Larissa Moore is the latest addition to the Squiz team (there’s three of us now – how cool is that?). We’re pleased to introduce her to you now that she’s been with us for three months and the probation period has ended. Note: it was Claire and Kate on probation, not Larissa… We were lucky enough to nab her from former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s digital team after he left office in August last year and since then she’s been plugging away at getting our social media sorted out. Fun fact: she has nine siblings, which means she must be good with names… Please welcome Larissa to The Squiz team, and to this week’s Three Minute Squiz. 

How and where do you Squiz?
In my previous life, it was in bed after my alarm went off, squinting at it through one eye. It was a great way to wake up – especially when I would drop my phone on my face. Then I was really awake. Now that I’m on Team Squiz, I’m a little bit earlier #intheknow.

The obvious question first –  what was your job with Malcolm Turnbull and what was it like working in the Prime Minister’s Office?
I was the Social and Digital Media Manager for Malcolm Turnbull, so I worked with the team to publish content across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, emails, and his websites.

The pace was pretty crazy in the PMO! Even though politics doesn’t have the best reputation, it always felt like a real privilege to be there. My job was to make sure we used his social channels to directly communicate with people – if you wanted to know what the PM was doing, it was all there. He had a real interest in digital and social media, so it was great to work closely with him to do some fun – and important – stuff. Australia is the best country in the world, and we got to use the PM’s social channels to showcase that. A personal highlight was having a young athlete called Cam, who was competing in the Special Olympics, take over the PM’s Instagram Stories for a day. He nailed it.

My time in the PMO really fuelled a fascination with the news that I’m now fully indulging at The Squiz.

You’ve been working in digital media for nine years. Unpack what that actually means…
The challenge in digital media is to get – and hold – people’s attention. It’s a very crowded and fragmented media landscape out there. News consumption patterns have changed a lot in the last decade. Nowadays, by the time paywalls, algorithms, and sponsored content mix in with cat memes and #tenyearchallenges, people are ready to throw their phones at the wall.

The thing I enjoy about The Squiz is that it is countering that fast-paced fragmentation with a very simple offer – a short, punchy news email that’s in your inbox every day at 6am. You don’t have to search for it, and you’re not going to miss it if you’re offline for a second. At a time when busy people are trying to be more selective with their screen time, it’s interesting that email might be the solution to simplifying that aspect of your life.

And what are you going to do for The Squiz? (Because we don’t 100% know what you do, we just know that we need you very badly…)
Squizers are a bunch of smart, funny, switched-on people, and my job is to find more of them. I don’t need to get up quite as early as Claire and Kate (thank God) who are up at ridiculous o’clock to finesse the email and record the podcast. But by the time the email publishes, I’m pushing content out across our social channels just in case people need a reminder to jump into their inbox and get Squizing. Plus there’s a whole lot of funny/interesting things I post to our social channels to keep you lot amused until 6am rolls around again. Come say hi on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

We know for a fact that the best recommendations always come from friends, and The Squiz has grown quickly on the basis of that. I’m working on taking that to the next level: making it as easy as possible for our subscribers to share the email, and building out an engagement program so we can see each time you refer a friend, and work out ways we can say ‘thank you!’ when those friends sign up. So stay tuned… (But continue to send your friends/second cousin/barista/personal trainer this way in the meantime)

As a tech-savvy person, can you recommend a great app that we might not have heard of?
Splitwise. I’m not very Excel-savvy (I have been known to add up figures in a spreadsheet… on a calculator), and used to twist myself in knots working out the who-owes-what with mates after weekends away etc. Splitwise takes everything everyone has paid for, sorts it out, and tells you exactly who owes what. Simples. My other tip? Download the Kindle app to your phone and read a book instead of mindlessly scrolling.

You come from a large family. In a sentence, what was that like?
Noisy! But also fun, chaotic, warm, inclusive. Having survived the excruciating embarrassment of being driven around in a minibus (BUS, not even a minivan) as a teenager, I can now say that I have nine best friends in my siblings and they are honestly the best people I know. I also have no idea how my parents did it, and I was there. That’s more than one sentence, but you don’t always get heard in a large family so I’m grabbing the limelight while I can…

If you could invite any four people – living or dead – to dinner, who would they be? And what is on the menu?
Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II so they can compare notes on running the world, and then add in Oprah for a really good expression session. Maybe a cheese platter so epic that no one is hungry for dinner and then I don’t have to cook.

Your favourite book/writer?*
This is always so hard, I’m a massive book-repeater! The Name of The Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss at the moment – beautiful storytelling. ALSO Lin-Manuel Miranda is buddies with Rothfuss and will be involved in bringing the books to tv/the movies, and that’s just amazing.

What’s your worst and best habit?
Eeep. Worst habit is probably procrastinating while scrolling Instagram. Best habit is not leaving until the job is done.

What skill or talent do you not have but wish you did?
Singing, but everyone says that. So maybe hostessing… being one of those people who can effortlessly throw a dinner party together.

What would you say is the most currently overlooked news story we should know about?
The pervasiveness of online bullying and the impact of social media on the body image of women, especially younger girls. There’s a whole other side story into the murkiness of dodgy influencer marketing too…

*Buy a book using the link provided and The Squiz may get a little commission.