Introducing Jackie Lobdell, Our New Ad Manager!

This is an Inside Geneva column, but it really should be titled "Inside Geneva Patch," which is a place we hope you enter often.

As you know, or may not know or care, Geneva Patch hasn't been too heavy on the advertising, leading a lot of you to ask me since we started this little Aol-sponsored science project in late August, "Rick, what the heck are you thinking?"

The truth of the matter is I'm mostly thinking, "Where is that next story coming from?" And that's pretty much how it will continue to be, now that is Geneva Patch's new ad manager.

Jacquelyn Lobdell's actual official title is senior advertising manager, which is funny, because she's many years my junior. She's also smart and charming and good looking, as many actors, singer-songwriters and advertising folks seem to be. (There's a reason  that most of my career was in print media.)

Anyway, I'm spending too much time talking about me me meeeeee, and not enough about Jackie or what she can do for you you youuuuuu.

First, About Jackie

Jackie has been helping small businesses with their Internet and print marketing and advertising for more than 11 years. She also owned her own small business for about six years, so she "gets it," in my estimation.

"I’m passionate about helping local businesses attract new customers and succeed," she says in her profile. "I'm very excited to be working for Patch and truly believe we are revolutionizing the way people will be getting their local news and information. We have an awesome vehicle for local businesses to reach out to their communities."

We do, Rick said modestly—proving once again that an adverb is best used only for humor purposes.

Jackie lives in the Fox Valley area with her husband and three daughters.

"We are usually spending our time watching our girls' sporting events," she said. "With our two youngest girls playing Sabres Hockey, all three playing Naperville Diamonds Softball and my oldest playing volleyball at Great Lakes Volleyball, it keeps us very busy!"

Now, what Jackie's presence means for you

Basically, it means you won't have to ask me about advertising anymore, which is a good thing.

Nor will you have to go to a regional publisher to get an ad on Geneva Patch. You just pick up the phone or shoot an e-mail to Jackie. Feel free to contact her at any time of the day or night (I made that last part up) at Jacquelyn.lobdell@patch.com or at 630-940-8868. 

She works in the Naperville, Geneva, St. Charles and Batavia Patches, so she's wearing a lot of hats, but she's at your beck and call.

One last comment and I'm done, for now

The separation of church and state is pretty thick at Patch. So I'm going to pretty much continue to select content in the random, eclectic, highly personalized and sometimes odd manner that's I've done heretofore. (What was the over-under on me getting heretofore into this column? Want to go double or nothing on "quintessential?")

But as a former managing editor and editor-publisher in the print world (when newspapers roamed the Earth) I will say this.

My very selfish wish is that Jackie will get LOADS of advertising from Geneva. That's because I think, for all us readers/viewers/unique visitors, advertising is content. And the more that Geneva Patch is about Geneva, well, the better I sleep at night. (For all of, like, two hours. :)

The real bottom line is that Geneva Patch isn't my news site or Jackie's ad site. It's yours. It's a community portal, a big beautiful tabula rasa where you can post events, make announcements, have interesting and valuable conversations and—we very much hope—help make Geneva a better place to live and work.

Rick Nagel
Geneva Patch editor
February 2011