What I do:

Design:

• Experience capturing needs (business, technical and
  user requirements) and designing solutions for user
  experience design for corporate digital products
• Holistic, systems/design thinking at strategic, operational and tactical levels

Strategic communications:

• Branding, marketing, social media and PR – both for
  strategic planning and execution of plans

How I do it:

People skills:

• Strong client interaction, communication, project management and presentation skills
• Experience working collaboratively with other disciplines for a variety of clients and industries in iterative,
  waterfall and Agile teams

Technical skills:

• General: Microsoft Office Suite, Microsoft Visio on Macintosh and Windows
• Code: Experience coding XHTML and CSS using hand
  coding and WYSIWYG environments and CMSes
• Design: Adobe CS Suite, OmniGraffle, ‘Web 2.0’ SaaS
  software (WordPress as a CMS, etc.)

Disruptive Strategies

User Experience Designer

Achievements:

For Girls for a Change:

• Background:
  • Currently project manager to a Taproot Foundation pro bono Web design consulting project for a client, ‘Girls for a Change’. I lead the 6 person Service Grant team on a day-to-day basis and am responsible for ensuring team members work effectively together and deliver quality deliverables on schedule. I finalize the project schedule, assign and document all tasks, coordinate all communications (internal and external), and present to the client.
• Results:
• Scheduled Web design launch this Septemeber 2010

For Single Life Camp:

• Background:
  • Created a full marketing campaign for a new product line including strategy (determining corporate mission, objectives and success metrics), branding (competitive analysis, visual identity including logo, letterhead) and publicity via traditional and social media outlets via the brand headquarters at singlelifecamp.com.
• Results:
  • Event garnered press, product successfully introduced to a new market audience. Client able to promote the product line for potential clients in other cities using templates I created for future event management.

For Sandbridge Technologies:

• Background:
  • Managed the creation of a booth for Sandbridge Technologies for Mobile World Congress 2009. Identified roles, tasks, milestones and vendors, and successfully presented the business case for a company Intranet to manage the event. Managed guest attendees, identified and ordered graphics and merchandise, advised on web site and designed the booth space, which was successfully created in time.
• Results:
• Company completed their objectives for the event, including successful meetings in the booth at the event

Level Studios
Information Architect and Interaction Designer

Achievements:

• Initiated and led strategic and project realignment session for Alterian, setting the agenda (purpose of the workshops and analysis of most urgent content gathering needs) and capturing key missing content strategy. The project got back on track and, and my interaction design work laid the foundation for a fully redesigned, successfully relaunched Web site launched on time and budget
• Optimized the online purchasing process on Tesla Motor’s web site – decreasing it from 8 pages to just 3, with a key result of increasing reservations and generating interest in the company
• Initiated and led internal sustainability working group including a life cycle analysis of all corporate purchasing activities

Rachel M. Murray Design
User Experience Designer – various clients

Achievements:

• Educated and managed new project members on a prototype by documenting the project, facilitating new team member’s quick education and the project’s completion on time and on budget.
• Developed standardized design documentation across the company to facilitate a smooth transfer of knowledge, educating coworkers on design and process management.

Government of Ontario
Management Board Secretariat
Information Management Solutions Unit

Knowledge and Information Management Consultant

Achievements:

• Designed a subject and author index of 10,000 legal files which identified relevant documents for litigation; completion of the project led to a successful formal taxonomy and RDMS system to properly implement records and information management.
• Developed taxonomy and successfully advocated for a formal document management system for the Public Health branch within the Ministry of Health.
• Designed a visual guide/teaching tool of knowledge management and presented deliverable to the larger internal government KM community of practice and stakeholders.
• Developed a 230+ file virtual reference library and debriefed team members and documented all design work, facilitating a smooth transfer of knowledge.

Additional Work Experience (previous to 2002):

• Pro-actively initiated and optimized work processes in addition to core job requirements by creating a cost benefit analysis of groupware and internal employee documents, improving efficiency at the head office of an international architectural and engineering firm.
• Created competitive analysis of North American women’s studies programs web sites, presented findings (after being nominated by employer) at a symposium discussing the benefits of the Internet to women’s studies departments in the early days of the Internet

2002

1999