20+ years in startups, multidisciplinary technology design & product strategy
Collaborative, innovative self-starter with strong responsibility to budget, goals and KPIs
EXPERIENCE
Mutual Aid NYC
Organizer: Community, Communications, and Technology Strategy
2020-now
Co-developing strategy, governance, implementation, and content for a city-wide network ofvolunteer mutual aid organizations supporting New Yorkers in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Consultant
Product Strategy & Development
2014-now
Currently driving product strategy and development efforts for select clients.
I developed product strategy, user-experience design and service-offering productization for a mobile-first psychometric-analytics platform that maximizes human performance for business, academics, pro sports and esports.
I created the brand, UX and global go-to-market strategy, and oversaw development for a gamified-dating startup. The app was designed to bridge the huge gap between Tinder’s crude hot-or-not mechanic and eHarmony’s tedious and impersonal computer questionnaire by helping singles break the ice and actually get to know each other through mobile casual games.
F/8 Interactive
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer and Product Manager
2011-December, 2015
I Developed games, social technology and content/audience strategy for mobile, consoles, VR and gesture-controlled platforms:
Snapcious – I designed, oversaw development and managed product and daily operations for a mobile brand-marketing platform driven by gamified photo-sharing.
F/8 – I designed the game mechanic, and co-developed the story and business strategy for a first-person shooter that makes you a battlefield news photographer.
I, Maestro – I designed the concept and game mechanic and co-developed story and business strategy for a deeply-immersive music game for gesture-controlled mobile and VR.
speakTECH / Perficient, Inc.
Consultant – UX and Product Strategy, Innovations Director – Agency
2007-2011
Developed information architecture and UX for web, social, desktop, mobile & multi-touch
Led strategy on social, content and branding projects for the firm’s interactive agency
Instituted social-monitoring practice for pre-sales & project-development
Delivered white paper on enterprise social-technology strategy
Conducted business analysis and developed proposals leading to $15m+ in project sales
Solo consultancy – Product development and management
2005-2011
Developed product information architecture, UX and social strategy for enterprise & startups
Co-founded and guided product design for POCHO.com, a leading Latino humor site
Managed editorial product for the worldwide Metblogs network
Created and managed LAVoice.org, a public weblog for all of Los Angeles
National Science Foundation,
USC Information Sciences Institute
Communications Manager, Senior Consultant
2002-2005
Developed complete internal/external communications program for NSF’s public-policy/IT research program – Digital Government
Developed product, strategy and UX for web, social and multimedia communications
Designed, built, and launched a social/collaborative toolset for a community of more than 200 of the nation’s top computer scientists and government data experts
Cox Interactive Media
Content Manager, Senior Producer, News Producer
1997-2001
Helped conceive, design, build, launch and manage staff for two major regional urban portals
Developed web products and content strategy for innovative Web products including 150-page L.A. County Neighborhoods Guide, Disaster Guide, live SoCal traffic maps and public-affairs forums
Managed entertainment coverage & content, from Psychic Kitty to the weekly LAInsider 15
Grew Orange County audience to 81,000 unique visitors & 404,000 pageviews/month
Grew Los Angeles County audience to 200,000 uniques & 2.3 million pageviews/month
Managed content partnerships with KFWB.com, AngelsBaseball.com and MightyDucks.com
Advised CIM’s Bay Area portal staff on content, site layout and editorial strategy
Guided content conception, page design and launch of CIM’s Las Vegas portal
Los Angeles Times
Staff Writer, Columnist
1990-1997
Helped launch the Ventura County edition
Covered city government, defense contractors and breaking news including: Northridge Earthquake, Rodney King verdict, California AIDS Ride and the Burning Man Festival
Wrote a weekly column on SoCal freeway life
Won the California Bar Assn. Award for an exposé on the shortage of Death Row lawyers
Won Ventura County Press Club awards for coverage of gang culture and disastrous wildfires
Philadelphia Inquirer
Reporter
1987-1990
Covered criminal courts, city government and general assignment in northern Delaware
Won the National Mental Health Assn.’s Silver Medal for exposing overcrowding and mistreatment at a State of Pennsylvania psychiatric hospital
SKILLS
Product Strategy and Design
Complete strategy, brand, content, process and UX design for online and mobile products
Operational strategy for product evolution, audience interaction and iteration
Fluent with PRDs, product audits, personas, use cases, wireframes and prototypes
Product and Team Management
Digital product strategy, design, development, deployment and management
Leading teams in product creation, content development, social interaction and branding
Training teams on media interaction and brand experience
Identifying, recruiting & signing talent
Negotiating content partnerships, salaries and vendor contracts
Developing and advancing strategic goals
Overseeing partnerships and internal intradepartmental agendas
Developing sentiment-management strategy for public comment & criticism
Setting and evolving standards for voice, style and QA
Content
Directing brand voice, including messaging, writing style, interaction and visual design
Analyzing market trends and adjusting content to meet audience demands
Executing raw ideas and pre-designed plans, from initial concept through live publishing
Technical
UX/information architecture design and prototyping in Visio, OmniGraffle, Sketch, InVision
Social-monitoring strategy with Radian 6, Alterian SM2, etc.
Web development in raw HTML, CSS, Unix; familiar with MySQL, Java, LAMP architecture
Creative development with Adobe Creative Suite, iWork, Microsoft Office Suite
Experienced with setup and management of open-source CMSes (WordPress, Joomla, MT, etc.) and wikis
Web development in raw HTML, CSS, Unix; familiar with MySQL, Java, PHP architecture
Brown University, BA / Honors, in American Civilization
RISD, advanced photography studies
PUBLICATIONS
TOO DAMN FAST – How to match the blistering evolution of social media with effective internal & external social technology strategies (white paper), 2009, speakTECH.com (DOWNLOAD – 5MB)
Digital Government Community-Building and Outreach (with Yigal Arens) Ð 2005, Proceedings of the National Conference on Digital Government Research (Access 2004, Access 2005)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
U.S. Patent Application #14/588,891 filed on Jan. 2, 2015 for: “Method and System for Distributed Collection and Distribution of Photographs”
