Moving content to the web

Get in the wayback machine, y’all.

Back in the day, we shipped Help content “on the box” (get off my lawn!), so moving to the web with Windows 7 was an exciting step. We covered a lot of ground, wrote a lot of words, reached a massive audience, and wrote a lot of words.

I led the editorial team responsible for all Windows 7 UI, Help, and video content, in the product and on the website.

The challenge of writing good UI copy.

Shakespeare said brevity is the soul of wit; and I say, in terms of communication, it’s also the soul of success. We’ve all tuned out (or imagined less favorable outcomes upon) won’t-stop-talking guy (or gal), and the same holds true for the written word. It’s hard to communicate an easy concept in a few words, let alone a hard one.

So, Windows Live. Remember Hotmail, SkyDrive, Messenger, and Photo Gallery? You’re not alone. Just kidding! In all seriousness, those products were a challenge to write for. Getting the instructive bits across clearly and with very few characters was a heavy lift and it wasn’t rare to spend weeks getting right a single sentence.

I managed the writing and editorial teams who created it all, and it’s one of the most rewarding projects I’ve worked on.

Get out the scissors (oh, and innovate).

For Windows 8, I led the entire content team, inclusive of writers, editors, and videographers. In a tight partnership with UX, Marketing, and engineering, we produced the UI, assistance, video, marketing, merchandising, and support content. We reimagined the content model for learning—focusing on scenario-based modules and leaning into video—and used data to reduce the overall Help content set by 80+%, significantly driving down spend.

I stumbled a little, learned a lot, and gained a deep understanding of the power and value of effective collaboration.

On designing and building a learning curriculum.

I learned early on there are no silver bullets when it comes to success, and growing in your career consists of a lot more on-the-job learning than the classroom (or formal training) type. That said, the idea of helping a company get their employees to mastery was too intriguing to pass up.

I joined SAP Concur as an instructional designer, responsible for creating a net new global Accreditation program for the entire workforce. I established the guiding principles, goals, and architecture; designed the gamified program, and wrote the entire curriculum.

Building eCommerce for B2B.

While I’ve focused the bulk of my career predominantly in the consumer-facing content design space, I’ve had the fortunate opportunity to spend the last stretch focusing on B2B, building a net new eCommerce experience for T-mobile for Business prospect customers. It’s a small, scrappy team, so I get to wear a lot of hats, including owning all business, user experience, and merchandising requirements.

As an added bonus, I’ve been fortunate enough to land in a digital business role, which has enabled me to learn unit economics, financial forecasting, and business case production. Aside from building an eCommerce platform that will enable small business owners to transact digitally, I can show with real data the return on capital investment. Whaaaat?!