{"id":680,"date":"2021-04-21T07:01:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T06:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/?p=680"},"modified":"2021-04-21T09:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T08:19:22","slug":"from-apprentice-to-young-digital-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/2021\/04\/21\/from-apprentice-to-young-digital-leader\/","title":{"rendered":"From apprentice to young digital leader"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam McLaren started at the council at the very tender of age of 19. In a short five years his career has continued to progress and last year he was runner-up in the Young Digital Leader category in the national Digital Leaders 100 awards. Here Sam\u2019s shares his career journey (so far) with #DigitalDorset<\/em><\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From apprentice to young digital leader, Dorset Council’s Sam McLaren<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m young so\u00a0my career background might not be as expansive as others.\u00a0But I have been at the council for around five years now.\u00a0I started as an\u00a0ICT\u00a0apprentice for Dorset Councils\u2019\u00a0partnership\u00a0(DCP)\u00a0when I was 19.<\/p>\n

Slowly through the two years of my apprenticeship I started to take on \u2018side projects\u2019 which involved more project-based work. This then led to what I call my \u2018bounce around phase\u2019 where I went through lots of fixed term contracts learning new skills and developing new relationships. I was initially attached to the technology side of things but as I grew older, I started to lean away from it and focus on the people.<\/p>\n

By the time I finally found my home in the digital team I had been though a number of other teams: business transformation, shaping Dorset, superfast and adults transformation.<\/p>\n

Digital is a way of working, a way of thinking, it\u2019s not just technology. My current role\u00a0 is as service improvement analyst. This involves designing services or processes around people and bringing things forward into the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0century.\u00a0It uses\u00a0the latest\u00a0technology to\u00a0provide modern solutions and experiences\u00a0so that\u00a0the organisation becomes\u00a0more efficient and effective.<\/p>\n

Over the last 12 months I have been encouraging innovation, creativity and making an impact in Dorset though the digital team. Part of this has been through work we have done as #<\/em>DigitalDorset with other organisations such as events, webinars and our three-day, online Festival of the Future.<\/p>\n

One thing that I am proud of is the Digital Dorset Podcast. I had been dreaming (and wouldn\u2019t shut up about) the idea of a public sector podcast and eventually I made it come true. Communication and collaboration are vital in digital and a podcast is a great way to keep people informed about what is going on, and also, to stimulate some interesting discussions.\u00a0\u00a0If you are interested, you can listen here Digital Dorset Podcast | Podcast on Spotify<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I also volunteer as part of the \u2018Inspiring the Future\u2019 campaign.\u202fI attend schools to inspire the children about the world of work in digital and give them\u202finsights into exciting and unique careers and encouraging them to be ambitious. Students often aren\u2019t aware of careers in this area of work (I wasn\u2019t) so educating them and inspiring them feels amazing and has a massive impact.<\/p>\n

The public sector (especially locally) makes a\u00a0really big\u00a0difference to thousands of lives\u00a0and one of the reasons I enjoy my job comes down to helping people.\u00a0If<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0in my role<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0I can make their lives a little easier with a smoother process then that has a great impact<\/em>,<\/em>\u00a0and that is what digital is all about.<\/p>\n

Since I started in the digital team all my work has been done virtually at home. I was very lucky to know all the team well anyway, but they are all so great and passionate about what they do it\u2019s easy to fit in.<\/p>\n

I love living in Dorset because it\u2019s beautiful and\u00a0peaceful,\u00a0but\u00a0it also helps with my photography. Having great looking landscapes on your doorstep does make it a bit easier.\u00a0Baking is another passion of mine and that has only gotten worse in lockdown,\u00a0but\u00a0I haven\u2019t\u00a0actually stooped\u00a0low enough to make banana bread yet,\u00a0so I guess that\u2019s a win?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We are recruiting. If, like Sam, you would like to progress a career in digital why not apply to join us? We have new vacancies for a range of new digital projects, click here for more details <\/em>Dorset Recruitment – Jobs and careers (dorsetcouncil.gov.uk)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam McLaren started at the council at the very tender of age of 19. In a short five years his career has continued to progress and last year he was runner-up in the Young Digital Leader category in the national Digital Leaders 100 awards. Here Sam\u2019s shares his career journey (so far) with #DigitalDorset I\u2019m… Read more From apprentice to young digital leader<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1907,"featured_media":681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[56,43,53,19],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/files\/2021\/04\/Sam-3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1907"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":706,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680\/revisions\/706"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/digital-first\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}