WORK

The Port Workspaces (Oakland, CA)

Director of Technology/Systems Manager (2015-2018)

KEYWORDS: product management, stakeholder analysis, IT/knowledge management, staff training, coworking

When I started at the Port, I went for almost a month before getting an official title. Initially, it was going to be as a 'community manager', but I quickly proved my technical fluency by solving some long-standing, high-impact problems relatively quickly. A title emerged - technology director - and it opened a lot of doors, quite literally.

NEED:

The Port was quickly scaling and had some high-level, strategic technical blockages in need of a 'quarterback' that could either investigate, configure or resolve them - as well as keep interested parties apprised of the progress.

WHAT I DID:

• Integration of new eCheck payment system with company bank
• Led multi-stakeholder development of door access policy for 16-door, RFID-enabled access system across 3 properties, serving 800+ people with 13 different possible sets of access rules
• Successful (vendor-led) integration of new payment processing system for 5 printer VPN network serving 800+ members
• Successful buy in, migration and training of all staff to new Google Apps/G-Suite infrastructure, including document recovery and collation from private gMail accounts
• Successful buyin, migration and training of all staff on new Zendesk ticketing system
• Successful recruitment, interview and hire of new IT vendor, including successful offboarding and transition of previous vendor
• Configuration and deployment of integrated tablet system across 4 locations and 12 bookable spaces that could show external (Guest) AND internal (Member) bookings

IMPACT:

• saved over $3k/month in (recurring) credit card fees
• saved hours of monthly work and human error by migrating to automated internal room booking system
• staff have begun writing their own support articles for processes specific to their location
• staff are developing new information/project management tools on their own
• members can now access self-service support portal alleviating strain on customer support teams

Appleseed - 2 year EU Grant Collaboration

Project Manager (2012-2014)

KEYWORDS: project management, ethnography, strategic planning, business model canvas, Gantt

NEED:

After systematizing the day-to-day operations of Agora and hiring my (amazing) replacement to continue growing Agora , I began looking at other coworking spaces to develop unique partnerships with. I had seen a need for some extra training and education for many of our freelancers to professionalize their practice and 'fill in the gaps'.

How could this education occur? What were other spaces doing?

WHAT I DID:

Inspired by my time at CuriousWorks teaching blended online/offline learning experiences and experience starting my own businesses, I developed a business plan to start pitching to potential partners. This took me from the other coworking spaces in Berlin to the mountains of Trento down to the shores of the Adriatic sea in my search.

I found some partners and began building an international team to apply for a collaborative research grant.

IMPACT:

• interviewed entrepreneurs, regional program managers and local politicians to 'map' freelance ecosystems in Le Marche, Trento and Berlin
• secured MOUs from 2 universities, 2 coworking spaces and a business incubator
• developed and submitted a 2 year, €300k research proposal to the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
• awarded an Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs grant to travel and work to Italy for systems mapping and feasibility
• built a private social network for members between partner spaces + ongoing exchanges between Berlin, Slovenia and Italy

Agora Collective (Berlin-Neukölln, Germany)

Community Operations (2012-2014)

KEYWORDS: capacity building, IT planning, design thinking, project management

NEED:

Agora is a multi-disciplinary project space that includes co-working, artist residencies, exhibitions and a café. With a limited IT budget and staff, we were looking to scale our internal systems to handle multiple customers, workshops and events.

WHAT I DID:

Served as central point-of-contact for events and programming while managing and developing core operating systems to meet real-time needs of Agora a coworking, café and event space.

Lead all community operations, rental agreements and facilities management while regularly maintaining >70% fill rates.

Conducted organization-wide technology audit and produced a strategic technology plan. Migrated accounting system to Freshbooks and trained staff on its use . Redesigned website to handle customer queries through various web forms. Co-developed an Agora 'one-pager' to welcome people new to Agora. Wrote the first version of Agora's Policies and Operations manual. Created an internal community cookbook from chefs in the community. Co-facilitated a design thinking charrette to surface community needs. Audited and reorganized all Posts and Pages on in 2 year old WordPress archive and guided a site redesign and migration. Cross-trained staff on various new website features developed in-house. Grew coworker community from 30 active members to 80 in 1 year. Documentation and hand off of all work on my departure.

