zumio

About

Photo by Web Directions South

Hi, I’m Grant Young. I’m what they call a “web native” - I spend a lot of time on the web and know my Twitters from my Facebooks and my HTTPs from FTPs.

I speak fluent geek, with an understanding of how to use technologies with acronyms such as ASP.NET, C#, PHP, AJAX, CSS, and SQL in their names.

I’m also familiar with the art of communications, along with marketing principles and techniques. I’ve even learnt how to interpret the increasingly popular language known as “marketese”.

Recently, I discovered how to translate between geek and marketese quite effectively. People tell me that such a skill is fairly rare around these parts, so I started the Zumio consulting business in the hope that I can help others translate their ideas to the web.

Explore this site to find out more about my services, work and background, and hopefully find some ideas about how we might work together to get the web working for you.

Availability

I’m currently booked on projects until end Jan 2009.

Contact/Chat

• Email: grant@zum.io
• MSN: braquin@hotmail.com
• GTalk: braquin@gmail.com
• Skype: braquin

Find me elsewhere online

• Linked in
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Del.icio.us
• Synapse Chronicles (personal blog)

Current projects

UNSW

Re-alignment and consolidation of key Research websites using a user-centric design methodology. My role is project manager/producer.

Inspire Foundation

Development of the Reach Out Global platform to support the expansion of the Reach Out programme internationally. Zumio is providing and managing the development team using the Scrum agile development methodology.

Recent projects

Digital Eskimo

Producing and project managing a Plone CMS-based website and campaigning tool for one of Digital Eskimo’s clients using the Scrum agile development methodology. Site still under development.

Chinese Internet Censorship Index (CICI), Amnesty International Australia

Responsibilities included:

• methodology development (partial documentation available online [PDF 266 KB])
• system architecture
• WebSitePulse XML API integration
• REST/JSON API implementation (Django/Python)
• AJAX (JavaScript) test application (jQuery)
• Campaign Monitor integration (using SOAP API)
• HTML/CSS integration
• Registration forms implementation (Django/Python)
• Models unit tests

Teaching at UTS

Co-lead the Visual Communications Technology: Introduction to Web Media class.

newmatilda.com (employed by: Digital Eskimo)

Responsibilities included:

• Strategy
• Personas
• Information architecture
• Platform evaluation
• Interaction and functional design (incl. wireframes)
• Account and project management

Climate Friendly (employed by: Digital Eskimo)

Web application launching mid-2008. Responsibilities included:

• Interaction and functional design (incl. wireframes)
• Account and project management

Earth Hour 2007 (employed by: WWF-Australia)

Responsibilities included:

• Content development
• Social media strategy and execution for MySpace + Flickr
• Community liaison for online communications
• Content development and management (Joomla CMS)
• Content liaison + development for online media partners
• Liaison with third-party site developers

Future is man made (employed by: WWF-Australia)

Responsibilities included:

• Strategy
• Personas
• Content development
• Liason with third-party development agency

WWF-Australia website + email campaigns (employed by: WWF-Australia)

Responsibilities included:

• Content audit + information architecture review
• Evaluation of CMS systems
• CMS system development (PHP, MySQL)
• HTML/CSS/JavaScript development
• Evaluation and implementation of email list management tools
• Content editing and development for newsletters and online actions
• HTML/CSS development of email newsletter templates (example newsletter)
• Managing third-party design teams

The Devoted Few

Responsibilities included:

• WordPress installation, configuration and customisation
• HTML/CSS theme development

Note: the site that I developed is no longer live.

Work History

• Founder and consultant, Zumio: Jan 2008 - present
• Senior Producer, Digital Eskimo: May 2007 - March 2008
• Online Communications Manager, WWF-Australia: November 2004 - May 2007
• Chief Technical Officer, NETaccounts (now Saasu): April 2001 - September 2004
• Self-employed: July 2000 - April 2001
• Technical Director, Info-Onscreen: April 1996 - July 2000

Memberships

I am a member of the Web Industry Professionals Association and participate in the Web Standards Group and Social Tech group for web developers working with non-profits.