I’ve been the editor routing around a bad tool.
I’m Nelson Ireson. I’ve spent close to twenty years in digital publishing, writing more than 10,000 articles for outlets including Car and Driver, Road & Track and Autoblog, and serving as executive editor of Automobile Magazine, where I led a 25-person team.
Somewhere along the way I became the person who fixed the tools. I built the publishing system a 30-journalist newsroom runs on every day, connecting its assignment board, website and Slack so that a story is entered once and everything else follows. I’ve been CTO of a small media company since 2015, building AI content pipelines and the infrastructure under them.
That’s the background I bring to every job: I know which steps people will skip if a system gets in their way, because I’ve skipped them myself. So I build things that fit how a team already works, keep a person in charge of anything that matters, and write the instructions in plain English.
The short version
- 20 years in digital publishing, including executive editor of Automobile Magazine
- Builder of a publishing automation platform in daily use by a 30-journalist newsroom
- CTO of a small media company since 2015
- Runs a production automation server and private AI models at home
- Law degree (JD)
- FAA Part 107 certified drone pilot, for the curious
Why “Tidemill”
Tide mills once worked along the New England coast. They harnessed a force that shows up twice a day, every day, and turned it into steady, useful work. That’s the idea behind what I build: set it up once, so the routine work keeps getting done while your people spend their time on the parts that need them.
Where I work
I live in Brooklin, Maine, on the Blue Hill peninsula. Most work happens remotely for teams anywhere in the US, and I’m glad to come on site in Maine and New England.