m@: überesque vägaries.

Applico Status Board, v1. Today coworker Linke and I...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 18:45:00 -0400

Applico Status Board, v1.

Today coworker Linke and I surprise-presented our stealth prototype project experimenting with Panic Software’s recently released Status Board iPad app. In order to drum up internal support for a larger installation, we decided to go rogue and crash the morning company meeting. In a speed-round preso, we gave an overview of the app’s delicious pixels, the process of prototyping using internal data, and ended by unveiling our Applico Status Board frankenstein creation.

As we could only find a few hours here and there over the course of last week, we strung together a few immediately-available technologies: Google Spreadsheet (auto-generates a .CSV file), Google Calendar (powers milestones and notable employee/company dates), as well as Dropbox (hosts some simple HTML and images).

UPDATE: I wrote a lengthy post around the motivations and experience of this project.

Howdy Viewers! A quick note...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:31:00 -0500

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on my personal landing page, MattLeiker.com:

I recommend clicking here to view my portfolio and all it’s rich formatting on Tumblr.

For those of you viewing this portfolio feed on Tumblr:

Tumblr seems to be experiencing some big bugs with regards to pagination and backdated posts. There are just shy of 30 portfolio entries, only 15 of which on the first page (and even those aren’t necessarily the newest). Please see page 2 for additional entries until I’ve got this resolved.

MattLeiker.com, v4.0 Retired January 2012, you were simple,...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:01:00 -0500

MattLeiker.com, v4.0

Retired January 2012, you were simple, clean, and served me well. But you weren’t very easy to update and had no dynamic qualities. Shame on you. Rest in peace.

View the archived version. (My apologies in advance for any broken links.)

Buzzes, Beeps, Bonks, and Big Red Arrows Note: This post was originally published February 3rd, 2011...

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:28:00 -0500

Buzzes, Beeps, Bonks, and Big Red Arrows

Note: This post was originally published February 3rd, 2011 on the Voce Nation blog and is being republished here (archive pdf).

“How do you organize yourself?”

That’s the question I had been asking potential candidates interviewing for the “MacGuyver-like, Coordinator-Extraordinaire” Project Management position you might have scoped on Voce’s Careers page a while back. I thought I’d finally answer my own question.

I ask potential new candidates this because I think it says something about the type of person you are, how you go about managing your responsibilities, and the quality (and quantity) of work you’re capable of putting forth. As as Project/Client Management role is often incredibly detail-oriented and fast-paced, having a solid working system in place can be the only thing keeping important details and nuances from slipping through the cracks. Organized systems also help elevate our level of customer service, the quality of our work, the efficiency of our team, and helps facilitate maintaining some semblance of order amongst the schizophrenia experienced managing many different projects in various different stages. To give you some sort of an idea, I think I’m actively juggling somewhere between 10 and 14 projects, all of varying degrees of complexity. Eepsters.

Our office is dually fun and challenging as we’re not explicitly co-located. While the Platforms team is based just outside Orlando, Florida, I operate out of NYC. At the moment, we’ve also got two other team members working remotely (Iowa and Georgia) and three of the Florida members often work from a coffeeshop in downtown Orlando a day or two a week. As you can imagine, having a near-virtual Project Manager requires clear, concise communication via various mediums. A mix of team-based and personal preferences, here are the tools utilized on a near-daily basis to overcome distance and organizational challenges:

Email / IM / Phone:

As with most businesses, these are the cornerstones (tri-corner hat, maybe?) of one-to-one communication. We employ a short daily “stand-up” call to cover each team members’ status. Google Apps makes email (and calendar, docs) management bearable. AIM (& YiM/Skype/Gchat) is an age-old instant message standard. Skype (especially the iPhone app) helps keep cell phone bills low, makes long conference calls easy (and cheap), and even allows screensharing.

Campfire (via Propane App):

Possibly one of the most important tools enabling our dislocated working environment, it acts as a way to communicate small things amongst the entire team or individuals in real-time. It also functions as the team water cooler, allowing for a shocking variety of embarrassing personal imagery, the circulation of awesome internet memes, or simply an unobtrusive way to say, “I’m stepping out to lunch.”

Basecamp:

Our preferred shared tool used between PjM and clients, only when necessary (for shared to-do items between clients and PjM, storing wireframes and mocks, collecting internal documents from clients)—no development organization happens here.

