I left Knight Ridder this month after nearly eight years. It feels strange to write that. Almost eight years is a long time when you’re 28. I started here in September 1995, and I’m leaving as a VP. A lot happened in between.
How it started
In 1995, the technology staff at Philadelphia Newspapers had a problem they couldn’t solve: how to get the contents of the Inquirer and Daily News automatically posted online. They’d been working on it for weeks. Someone suggested bringing in a young guy who knew the web.
I was 20, working part-time. They explained the problem. I went home and came back 36 hours later with a working solution. That system, my first real piece of production software, is still running today. Other newspapers keep asking to buy it.
That moment taught me something I’ve relied on ever since: sometimes the person without preconceptions sees what the experts miss.
The early projects (1995-1998)
The work kept getting more interesting from the start.
Pin was one of my first major projects, a newspaper web publishing system I designed and led development on. It was arguably the first automated online newspaper publishing system in the world. It ran in production for 4 years and allowed Philadelphia Newspapers to compete favorably against other newspaper companies with much larger staffs. The automation let editors and producers focus on online journalism and build several award-winning products on it, including the acclaimed Black Hawk Down web site.
Planet Jobs was one of the first job sites with a shopping cart feature. You could save listings and apply to multiple positions at once. Sounds obvious now. Wasn’t then. It was the most popular job search web site in the Philadelphia area for over 3 years, and until Knight Ridder’s co-acquisition of CareerBuilder, it primarily sustained and strengthened the two newspapers’ recruitment listings.
The Clipper was a personalized newspaper product. Users could choose their topics and get a custom edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News delivered by email or on the web. We built a database of over a hundred thousand registered users. It improved customer loyalty, even if the business model didn’t scale the way we hoped.
AdMaster was an online ad management system I ideated and developed in 1997. Industry-first features. It enabled business people to sell and manage ads on the web sites without depending on technology or editorial staff. This made advertising highly effective on the Philadelphia Newspapers web sites and was instrumental in helping the Sales Team win the 1997 Editor and Publisher EPPY award for Best Use of Advertising on a Newspaper Web Site.
The first internet email gateway for Atex enabled journalists to file and retrieve stories via email from anywhere in the world. People in the newsrooms found this a revolutionary way to work. It created enormous cost and time savings for journalists in multiple locations. I also later built the first web gateway to the Atex legacy publishing system, enabling reporters and editors to securely file stories from any web browser. This was a paradigm shift from the old dial-up systems that were unreliable, slow, and expensive to maintain. That one saved over 80% in costs compared to the alternatives they were considering.
The Sports Network CMS is one I’m proud of. It’s still in use and powers not just their web site but co-branded sports sites for dozens of customers including the New York Times, Fox Sports, Comcast, Tribune Media, Cox Interactive, and others. The system has been a significant portion of their revenue and enabled them to transition from a sports wire service to an internet-based media and content distribution company.
Philly.com web hosting division was a business I developed for hosting other organizations’ web sites. It provided a steady stream of revenue for 5 years and enabled Philadelphia Newspapers to build strong relationships with organizations like the Chamber of Commerce and Genuardi’s Family Markets, strengthening ties with major newspaper advertisers. Revenue increased by 10%.
The Franklin Institute Science Museum product enabled over a million visitors to the museum to instantly publish their personal web pages along with their digital photos on the museum’s web site. My name was imprinted on the wall inside the museum’s CyberZone section, alongside individuals and organizations that donated money or work to the museum.
Sr. Programmer Analyst to Manager (1997-1999)
PhillyFinder was a web portal and search engine I built in 1997. It was the only product I know of that integrated a search engine with a directory, helping users narrow their searches progressively. It ran for 5 years in production and helped Philly.com become a comprehensive destination for Philadelphia-related information. It resulted in improved search results and an increase in users, page views, and advertising revenue.
I also led development of an online Yellow Pages product that was a steady source of revenue for 4 years. The success resulted in the hiring of additional sales people to sell it.
When I became Manager of Online Technology in 1998, I organized the technology department into development and operations teams. This improved focus and allowed employees to better pursue their career growth.
I was project lead for a print ad management system for Philly Tech magazine. They needed such a system to generate revenue and didn’t have the funding or time for an expensive solution. We developed and implemented it 50% under budget and 50% faster than targeted. It met all their needs during the magazine’s 3-year lifetime with minimal operational and maintenance costs.
I also served as technology consultant to the General Manager and VP of Business Development for evaluating company acquisitions specializing in online recruitment products. I participated in negotiations and conducted all technology-related interviews to evaluate products, services, technologies, and long-term prospects.
Director, Online Technology (1999-2000)
This is when I envisioned Cofax.
The idea was simple: newspaper staff shouldn’t spend hours posting material to the web. They should focus on journalism. The software should handle the publishing automatically.
We launched Cofax from Philly.com in collaboration with newsroom colleagues at the Inquirer and Daily News. I was directly involved in selling the Cofax concept to the different Knight Ridder newspaper sites, convincing newspapers’ online staff, Knight Ridder Digital senior management, and Digital employees in multiple cities of the benefits. Delivering results with each new implementation was challenging and fulfilling.
