I’ve recently had a little career shift going on. In January I’ll start working for Aquent as an Agent in their Interactive Media division.
My area of Aquent focuses on … well, interactive media. Placing people across all of the disciplines involved in the web industry into all kinds of positions, working on all kinds of projects for all kinds of clients. Sounds pretty broad, but to me, it sounds like fun. And helping people find jobs? That sounds like a good gig to me.
I don’t have anything well-packaged to say about this new opportunity yet, since I haven’t actually started just yet. I’m sure I will have more to say in about a month that actually sounds articulate.
So far I can say that during the interview process, the more I heard about the opportunity, the company’s culture and what I’d be doing, the more I thought – Hey, you could not only totally do this, but you could be really good at it and get a lot out of it as a person!
So: I think the job fits well with my personality. I like to help people, I love talking to people and finding out what makes them tick, hearing about what companies want to do with the web really inspires me and makes me think about technology… and finally? I love seeing a job well done and having something to do with making that happen.
But here’s my background, in any case.
I have over ten years of experience in managing web site construction, redesign, launch and promotion dating back to 1996 in a variety of environments — dot-com, agency and an internal corporate team.
In many years of working with teams on all kinds of projects, I have found that my particular talent is simply this: an ability to communicate clearly, thoroughly and efficiently with a wide variety of people. Knowing 5 different scripting languages or speaking in Pantone is a skill, to be sure — skills I do not possess — but all too often, the higher-level goals and strategy are not clearly defined, when there are only developers, designers and an IT team working on a web-related project directly with marketing, sales or an executive team.
Things I know how to do
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, well-respected in teams for my ability to see the big picture, understand the points of view of multiple stakeholders, gather consensus, develop a realistic strategy, then implement that strategy successfully leading a team of developers, designers and hosting providers.
- Excellent analytical and project management skills
- Fast learner with a strong foundation in the fundamentals of web and internet technology, allowing me to learn about specific technologies quickly
- Excellent time and priority management skills
- All of the basic business software packages, Mac and PC, Visio for requirements development, understanding of server, database, web, wi-fi, cloud computing technologies
- You can always check out a slightly more broken-down bulleted version of my skills.
What I’ve Done
September 2007 – present | Chief Technology Officer
Arete Wealth Management, Inc. | Lake in the Hills, IL
Make all decisions and guide implementation related to communications, information, web, and recordkeeping (DMS) technology. Manage vendor relationships with IT hosting, web development, phone service and hardware provider, first line of user support for 50 users. Part-time/on -demand position
October 2002 – March 2005 | Communications Manager
Fannie Mae | Washington, DC
As part of a team of four within Corporate Communications, I helped manage the redesign, build, conversion, training, launch and support of Fannie Mae’s intranet. The intranet went from a small, homegrown site to a CMS-run, more secure, enterprise-level site. To complete the project, it was necessary to work with teams across the entire company – from web developers building the new system in e-Business, to the IT team hosting the new intranet, to the content creators in divisions company-wide, including Single Family, Multi-Family, Customer Account Management teams nationwide, information technology teams, and internal corporate communications staff.
I and my team members worked together to concurrently manage the development of the new CMS according to our business needs and wrangle all of the content in the legacy system into the new one, managing a team of contractors to convert thousands of pages of content. Because I had worked to develop relationships with the publishing community pre- and post-launch, I was responsible for ensuring that all of our publishers were trained on the new, significantly more complex system, and that they received support in the new system once it launched and became the required tool for getting content to the intranet.
June 2000 – July 2001 | Producer
IDEV | Silver Spring, MD
IDEV was a small interactive agency with some great projects, during a time in which the industry was becoming more difficult to survive in. I worked with the company’s larger clients on redesign and CMS conversion, including Loctite and Playbill.com. My job began when the contract was being negotiated, meeting the client, discussing their business needs and coming up with content for proposals. Once a contract was signed I was responsible for gathering business requirements from clients and translating them into functional specifications, in accordance with the contract’s stipulations with regard to scope and budget. Once the specifications were approved, I worked with designers, developers, IT staff and HTML developers to build out, launch and support the site or product according to specifications. While there I was significantly involved in creating a process for projects from start to finish that we could use to sell clients on IDEV’s services, as well as working on evaluating different CMS packages for their viability in our projects. The company laid off most of its staff in July 2001, selling off its client base.
October 1998 – March 2000 | Product Manager
About.com | New York, NY
With a team of 3 other Product Managers, we worked inside the Web Development team to be advocates, promoters and defenders of the service. We split the service into major components and were responsible for managing everything related to those components, working closely together since they were interrelated. We handled additions and enhancements to our product within an interdisciplinary team of developers and designers, and worked with marketing, sales, the executive team, and the IT team to tirelessly improve and enhance About.com. While I was there, my products were the service’s taxonomy, search, and eventually, segments of the content within the service, helping editorial staff to remotely manage thousands of publishers worldwide. We underwent a major redesign, a name change (involving another major redesign), and went public during the 18 months I worked there.
July 1998 – September 2008 | Producer
Avalon | Rosslyn, VA
A government contracting firm that primarily did work for the Department of Transportation, I started out as an HTML developer but moved into a Producer role due to how I interacted with clients. Because of a move to New York, my tenure there was short-lived.
April 1997-July 1997 | HTML Producer/Contractor
Careerbuilder.com | Reston, VA
Assist in the build for a redesign for Careerbuilder.com. This was a short term contract.
June 1995 – April 1997 | Editorial Assistant/Webmasters
Capitol Publications, Inc. | Alexandria, VA
Beginning as an administrative assistant, I was promoted to editorial assistant at this industry-specific newsletter publishing firm. In those capacities – my first jobs out of college – I learned all of the fundamentals of business and publishing, including budgeting and forecasting, the core tasks of sales, marketing and our journalists, desktop publishing and newsletter and book production. After 2 years I moved into the position of Webmaster. I was responsible for managing the first website we launched and worked to get the company to move our newsletters online. During this time I not only learned how to build a website from scratch, but also how to work within a company to encourage and promote change.
Education
1995 | English
The George Washington University, Washington, DC
Other Stuff
Member of DCWW Steering Committee. Programming Chair, 1997-98. Worked to schedule space and speakers for one year on the Steering Committee of a rapidly growing organization, making many good friends and professional contacts along the way. When I joined in 1996, we were at 400 women; by the time I left DC in 2004, the organization was at about 5,000 members.
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