Service Design, User Experience Lead, Manager
Accenture Federal Services, (FJORD) Washington, DC, Virginia
May 2019-present
- Facilitate design thinking co-creation workshops: Employing a human-centered design lens, my teams navigate complex organizational relationships and bring stakeholders together around common goals and priorities.
- Lead human-centered design research teams: I design, conduct and analyze usability testing and other forms of HCD research for customers. I lead human-centered design workshops, conduct contextual inquiry, develop customer journeys, and stakeholder interviews.
- Manage the design and production of design research artifacts: I supervise design activities such as journey mapping, experience prototyping and the development of service blueprints.
- Supervise information visualization activities: Organize complex information and communicate structure with wireframes, sitemaps and process flows.
- User advocate: I champion the customer/user and protect their interests
- Technical innovation analysis: Provide research, analysis and recommendations for technical systems and programs for government agency leads.
- Human-centered systems analysis: Analyze, research, and scope technical solutions for agency clients.
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- Conduct needs analysis: Analyze customer experience approaches (e.g. strategies, roadmaps, playbooks) that represent best practices for my clients.
- Communicate innovation adoption: Define problems and describe solutions using the language of my stakeholders, adjusting explanations into plain English.
- Diagnose: Analyze stakeholder needs and identify services that best address them.
- Team Management: I maintain a safe, inclusive workplace where all team members differences are valued and celebrated. The more diverse and inclusive the team, the stronger our analysis becomes.
Clients: Department of Defense, Department of Education, Social Security Administration (Medicare), State Department, Department of Agriculture, and Internal Revenue Service.
Speaking engagements: 2019 Accenture Federal Innovation Expo
Pro-bono intellectual property and contract attorney
Self employed
Oct. 1998-present (8 hours per week)
- Negotiate, and draft contracts, licensing agreements for clients who cannot afford legal services.
- Lecture artists, designers and in schools about protecting intellectual property, negotiating and contract issues
Sr. Interactive Art Director
Havas Worldwide (helia) Baltimore
August 2018-May 2019
- Human-centered design research lead: Ensure research, design, solutions meet client KPI and brand standards.
- Evangelize innovative technologies: Maintains strong awareness of digital content delivery trends and tools.
- Provide thought leadership: Provide leadership and direction for a team of designers, copywriters and production designers.
- Communicate technology innovations: Effectively communicate the benefits and drawbacks of products and services to clients with varying levels of technical knowledge.
- Storyteller: Create and present storyboards of creative ideas. Collaborate with copywriters, strategists to conceptualize and develop relevant advertising campaigns that integrated print, interactive, and social media.
- Creative team management: Directed actionable concepts and ideas to junior creative teams.
- Design strategist: Provide expertise in user experience research for strategists. Maintain best practices in the development of digital marketing materials and social campaigns.
- Data visualizer: Conceptualize and produce original data visualizations for non-technical audiences
Clients: Starbucks, Fitbit, Autozone, AAFES, Citi Bank, Betrtolli, and Loews Hotels.
Human-centered design practitioner
Self-employed, Washington, DC, New York
August 2010—August 2017
- Agile Lead: Lead agile teams in the delivery of client innovative technical modernization solutions and upgrades.
- Cross-functional team manager: Lead cross-functional teams in the research, development and testing of client technical innovation projects.
- Communicate innovation best practices: Effectively communicate benefits and drawbacks of products and services to clients with varying levels of technical knowledge.
- Industry thought leader: Researched and wrote strategic social marketing white papers for clients’ media strategies.
- Agile project management: Manage multiple development concurrent development projects, across different industries and cross-functional teams.
Speaking engagements: 2019 Washington DC Ad Week Conference, 2018 Creative Review Confrence.
Clients: USAID, Adidas, Future Publishing, World Bank/IFC, and Selfridges.
Integrated design program director, professor
Integrated Design, and Digital Communications graduate programs.
University of Baltimore, August 2012-January 2018
- Developed online graduate courses in design-thinking, user experience, ethnographic research methods, and experiential design methodologies.
- Directed and supervised the design lab at the University of Baltimore that enabled graduate students to work with corporate and government clients. The lab provided valuable hands-on experience for students in the development and implementation of ethnographic research techniques and practices.
- Conducted audit of university marketing activities. The final report made recommendations that saved university more than $400k over three quarters.
- Member of University of Baltimore rebranding team. Responsible for developing university wide roll out of the new brand and marketing plan for the university.
- Expanded program offerings at satellite campus increasing enrollment by 250% over three semesters (this program was the only program at the Universities at Shady Grove to exceed enrollment goals).
- Redesigned 30-year-old graduate program to address current market and employer needs. Increased enrollment in program by 7% per quarter over six quarters.
Professor, (User Experience and Service Design)
Graphic Design and Visual Experience MFA programs
Savannah College of Art and Design,
August 2010—May 2012
- Directed and instructed graduate courses in design-thinking, and design research methodologies.
- Institutional liaison between Walt Disney Creative Services, and SCAD career services
- Faculty art director and studio manager for student staffed “Working Class Studio.” (Clients, IBM, Disney, and Gulf Stream)
Human-Centered Design Researcher, Creative Director, Partner
Partnership
January 1998—November 2010, New York, District of Columbia
- Led cross-functional teams in the research, development and testing of client technical innovation projects.
- Encourage innovation through ongoing staff interaction, direction, training, and planning.
- Ensured design integrity of all creative projects (alignment with creative vision, brand and strategy).
- Strengthened client messaging strategies and translated strategies to various global teams and partners.
- Provided coaching to client managers on how to manage or lead technological modernization efforts for online products.
- Developed Best Practices for creating culturally customized print materials and interactive projects for national and international client base.
- Established studio-wide design research and design-thinking methodologies that led to studio’s competitive advantage.
- Managed company strategic planning, and marketing direction-setting.
Client List: International Management Corporation (IMG), Hearst Publications, L’Oreal Paris, Juicy Couture, German Department of State, Xerox, Vogue (Italia), BMW, Exon, Schering-Plough, The Smithsonian Museum, The Walker Arts Center, PhRMA, Becton Dickinson, Merck, Schering-Plough, Hill & Knowlton, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.