Agora Design Thinking Workshop on 8th March 2014 from Agora Collective on Vimeo.

IMPACT:

• lead operational team to scale facility operations from 2 to 5 stories
• doubled turnover (€30k-€70k)
• tripled monthly customers
• streamlined café operations and increased number of plates served by 30%
• improved member onboarding process with design thinking charrette
• stabilized pricing structure to meet P&L requirements
• developed and installed new internal social network to connect staff, thought leaders and customers

Upon succession, left a newly built intranet containing contract templates, a Policies & Operations manual and successfully hired the next manager to become steward and manager of all systems built.

Media Arts Center San Diego (San Diego, CA USA)

Program Manager (18 months full-time)

KEYWORDS: program management, fundraising, teaching & curriculum development

NEED:

MEDIA ARTS Center San Diego procured a $30k grant to develop a community new media lab. They needed someone to lead its development both technically and human resource-wise.

WHAT I DID:

Acted as central point-of-contact for all content, operations improvements and instructor onboarding for lab programs.

Working within the budget, I designed, developed and built the technology and marketing capacities of the new media lab, systemized evening workshops while teaching youth media camps. I also developed a workshop instructor recruitment system, taught new media workshops and coordinated the SHARE open-media jams.

Liaised between parents, students, instructors, staff and volunteers in creating policies and procedures for operating seasonal educational programming.

IMPACT:

• established new instructor onboarding process
• developed new workshop signup, payment and registration process with CRM integration
• created seasonal digital media curriculum

The Youth Media Camps are now a regular revenue-generating education program.

CuriousWorks (Sydney/Newman, NSW/WA Australia)

New Media Educator (3 months-contract)

KEYWORDS: teaching & curriculum development

NEED:

The youth of a remote mining town of Newman, Western Australia were in need of a new youth center and wanted to develop digital literacy and project management skills.

WHAT I DID:

In collaboration with other staff from CuriousWorks, I led new media workshops in mining and remote Indigenous communities in the Pilbara desert of Western Australia after using Kickstarter to raise the funds necessary for the trip. We designed and delivered new media/social media workshops for youth and teachers both in school and after school.

CuriousWorks Newman 2009 Summary Video from CuriousWorks on Vimeo.

IMPACT:

• Taught blogging and social networking to 30 high school students
• Supervised film production processes (brainstorming, shooting, editing and uploading) for student made films in an elementary school
• Built the internal online capacity of CuriousWorks main office
• Regularly blogged across social network properties as needed
• Trained teachers and students on blogging/online media distribution using train the trainer model
• Provided support and consultation for WordPress web development for internal staff and partners
• Our work culminated in a youth film festival covered by national newspapers and tv news.

The National Alliance for Media Arts & Culture, San Francisco, CA USA

Online Community Manager/Platform Developer (18 months full-time)

KEYWORDS: IT planning, web development, open-source design, training

NEED:

NAMAC was looking to migrate their 1,400 page website from a custom built ColdFusion CMS to an open source, modular CMS based on Drupal. At the time, Drupal was at 5.0. They also wanted tighter integration with web 2.0 capabilities.

WHAT I DID:

Acted as online community manager and technical advisor to organizations web operations. Led redesign and migration of 1500 page content management system website to new platform (ColdFusion to Drupal).

The project took 8 months, working in-house with staff, 2 IT departments and multiple ideation and design meetings. Finished site includes a job board, Google Map-enabled directory of member organizations and a federated search engine. Before my departure, I built a staff intranet, migrated our emails to Google Apps, documented all web operations and trained key staff on how to operate the website.

IMPACT:

• successfully redeveloped and migrated legacy content management to new CMS platform
• led design and technology migration process
• managed outsourced vendor/developer relationships to ensure successful migration
• custom-coded new features per staff/community requests
• migrated staff IT systems to Google Apps intranet and trained senior staff on use and management