William P. Davis Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

New York, Ny, Us

New York, Ny, Us

New York, Ny, Us

I was the lead product manager for a series of projects to grow The Times's visual storytelling by democratizing access to photos and building tools that helped text-focused journalists make smart visual decisions. Along the way, we embarked on a mammoth effort, in partnership with Google, to digitize and make searchable the millions of prints in our physical archive.I was accountable for the work of as many as three cross-functional squads totaling 20 designers, developers, QA engineers, product managers and project managers. With a focus on usability, we built a new system to store and search our digital archive of over 100 million images. Within six months of rolling out our prototype, we saw 20 percent of our users naturally move over to the new tool and had grown our overall user base by more than 30 percent.

New York, Ny, Us

The news platforms team was a bridge between the newsroom and the product and technology teams. We represented the needs of the newsroom when building websites, apps and tools, alternating between serving as a stakeholder, a product manager and a solo practitioner.I was one of the inaugural product owners for the team that builds Scoop, our in-house CMS. I built and maintained several tools to streamline workflows and helped teams better understand the needs of the newsroom. I also spent weeks or months at a time on other desks to get a broader sense of the newsroom and the best way to aid The Times's digital transformation.

New York, Ny, Us

I was one of two inaugural product managers for Scoop, The Times's content management system, for which feature and bug requests had previously been fielded and prioritized by the project and engineering managers.We reorganized the Scoop team into cross-functional squads focused on supporting the newsroom's digital transformation through tooling and meeting the newsroom's needs of the future, rather than reactively responding to user requests. I introduced user-centered design and brought on a dedicated designer for our internal tools for the first time. The team also helped set an example for how Scrum teams could operate at The Times.I led development of new workflow tools intended to encourage digital-first publishing and support the newsroom's reorganization. These were greenfield tech projects as well, exploring the use of React, Elasticsearch and Node — technologies that have become central to our tools.

Bangor, Maine, Us

Oversaw product, engineering and technology for Maine's largest news source.Led a cross-functional product team of five people. We were primarily focused on growing our audience by improving our digital user experience and supporting the newsroom through better tooling. We also grew revenue with new ad products and by improving the sign-up and subscription flows.Directed product, technology and news for an experimental, digital-only business, BDN Maine, aimed at discovering new audiences and building sustainable news models without the crutch of print.Oversaw elections — everything from new statewide voting guides, the tabulation of results from federal, state and local races in every municipality in Maine, ensuring the stability of the website on the highest-traffic night of the year, building a model to help call races, and editing news and analysis. The BDN was the leading source of election news for Maine, syndicating results first to the AP and then to Reuters.Modernized technology throughout the 250-person company, including overseeing the migration to a new cloud-based accounting system; modernizing help desk operations; improving network connectivity across our 11 offices; migrating many services to the cloud; and overseeing many elements of the move of our main office while coming in under budget on both costs and downtime. Helped with due process on two acquisitions and was a member of the company's operating committee of the top executives.

Developed the strategy and workflow that transformed the Bangor Daily News into the most-read news outlet in Maine, by far, with 40 percent YOY growth. During my time at the BDN, we went from a print-focused newspaper focused on northern Maine to a statewide digital news organization that covered issues important to all Mainers.Oversaw the Bangor Daily News's website and led the BDN's digital transformation. Managed the dayside combined copy editor/web producer desk and oversaw development of a new website. Expanded and improved breaking news coverage, using those stories to build habits with readers, and worked with editors and reporters to broaden stories to focus on the issues at hand, not just react to events.Used workflow changes to allow us to shift resources from print production to reporting, deepening the report. Developed a system that sourced the print paper from the digital CMS that is in use to this day.

Us

Copy edited, wrote headlines for and paginated the Kennebec Journal and the Morning Sentinel, daily papers serving central Maine with a combined print audience of about 25,000 at the time. Also helped manage the website, with a focus on ensuring timely updates to news.

Us

Oversaw the news for the student paper, an independent, semiweekly publication with a paid staff. Expanded coverage to include the university system and state issues relevant to readers. During that time, The Campus was named best college paper of the year by the New England Society of Newspaper Editors. Cut non-staff operating expenses to fund extra reporting, provide better wages, upgrade technology and put the company on more solid financial footing.

Part of a start-up focused on helping college newspapers own rather than outsource their websites. We advised more than 40 papers on how to focus their newsrooms on digital and helped them move off of College Publisher, which encouraged a print-first model and took a major cut of revenue. College Publisher, a Viacom-owned company that had hosted almost every college newspaper prior to CoPress, was forced to majorly upend its business model.

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Copy edited, wrote headlines, paginated and proofed completed pages. Was hired onto staff upon completion of an internship.

Orono, Me, Us

Developed websites and web apps and helped faculty integrate technology into their classes.