The Importance of Versatility
With the onset of the digital age, our ways of creating and spreading information are ever changing. This makes adaptation, initiative and passion key to success in our industry, and being a versatile player becomes integral to staying on top.
To further explain, I hope you’ll let me brag a little on one of my kids, who started working at AMS Pictures, when she was just 8 years old, filing accounts receivable, and whose work today fully embodies the need for versatility.
Rachel worked for AMS Pictures throughout high school and college – and then later on when she was on the team for our documentary Shock as an associate producer.
When Rachel was going to college at Washington University in St Louis – she interned at CNN in Washington, D.C. A year after she graduated from college, she went back to CNN as a freelancer. Now, five years later, she is a writer/producer/reporter on the campaign trail…as an embed traveling with the Romney campaign. It is incredible to see and hear about her work.
Rachel is doing the job of an APJ – or All Platform Journalist – at CNN. That means she does it all, and she does it seven days a week, often fifteen or sixteen hours a day. She tweets, writes for the web, shoots her own stories, occasionally does on-air work – and, get this, actually transmits her own footage back on a satellite uplink in a backpack called LiveU! Now that’s being versatile!
I’m very proud of all that Rachel is doing – and even more proud to know she learned a good part of what she does right here at AMS Pictures! With her ability to adapt to new challenges and the passion she has for her work, I know she’ll continue to do great things!