Small Wars Journal

SWJ commencing phase 2 or our nefarious plan

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 10:12am

We're expanding our team. Can you help?

We're looking to up the ante within this Small Wars Journal

endeavor of ours.  As we continue our struggle toward world domination, we find

ourselves in dire need of talented and capable conspirators.  We are moving

forward on our painfully overdue system upgrade, and trying to build out our

production and operations team so we can live well, work well, and play well

together to do more for the small wars community of interest.

It always makes Dave and me laugh (or cry) when we get

notes that refer to our "staff" or our "facility." Don't get us wrong -- we are

enriched by some fantastic advocates and supporters, a handful of volunteers

moderating the discussion board, all of our volunteer writers, and the active

participants in the online community.  But at the end of the day, in large part

due to our own failings, it is still just two guys doing most of the nug work

out of our virtual offices.  Not for much longer.  We are growing.

We have a couple of positions looming into semblance of a

shape.  You should see these as great opportunities to be involved rather than

as well defined, highly compensated career opportunities with promising growth

paths.  Heck, we can't even really pay ourselves.  But we are looking to expand

our team with sharp and enthusiastic folks, and find a way to make it work for

them, us, and everyone. 

These are roles rather than job descriptions; each has a

bit of an up-front project flavor to it with an enduring execution tail.  We

expect you to bring some insight and vision to the position, and expand it in a

win-win way.  We're trying to frame these in terms where a palatable chunk of 10

or so hours per week is ample for success, though we realize that's a wild guess

and it is recon pull --  we'll  evolve together to further lump, divide, or build

out the cast of characters. 

The big roles we're framing now are:

  • Advertising Manager (Banner King/Queen) -- run our advertising

    operations:  rethink our ad inventory as we go through site redesign; enhance

    our advertiser kit and the whole flow; outreach to, discussions with, and inking

    deals with advertisers; monitor campaign execution. You have audacity, tact and hutzpah,

    with the business, people, and operations sense to put it all together.

  • Merchandise Manager (Schwag Tsar) -- think up some nice

    small wars stuff that our folks would like to have, and find a way to get it to

    them.  Not at a loss, but we're more interested in building a brand and a

    community than we are at selling cheap stuff to make an extra buck.  Deal with

    vendors, figure out some realistic inventory, and get 'er done. Should have a keen eye for the difference between

    stuff and junk, and think end to end as far as the logistics goes. Amateurs talk

    t-shirts & coins, professionals talk fulfullment.

  • Social Networking Manager (Grand Twit) -- so we've got a

    token Twitter and Facebook presence, but we aren't doing much with it.  There

    are some untapped capabilities there and in our user profiles in vBulletin. We

    haven't done much in the way of facilitating local get togethers. 

    There's tons we could do but aren't because we just don't have the

    time. You have the vision and execution ability to do more smart stuff to

    help more people get SWJ their way, and get together in ways that are

    meaningful to them.

We've also got some more focused gaps where folks with some

specific talents can help us:

  • Developer -- if you're competent on a LAMP box, we've got a

    few office workflow things we'd like to have our system do more nicely.  These

    are distinct from our in-process migration to Drupal and we hope they are

    discrete, interesting projects that can be feathers in your cap and arrows in

    our quiver.  If you'd like to drop a shoulder on some of it, send us a note for a short list of

    specific things we're interested in.

  • Graphic Design (Style Guru) -- so with all this redesign and

    rework we're doing, we need someone with a better eye than us fashion disasters.  We'll soon be doing the CSS work with our site

    development team, and then there are a couple of collateral things that should synch

    up for that clean, consistent, simple, functional, good looks.  More Filson than

    Guggenheim, but we want some restrained flair and perhaps you're just the person

    to dope slap us with it.  We've got to make our 2009 Rolling Stone hotness even

    hotter.  Maybe this design gigs stops at the look & feel, maybe you drive

    through that

    to be more of a brand manager than a designer with excursions into content and

    the whole IO thing -- e.g. who knows what kind of junk that merchandise person is

    going to try to schlep that is just inconsistent with our "look"? 

    Your call.  But it starts with a sense of style.

We've got even more needs, but are a bit further out from being

able to engage when we find the right folks.  So we'll tighten that up ASAP. 

For now, please know that

down the road a bit we'll be looking for some more help in the areas of:

  • Editorial and Production Assistants
  • Fundraising & Outreach
  • Office & Event Operations
  • Content Gurus for various topic areas (~ library moderators / topic

    guides)

Next steps?  If you're interested, talk to us.  We have no

shortage of good ideas, what we lack is ability to execute (mostly

time-constrained); we'll want to know that you have those in balance to be able

to come in as a value add. We need you to be able to run with intent and a

shared vision (don't need a roadmap but won't wander off the reservation

either), be a straight-shooter, represent us well, and get your own benefit or

joy out of doing this. Let us know what you can do for us and how we can make it

work for you.

Comments

Bill (not verified)

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 1:29pm

We can't have our own political party because we're a 501c3. Everything else would have happened.

I've got the coin design and I looked into the Tshirts but fell short of pulling the trigger because all the rest (shopping cart, fulfilling orders, etc.) was just one more thing that I didn't have time to do.

I appreciate all the pitching in in comments here. Let me ask that folks that are deadly serious contact me by email.

As far as the content guru things, reform and reinvigoration (sp?) of the Library are near and dear to our heart. More on that when we have our actionable backbone there. There will be room for many players.

slapout9 (not verified)

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 1:06pm

Bill,
Back when I first joined here and we were talking about increasing our membership to 150??? remember that? I thought T-shirts and COINS were the beginning means to build the Empire. It was just a start. If we had done that,some of the expected results would have been.
1-We would have had our own Island off the coast of Florida by now......which means BP would be sending us checks!!!
2-We would have had our own Motel/Hotel chain.
3-Harley Davidson would be making SWC motorcycles.
4-We would have had our own Radio stations/programs and Jimmy Buffet would be writing songs about us and we would have had a number one record,CD,DVD or all of the above.
5-We would have our own line of SWC equipment.
6-We would have had our own line SWC field manuals.
7-Our won brand of Beer.
8-Our own line of Bar-B-Que equipment that would pass any G.I. field test.
9- Not to mention we probably would have had our own political party and because of the total lack of leadership in the country now, you and Dave would be getting phone calls about who the next President should be.
The list just goes on and on, all from some COINS and T-shirts,but you are right about Branding. We are Americans we don't make anything anymore....except Money. Let somebody else do the work.

So since that opportunity has passed....but that always creates another gap to crash through I am volunteering for Brand Manager(Tsar) and we will definetley have some good stuff....but we need to start small and go slow and find the Gaps through the 5 rings of the system and avoid the Surfaces.

Mike Few (not verified)

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 12:39pm

Bill,

I don't want to get into a dispute with Niel Smith over who should be the Armor Rep for SWJ. He can take tanks, and I'll pick up cav :).

I've got some free time on my hands right now. I'll send you an email with options on how I can help.

And, I second the nomination for Starbuck as "Grand Twit." Haha.

Xenophon

Fri, 06/18/2010 - 12:06pm

I'd love to be Fire Support Content Guru for free as long as I get a cool tag line like King of Battle Librarians. Or Cannon Cocker Collector.

Gents:

I'll throw my hat in the ring for "Grand Twit", although I'm constrained not so much by available time (I can always find time for the Blackberry), but being six time zones ahead of the East Coast.