He also has been a guest blogger on LDSMedia Talk. You can find links to his articles here.
LDSTech Web Site Employee Spotlight - Jimmy SmithWritten by Cassie Telford
Question
What is your current position at the Church and what are your responsibilities?
Answer
I am the Web Analytics Product Manager. My duties include:
Managing the relationship with our Web analytics vendor
Producing enterprise-wide analysis of the performance of Church Web sites (about 100 of them, 35 domestic and 65 international/country sites)
Training Church employees to use Web analytics
Setting Web analytics best practices
Helping Web site owners as they take the lead on analytics for their individual sites
Question
What is one of the exciting projects that you are currently working on?
Answer
We recently initiated a project to bring the Web analytics data in-house. I am excited about this because we will be able to do more detailed analysis than ever before and gain new insights into how people use our Web sites, which will help us produce better Web sites that further the work of the Lord.
Question
What is your educational background and/or work experience?
Answer
~ BS Electronics Engineering Technology from BYU, 2001
~ Software engineer for Motorola in Fort Lauderdale, FL, 2001-2003
~ MBA from Arizona State University, 2005
~ Marketing Analyst for FedEx in Memphis, TN, 2005-2007
~ Web Analytics Product Manager, LDS Church, 2008
Question
What or who has been an inspiration to you in your work?
Answer
I’ve met so many great people here at the Church; it would be too hard to pick out just one. Just knowing that you are working for something more, eternally more, than the bottom line ($), makes working for the Church very satisfying.
Question
What is your favorite part of working at the Church?
Answer
Again, there are so many good things about working for the Church, is would be too hard to pick a favorite. I like:
The work environment and the good people I work with.
The freedom I have to do my job according to the spirit of revelation.
Being involved in work that changes peoples’ lives, builds faith in Christ, and leads people to eternal salvation.
Question
What is one spiritual experience that you have had while working for the Church?
Answer
I publish monthly reports on the performance of all Church sites, and one night I had a dream that I needed to add a new metric to the reports: New Visitors. I had been reporting Total Visitors, but given the missionary focus of our Church, I thought we should distinguish new visitors from returning visitors. By reporting on the new people we are attracting to our sites, it would help us better focus on spreading the Church’s influence to the billions of Internet users in the world.
2 comments:
That's so neat that your husband works for the church. I like his comment that he can do his job according to the spirit of revelation. Now, I know that each of us should and can potentially do this at our job (especially important for a stay at home mom), but how wonderful for him that others around him are probably working with the same attitude. Most people wouldn't think that a computer guy would need inspiration in their job, but Jimmy reminds each of us that nothing is unimportant in the sight of the Lord if we are keeping Him as the reason for why we do things.
ps.
I've never paid attention to the fact that your husband has the same name as my dad. My dad goes by James, but back in the day he was Jimmy - although his last name is spelled different - smyth, how slow of me to never have noticed that before.
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