I design, build, and grow systems that bring people together, to achieve more.

Connect with me on

I design, build, and grow systems that bring people together, to achieve more.

Connect with me on

How Can I Help?

Strategy Workshops

I help organizations through the early stages of designing and validating plans for new systems. One of my preferred techniques are design sprint workshops. We'll ideate, refine, build prototypes, and test them with real users in the space of a week. Ask me about my work with Cloudera, FirstGiving, Habitat for Humanity and IHS

Design & Development

I leverage extensive experience building web (and mobile web) applications. Most of my work is now with modern front-end javascript frameworks, and I also have deep expertise with WordPress including plugin development. Ask me about my recent work with Cloudera, Latitude38, and my latest project - "We Should Share Our Plans".

Growth Engineering

Reaching new people and engaging them has become increasingly data-driven and technical, but it still relies on human intuition and understanding of the customer. Combining my UX experience with digital marketing systems, I can improv performance and create results. Ask me about my work with Kinetica and Hortonworks

Past Work

Noteworthy
All
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Community Apps
Marketing
UI/UX
Web Dev

Cloudera

Decoupled Javascript App for Documentation.

2019-2020

Built a cohesive new system for presenting documentation from numerous disparate static sites that were the result of acquisitions and mergers.

Latitude 38

Bringing a Traditional News Site to WordPress

2019

Designed and built a publishing website on WordPress with user contributed content applications including custom plugins for classifieds and crew listings.

Kinetica

Product Marketing in High-performance Databases

2016-2022

Kinetica develops a high-performance analytics database. I created brand, wrote significant content and designed and grew the website using WordPress, managed the marketing technology stack including marketing automation (Hubspot), SEM, Analytics, Ads and Social tools

Hortonworks

Running Web Marketing through an IPO

2013-2016

Over the course of a couple years, I built out and managed the website during the company's rapid growth from medium-sized startup through IPO and beyond.

RocketLawyer

Landing Page Optimization

2013

Working with the marketing team at RocketLawyer, I designed and prototyped a number of different landing page improvements for their incorporation business. More...

Summer Sailstice

Community Website on Drupal

2012

This is a community based site for ad-hoc creation of sailing events. It was a good excues to build out my skills with Drupal

OneBillionSeconds

Front-end Development

2012

A fun little site to calculate 'alternative milestones in life'. Integrates with Facebook API to also help you find when your friends will be 'one billion seconds' old. Changes to the FB API have since broken it, and I no longer maintain it.

Toyota

IA/UX Design

2012

Interactive wireframes to communicate ideas for an overhaul of one of Toyota's main web properties. Project with Organic. More...

Eaton

Front-end Development for Kiosks

2012

Eaton is a multinational 'power management' company. In support of some large exhibitions, we developed an interactive product directory for use with kiosks. Project with Elastic Creative.

Habitat for Humanity

Turning Volunteers into Fundraisers

2010-2011

A social-fundraising and blogging platform to enable Habitat for Humanity volunteers to fundraise and share information about their projects. Mpre...

FirstGiving

Facilitating Product Strategy and Agile Develoment

2010

I led a process to align stakeholders around a common product vision and introduced a plan to get there. Brought in an agile process to engineering. A tremendous success.

ApexMD

Find the right doctor?

2009

We built ApexMD to help doctors find the most appropriate and available specialists within top medical centers. Designed to support physicians who need to make a referral, or patients who need a second opinion. More...

OneRecovery

Can Online Communities Support Recovery?

2009

One Recovery was designed as a social-network and monitoring system to provide support to people recovering from addiction. Developed prototype interfaces for testing and research.

Wrigley's Candystand

Custom UI for a Gaming CMS

2008

Wrigley's Candystand was an online gaming site that builds brand awareness for Wrigley products. I took on a fairly technical project to improve the usability of administration for Wrigley's Candystand.com. More...

The Princeton Review

Design for Online College Guides

2008

I worked on several projects with The Princeton Revew, including a high profile one to for a UX and visual redesign of their college guides. More...

Pandigital

IA/UX Design for a Digital Photo Frame

2008

Pandigital are the biggest manufacturer of digital photo frames. In 2008 I helped them design a touch screen interface to manage the functionality of the frame.

WhatWorks

Custom Theme Development on WordPress

2008

Tom is a friend of mine and needed a site that he could build out quickly and easily by himself. More...

Golden Gate Toastmasters

Simple Website

2007

Formerly President at Golden Gate Toastmasters, I rebuilt the website to aid recruitment. It worked. More...

The Spy of the Heart

Simple Website to Promote a Book

2007

Robert Darr travelled through Afghanistan during the Soviet war. He's just published a book about his experiences, but also wanted to make it available online.

Yahoo (Green)

UX and Frontend for an Environmental Commmunity

2007

Working onsite as a contractor for Rocket Communications, I helped Yahoo put together a website to raise awareness of climate change for Earth Day, 2007. We designed the site to motivate people to take action themselves to help reduce it. More....

EcoSynergy

UI & Interactive Prototyping

2007

A system to enable individuals to understand the enviornmental impact of the products they buy.

Centurian Health

IA/UX, Design and Prototyping

2007

Centurian Health distributes books to health care providers and large employers. This was a simple database driven site to let purchasers browse books, and place bulk orders.

IHS Energy

UI Prototyping for an Energy Research System

2006

IHS Energy (NYSE:IHS) is the largest provider of data and information to the energy industry. I helped IHS design and prototype their next generation of information services. More...

