Client

Discover Card

Period

10.2009

Client Bio

Discover Financial Services is a Direct Banking and Payment Services company with one of the most recognized brands in U.S. financial services. Started un 1986 it has become one of the largest card issuers in the United States. The company operates the Discover card and offers personal and student loans, online savings accounts, certificates of deposit and money market accounts through its Discover Bank subsidiary.

Objective

To design a microsite template and administration portal for a Discover Card contest aimed at College students. The purpose of this site was to engage students to create personal images which would be used for ‘Student Discover Cards’. The contest was held to create a viral conversation about the brand and to ultimately drive student card registrations.

Noteworthy

Although this project was designed as a standalone site, it integrated with a Facebook application named ‘Graffiti’ that enabled students without a drawing or painting tool on their computer to use a simplified online version. A subdued design version and the finished competition can be found here Discover Card Contest.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

EngageMe

Period

2006 – Present

Client Bio

Startup internet venture.

Personal History

This project was slowly evolved during countless brainstorming sessions on how to fix the inaccurate and problematic tracking of user surfing patterns that companies use now-a-days to dictate a user’s online interests. Most of you can probably recognize the issues everyone faces with examples of your own. For myself it was the fact that many companies were tracking my movements across the internet and defining me incorrectly on very narrow terms, and one day it culminated frustratingly on Amazon where I was served up an offer for yet another children’s book just because I bought one for my niece over one year earlier. For my business partner it was the fact that Google kept returning billions of results on such a wide array of topics because they feel that giving you everything is what you deserve but not necessarily what you really wanted.

Keyword advertising had just taken off and Google was not yet the beast it is today. Other search engines were trying to radically change the direction of what search meant and delivered but unfortunately the simple one page of ten results that Google put out in a couple of micro seconds seemed to gain popularity too fast for other companies to challenge. I would bet that now-a-days, since our connections are generally much faster, that what has seemingly become Google’s trademark results would be drastically better.

So how do you make them better? I would argue the answer is to know and understand the user’s interests better and to deliver information that is skewed towards those interests. But to do this you would have to ask the user about themselves and behave honestly and track them across the web. You would also have to make sure that you did not take in any ‘personally identifiable information’ as that isn’t a trustworthy action.

This is what EngageMe intends to be: open, honest and accurate.

Objective

To create a proof of concept for an interest profile toolset using open source tools (LAMP) based on an AJAX model. EngageMe enables a user-centric profile ownership model that leverages non-personally identifiable information (PII) for security reasons and fast adoption and interoperability with emerging open profile standards.

Noteworthy

An interest taxonomy was developed with over 700k+ interests. A bookmark analyzer allows users to create an initial profile that can then be shared across social networks. Advertisers using EngageMe can target users based on their interests rather than tracking.

Vendor

Thirst for EngageMe

Client

Morbid Outlook

Period

08.2001 – 11.2001

Client Bio

The premier Gothic lifestyle online magazine portal.

Personal History

There are markets everywhere. This project was for a friend who decided that she wanted a more polished look for her e-zine that was easier to maintain. As a side note, this magazine is still hand coded and would do much better if moved to a CMS.

Objective

To increase the number of viewers online, to enhance and support greater advertising revenue potential and to expand the base viewing audience.

Noteworthy

Thirst completely overhauled Morbid Outlook’s online experience. The new site has easy access to much more content. The levels of editorial are supported within a clear navigational structure and all pages are enhanced by leveraging the site’s personalities and artists. Only a month after the redesign, the hits doubled, the average length of visit increased over 60% and the number of pages viewed per visit more than doubled. Morbid Outlook now has an easily scaleable template framework to facilitate its strong site growth.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

IBM Intranet

Period

06.1998 – 10.1998

Client Bio

IBM is the world’s largest information technology company, as well as the world’s largest business and technology services provider and the world’s largest IT financier.

Personal History

I had a wonderful time working on this project with Maria Arbusto (who is now Director, Brand Experience at IBM). It is rare that the client with whom you work is of the exact same understanding, but when this happens it makes the project extremely enjoyable. I wish I would have worked on more projects with Maria.

Objective

To redesign areas of IBM’s w3 Corporate Intranet, transforming it into a tool that IBM employees would use on a daily basis.

Noteworthy

Extended the reach of the mobile employees at IBM. Encouraged a sense of community and strengthened the employees’ loyalty and commitment. Empowered IBM’s mobile professionals with an easily navigable tool that retrieves information in a timely manner from the Americas Sales and Distribution Site.

Vendor

Hired by IAB (Roger Black)