Skills
Professional Experience Senior Web Producer, Sun Microsystems March, 2007 - present Content development and management, blog management, web metrics and analysis, wikis, videoblogging, and web strategy for the Solaris Storage Software group. Director of Customer Experience, TVBLOB Srl, Milano 2003 - 2007 Responsibilities included:
- Software interface and interaction design: Member of the top management team responsible for defining and refining software products. Developed feature requests into step-by-step schematics showing UI states and behaviors at each step, worked with software engineers to ensure correct and coherent implementation, and worked with marketing and graphics team to ensure usability of graphic look-and-feel. Edited UI language directly in Java resource files (via Eclipse).
Tested and refined usability, did general bench testing.
- Writing Managed, wrote, edited, and translated technical documentation for TVBLOB's software and hardware. Provided technical input, copy editing, and translation for marketing and other materials.
- Market research and monitoring: clipped 90+ blogs and other sources per day, covering broadband, telecommunications, usability, interaction design, new media, participatory culture, user-generated content, general high tech, etc.
- Coordinated beta testing
- Customer support process: designed custom web applications and SalesForce materials and processes to integrate with company's custom back-end systems.
Freelance Projects
- Business Translation: For Evince Management Consulting, website translation (Italian to English).
- Legal Interpretation: July and October, 2004: English to Italian and vice-versa (non-simultaneous) for depositions in an international arbitration.
- Websites: tartarugatours.com, europlacements.it (working with Soho Webplan)
- Software Manuals/Help: WinOnCD 5 Standard Edition and Power Edition, WinOnCD 6 all Editions (for Roxio). My work included UI reviews and suggestions for improvement.
Webmaster & Web Strategies Manager, Roxio
Nov 2000 - July 2001 Consultant to the Adaptec Software Products Group in
Online Marketing and Customer Support Aug 1995 - Nov 2000 Created a unique online presence for the company and its software products, with proven results in customer satisfaction and support. Achievements:
- Created, developed, and managed the Web content and community team: part-time and full-time contractors and one full-time employee (some remote workers, some in other Roxio offices, some in their own homes). The extended team included technical/customer support specialists, an editor, journalists, graphic artists, and Web developers.
- Web: For the Adaptec site, was solely responsible for areas devoted to CD-recordable products and technology. Tasks included: development and management of both technical and marketing content, HTML, navigation design, information architecture, and management/integration of internal team and outside contractors.
Designed and managed implementation of Web-based applications.
- My contributions generated 70% of all Adaptec's website traffic.
- All CD-R content and applications were moved to Roxio.com in November, 2000. For this new site, I was part of the management team which chose ATG Dynamo as the application server and personalization platform, and Interwoven's TeamSite for content management.
- Had overall responsibility for content and community on Roxio.com, and led the content and applications team which developed and launched the new Roxio site ahead of the company spin-off in May, 2001. This included management, implementation, and use of TeamSite, and community and content development.
- Email marketing: Administrator and editor-in-chief (often also writer/editor) for weekly newsletters to opt-in mailing lists. Launched in 1998, the largest list had 170,000 subscribers in July, 2001. Subscriber comment: "Your emails are the best example of the value of this medium. They are always informative, they cut right to the point, and they never seem like self promotional 'Marketing' efforts. I find them valuable, and I look forward to receiving them." More subscriber comments.
- These newsletters encouraged reader responses and input, to which I responded personally (up to 400 emails per newsletter sent!) - a pre-blogs example of online conversation between a company and its customers.
- Support and marketing online: Founded the Roxio Discussion email list (formerly known as the Adaptec CD-R list) in 1996 and moderated it until September, 1999; then managed contracted moderators. The list was widely acknowledged to be the most useful source online (or off) for help with CD-R, and was praised for allowing end users to discuss all aspects (positive and negative) of products and customer experience. Similarly responded to customer questions on the Usenet for years, then managed outside contractors to do this.
- Communication: As a global, cross-cultural manager, and a technical writer working in marketing, I was uniquely qualified to facilitate and promote communication between various teams and locations within the company, and between the company and its customers.
Chief Technical Writer
Incat Systems
(Milan, Italy; Campbell, CA)
Incat Systems, an Adaptec company (Milpitas, CA) 1991 - 1995 Part of the team that made Easy CD (later Easy CD Creator) the market-dominant, award-winning world leader in CD-recording software. Achievements included:
- All software manuals and context-sensitive online help for a wide range of software products. Tasks included planning, scheduling, software testing, writing, editing, layout, graphics, and maintaining a consistent style across different software packages.
- Worked with software engineers from the beta stage, testing and reporting bugs, and making suggestions for interface and feature improvements.
- Wrote and/or edited marketing materials (press releases, brochures, package text, sales and technical training material).
- Online customer support and marketing :
- Section leader and participant in company-specific and general forums on CompuServe (1992-96).
- Participated in Internet mailing lists on related issues
- Monitored Usenet groups.
- In 1995, developed material for an Incat Web site, which was eventually used on the nascent Adaptec website after Incat Systems was purchased by Adaptec.
- Sales Support/Evangelism: Technical assistance to sales staff, presented at shows such as Intermedia, gave seminars and lectures, trained business partners such as Hewlett-Packard.
- Provided first point of contact for online support, and gained first-hand customer contact experience by occasionally taking phone support.
Director of Desktop Publishing
Team Technologies, Inc., Reston, Virginia 1987 - 1989 Managed systems integration and installation, sales, training, and technical support for DOS- and Windows-based DTP systems. Designed training courses and wrote cours materials for clients including the U.S. Navy, trade associations in Washington, D.C., and two management training institutions in Africa as an on-site consultant for the World Bank.
Publications Book: Publish Yourself on CD-ROM, co-authored with Fabrizio Caffarelli. A comprehensive guide to CD-ROM technology, for everyone from beginners to experts. Published by Random House Electronic Publishing, January, 1993. Included a CD-ROM containing software and a hypertext version of the book - one of the world's first books to include a CD. (Also desktop-published the book and created the hypertext, both using FrameMaker.)
Articles for Italian computer magazines (in Italian) and other publications.
Training Experience
Designed and taught courses in CD-Recordable technology, desktop publishing, and other software. Created and produced all training materials for courses from one day to three weeks in length. These were custom-tailored to client requirements.
Education MBA, Open University (UK), 2004 Bachelor of Arts with High Honors in Asian Studies and Hindi, University of Texas at Austin, 1987 Woodstock School, Mussoorie, India (high school), 1981
Languages
Native speaker of English. Read, write, and speak Italian fluently. Hindi reviving.
Personal US citizen, married to Italian citizen, one child.
Volunteer Work Woodstock School - class secretary, former President of WOSA (Woodstock Old Students' Association) Council Europe (now council member/secretary), fundraising, writing Democrats Abroad, Italy - former board member of Milan chapter Interests Videoblogging, food and cooking, travel Contact me
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