TQ White II Job Application - 'Manager, Marketing'

Summary

During my career I have been involved in innovation and building. Based on strong communication skills, deep knowledge of computers and the internet, and practical business skills, I have helped sales organizations increase revenue, production organization revolutionize processes to reduce costs, and maximized application of capital while constructing entire companies.

I am especially skilled at helping customers understand technology and technical people understand customer needs in the context of sales, marketing and implementation management.

History

Restorion, 2001-2004

Founder, CTO and President

Automatic online backup of personal computer files using the internet.

Sonoran Scanners, 1998-1999

Product Line Manager

Startup company developing a UV direct-to-plate imaging system for the newspaper industry.

Krause America, 1996-1998

American Marketing Director

Manufacturer of digital, direct-to-plate imaging systems for the printing industry.

Scitex America, 1989-1995

Manager Sales Support, National Accounts

Manufacturer of computer equipment for the printing industry.

R.R. Donnelley and Sons, 1978-1987

R&D Engineer

International printing company. Worked in the R&D group inventing digital imaging technologies.

University of California, 1978

Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Accomplishments

Internet Company Business Plan

The assignment was to determine feasibility of building a business based on an internet product and to attract capital to implement the business unit. The competition was surveyed and characterized. Software suppliers were located. A multi-year economic model was developed testing multiple pricing scenarios and variations on the level of technical support, product parameters and pricing of various suppliers. A two-tier sales plan was developed to support a highly scalable, low-cost initial sales effort. Potential sales reps were sought and tentatively committed. Customer technical support resources were identified and a partner selected. An engineering management company was located. The project was documented in a formal business plan. The result was that, in two phases, $700,000 in capital was recruited, the company built and sold to a competitor.

National Accounts Plan

The assignment was to create a new national accounts program to stop the defection of large clients. Interviews determined that geography-based coverage of national clients combined with lack of continuity of technical sales analysis were the primary problem. The plan organized sales coverage purely nationally with technical sales support reps assigned permanently to local client facilities. Thorough analysis of previous and potential sales integrated with detailed plan for utilization of human resources convinced company management to continue the National Accounts program under the new plan managed by the plan’s authors.

National Distributor Training/Implementation

The company developed a relationship with a national distribution company to sell complex computerized capital equipment. Early on it became apparent that, using the materials supplied by the German parent company, the distributor sales force was completely unable to sell. Based on deep experience in graphic arts equipment technical support, a series of presentations were developed covering the technical integration of the product, the special product virtues, customer benefits and evangelistic messages. The turnaround in attitude, activity and sales were dramatic.

DSL Provisioning Website Development

The client’s new product, DSL internet access, took three weeks to provision with more than a dozen interactions among the client, production management, and the DSL supplier required to accomplish installation. Almost immediately the production management staff were overwhelmed and errors were being made at a catastrophic rate. After analysis, a production management concept was defined that automated the entire communication process using an internet-located database and email. Based on an order entered into the database, emails were automatically sent, then received and interpreted for database update. Based on a variable series of production steps that included the ability to handle mistakes and errors, subsequent steps were controlled and monitored using computer generated/received email. As a result, the amount of staff time required to process orders declined by half.

Industry Trade Show Presence

A plan was needed for the largest trade show of the year. The goals were to develop leads, introduce our new product concept to the industry, and excite the new distributor network. An unusual concept was devised where the booth architecture mirrored the product message of ‘workflow’. Costs were reduced by the recruitment of over seventy-five distributor staff and nearly a million dollars worth of loaner equipment. Execution included writing a song (to the tune of Walk on the Wild Side) describing product virtues, writing a marketing script for the booth comedy presenters, running the technical integration project for the booth demonstration system, managing the booth design and construction. Onsite accomplishments included two front page mentions in the show daily, three joint marketing agreements proposed to the home office, and several dozen leads for projects exceeding $400,000.

Consumer Products Community Branded Website

The client sold its products through specialty stores. The assignment was to develop a website to support the brand by engaging the members of the target market, teenage girls, with community-oriented activities. After completion of e-commerce and information functionality, attention turned to enhancements that would increase the site’s ‘stickiness’ and the number of return visits. A custom bulletin board was developed that allowed the girls to select one of the company’s characters as her identity and then exchange messages with other girls who chose that character. Subsequently, e-cards were implemented that provided another experience whose primary function included sending of branded messages to other girls. Finally, a game was devised that offered prizes for girls that used email to attract other girls to the site. These resulted in a vast increase in traffic, time spent on the site and return visits.

Product Development Marketing Plan

The assignment was to determine if the new product concept was viable and, if so, discover the size of the market, competition, key players and prospects, performance and price requirements, and detailed product specifications. Relationships were sought and developed with key target industry managers. Examination of industry production practices and costs were modeled to provide price point and performance information. Since the product concept had a consumables component, leaders in this industry segment were found and technical feasibility was confirmed. An initial media partner was confirmed.