JIRA:

Short of rolling our own tool (which seems a waste of time), it’s the best thing we’ve come up with for tracking development tasks. If it needs to get developed, it’s gotta go into JIRA. Robust enough to accommodate needs specific to the internal development process we’ve created, (a variation on agile, 1-week scrum methodology, ticketing system w/ configurable states & notifications, etc.) JIRA still remains (barely) usable after configuration. We certainly don’t love it, but it’s the least painful tool we’ve found that meets our specific needs.

Dropbox:

Powers an intricate web of file storing and sharing amongst team members. From a personal perspective, I enjoy having ALL of my working files copied to the cloud as an always up-to-date backup, accessible from any computer (or iDevice), and sharable. There’s no excuse for lost files anymore. And sometimes you just need to add a clickable link to a client meeting invite that shares the designs that’ll be reviewed on that call. Easy, breezy, CoverGirl.

Omnifocus:

The catch-all for organizing myself. I keep all actionable items (or anything I’m tracking from a client or team member) in Omnifocus. If it’s not email, and not a task entered into JIRA for our developers, it’s probably being tracked in Omnifocus.

TextEdit:

Sometimes you just need to take a note, capture some quick detail before actioning it into the appropriate other tool, make a quick punchlist, or write a blogpost. Who needs the weight of a full-fledged word-processing program just to jot down some meeting notes?

Command+Shift+4 with Preview.app (or Skitch):

May seem like a funny item to list here, but I spend a terrifying amount of time taking screenshots and annotating with big red arrows, boxes or text. Sometimes you just need a picture to get your point across. You’d be surprised what a big red arrow and some “fix this” text can do for UX oddities, front-end bugs, or sending a client directions on how to use a WordPress feature we’ve created. Pair with a menubar tool like CloudApp, and you don’t even have to upload files, you can pass people links instead.

Popdust.com Voce Communications; November 2010 Contracted to...

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:55:00 -0500

Popdust.com

Voce Communications; November 2010

Contracted to advise as WordPress development consultants and overhaul the design, we had a lot of fun with the Popdust music portal redesign.

project management, editorial strategic advisement

The Lonely Cat-herd (the Story of a Project Manager) Note: This post was originally published...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 18:59:00 -0400

The Lonely Cat-herd (the Story of a Project Manager)

Note: This post was originally published August 30th, 2010 on the Voce Nation blog and is being republished here (archive pdf).

I once had a job title officially list “cat-herder” as one of many descriptions of my responsibilities. I’ve never actually tried to herd cats, but I’ve always assumed it’s a fairly tedious task. (What one might do with a herd of cats is beyond me.) Regardless, I suspect there might be a flute involved.

Project Management isn’t often a very glamourous job. In fact, I never really suspected I might become a professional client/developer wrangler, organizer, babysitter, accountant, therapist, and Miss Cleo-esque mind reader. Yet, here I am.

Two frustrating realities regarding my role are that it never seems to be called the same thing (Project Manager, Product Manager, Account Manager, Producer, Coordinator, Slacker) and that the responsibilities or expectations are rarely the same. Those glaring realities also happen to be what I love about it. I like to think that good Projectductcoordimanagewhateverpeople aren’t trained, they’re groomed. Like Super Heroes or brilliant politicians or world-class cobblers. It’s no wonder that people don’t actively seek this role during early career searches — potential employers could never easily or fully describe (or know?) what each position might require. They just know they need one. And they’re probably right.

Let me introduce myself: my name is Matt Leiker and I joined the Voce Connect team around four months ago. I grew up in Kansas, went to school in Philly and have lived in NYC for the last 5+ years. My background is frustratingly broad, which also happens to be one of my biggest liabilities and best assets. Knowing a little about everything can be great for straddling various fields or industries, but obnoxious when trying to find entry-level jobs as I’m an expert in, well, nothing. At UPenn, I “studied” graphic design (a.k.a. Photoshop Funtime), marketing, the interwebs, and the science & philosophy of seeing (how do you know that ugly webpage is the same ugly webpage I see?). Yeah… what do you do with that? Google hard enough and you’ll find a few answers.

HTML Codemonkey might as well have been the official title of my first job at AOL Music. I eventually ended up in Product Management for their AIM team building a social network and constantly zipping back and forth to Dulles, Virginia where the majority of my team was located. (As well as Dublin, Ireland and Bangalore, India where we had a few remote development teams.) From there I ended up working at a small Swedish digital agency that did a lot of work with Absolut Vodka (“yes” to answer your unasked question).