Trilliant Networks

Interactive Prototyping for Distributed Metering System

2006

Trilliant built a mesh-network metering system managed through their 'Unity' product. I helped them refine their requirements, and then took them through a live-code prototyping process to figure out and test workflows and user-interface methods.

Sharp Real Estate

Real Estate MLS in PHP

2004

Sharp Real Estate is a private real estate group. This is a brochure site with a small catalogue that can be updated by the client.

IronPlanet

Design & Front-end Development for Auction Site

2004

Each year IronPlanet sells hundreds of millions of dollars worth of used construction equipment to businesses all over the country through their online auction sites. I did a complete redesign of the marketing related pages and product templates. More...

DDRnet (SureCircle)

Design & Prototyping for Dental Insurance

2004

DDRnet enables companies to self-insure their employees with dental, vision and health benefits. Their automated claim processing is unique and likely to make a huge impact in corporate benefits. I designed the system.

Daisy Arts

eCommerce System for Boutique Retailer

2004

Daisy Arts manufactured and sold high-end leather bound items including photo albums. I designed the website and set up an e-commerce solution.

Think Dynamics (IBM)

IA/UX Design and Interactive Prototyping for Data Center Management

2003

Think Dynamics, recently purchased by IBM, is a leader in data center automation and software for just-in-time provisioning of servers. I was brought in to improve usability, and prototyped numerous changes to the user interface.

Expertise from doing....

After a decade of experience designing, developing and marketing digital products and services, I still find that many of the best ideas and great opportunities come from digging into the details and knowing the craft.

My hands-on toolkit spans experience design, web development, and growth marketing. I explore and validate new concepts with design tools including Sketch, XD, and pencil/paper. I prototype and build apps using Vue, CSS, JS, Node, Firebase etc. I'm an experienced WordPress developer, building both sites and plugins. I have broad experience across the tech marketing stack including key tools such as Marketo, Hubspot, Google Analytics, Adwords plus various other growth tools.

Some Random Blog Posts...

Need another battery for your Mac? Try this

January 4, 2014

Ok, so here’s the problem. My laptop lasts for 2 hours, maybe three at the most, if I’m lucky. Sometimes you’re on a long flight and you want to get more work done. You need another battery (or a seat in business class!) With IBM/Lenovo laptops, it used to be easy to buy a modular…

Getting online overseas without breaking the bank

January 4, 2014

Traveling abroad is often like traveling into a black hole. All of a sudden your phone doesn’t work, and with it goes your ability to use maps, find places through Yelp, research travel plans, or do any work. Over the years, I’ve found a few tips that have helped me stay running and connected as…

Four tips for a good Startup Weekend

July 7, 2012

Over the last year, I’ve done three “Startup Weekends.” – The idea is to propose ideas, form a team, and then try and create a minimally viable business over the course of a weekend. It’s educational, it’s fun, and in some cases, you might actually come away as a co-founder in a fledgling startup. Startup…

James rocks! He listens to what we want and implements our ideas, filling in the gaps with his experience of maintaining an active website. We're able to add new features to our site without falling back to yet another redesign. With us, he maintained a Google doc tracking all latest decisions along with his completion status. I enthusiastically recommend James for any kind of web or web-related work, and I look forward to working with him again.

Robert Crews, Cloudera

James is that very rare creature who can speak the languages of both business and technology fluently. I've worked with him on several projects in which he has significant contributions to both the business strategy and the code base. Having a consultant who can quickly put together functional prototypes with his own two hands is invaluable.

Ken Riley, Web Projects ManagerThe Princeton Review

From the start of our engagement, James was able to have an immediate impact on a rather complex CMS redesign project... almost as if he had been working with us side-by-side over the previous couple of years. He was able to quickly understand the legacy system and our business processes and design a new system that not only enabled us to manage our web applications more efficiently but also gave us the flexibility to grow the platform over time. He was a critical factor in the success of the project and I would highly recommend him.

Billy Franz, Business Solutions ManagerWrigley

James displayed real leadership in driving a high-risk project that required diverse groups, geographically and philosophically, to agreement by creating lasting relationships and diving into the project with both feet on day one.

Dave McMurtry, SVP StrategyHabitat for Humanity

James is a gifted internet professional who brings an insightful, innovative, and results-driven approach to product strategy and development. He combines keen product intuition and strong technical knowledge with a commitment to understanding and delivering to the customer's needs. James is an inspiring leader who delivers both quality and rapid results. He has been a strong partner to the entire team at FirstGiving and key contributor to the business. It's been a pleasure to work with and learn from James.

Nancy Dickenson, CEO FirstGiving

James not only designed a fantastic-looking search site for ApexMD, he was instrumental in the invetion of our search process. He quickly got his head around the complexities of the advanced healthcare delivery and how it needed to be packaged so that it was easy to understand for patients yet comprehensive enough for medical professionals.

Spencer Punter, CEOEmphasis Search

James is an extraordinary professional UI designer and a web application expert. He is able to engage with clients to quickly understand their product domain, user needs, product goals, and overall project technical capabilities. James creates innoovative solutions using new and standard UI conventions providing clients with applications that delight their users. Clients are always happy with their experience working with James because he is professional, charming, intelligent and creative. Working with James is a pleasure and a privilege.

Michal-Anne Rogondino, CEO Rocket Communications