A series of interviews have been published on this blog recently which provided an opportunity to get to know a bit more about speakers at the IWMW 2019 event. I’m please to continue the series with an interview with one of the plenary speakers: Alan Dargan, Documentation and Community Manager at Terminalfour, the IWMW 2019 Platinum sponsor.
1. How do you describe to your friends/parents/next door neighbour what your company does?
We help organisations in HE and beyond make the most of digital. Invariably, they’ll ask what HE is.
2. Tell us something really cool about your work at the moment
We work with AWS (we’re a partner) so we use it a lot. The cloud is where it’s at and the opportunities it gives even smaller organisations is staggering. You can even control satellites!
3. Whatʼs the most exciting thing about web and digital in the HE sector right now?
The only constant is change and sometimes you see things come full circle. There’s an increasing move from the sprawling “everything and the kitchen sink” sites to more distilled and considered messaging.
4. Whatʼs your proudest moment in your career so far?
I once drew storyboards for a video that were used by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
5. If you werenʼt doing this career what would your dream job be?
A professor
6. What will delegates take away from your session at IWMW this year?
That performance are UX and accessibility issues.
7. Any challenging (or even embarrassing) stories you can share of working with the HE sector?
Of course not.
8. What do you like to do in your spare time?
Having three children under five and two of those being very young twins spare time is a luxury but I enjoy running and reading though rarely at the same time.
9. Whatʼs your guilty pleasure?
Reese’s peanut butter cups.
10. Sum up your expectation of IWMW in one word
Enlightening
Alan Dargan is Documentation and Community Manager at Terminalfour, the IWMW 2019’s Platinum sponsor. In his talk Alan will be telling us “How to train your content- so it doesn’t slow you down…“