I eventually re-connected with some old AOL colleagues at a small digital strategy company and worked with entities like the National Hockey League, Bonnaroo, Major League Soccer, and CBS Radio. It was on this last project that I got to work alongside the fantastic, amazing, and highly-attractive talents of team Voce.

That brings us to the present: our team is expanding, project scopes increasing, and workloads ballooning. This talented group of nerds has built a cohesive, productive, and awe-inspiring family; their work continues to speak for itself. My goals are clear (or as clear as they get in this b’niss):

Help wrangle the expanding client management required to upkeep the ever-growing list of projects on our docket
Revise and revamp some processes to increase efficiency and sanity in our worklife (note: I plan to make it all up as I go)
Improve the quality of work, customer satisfaction, and general code-sexiness of the Voce Connect team

We’ve got some incredibly challenging and exciting projects coming up. Over the course of the indefinite future I’ll be sharing with you some of our struggles, successes, and experiments in “Process”. This should be a fun ride. (And by fun I mean exhausting. (And by exhausting I mean awesome!))

The Pioneer Woman Voce Communications; site redesign launched...

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:22:00 -0400

The Pioneer Woman

Voce Communications; site redesign launched July 2010, updates through year end

One of my favorite examples of a self-made blogger (empire?), The Pioneer Woman blog — arguably better titled a ‘portal’ — showcases Ree Drummond’s life on the ranch. Her incredibly regular reporting spans the gamut from her personal life, cooking, photography, home & garden, and even tales of homeschooling her kids. She has a ~~rabid~~ avid fan base, where any one of her weekly KitchenAid Mixer or iPad giveaways will garner tens of thousands of comments, often in the course of a few minutes. (It’s a constant headache for our SysAdmin to keep her giveaways from melting servers or imploding WordPress.)

As one of the team’s hands-down favorite and most consistent clients over the years, we’ve been incredibly proud to watch Ree’s self-made success grow into her second (sure to be) best-selling cookbook and an amazing new show on The Food Network. (Yes, she really is as genuine and sweet as she seems.) Just read a few of her posts. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You’ll be back (well, after about 40 minutes disappear into thin air).

The 2010 major redesign was one of my first projects when I officially joined the Voce team. The design was (mostly) approved and it needed to be executed. As Ree was a seasoned blogger and WordPress extraordinaire, we took the opportunity to leverage the automated and hierarchical goodies that WP has to offer, creating some simple automated “super widgets” that automatically display content from different areas, categories, time periods, or tags. We made the archives and category pages easier to browse. Her luscious photos are now featured even bigger (and more automated for her Flickr process). Check out Ree’s “new blog” announcement post for more information (she even thanks us all by name halfway through).

project management, created requirements documents, development QA, post-launch support, authored tutorials

National Hockey League’s NHL.com RocketFuel, Inc.;...

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:41:00 -0400

National Hockey League’s NHL.com

RocketFuel, Inc.; launched September 2008

Nominated for a Webby Award (for whatever that’s worth), our work on the NHL.com redesign is still in production, faithfully serving a slew of hockey fanatics. RocketFuel was brought in to rethink the NHL web experience, improve the editorial toolsets for the newsroom, as well as increase sales and analytics opportunities throughout the site. We worked in partnership with vendors such as AKQA (design), CISCO, and NeuLion.

As my first major project with RocketFuel, I was quickly thrown into the pool. Working mostly on-site with the NHL internal staff I led the project management efforts for the redesign during its six month gestation period. Beyond typical PjM duties of timeline tracking, deliverables management, and constant dev task prioritization, I also produced product comparative analyses, evaluating potential integration partners on various offerings. I also worked on the team site and social network integrations, as well as on content and partner relationships for NHL’s mobile offering in the US and Canada.

Examples of materials I created:

CMS editorial module requirements
Executive presentation materials: sample 1, sample 2, sample 3, sample 4
Rough UX mocks to illustrate requirements
Flow diagrams

project management, technical liaison to analytics lead, assisted mobile partner integrations, development QA, post-launch support, on-site client meetings & presentations

Absolut Truth & Proof Bartender Initiative Great Works,...

