A lot has changed for Haley since we last spoke. Back then, Haley had just graduated from college and was about to begin her fellowship at MDOCS. She’s now working as a Content Marketing Coordinator at Fastmail, an email hosting company that prides itself on protecting users’ privacy. We spoke to her about her current role, producing a podcast, and how her studies helped her get to where she is today.  

By Lauren Valentine

Let’s catch up: new job, documentary progress and in-person events!

“I’m now working full time as a Content Marketing Coordinator at an international email company called Fastmail. My job involves creating and curating a variety of content for our blog, social media, newsletter and most recently a podcast! The podcast is called Digital Citizen and is a top-ranking Apple tech show focusing on how people can live their best online lives. 

I’m also working on a documentary called in love, in memory, where I went from Intern to Editor and Assistant Producer. Our Co-Directors, Drew Swedberg and Shalon Buskirk, recently took part in the Documentary Lab by Film Independent. It’s been awesome to work with such a high-profile lab.

This year, our team also went back to Skidmore for an in-person(!) edition of MDOCS, which lasted for the entire month of June. I was still collaborating with them virtually, so it was beautiful to see them get that fellowship experience in person.”

What does it take to produce a podcast? 

“In 2020, Fastmail decided we wanted to have a podcast. I’d done a lot of multimedia work, like working on a short film called Dos Hermanxs: The Blood of the California Fields whilst I was in college, that prepared me to jump into podcasting without having to start from scratch. When I joined Fastmail, they funded my professional development at a podcasting 3-day course at NYU taught by a great podcasting mentor. This practical course combined with my study background meant that I could really hit the ground running with podcasting.

We had lots of debate around what it should focus on: internet privacy, online responsibility, even cricket (we have offices in Australia!) We settled on one based on our core values: that we’re good internet citizens. Our leadership has built a culture that puts digital citizenship at the heart of everything that we do - we’ve even done digital rights advocacy work in Australia. 

We came up with the idea of inviting guests from all around the world to talk about what digital citizenship means to them and how their work intertwines with it. It’s such a fun project! Our first season featured guests from BJ Fogg, an awesome author in the productivity space, to Michael Fey from One Password, one of our big marketing partnerships. Moving forward, in Season 2, we will be exploring some super interesting topics: data breaches, Zoom fatigue and making space for connection, technical skills and employability… 

Season two of the Digital Citizen podcast is in the works as we speak! We look forward to announcing an air date for our next episodes in the coming weeks, so follow us on Twitter @Fastmail to stay up -to-date.” 

Joining the dots: how experience from her studies led Haley to where she is…

“So much of what I learned at Muhlenberg helped me get to where I am today. I wrote my thesis on social media because I was really interested in it, and I was learning a lot about digital citizenship (without necessarily naming it as such) through the different comms classes I took. For example, I took a class in Ireland by a Muhlenberg professor about internet privacy, and that ended up being the majority of what I spoke about in my Fastmail interview! Similarly, a lot of the content-based courses taught me about how to write short-form and long-form content. 

Muhlenberg College is where I met Drew, who I’m currently working on in love, in memory with. We were students together: he was a senior and I was a freshman. We connected in class and I applied to be his intern. The fact that he already knew me and the quality of my work really helped me to land the internship, which in turn led to working on this project together. 

Muhlenberg is a liberal arts college that foregrounds an interdisciplinary approach and advocates for cross-curriculum classes. I’ve never liked to just do one thing at once - I have too many interests! Going to a school that encouraged that really set me up for success and helped me to realise that I don’t just have to do one job, I can do multiple things. For example, I do volunteer work with a publishing group in Philly where I review submissions for poetry and books. A lot of my writing tutor experience from Muhlenberg applies to this, as well as my full time job where I get to write content including blog posts.”

Realising how far she’s come, Haley reflected on just how much she’d benefitted from simply saying yes to new opportunities and reaching out to new connections: “It’s not always easy to see how things will tie up, but you’ve just gotta keep swimming and find your place!”