For a period of time today I was off in my own dream world! RW are advertising! How fantastic would it be to work for them! I mean I spend as much time a I can on the forums, I love running, love helping others and encouraging people ... For a moment back then I was working for RW working from home and loving my job!
I was chatting to Spans and Benz at the time and amoungst other things (like I didn't have the skill set for the job!) I realised that I really want a new job and I really have no idea what my dream job would be!
I like helping people, resolving issues. I have great communication skills, a bubbly personality. I apparently inspire people (!). I like running and fitness and health/food fascinates me (and I eat a lot!! LOL!). I like learning and doing stuff and being busy and .....
If anyone could tell me what to do I would be grateful! I've often thought about writing a book on diet and exercise using my experience "How not to lose weight!". Then there is the WRN I would like to do, if I had the money to train and income wasn't an issue maybe a PT or online coaching. So many things I could do!
I wrote a mail to RW ... haven't sent it (yet). I said I could work from home and told them what they could do with the forums and offered various suggestions included my CV and said contact me if I could help.
But instead of wait for the slap of rejection I saved the mail and haven't sent it. I have the IT skills and the passion but not the journolistic side of things. Still as Sean said ... Shame.
Once the TW is done and my course is done then my No.1. goal is new job! Just need to work out what!
I was chatting to Spans and Benz at the time and amoungst other things (like I didn't have the skill set for the job!) I realised that I really want a new job and I really have no idea what my dream job would be!
I like helping people, resolving issues. I have great communication skills, a bubbly personality. I apparently inspire people (!). I like running and fitness and health/food fascinates me (and I eat a lot!! LOL!). I like learning and doing stuff and being busy and .....
If anyone could tell me what to do I would be grateful! I've often thought about writing a book on diet and exercise using my experience "How not to lose weight!". Then there is the WRN I would like to do, if I had the money to train and income wasn't an issue maybe a PT or online coaching. So many things I could do!
I wrote a mail to RW ... haven't sent it (yet). I said I could work from home and told them what they could do with the forums and offered various suggestions included my CV and said contact me if I could help.
But instead of wait for the slap of rejection I saved the mail and haven't sent it. I have the IT skills and the passion but not the journolistic side of things. Still as Sean said ... Shame.
Once the TW is done and my course is done then my No.1. goal is new job! Just need to work out what!
Comments
you cant be rejected as you havent asked for a job as such
throw the hat into the ring anyway
xx
Sean,
I understand from our conversation of yesterday, that the position advertised is currently office based in London. Should Runner's World decide that this role could be home based , or indeed any future roles, then I have attached my CV. Although I am indeed graphically a long way from London, with the recent advances in technology the Internet can be utilised with broadband and secure communications such as SkyPE for video conferencing, to enable working from home.
My previous job was working for an ISP which involved dealing with clients who had websites, creating the actual sites on the server, maintaining the servers and sites etc. I now work in support which highlights the need for good communication skills and working outside the box to find solutions and answers to problems.
I am passionate about helping others and love to see new people start to run and learn to love the sport as much as me regardless of their skills (I'm a proper penguin myself!). The RW forums are a great place to nurture new runners and have so much scope and potential to enhance the existing forum and site. Providing information and help to people in a quick and easy manner that is accessible to all is key to the site.
Ideas that I would propose to be actioned within the next 6 months, which would look to enhance the website as a whole, evolve around the scope of making the information easier to access.
For the purpose of example, instead of having all training plans together you could have a dedicated section especially for beginners. This would encapsulate the wealth of information on the RW site just for beginners. Training plans from 5k to marathon in HTML format to be read online or PDF to download. These plans could also be downloaded as a log (e.g. Excel) to help the total newbie to plan their new activity better. The beginners section could have it's own in-depth FAQ or indeed "web chat" with RW coaches perhaps taking the information off the current forums akin to the "best of" sections RW did before. Another option would be a section for various tools (e.g. pace calculator) and a training log, planner like the US site.
RW could allow information to be conveniently downloaded (e.g. PDF) so that people can print/save the information to read/re-read at leisure. Not everyone has broadband! Students may get restricted time online for example! Others may only have access to computers through the library where time is restricted and information gathering needs to be done quickly.
Having chat sessions with coaches/advisors with the people who write these articles may inspire more confidence and be less scary than the main forums which can for a newbie be intimidating. Many threads start "I've been lurking for a while ...."
Being able to download straight to Excel helps the newbie to get structure without to much thought to it, they say making a diary note means you are more likely to do something! In fact this fact is quoted in the magazine!
Each section should have an introduction which leads the reader through the information that is there and offer ideas for reading rather than just giving a list. They say that if the information is not readily available within seconds people will turn away not just from the page but the site as well. As a newbie would you read through a list to see what you want when you don’t even know what you want?
These are a few examples of things that I could see benefiting RW and the current website. Further analysis of thread themes could be used to create new and exciting articles and series such as training for the "elite forumite", fell runners, Tri for all, weight loss in the real world, cross training or indeed just surviving with a family and job! RW could follow readers in a series (very much like the RW marathon runners this year) and have the updates mainly on the site and just occasionally in the magazine to give more variety there too.
Further ideas for development relate to the forum itself , including:
Add spell check to the forum as a tool bar option, spell checking only takes a few seconds. There could be a small toolbar incorporated into the message box that allowed for easy spell checks, HTML editing (e.g. bold, italic and hyperlinks etc) and maybe the smiles that a lot of people seem to want!
Stop e-mail notifications as they don’t work often being late or just not happening. You may be able to turn off notifications by default through your profile settings, or indeed tick to turn notifications off but they do not appear to work satisfactory! Instead I would propose that there is an icon next to a thread title to indicate that new messages have been added since your last comment/visit.
Allow for customisation of the website; such as the colour (e.g. maybe allowing a blander, more discrete look such as pale blue or indeed black and white). You could allow subscribers to filter adverts or indeed turn them on or off.
Have a panic button that opens the forum as a word document for office users as we know there are loads of people who post at work! This could even be an option for subscribers to have as their default layout.
I would be delighted to be given the opportunity to discuss these ideas in more detail, my contact details are as follows :