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:50:00 -0500

Absolut Truth & Proof Bartender Initiative

Great Works, America; Winter/Spring 2008

With the goal of tying bartenders closer to an online brand experience, as well as learn more about their behaviors on the internet, the Absolut Truth & Proof initiative was born. An on-premise sampling engagement was coupled with an online follow-up activity so that bartenders could craft their own cocktail, have it added to the Absolut recipe database, and gain a personalized drink certificate boasting their achievements as a Truth & Proof bartender.

Bartender education and sampling sessions were conducted in the field, giving them a short quiz/survey afterward as “eligibility” to the T&P bartender initiative (generating an engaged mailing list). Participants received a follow-up email welcoming them into the Absolut community and urged them to create their unique bartender-branded drink using Absolut’s online drink creation tools.

I was in charge of bringing this digital activity online, creating all the necessary tools to facilitate the fulfillment process. After the planning and executive approval process was cleared, I facilitated the creation of back-end card entry mechanism, the bartender emailing tool, the front-end drink creation experience, certificate maker, and submission to the approval queue and printing partner. As an added bonus, I presented at a few bartender “training” sessions for Absolut’s in-market reps, getting to sit in on the training session myself. To this day, I still use the bloody mary recipe and bartender toolkit that I received.

project management, microsite publishing, drafted SOW & scope documents, on-site client meetings & presentations (east+west coast), managed development vendors in US & Sweden, contractor acquisition and management

Absolut / Live Earth Short Film Series Great Works,...

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 18:26:00 -0500

Absolut / Live Earth Short Film Series

Great Works, America; Winter/Spring 2008

From the release:

Sponsored by ABSOLUT Vodka, the Live Earth Short Film Series – which debuted in July 2007 – will tour major film festivals in 2008 throughout the U.S. to generate a legacy of inspiration that will further underscore the need to act now.
To illustrate what an ABSOLUT World would look like, we harnessed some of the world’s most creative minds to create our Short Film Series to inform and inspire people across the globe to help solve the climate crisis. Partnered with Live Earth, we’ve created an experience where you can view these films in the digital ways which you’re most accustomed. Launching one film per week, all on the subject of climate change, and ranging from factual and dramatic to fictional and comedic, these films are directed by many of the industry’s most prominent filmmakers.

As the digital lead for this project, I developed the overall concept, execution plan, created the technical requirements, as well as hired and managed the necessary contractors. Utilizing the WordPress platform as the editorial foundation for this weekly series, I tracked traffic stats through Feedburner, YouTube and Google Analytics. In a time before the value of YouTube had really caught on with corporate America, I urged Absolut to republish the 30 winning Live Earth short films on their own branded YouTube channel. Users could subscribe to the microsite, YouTube channel or even an iTunes podcast. I managed the designers, developers, copywriters and client approvals from Absolut and partner Live Earth.

I’m especially proud of this wacky job posting that landed me some wonderful talent for the WordPress development and maintenance.

AMC Pitch Great Works, America; September 2007 Written for the...

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:00:00 -0500

AMC Pitch

Great Works, America; September 2007

Written for the pitch book:

We have created three campaigns that, although different, share a common goal of making AMC famous. All of them use iconic imagery to celebrate classic movies and drive home the point that AMC is the source for classic movies — that AMC is “the future of classic.” All of the following campaigns have a bold visual theme that will make the campaign seem bigger than it is. It will appear to blanket the city. Lastly, all the these campaigns are meant to be slightly “inside”— they reference classic movies visually in a way that you either get or you want to get.

The first campaign, entitled “outlines and shadows”, used subtle outlines that suggest classic movies. The second campaign was called “movie posters” and simply mixed classic movie posters with the AMC quotes branding. The final campaign pitch was entitled “artifacts”. Taking recognizable props from classic movies, we displayed them in ads as if they were in a museum on the street.

On a short, two week timeline, I oversaw the pitch-creation process, ranging from developing and distilling the ideas, selecting and managing contractor talent, to printing and prepping the presentation. The on-air motion promos created by Joe Encarnacion at Hatchback Studios really brought the campaigns to life:

project management, art direction, contractor acquisition and management

Absolut 100 Campaign Great Works, America; Fall 2007 Just admit...

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 16:49:00 -0500

Absolut 100 Campaign

Great Works, America; Fall 2007

Just admit it: everyone with agency experience has probably created a banner ad or twelve at some point in his career. I’m no exception. As part of a promotional campaign for Absolut 100, we created a digital marketing strategy coupled with an offline component to generate buzz for the new, higher-proof vodka.