Today, Cofax is among the most popular open source news media content management products used by newspapers and media companies in the US, Europe, and Asia. It’s been favorably reviewed in over a dozen magazine articles.
I also acted as the primary technology consultant to Knight Ridder Video, a profitable subsidiary of Philadelphia Newspapers. I helped KR Video negotiate a business relationship with Channel 6 ABC in Philadelphia, authoring a proposal with three options for affiliation between the two companies and providing primary technology and product development services for the creation of the 6abc.philly.com web joint venture.
During this time, I advocated and established software engineering methodologies helpful for rapid development. These were a subset of agile/extreme programming practices including pair-programming, refactoring, and iteration planning that were used in several successful projects.
I also ensured Year 2000 compliance at the company. Due to mainframes and legacy systems involved, this took several months of diligent work beforehand. The systems worked without problem on the date and during the subsequent months.
Director, Technology, Northeast US (2000)
I accepted additional responsibilities for sites across the Northeast region.
The big project was implementing Cofax for 20 newspapers across the country. Successful implementation led to 30% savings in operational costs and created efficiencies that freed up about 40 employees to be redeployed.
This work was featured as the top story on Sun’s Java home page in February 2001 as an example of a large enterprise benefiting from Java technology.
My team migrated the technology infrastructure to a new office location without any interruption of service. We also successfully migrated about 100 user email and workgroup accounts from local operations in Philadelphia, Kentucky, and Ohio to the centralized operation in Miami. This consolidation resulted in better service and 40% cost savings.
Vice President, Engineering (2001-2003)
At 26, I became Vice President of Engineering.
I oversaw about 35 engineers, managers, and directors in San Jose and Philadelphia, plus up to 20 contractors on year-long projects. I managed a multi-million dollar budget, mentored 3 senior directors, coached engineers, and acted as technical problem solver of last resort. I worked closely with managers of Product, Editorial, Sales, Marketing, and Research departments and employees of 31 regional newspaper offices. I reported directly to the Senior Vice President of Product & Technology.
The biggest project was Knight Ridder Digital’s next generation unified content management and publishing system based on Cofax, integrated with the BEA Weblogic Platform and Oracle Database. This was a year-long project with a total budget over $20 million and over 100 staff in multiple locations. Customer requirements were extremely diverse across markets. This new product transitioned the company to a new operational paradigm. 31 Knight Ridder web sites are now in production on this system. The implementation increased efficiency by over 40% and is expected to save over 50% in licensing and operating costs.
I served as Knight Ridder Digital’s technology representative to assist the parent company in selecting the future print publishing system for all 31 Knight Ridder newspapers. This involved understanding requirements across all newspapers, negotiations with multiple vendors, interactions with CEOs and senior managers, and checking vendor references. CCI Europe was chosen by Knight Ridder management.
I directed the migration of 31 Knight Ridder web sites to a single hosting provider, consolidating all web hosting, related management, and expenses into one operation and reducing expenses by 30%.
The recognition
Knight Ridder gave me the Excellence Award for Technology Innovation twice, in 1999 and 2001.
The 1999 award was individual. The jury said I’d “done more in four years than some do in a lifetime.” I was also part of a team nominated for the 1997 award for the success of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News web sites. At a news media conference, Bill Gates praised the sites’ use of technology and innovation, showing examples on screen.
The 2001 award was for the Cofax team. The jury praised “the innovative, entrepreneurial spirit of the team” and noted that “the product they developed has been a tremendous help to all of Knight Ridder’s newspapers. It saves time and money, and will be a revenue stream when sold to other publishing companies.” That one meant more to me. Building a great team is harder than building great software.
An engineering team under my direction also received the Newspaper Association of America 2001 Best Practice Award in New Media for Xmultra, a product for integrating data in legacy newspaper publishing systems with web publishing systems.
What I learned
Nearly eight years is enough time to learn a few things:
Start with the problem, not the technology. The best projects came from understanding what journalists and editors actually needed, then figuring out how to build it. The worst came from starting with a technology and looking for problems to solve.
Good people make everything easier. I’ve worked with some brilliant engineers here. When you have people who care about the work, management becomes mostly about removing obstacles and getting out of the way.
Ship it. Perfect is the enemy of done. We shipped a lot of software that wasn’t perfect. Most of it got better over time. The stuff we tried to perfect before shipping often never shipped at all.
Newspapers are changing. The web is disrupting everything about how news gets made and distributed. I don’t know exactly what comes next, but I know it won’t look like what came before. The companies that figure this out will survive. The ones that don’t, won’t.
What’s next
I’m taking some time before the next thing. After nearly eight years of building, I want to think about what to build next.
Knight Ridder gave me my start. I’m grateful for that. The people here—the engineers, the editors, the journalists—they made it a place worth showing up to every day. I’ll miss working with them.
But it’s time for something new.