Moving on from localpeople

Today was effectively my last day as Head of Publishing at localpeople. As I told my team yesterday, having taken redundancy my plan for the foreseeable future is to have a lovely long rest (maybe a year or two, not joking) and spend as much of my time as possible playing with my lovely new twins (four months old this Saturday), barring anyone offering me the opportunity to do something so unexpectedly fascinating or well-paid that I can't resist.

Localpeople's been a great place to work, and I've had a lot of fun being part of the team that took it from a piece of market research and a strategy presentation in the DMGT boardroom to a network of 123 local websites. As I pondered to someone the other day, my best guess is that no-one, with the possible exception of Arianna Huffington, has enjoyed the opportunity to hire so many new journalists in the last eighteen months, and I've loved the job of finding towns in which to launch new websites, hiring and training Community Publishers for those sites and helping drive forward a genuinely exciting new venture at the intersection of journalism and social media. It's been a fantastic couple of years, a privilege to work with a great team and I wish localpeople all the best taking the business to new heights in 2011 and beyond.

Update: here's more on my move from Journalism.co.uk

Comments

[James MacAonghus]

I hope your year off is fun; and from a selfish point of view that you keep writing this blog...

[Chris Gordon]

Wow. I did not see that one coming. Good luck and stay in touch, Seamus.

Cheers,
Chris

[Seamus McCauley]

Thanks a lot James, and rest assured I more often than not find myself unable to resist.

Chris - cheers buddy, been good working with and thanks for your contributions at my final training session last week!

[Marc Cooper]

Can I have your chair?

[Seamus McCauley]

Marc - if you can be bothered moving it from London to Bristol, you knock yourself out mate.