Working with partner OMD for media placement and post-buy analysis, we managed mailers with Urban Daddy, Very Short List, Thrillist, Rare Daily, and Flavorpill to create campaigns that “went well beyond the standard banner ad, using emails to establish a one-on-one connection with the consumer.” Going past the typical newsletter, we created a tangible experience through interest in attending an exclusive Absolut 100 Halloween party in either NYC (TriBeCa’s Bogardus Mansion) or LA (Les Deux). In preparation leading up to the event, I managed the hiring of contractors to create the banner ads, as well as authored and published the RSVP microsite. Working with Absolut’s legal department for all necessary approvals, I packaged and delivered these ads for the mailers and sites.

Garnering 1800 RSVPs as well as a sizable press bump and word-of-mouth intrigue (and even celebrity attendance), 1400 fans joined us for a prohibition-themed costume party on either coast.

Pictures and press:

Examples of materials I created:

project management, microsite publishing, post-buy analysis, on-site client meetings, contractor acquisition and management

AOL’s AIM Pages Social Network AOL; 2006-2007 Considered...

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:00:00 -0400

AOL’s AIM Pages Social Network

AOL; 2006-2007

Considered an evolution of “the first ever social network” — AOL’s Member Directory —AIM Pages was more than just a social network tied to your AIM Buddy List. While only AOL employees really considered Member Directory the first social network, it was clear that AOL was a bit behind the curve to only just be considering investing in the social networking space in 2005/2006. (Remember that Friendster was on its last breath, Facebook was still private-ish, and MySpace was king.)

Weighing in on the AIM Pages team’s efforts from the perspective of my position with AOL Music, I was young and opinionated and of the impression that the great majority of executives working on the project hadn’t really even used MySpace, Friendster or Facebook the same way teens and college students had. Frustrated with what I was seeing, I eventually shot a 4 page “Matt’s Guide to What AIM Pages Should Be” document off to a listserv. Not twenty minutes later, I got a call from the head of Product Management, asking if I’ve ever heard of it. I hadn’t. Thus began my career as a Product Manager.

Tasked with the typical duties of a ProdM, I managed the product requirements, task tracking, bugs, UX/UI development, and overall progress of pieces or subcomponents of the overall initiative. I was responsible for Search, friends component (Buddy Gallery), the Buddy Feed (an early response to Facebook’s News Feed), settings pages, privacy and rostering, and the media modules. Working with operations, marketing, programming, legal, advertising, and corporate communications, I gathered feedback from various executive stakeholders as well as integrated focus group and user testing feedback. As one of the more rewarding aspects, I managed teams of developers in the US, Ireland, and Bangalore, getting to visit them regularly. I also travelled to train and support AOL’s various help desks and call centers.

AIM Pages featured a robust AJAX drag-and-drop modular publishing system, intending to grant publishing freedom to users stuck with a typical form-field layout like MySpace and Facebook. While ultimately a bit too ambitious (read: buggy) for a first- or second-iteration product on such a massive scale, AIM Pages was eventually abandoned and profiles were migrated to AOL’s costly 2008 acquisition, Bebo. I think mine even still exists there in some Frankenstein form.

Press:

product manager, managed international dev teams (US, Ireland, India), focus groups & user testing

AOL Music’s “The Biz” AOL; Fall...

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:42:00 -0500

AOL Music’s “The Biz”

AOL; Fall 2005

Considered one of the first online reality shows, my first professional gig out of college was acting as the Lead Web Publisher for AOL Music’s “The Biz”. Wait, you never heard of it? That’s ok:

The Biz is a Web-based reality show where 9 finalists from across the country compete to prove who’s got what it takes to be America’s next music mega-mogul. These contestants — who were chosen from 9000 entrants — will undertake a variety of music business jobs to see who can rise to the top of The Biz ladder and ultimately win the show’s grand prize: The opportunity to found and run their own record label at the Warner Music Group. Along the way, they’ll get guidance from music industry legends like Lyor Cohen, Chairman and CEO of U.S. Recorded Music, Warner Music Group. These execs will also decide who has the chops to win the prize and make it in the music business.

Despite its relative obscurity and never really gaining a significant audience, this AOL / Warner Music partnership still managed to drum up some pretty impressive artists and executives: Fallout Boy, Panic! At the Disco, Jason Mraz, Paul Wall, TI, and Russell Simmons.

web publisher, digital producer