Conor McGinnis

Major: Journalism (emphasis in Strategic Communication)

Certificate: Digital Studies

Graduation Date: May 2018

How did you end up working at Carmichael Lynch?

I started at a local agency in Madison (Hiebing) where I was a Digital Media Specialist, working closely between Digital and Media teams. I was assigned more and more digital/technical project work that involved building emails, landing pages, implementing pixels on client sites, running A/B tests, etc. After 2.5 years at Hiebing (3, if you count the internship I started there with), I ended up taking a Digital Producer role at a larger agency, Carmichael Lynch, and moving to Minneapolis at the tail end of covid. I’ve been at CL for 2 years now and am consistently producing work on Subaru.com, Phillips66gas.com, 76.com & Conoco.com.

What does a typical day in the office look like for you?

As a Producer, I work within the Digital sector of a broader Production team. Our team of Producers, Tech Leads, and Information Architects (~14 of us total) are tasked specifically with bringing content to life via websites. A day in the life could involve: managing web maintenance by supporting various Web Development teams to fix bugs, collaborating with the Creative team to create necessary assets, working alongside the Analytics team to optimize content for the end user, or communicating with client IT teams to ensure they stay informed of project timelines and budgets. Each day is different – it’s a fast-paced environment and there’s never a dull moment.

How has Digital Studies influenced your career path?

I took LIS 351: Introduction to Digital Information, where I learned basic HTML & CSS, as well as SQL and IT infrastructure, which helped me understand enough about logic/queries in order to communicate with folks on client tech teams. There was also Com Arts 346: Critical Internet Studies about the history of the internet that was valuable in familiarizing myself with vocabulary often used in the industry. And there was a UX course, LIS 341: Information Architecture, that was helpful in getting hands-on experience with focus groups, site mapping, wireframing and user research exercises.

Did you have a favorite Digital Studies class or professor when you were a student?

There was a really interesting Data Visualization course, Journalism 677, that introduced me to Tableau and R tools, data cleaning, analysis and critical thinking about how to best present data in a digestible way. The professor I had was awesome (sadly, he’s no longer at the UW) and it was a super relevant topic for this industry. It equipped me very well for reporting tasks and gathering insights based on website analytics.

Do you have any advice for current students?

Get involved in clubs and extracurriculars that you’re passionate about that also allow you to apply things you’re learning in your major and certificate. Or take a semester off and intern somewhere (if it works out with your credits and target graduation date) to see if the discipline you’re studying is actually something you can see yourself doing post-grad. That type of work is invaluable — and arguably more worthwhile than course work.

What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career thus far?

Having the opportunities to produce web content for brands like Subaru, Culver’s, Phillips 66, 76, Doctors Without Borders, Summit Credit Union, ABC Supply, etc. This is one of my favorite sites that I worked on: https://www.subaru.com/makeadogsday.