Resume

Marian Christine Brodigan

Brooklyn, NY
chrissie AT jjomedia DOT com

My Story

I began my career as a 10th grade English teacher. I left the public school system in 2000 to dive into the first “dot com boom” of the thriving Dulles Corridor with idea.com. Over the past 8+ years I been promoted from a web producer to product manager, developing highly engaging user-facing web apps.

For the past 12+ months, I have worked as a freelance product manager with friends at fissionstrategy.com, jjomedia.com, yippa.com and awesometopic.com on a series of custom apps and sites for education platforms and non-profits, many integrating various social media/social change outreach efforts:

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2tor.com

  • Redesign of corporate site
  • WordPress project
  • Custom content type integration

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MAT@USC

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Working Families Party, Candidate Finder

Momsrising.org, Early Care & Education Redesign, “Stories,” & Wage Calculator

Resource Media, Nitrogen News

America Speaks Envision Prince George’s County

Reform Immigration for America, Spanish/English redesign, mobile/SMS, Rally Toolkit(s)

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Product Development Areas

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Content Strategy:

  • Advanced Writing/Editing (blog, newsletter, conversion pages, etc.)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and some SEM
  • User-focused Web Design, HTML/XHTML/CSS Standards, 508 Compliance
  • UX/IA, Wireframes, Persona Development
  • Newsletter strategy, list-building/management and deliverability

Content Management Systems:

  • Selection/Installation/Customization
    • WordPress
    • Drupal
    • Custom Frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Python)
    • Sharepoint
    • Plone

Marketing:

Project Management:

  • Technical Specifications for backend development

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Professional Experiences
(Fulltime & Freelance)

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VP Online Media & Community,

Plum TV, March 2008 – July 2009

Developed and implemented 2008 – 2009 web, content, and marketing strategy (in the process of this endeavor, as the economy collapsed, I had to reduce my team from 12 to 1 and get my hands dirty in the day-to-day programming).

Web Strategy:

  • Consolidated 10 separate Drupal sites into a single site on a Python platform, reducing cost from 10k to 1k per mo
  • Migrated 5,000+ videos to newly designed single site
  • Created lede strategy for home page & section home pages
  • Created content tagging and dynamic data aggregation strategy (taxonomies and sitemap)
  • Migrated email newsletter lists to Exact Target
  • Created user experience and interaction design
  • Selected Highwinds as CDN and streaming provider (eliminating very expensive Akamai)
  • Migrated to new CDN without interruption of services
  • Facebook Connect implementation


Content & SEO Strategy:

  • Created editorial style guide focused on SEO for headlines, meta data, and H1 – H3 strategy
  • Created Plum TV’s Weekly Five, a region-specific newsletter featuring 5 Great Things To Do in all 8 markets
  • Determined editorial voice and tone for Plum’s content (How we spoke to our audience)
  • Content audit & update of 5,000+ videos
  • Creation of 20+ Facebook fan pages with more than 20,000 fans in 3 months
  • Feeding FB Fan Pages with content from the website
  • Community management of Fan Pages
  • Twitter strategy with 9 accounts
  • Flickr strategy
  • Community blogger strategy, open accounts for approved bloggers

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Freelance, New York,
2008 – 2009

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Social Marketing/Community Strategist (Community)

Developed 2008 strategy to expand huffingtonpost.com community offerings – presented and signed off on by the BOD, hired 15 and scheduled 15 community moderators 7 days a week 24 hours over coverage a day between US and Canada

User Experience Product Manager (sales experience)

  • Streamlined the meetup.com sales experience in emails and site pages for segmented users
  • Gathered requirements
  • Created low-fidelity wireframes
  • Facilitated creative brainstorming
  • Wrote briefs, use cases, and functional and technical specifications
  • Worked with designers and developers on prototypes
  • Collaborated in rigorous QA testing
  • Project managed the implementation of ideas
Tracked and presented results to stakeholders

Through a series of A/B testing I was able to achieve a 20% lift in sales conversions as well as a 50% difference (1.07% – 2.1%).

Launch Editor

  • Project managed the redesign of nymag.com’s Entertainment section, Agenda, & Commenting System
  • Conducted user needs analysis
  • Produced competitive analysis
  • Wrote specifications for design and tech teams
  • Designed basic wireframes and state diagrams to guide design and tech teams
  • Managed a rigorous schedule
  • QA’d the release
  • Acted as a liaison between the edit, tech, and design teams

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Fulltime, D.C./Northern VA,
2001 – 2007

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Senior Web Producer
The Washingtonian Magazine, March 2006 – April 2007

Evaluated the state of the organization’s internet presence and developed the strategy for bringing a 12-year-old site current with today’s and tomorrow’s technologies in less than 6-months (with interactive advertising integration).

  • Wrote proposals, reviewed vendors, secured resources
  • Coordinated the development and implementation of a custom CMS and website (Python/ Zope)
  • Guided team of technical, sales/advertising, and editorial staff
  • Managed a budget, determined, supervised third-party vendors
  • Structured the meta-data for articles, packages, and sections
  • Determined naming conventions/search schema/taxonomy
  • Maintained and organized assets (photos/image library)
  • Worked with graphic artists on visual look (images, icons, CSS, AJAX)
  • Coordinated the user experience/usability of the site with design team

In addition to performing technical supervisory and coordinating functions, evangelized the site—helping to communicate the team’s vision to the rest of the organization, as well as to other organizations who are now using and enhancing the basic software components for their needs (namely US News & World Report).

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Technical Editorial Producer,
Publishing Services Air Line Pilot Magazine,
December 2004–March 2006

Produced electronic media and communications projects—primarily e-mail newsletters, intranet sites, and video.

  • Evaluated software, hardware, and content management procedures
  • Researched and implemented best practices for product development
  • Maintained production schedule for editorial and design teams
  • Organized content designed for electronic distribution
  • Designed information architecture
  • User experience data collection & design
  • QA’d release

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Web Producer
Fairfax County Public Schools,
September 2002 – December 2004

  • Grant writing, RFPs
  • Designed and executed first e-commerce solution in FCPS (2002)
  • Structured the meta-data for articles, packages, and sections
  • Determined naming conventions/search schema
  • Maintained and organized assets (photos/image library)
  • Worked with graphic artists on visual look (images, icons, CSS)
  • Coordinated the user experience/usability of the site

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Education

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George Mason University

  • BA English, May 1998
  • MA History, May 2000
  • K-12 Virginia Teacher Licensure, English education, May 2000
  • Ph.D. in History and New Media, May 2008

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Interesting Things

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2001– 2002 I was the “Outreach Coordinator” for the September 11 Digital Archive (visit site www.911digitalarchive.org ).

The archive was a challenging start-up project at George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media that used electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001.

The subject of my dissertation focuses on stewardesses (1930s – 70s) in George Mason University’s History and New Media doctoral program.

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