Workin 9 to 5...

Or more like 8:30 to 6 I guess!

So, for those of you wondering what exactly I do for a living, or at least for the next three months until I have a year off (and I am sure note even my mother knows exactly), here's the deal.

I used to work for the Dairy Farmers of Canada in Marketing, so all those butter and cheese TV commercials, print ads, brochures in grocery stores, etc, that was what I did. I also ran the Olympic sponsorship program, which was really cool, since we established a fund for Olympic athletes who were in the top 6-15 in their field, to help give them the $$ they needed to get to the top of the podium. The fund really worked, actually: some of the recipients became world champions, such as Clara Hughes, Emilie Heymans, Jeff Pain, Sara Renner, Erik Guay, Joannie Rochette, Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon, etc, etc. I had a chance to meet some great athletes "before they were stars". You should have seen some of the applications, some of the athletes were practically starving, living on Kraft Dinner, and now they are on top of the world.

Now, I work for the Canadian Medical Association, which is the professional organization that represents doctors across Canada. I was promoted a few months ago from Director of Marketing of what I guess you could call the "web" division (three different properties in this division) to Product Manager of the website: http://www.cma.ca

Layman's terms: I manage the website cma.ca.

The website is more than just a site, it is actually more like a portal, a place for doctors to look up information on disease conditions to make more informed diagnoses, drug interactions to ensure that the medication they are prescribing do not conflict with one another, along with research textbooks and journals, neat tools such as a wizard to make their own websites, practice management advice, etc, etc.

Our "vision" is to have every doctors' office in Canada connected to the internet, and looking things up on our site during the clinical encounter (ie, when you visit the doctor) to enhance the patient care that doctors deliver to patients across Canada.

I have a feeling it is going to be tough for me to "let go" of the corporate world for a whole year, although everyone tells me that it is actually tough to go back once you leave!