Objective
To use my industry experience in writing, editing, publishing, and product management to create, manage, and deploy technical information in the right way, to the right people.
Experience Managing Editor, MSDN Online: Microsoft Corp. (09/05 - Present)
Designed global headlining strategy for MSDN worldwide pilot.
Updated content, frequency, verbiage, and flow of MSDN home page, to better reflect use of both new and existing content.
Managed editorial staff, as well as editorial vendors.
Senior Development Audience Product Manager, Microsoft Learning: Microsoft Corp. (02/04 - 09/05)
Proposed, managed and delivered the integration of the MCAD / MCSD Training Kit in the Visual Studio 2005 Refresh box, a first step toward the integration of Microsoft Learning (MSL) products into the products they support.
Co-created the first Service-Level Agreement between Microsoft Learning and a Product Management Group (PMG), making it possible for the PMG to set its expectations for the degree of content support it can expect from MSL up to and through launch.
Built and managed the In-Box MSL content suite for multiple flavors of Visual Studio 2005, ranging from multiple books to eLearning to discount exam vouchers to celebrity-led video training to posters — fourteen products in all — giving an unprecedented breadth and depth to the built-in training options available to owners of Visual Studio Standard / Pro, Visual Basic Express, Visual Web Developer, and Visual Studio Team System.
Launched grassroots PR effort for Code Complete, 2nd Edition, resulting in more than 10 magazine reviews, #1 sales rank at amazon.com, and inclusion in the VS2005 Product Reviewers' Kit.
Maintained and established strong relationships with developer influentials, from book authors to magazine editors to bloggers to development product managers.
Editorial Director / Editor-in-Chief: Informant Communications Group (04/02 - 02/04)
Came aboard as Editor-in-Chief of asp.netPRO, picking up a magazine with great potential and turning it into a widely respected publication, quadrupling circulation in a difficult economy.
Assigned all articles, commissioned all columnists, negotiated all editorial contracts for asp.netPRO.
Edited all articles for content, style and layout consistency; managed staff editors and freelance copyeditors.
Launched and maintained asp.netNOW, a bi-weekly e-newsletter companion to asp.netNOW. Grew this publication to over 90,000 subscribers, with sold out advertising for several contiguous months, at a total per-issue hard cost of less than $500.
Directed launch of Smart Solutions magazine, a publication devoted to business decision makers; conducted several interviews for this publication.
Prepared launch of C#PRO, a how-to development journal for professional developers using or transitioning to the C# programming language.
Launched and maintained a trio of weekly email-based newsletters: .NET Insight, Java Insight, and XML & Web Services Insight. Guided all editorial content for each of these three technical publications, delivered to an audience of more than 400,000.
Launched three new print publications, .NET Magazine, .NET U Magazine and SQL Pro, all in the capacity of Editor-in-Chief. Guided all aspects of editorial for these publications. The launch issue of .NET Magazine has the distinction of being the largest and most profitable single issue FTP has enjoyed in the ten-year history of the company, with more than 300,000 copies printed and distributed.
Provided editorial direction for Visual C++ Developers Journal, a high-end programmers magazine. Managed all aspects of content, from finding and developing authors to interviewing experts, to establishing an appropriate editorial mix, to writing a monthly editor's note.
Published monthly Editor Notes, which front all FTP publications. These notes brought in unprecedented amounts of reader mail and heightened reader interest.
Designed, deployed and maintained a low-cost, easy-to-use internet-based survey system for the company, letting us run reader surveys on any topic at any time.
Web Manager: I-Link (10/99 - 12/99)
Evaluated existing IP telephony web application and designed new interface and feature set to enhance functionality and ease of use.
Managed all aspects of creation of new I-Link corporate site, a brushfire project that had to be brought from concept to launch in under two weeks. Managed design concepts, site structure, and content (some of which I wrote) for site.
Gathered, edited, and formatted content for I-Link's PersonaOne product site in less than one week.
Redesigned both look and publishing process for Novell Cool Solutions Communities (www.novell.com/coolsolutions) sites. Converted entire site from a manual, page-by-page creation model to an automated process where each page has its vital information in a database record. Database contents are then merged, via Java, to an easily modified HTML template.
Salvaged publishing process for shopnovell's front end. Leveraged existing Novell Products and Programs database (which I also built) to merge, via Java, with appropriate templates to create multiple indices and content pages. This had to be done under very tight deadline -- less than one week.
Acted as primary HTML (and to a lesser extent, JavaScript) go-to guy for all intranet and internet page formatting and template design. Essentially, once a layout has been approved, I was the person to make it into a clean, workable HTML template into which any amount of content could be poured.
Built numerous tools for Novell's Intranet, including Java stock quote gatherer, generic form handler, stats collector and analyzer and more.
Launched (designed, developed, formatted and edited) the award-winning Novell Power Partner, a web site and quarterly CD-ROM sent to Novell resellers and retailers. Personally used Java, JavaScript and HTML to create the CD and Internet site. Maintained thousands of pages of marketing collateral.
Created the award-winning Novell News, a thrice-weekly newsletter, distributed electronically to Novell employees. Managed all aspects of this publication, from design to layout to editing to distribution.
Title Manager / Product Director / Senior Writer: Que (1/93 - 3/94)
Wrote entire line of the award-winning, successful I Hate WordPerfect series—320-350 page humorous tutorials for frustrated beginners.
Designed concept, outline, style and tone for numerous retail computer books. Managed progress of these books from start to finish, overseeing technical and editorial development, editing, layout and production.
Oversaw accuracy of WordPerfect Magazine and WordPerfect for Windows Magazine. Tested, edited and corrected each article, often rewriting macros, merges, and other applications.
Wrote dozens of articles in the capacity of Senior Writer, ranging from humorous essays to explanations of sophisticated macro programming techniques.
Technical Writer: WordPerfect Corp. (2/90 - 9/91)
Developed original concept for separate macro manual for WordPerfect products.
Organized and wrote the entirety of WordPerfect Macros for the Macintosh, Version 2.0 and the Macros Manual for WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows—for a total of more than 1000 printed pages.
Participated actively in software development.
Freelance Columnist for Cyclingnews.com
Wrote biweekly satire and humorous essays for www.cyclingnews.com, the world's most popular cycling news and analysis site. Sample articles include:
Wrote "The Littlest Big Race" about the inaugural Brian Head Epic 100 for DirtWorld.com, an online mountain biking magazine. This article was later quoted by the race sponsor (Team Big Bear) and acknowledged as a primary reason for the following year's success.
WordPerfect Magazine/WordPerfect for Windows Magazine
Wrote more than 150 articles for these publications.
Topics ranged from product reviews to word processing basics to advanced macro programming.
The PerfectOffice Newsletter
Launched publication and determined editorial mix.
Managed editorial process (content, style, tone, technical accuracy).