Job Q&A
by Naomi Wax
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Dan Hageny is the director of production at ClubMom a New York-based organization for moms that offers deals, tips and consumer news on managing your time and family responsibilities. ClubMom also provides a place for moms to chat, share advice and find support. Hageny has worked in the interactive world for five years and has a liberal arts degree from the University of Rhode Island.

Dan Hageny: I basically manage our production department. It's made up of 10 people who I represent at meetings in terms of scheduling, feasibility and planning of projects. I also oversee the projects -- managing producers, site builders, quality assurance, graphic designers, the online advertising coordinator and vendors for the work that we outsource.

DH: At first they were involved in the development of the Web site as a whole. Now that we've launched they focus on additional functionality, new sections and whatever we can do to grow the site.

DH: When I started in September, I was the eighth employee. Now we have well over 100. There are growing pains when you grow that fast, so a lot of my role is trying to create process -- the necessary documentation, the steps taken and who should be involved.

DH: The lack of structure can be frustrating. We're doing projects that have never been done before, so we don't always know the best approach to take or how to staff them.

DH: I started out in film as a production assistant and ended up producing commercials. But working freelance was too inconsistent, and the hours were long. It was also a high-pressure environment, and there wasn't a lot of ownership to a project.

DH: It's not any less stressful than film, but there's more consistency here. I work with one group of people as opposed to going from commercial to commercial where I was constantly in crisis with people I didn't know. And I can be part of a long-term vision here, which makes it easier to deal with the stress and long hours. Normally I work 12-hour days and I sometimes work weekends, but once we get our structure set it'll lighten up.

DH: Whether you're managing a commercial shoot or the development of a Web site, you have to have pretty good interpersonal and communication skills. My budgeting and project management experience was also key.

DH: I worked at a couple agencies and then became the executive producer at Darwin Digital, Saatchi & Saatchi's interactive arm.

DH: I prefer being on the client side. At an agency the decisions are always made by the client -- the budget, type of project, timeline -- and more times than not you end up being disappointed. Being on the client side, the only thing holding us back is how quickly and intelligently we can perform. We're more in control of our own destiny.

DH: As a producer, you're the liaison between the strategy people and technology, so you need to understand what HTML, Java, and JavaScript can do and put it in context, but then it's up to the developers and programmers to actually do the work.

DH: I'm not super-technical. I'm not even super-organized, but I know how to communicate to different people in different ways. You communicate differently with a developer, a marketing person and a programmer, and not everyone can do it. You can't really train for it, because it's almost like a natural instinct, but you can get a basic tech background. The best producers used to be Webmasters or site builders, but if you have the understanding from a technical level you're in a much stronger position to manage tech people and the whole process. If you have communication and management skills on top of that, then you've got the makings of a good producer.

DH: My history has been to be at a job two years and then move on. I've been lucky to keep moving up, but when you're junior it's easier to jump around. I'm pretty senior here, so a jump would take me to a parallel position somewhere else or to a COO position, which I'm not really ready for. As far as I can see, I plan on being here for a while, but it's the Internet so anything can happen.

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