When Dan joined the Cognitive team as Assistant Editor, he came packed with two years’ experience working in magazine production, which he quickly came to learn was his main journalistic passion. But it was only after working at another B2B publication that he realised business writing was his true niche.
“I’ve always been interested in journalism, magazines in particular, since my first bit of work experience,” he said. “But after working at another B2B magazine on an internship I got a real taste for it, so when I saw this job I applied straight away.”
His previous track record in magazine work did help him settle in, but Dan pins most of the smooth transition down to the Cognitive team itself. “Everyone gets on really well, which I think is really important since you spend more time at work than you do with your friends or family,” he continued. “It’s also nice working for a small, family-run company rather than a big corporation – and I’ve worked for a few of them in my time!”
Despite joining the Editorial team just a few months ago, Dan has already compiled a brilliant portfolio of published pieces and acquired a wealth of interviewing experience that would be hard to match anywhere else.
“So far, interviewing the local government Ombudsman and seeing Jeremy Hunt at the Confed18 conference were the highlights of my time here,” he explained. “Another accomplishment was the mental health feature I’ve written for NHE. That included a lot of information from the panel debates at Confed18, such as talks from Mind’s CEO Paul Farmer, but generally, mental health is something I feel very strongly about.”
As well as accumulating a lot of experience in a short period of time, Dan has also grown professionally by having to overcome a few personal challenges that forced him to develop his leadership skills from the very early days. During his second week at Cognitive, the editor had a week-long annual leave booked in and left Dan in charge of running the three news websites, the Digital Journalists, and the magazine production schedule.
“It was a little nerve-racking at first, but I just got on with it and it all went smoothly,” he explained. “I had people I could call, including the Editor, but ended up getting on all right and commissioned plenty of stories.”
Going forward, what does he hope to get out of his time here? “As far as the job goes, I’m very happy where I am – we’ll see what comes my way in the future!”
“I’ve always been interested in journalism, magazines in particular, since my first bit of work experience,” he said. “But after working at another B2B magazine on an internship I got a real taste for it, so when I saw this job I applied straight away.”
His previous track record in magazine work did help him settle in, but Dan pins most of the smooth transition down to the Cognitive team itself. “Everyone gets on really well, which I think is really important since you spend more time at work than you do with your friends or family,” he continued. “It’s also nice working for a small, family-run company rather than a big corporation – and I’ve worked for a few of them in my time!”
Despite joining the Editorial team just a few months ago, Dan has already compiled a brilliant portfolio of published pieces and acquired a wealth of interviewing experience that would be hard to match anywhere else.
“So far, interviewing the local government Ombudsman and seeing Jeremy Hunt at the Confed18 conference were the highlights of my time here,” he explained. “Another accomplishment was the mental health feature I’ve written for NHE. That included a lot of information from the panel debates at Confed18, such as talks from Mind’s CEO Paul Farmer, but generally, mental health is something I feel very strongly about.”
As well as accumulating a lot of experience in a short period of time, Dan has also grown professionally by having to overcome a few personal challenges that forced him to develop his leadership skills from the very early days. During his second week at Cognitive, the editor had a week-long annual leave booked in and left Dan in charge of running the three news websites, the Digital Journalists, and the magazine production schedule.
“It was a little nerve-racking at first, but I just got on with it and it all went smoothly,” he explained. “I had people I could call, including the Editor, but ended up getting on all right and commissioned plenty of stories.”
Going forward, what does he hope to get out of his time here? “As far as the job goes, I’m very happy where I am – we’ll see what comes my way in the future!”