A survey was made of the competing products and found to have substantial competitive benefits. The client industry was sorted to identify the prospect category. A document was developed to characterize ways to approach them, their trade shows and other communication opportunities, internal decision processes and identities of the earliest prospects. An agreement was developed for an alpha customer. Finally, detailed technical specifications for the product and its integration into existing customer systems was written. The product worked and the company was sold to a competitor.

National Product Rollout

The assignment was to become the public face of a new workstation product due to be demonstrated to industry notables on a three month traveling semi-trailer roadshow. The product was not finished and there was no one in the U.S. that knew how to operate the machine. Over the course of a week, the workstation was deconstructed and a presentation developed. Subsequently, many dozens of presentations were given including to board members of extremely large companies. When the trade show schedule was assigned, the demonstration was revised to adapt to the product’s completion. In addition, a speech was written explaining the significance of the product and the new production process it implemented. As a result, the product was accepted for testing by virtually every candidate company in the market.

Saving the Biggest Client

The biggest client revealed that they were so unhappy that they had decided to move to a competitor’s systems despite the cost and difficulty of doing so. The assignment was to work with the senior management of the client to make them happy. Over the course of four months, a comprehensive survey of issues was developed. Projects to repair and upgrade equipment at installations across the country were managed. In a particularly difficult case, hands-on implementation was executed. Strategic plans were developed for several installations. Reports were made weekly to the CEO’s team of both companies. As a result, the client was retained, hundreds of thousands of dollars of upgrade equipment was sold and installed and kudos were enjoyed.

Revolutionizing a Big Process

The assignment was to develop a plan to upgrade a catalog publishing process from reliance on separated word processors, typewriters and people counting words by hand, to rely on emerging computer and networking technologies. A detailed analysis of the incumbent process and its integration with marketing and printing operations was developed and ratified. A comprehensive survey of the accomplishments of R&D laboratories identified several new technologies. A revolutionary system design was conceived that integrated an advanced, micro-processor based typesetting system and a production data management system able to manage text and other production files with a production plan that reduced labor, and, more importantly, time, by a huge fraction. A strategy was developed with the inventors of the equipment. Later, a series of data structures and system modifications were developed to allow direct transmission of page layouts from publisher to printer. This integration was in use until well into the nineties.

A 1983 Vision of the World Wide Web

The assignment was to improve the standing of the R&D organization by developing a plan for a joint venture with the MIT Media Lab. Over the course of several months, meetings were conducted with principal investigators at both labs to understand the capabilities and needs of each. A plan was devised for a five-year research project that was called the "Intelligent Publication". Focused on the needs of catalog marketing, it forecast distributed customer access terminals where people would be able to enter their own specifications and queries and then view products that fit their needs and, by the then unusual mechanism of ‘clicking’ on a product, get more detailed information.

The R&D project envisioned collecting click, query and other information and using it to guide the system’s response to queries. Additional concepts included allowing customers to establish persistent account information and execute purchases. A research plan into a data distribution strategy (referring to the new technology called ‘ethernet’) and, critically, the elements of a publishing system that could create such a multi-media publication. The plan documented that categories of research projects and, critically, the intermediate results and how they would benefit local development efforts. The image and visibility of the company’s R&D organization were substantially enhanced. Several of the project plans made large contributions to future technology developments.

The Dawn of Networked Production Management

Electronic production in two multi-million dollar data centers had produced tens of thousands of files. A plan was needed for an automatic method of keeping track of them. Based on two new technologies, ethernet local area networking and relational database management, a storage and product management system was designed. Production workstations were upgraded with an application that accessed the production work queue resident on the database computer allowing operators to trigger lengthy networked file transfers in background for the next job and to access production instructions. At work completion, the operator informed the system and files were automatically copied to bulk storage, production times for billing were recorded, and the job was placed in the next production step queue. The system reduced errors, reduced operator time spent copying files, and allowed more accurate communication with the customer.

Guts Programming

The assignment was to act as the last resort in the repair of a problem that was becoming very expensive. One data center was closed. Over the course of a week, twenty-hour days were endured. Systems were isolated and taken offline. Operating system software was patched. A small timing error was found. Cost were reduced..

Emergency Project Management

Against advice from the development staff, the production division disassembled a production system consisting of dozens of computers, many dozens of disk systems, and many, many other components for reconfiguration and optimization over a long weekend. On Tuesday, disaster was recognized. The assignment was to get the system back into production before printing press deadlines made permanent problems with customers. Comprehensive inventory of status revealed many problems in the reassembly of the system and many misunderstandings about how it worked. The effort was broken into manageable parts and a plan developed to bring the system up section by section rather than all at once. Three days later, the system was rebuilt. Customers were protected from disaster. Kudos were received.