Background

Hi! I’m Sheryl Cooley. I’m a writer and designer by trade and have spent most of my career working in various aspects of marketing communications, starting at the bottom as a lowly copy writer and working my way up into management. I’ve worked primarily in the energy, engineering/construction, and computer industries, in big companies (e.g., Fluor Daniel, Toshiba) mid-sized firms (e.g., InterNorth – which merged with Houston Natural Gas to become Enron), and small businesses (e.g., American Arium), and have some non-profit work in my portfolio.

It seems to me that money has been tight since about the mid-90s. Even at Toshiba my budget was limited. At Arium it squeaked. Over the years, I’ve watched staffing erode as companies substituted more and more sophisticated tools for personnel. And desperation really is the motherhood of invention; I learned to do more with less. The road was rocky and the learning curve was steep, but the experience was invaluable.

Today I work as a writer, a professional (often a ghost) blogger, and an SEO content provider. I have my name on a book about inner city redevelopment (A Nation Reconstructed: A Quest for the Cities That Can Be), have created some web sites and functioned as a web master, and tend to focus my energies on helping smaller entities take advantage of the communication tools of the 21st century, including interactive and social media.

As mentioned in my initial blog (see the “Welcome” category), I have built this blog to document those things I’ve learned in marketing communications that might be of use to others as everyone struggles to do more with less in this economy. I hope you will join me in sharing what you’ve learned that we might build a community of support for our profession. As the old saying goes, two heads are better than one.