out to solve my own problem and build an ad agency that worked like the web -- fast, flexible, responsive. Now we have 1,000+ people in 21 countries.

Sarah: What did you do before this?
James: I ran the Internet marketing, content and web development teams for Intrawest where we sold vacations to places like Whistler and Cancun. Yes, I got a season's pass at Whistler. Then I did the same for Teligence where we sold phone 'entertainment.' Yes, there were late night ads featuring Evangeline Lilly. Before all that I wrote a novel. I guided fishermen.

Sarah: What's your favorite project that you've worked on?
James: Hugh Jackman is the global spokesperson for Lipton Ice Tea. He'd done a great ad called Tokyo Hotel Dancing that blew up all over the world. Lipton Ice Tea (and their agency DDB Paris) worked with us on an open casting call on YouTube for folks to submit videos and get cast with Hugh Jackman on the sequel ad. We did the project in 9 European countries and 8 languages and it was amazing how people responded. We got tons of entries. Then we started getting parody videos of the first ad. People had incredible passion for the project.

Sarah: What's the most interesting thing about working with AdHack clients?
James: The range of problems we get to solve. It's an awesome challenge. Some days we're creating teams to build apps for the iPad. The next day we're organizing teams for a global beer brand's event coverage across North America. Another day we're recruiting filmmakers to remix a global TV ad to redistribution. We've found some really solid basics of process and approach to work across these projects, but the projects always amaze with their diversity.

Sarah: Why do you think people are turning to crowdsourcing?
James: I think the bigger picture is that people are responding to the huge flood of digital content that we're all immersed in today. They're finding just like us that an open, collaborative, curated process, working with their customers and advocates, is the best technique to swim with the flood and influence its path. Crowdsourcing is one name for that response.

Sarah: Where do you see this industry going in the next year or two?
James: I think the biggest change we're seeing in advertising now and continuing over the next 5-10 years is the "80 / 20 flip." Here's the 30 second overview:

It used to be the standard rule that you made an ad and repeated the heck out of it. That's a model for mass media and why you see the same ads over and over. The ad (creative) was 20 percent of the budget and the space / time to run it (media) was 80 percent of the budget. That ratio is in the process of flipping. The 'creative' part of advertising is exploding in size and complexity: In size because we're living in a world of media abundance where replication costs are near 0; in complexity because we're in what I call a 'smoosh' time where our digital world includes all types of media: video, images, audio, software, text. All of that (with more coming) can be ads.

So crowdsourcing in advertising is a response to recruit more people to build more stuff to meet the demand for more creative in a world affected by the 80 / 20 flip.

Thanks for sharing with us James! If you'd like to know more about James, you can follow him or his company on Twitter. If you'd like to learn more about the 80 / 20 flip, he's got that on his blog. If you'd like to buy his novel, it's right here.

Toronto, how'd you get so lucky with all these smart people? Today, I'm interviewing Andrew Lane. Andrew and I met at a conference in Banff one year and he remains one of my favorite people to run into at any conference. Where ever Andrew is, fun will surely follow. 

Sarah: What do you do?
Andrew: I work at Weber Shandwick Canada.  We're the world's largest PR/Communications firm and I work as a member of our rapidly growing digital communications practice.  In Canada, my role is to provide strategic support for our 5 offices (Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Calgary, Vancouver) and I also work with our North American Emerging Media Team keeping our network up to speed on developments in the mobile and tablet markets.  I think it's a pretty great job for a nerd. 

Sarah: How long have you been there and what's the career path that lead you to your current role?
Andrew: I've only been at Weber since March of 2010 so I'm still a relative newbie.  My career started out at Ryerson University, studying television and  writing.  I then got into the industry and quickly shifted my focus to the digital storytelling side of things with a great company called marblemedia.  After a while I moved on to a few tech startups but found myself drifting away from that storytelling aspect of my work that I loved so much (for anyone who's ever met me, that statement should come as no surprise).  That brought me back to the entertainment side of the industry where I ran my own consulting business (shameless plug: http://nitch.ca) before getting the opportunity to work with Weber Shandwick.

Sarah: I think it is pretty reasonable to call you a networking pro, do you think this helps open doors for you?
Andrew: I'm not sure it's possible to be a "networking pro" but I really do like meeting people.  In the age of social media, it seems people consider it novel to meet "IRL".  While online relationships can be great, I'll always prefer knowing someone face to face.  People open doors for people they trust and I think being face to face with someone is the best way to build that trust.

Sarah: Have you always been this comfortable meeting new people, or did you have to work at it?
Andrew: If you've ever met my dad it's obvious that talking to strangers runs in my family.  While it's fairly counter to what you're supposed to teach your kid, I think my dad's natural curiousity in life rubbed off on me.  So I guess the answer is no, but I really think that if you're genuinely interested in learning about other people, there's very little work involved in meeting someone new.

Sarah: What's the most interesting part of your day?
Andrew: The most interesting part of my day is the end of it.  Once everything has finally slowed down, I consistently find interesting to reflect on everything that happened and see if I managed to learn something from it.  I believe in the saying "you learn something new every day" but I think you only retain that learning when you take a few minutes to acknowledge it.  So I try to.

Sarah: Of course, I have to follow that up with what's something you really wish you didn't have to do?
Andrew: Say "no" to people.  Is that vague enough?

Sarah: What advice can you give someone that would be looking to follow your career path?
Andrew: My career path has been a bit of a winding road but I've learned a lot of lessons everywhere it's taken me.  While I wouldn't encourage anyone to replicate it, I'd say that 'go with your gut' has been a saying that's consistently served me well and I'd encourage others to do the same.

If you'd like to find out more about Andrew, you can find him on Twitter, or at his website. To find out more about the company he works for, Weber Shandwick, check their social page. Weber Shandwick was just mentioned in Mashables Top Employers of Social Media Professionals!