ELIZABETH GRIGG
1463 E. Republican #204
Phone: (206) 323-5643
egrigg9000@yahoo.com
UI Interaction Designer • Program Manager • Technical
Project Manager
OBJECTIVE
Design and ship a hit product in the consumer internet software space. Find that great team of people where our combined chemistry and know-how gives an exponential edge to our success. Deliver on all aspects of this hit software product, including ensuring a recurring benefit to customers, building in scalability, connecting in a friendly way with other solutions in the space, and providing remix capabilities to let community drive new possibilities. Primary contribution will be an innovative and internally consistent interaction design that balances powerful features with ease of use.
PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY
Career program manager moving laterally from games to media and then to product design. A persuasive “good cop” who relies on win-win situations to become effective within an organization. Strong customer empathy. Adept at using that empathy to see the practical application of a specific technology. Lives for optimizing the development process so the distance between that vision and user benefit is as short as possible.
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· User Interaction Design · Storyboarding Customer Solution Paths · Balance Powerful Features with Ease of Use |
· Classic Program Management · Cross-Team Coordination · Development Team Support |
Professional Highlights Include:
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Products: |
Windows Live OneCare Family Safety | Infospace Local Search 1.0 | RealJukebox 1.0 | RealPlayer G2 | RealMail | MindMaze for Encarta 1995 | MSN Onstage | Sylvester and Tweety “Cagey Capers” | Chakan the Forever Man | Interplanetary Lizards of the Texas Plains | Action Food Mart |
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Employers: |
Infospace, Microsoft, Real Networks, Alexandria Inc., MindGames |
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Clients: |
MSN, Virgin Interactive, Warner Bros., Sega, Starpress Multimedia, Microsoft Home CD-ROMs |
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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• 2006 – 2007 |
PROGRAM MANAGER 3 |
Microsoft (Siemens) |
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Owned a feature subset of a product
to increase child safety online. Created specifications, maintained
designs, and managed project risks. Led complex cross team set of dependencies
to closure.
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• 2005 – 2006 |
PROGRAM MANAGER |
Infospace |
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As program manager of content for local search, increased the quality and quantity of data consumed by directory services for mobile and desktop systems. Led troubleshooting efforts across external data providers and internal technology groups to pinpoint solutions, such as geocode accuracy, URL quality, and business listing category relevancy.
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• 2003 – 2005 |
PROGRAM MANAGER 2 |
Microsoft (Volt) |
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Accepted a series of three contract assignments all having in common a challenge to meet cross-group and partner requests. The first, at ePeriodicals, tasked with external partner questions regarding reading patterns and advertising behavior for magazines on the TabletPC platform. Answered these questions by gathering data from a beta program ran in two cities. Poised to run a larger scale beta program for the product itself by programming data processing tools using SQM, XML, XSLT, and a C# frontend client for the person running the program. The second, at WMDG, provided a suite of online tools to repair and expand the existing sharepoint team site. The third, at HED/HOT Systems, authored a suite of coding and development standards for use within the team’s highly structured TSP methodology. Solution allowed these teams to measure the quality of existing work as an aid in planning for time and resources.
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• 2001 – 2002 |
Personal Time to Re-Tool |
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Recognized the market need for developer-designers in the product space. Started a series of structured and self-initiated learning projects to exercise programming and entrepreneurial skills. Completed coursework and brought self-initiated application ideas to proof of concept level.
- Projects: Win32API - Unicode, Web Services, C#, VB.NET, and ASP.NET (PocketPC application), SMTP to SMS gateways, Perl. (Cell Phone application), Content Management Systems - CityDesk, Radio Userland, Movable Type.
- Coursework: Application
Developer Immersion program at BCC. JavaScript, VB6, C, C++,
C#,
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• 1997 – 2001 |
PROGRAM MANAGER |
RealNetworks |
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RealMail:
- Challenge was to develop a multimedia mail application that allows customers who currently consume content via RealPlayer to transition to creating content and sending it to others.
- Designed a wizard based solution that relies on stepwise decisions to facilitate consumer authoring.
RealPlayer G2
- Challenge was to ensure featured channels had a high level of quality regarding connectivity and availability for the release.
- Developed a testplan to assess quality of service. After setting this bar for quality, worked with partners to meet it, giving them opportunity to add servers and upgrade systems.
- After measured improvements, gave the green light to featured channels for this release.
RealJukebox 1.0
- Digital music and media was just becoming adopted. Challenge was to create a product that would embrace that change as part of the RealPlayer family.
- Iterated through many interaction designs to position the product as powerful enough for early adopters with large collections, and friendly enough for individuals new to the digital music space. Innovated a method of tagging and structuring media so it is apparent to the user the benefits of digital storage and playback.
- Released a V1 product that was enthusiastically adopted, becoming the category leader within 10 weeks of launch.
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• 1996 – 1997 |
MEDIA DEVELOPER |
Microsoft (Comforce) |
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Demonstrated that an external client can be sold on using DirectMusic as a technical basis for audio. Demo created for the Star Trek Continuum web site affiliated with MSN onstage. Maintained and expanded additional interactive music content for the MSN Online network.
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• 1992 – 1996 |
GAME DEVELOPER / MANAGER |
Orca Games, Inc. |
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Launched a company to develop high quality original games. Maintained liquidity against turbulent console game market. Recruited and creatively retained top talent through a shared company vision. Handled all client management, operations and projects against challenging resource constraints. Established a major client base including Microsoft, Virgin Interactive, Warner Brothers, Sega of America and Starpress Multimedia. Facilitated successful projects such as the upgrade of ‘MindMaze’, the game component of MS Encarta.
EDUCATION
BACHELOR OF ARTS (1992):