Michelle Sullivan aka ‘the web lady’
Michelle got her start in the web industry back in 1995. This is a time when Netscape dominated web browsing, Alta Vista was the coolest search engine on the block, and the guys at Google were still working out of a garage.
Michelle Sullivan, NZ Web Designer, Photo by www.sharonblance.com
But she was supposed to be a corporate lawyer…
“I grew up in the 80’s, so I was encouraged to go after the ‘big career’ and climb the corporate ladder. So I completed a Law Degree at Otago University, and was even ‘admitted to the bar’.
In 1992, Michelle and thousands of other fresh faced law graduates flooded the New Zealand job market and faced the harsh realities of an economic recession and a legal community forced to top up the fidelity fund. Michelle secured a temporary position as law clerk for a sole practitioner who opened her eyes to the day to day realities of a legal career. He was convinced that given the chance, most lawyers would be doing something else.
Not long after, Michelle’s love affair with the Internet was about to begin, with her introduction to the World Wide Web.
“One of my friends practically had to drag me out of the Science Alive building on Moorhouse Avenue, as they were demonstrating the web and IRC chat”.
By 1995 she was working for a local Christchurch ISP and loving every minute of it. Learning on the job and encouraged and mentored by her ‘proud to be a geek’ colleagues, she started designing websites for their clients.
By 1998 Michelle was working full time in web design as the Webmaster of a national tourism website. She then went on to help establish a new web development company and became one of its directors as well as its Production Manager. For several years she managed a team of web designers and developers. After selling her shares in the business and taking a well earned world trip, Michelle was offered a job working solely on marketing and search engine optimisation.
In 2006 Michelle was ready to ‘dance to my own beat’ so took on two new challenges – self employment and extramural study.
“I’d always been interested in human behaviour, especially in the work place, so I enrolled in two level 1 Psychology papers at Massey. It was a big year and let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend launching a new business and starting a degree!”
Michelle is now relishing the challenges and opportunities of running her own business while also blogging her heart out at www.christchurchdailyphoto.com.
