About Jay Small

Jay Small is an interactive/online executive geared for customer-centered innovation, business growth, compelling content and engaging user experience. He has succeeded in recent years as an Internet business strategist, product innovator, information designer, marketer, consultant, writer and editor. His professional career began in 1985, but Small started learning about media much earlier -- growing up in the third generation of a family of small-town newspaper executives.

In early 2010, Small became president of Cordillera Interactive, the online division of Cordillera Communications, Inc., which operates television stations in 11 mid-size markets. Small and the CI team operate all facets of interactive business for Cordillera, including station.com sites such as KVOA.com in Tucson, Ariz., and LEX18.com in Lexington, Ky.

From 2005-2010, Small served as an interactive executive -- most recently, managing director of content and product development -- in the newspaper division of The E.W. Scripps Co.. Working with 12 newspaper-based sites, he directed technology developers; project managers; user experience designers; and content, video and search marketing specialists. His teams oversaw newspaper.com site management and content management architectures, project management, new product development, and enterprise-scale projects such as local search services, syndication and consumer profile/behavior applications.

From 1997-2009, he also operated Small Initiatives, a consulting practice and contract development shop advancing Internet strategies with a focus on customer experience. SI clients included Central Georgia Insurance, Radiant Markets, the Newspaper Association of America, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the American Press Institute, The IQ Business Group, The Santa Fe New Mexican, The National Post of Canada, UT Federal Credit Union and a global pharmaceuticals manufacturer. Small still provides occasional Internet strategy consulting and training on request, and keeps his blog at jaysmall.com.

Career history

A 1984 graduate of Southern Illinois University, Small started as a copy editor and designer at The Sun/The Daily Herald of Biloxi, Miss., in 1985. In six months, he was promoted to copy desk chief. Small then moved to The News-Sentinel in Fort Wayne, Ind., as a designer. By 1987, he was promoted to design editor, and led a redesign of that newspaper in early 1988. Later that year, Small moved to Denver as a page designer at the Rocky Mountain News. In three years, he reorganized and managed Scitex imaging operations, executed a redesign of the newspaper, and was promoted to art director. In 1991, Small became art director at The Indianapolis Star, where he reorganized the design operations and redesigned the paper. That project won an Award of Excellence from the Society for News Design, first ever for the paper. He also joined the SND board of directors during this tenure.

In 1995, Small took on the challenge of developing interactive media services and businesses for Indianapolis Newspapers, Inc. As general manager of online services, he built the interactive team and managed development of StarNews.com (now IndyStar.com), the newspaper's main site; SpeedNet, a leading auto racing news site; Indiana's Game, a basketball news service; Colts Central, covering Indiana's NFL team; and CircleCity.com, an Indianapolis city guide. During that time, he participated in and then directed development of WorkAvenue.com, an employer/jobseeker matching service designed to complement newspapers' classified ads. WorkAvenue came about from a consortium of six media companies; at its peak, seven large papers operated the service profitably.

Small took a breather from local media in 1999 to develop a consulting practice in Internet business strategy, tools and methods, as part of Evantage Consulting of Minneapolis. In 2000, he joined Thomson Multimedia, at the time the maker of RCA-brand consumer electronics products, as manager of digital media services. His team was charged with developing consumer service business opportunities and partnerships for digital media devices. Small's team focused on development of server solutions, audience analytics, digital publishing, audio, video and imaging services -- including innovative work with early e-book reading devices. In 2001, Small joined Belo Interactive as regional director of news and operations. He led Internet teams at Belo sites in eight metropolitan markets. He reengineered site architectures and designs for all 18 Belo news sites in 2003. That year, BI promoted him to director of product development, responsible for strategic product innovation across the enterprise. He led projects to rebuild GuideLive.com and QuickDFW.com in Dallas. He left Belo at the end of 2004 to join Scripps in January 2005.

The work of Small's teams at Scripps is evident in sites such as KnoxNews.com, TCPalm.com and Redding.com.

In 2008-09, Small represented Scripps on the board of directors of the Online Publishers Association. He served on the board of directors and audience development committee for the Digital Media Federation, Newspaper Association of America. He also participates on the program advisory board for the Digital Arts and Design curriculum at Full Sail University, Orlando, Fla. And he served as adjunct faculty for four years in the journalism and visual arts programs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

He received his MBA with honors from Kennesaw State University in Georgia in August, 2009.

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Essays, presentations

• Index of SI projects and presentations
• Ideal Web design: No one knows what it looks like (2002)
• Real R&D: An answer for the newspaper business (2001)
• Economics 101 of Internet news (2000)
• What we think we know about interactive design (1997)

Tips and extras

• CSS Text Style Sampler, by Jay Small
• Well-mannered Javascript and Flash examples, by Jay Small
• Tabbed Web interface with all content in-page, by Jay Small