Senior Internet Marketing Developer - Brand Cool Marketing
February 2006 to January 2014
At Brand Cool, I was responsible for defining web technology solutions for our clients, with a focus on finding the level of technology appropriate to the client and their needs. I was also responsible for technical aspects of pay-per-click campaigns integrated with custom landing pages and contact forms, and have grown much more familiar with HTML email than I ever imagined I would.
While any site produced by Brand Cool today is likely to be built on an open-source content management system [CMS], we didn't start out that way. During my time at Brand Cool their website solutions ranged from simple five- to eight-page static websites based on Dreamweaver templates, to larger semi-static sites built on PHP or ASP includes, to sophisticated websites driven by content management systems such as Drupal [1] or Wordpress [2].
Here are a few examples of solutions I've personally designed or implemented:
When a state government authority needed the ability to move nimbly on web-based campaigns, we stepped forward with a solution for managing campaign landing pages using a content management system [CMS]. Our Drupal 6-based solution successfully passed regular security and Section 508 accessibility reviews, while allowing Brand Cool to serve campaign landing pages on five different domains — all managed through a single interface.
Bivona Child Advocacy Center [3] is a Rochester not-for-profit dedicated to helping abused children by bringing together all the relevant legal and social services professionals in one place. Fundraising and education are critically important. We provided them with a site that allowed them to maintain their own content, as well as leverage e-commerce to foster donor relations and facilitate registration for their annual summit on child abuse.
First Exchange Bank [4] is a small West Virginia-based community bank. In the thick of the 2008 meltdown, they needed a strategy and a website that would allow them to remind their customers that they'd always been there. We crafted a Drupal 5-based solution that would allow them to edit their own content and showcase a gallery of customer photos. Knowing that many of their customers were on dialup or used slow broadband connections, we paid special attention to crafting light-weight pages.
A Florida-based Realtor needed a very simple solution for posting condo property descriptions, with a very limited development budget. We integrated Drupal 6 CMS features only in the listings portion of their website and trained their office staff on the very simple workflow procedures required to update listings.
Australia-based Anthony Tesselaar Plants needed an American face for their plant-breeding efforts. We developed a clean, information-dense newsroom website for their North American operations, and integrated it with Flickr for photo sharing. In addition, we developed a blog-driven content strategy to make word-of-mouth inroads with hobbyists. The solution involved two Drupal-based sites, both built from start to finish in a total of less than two months.
Turner Engineering's website [5] was Brand Cool's first major site based on the Drupal platform. It incorporates custom content types to showcase Turner's design projects, and complex landing pages to showcase their diversity, brought together in a richly-textured design. The goal was to dispel the misapprehension among potential partners and clients that Turner was too small to handle large jobs. By the client's account, it succeeded very well in that goal.
Cross Material Handling [6] (Summer 2008): Again, this site supported a complete re-branding effort. It was delivered using an outside contractor with whom the client had an existing relationship, via that contractor's proprietary content mananagement system. I defined requirements and managed delivery of the site, which includes customizable meta tags and is maintainable by the client.
The Greater Rochester Independent Practice Association (GRIPA) [7] engaged Brand Cool for a series of projects that ultimately involved launching three websites. All our work for GRIPA integrated dynamic templates with Adobe Contribute to achieve client control of content (sort of an ad hoc CMS). While two of the three sites are still in use in a form very much like what was delivered, the experience helped convince us that we needed to use true content management systems (CMS) from that point onward.
RTEmd [8] (2007, updated Spring 2009): A totally new website intended to support a strategic change in corporate focus. Brand Cool provided Dreamweaver templates and associated graphics, as well as about half of the initial site content, and the remainder was implemented by the client. The website combines Dreamweaver templates with PHP includes to allow for simpler navigation updates.
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Experience [9]
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