Sózó in Japanese means both creation and imagination, depending on the context, what better word to define web development. Sozoweb is the personal site of me Ken Westin, a web developer & designer based in Portland, Oregon. I am currently the Webmaster for Centennial Software a UK based software company specializing in IT asset management and endpoint security software.
While
working at Tektronix
I redesigned the Careers
website, while doing so I developed the first Web Stanards (XHTML, CSS)
compliant pages for Tektronix, while also implementing modern SEO techniques
and following WAI accessibility guidelines. The pages served as a model
for best practices at Tektronix and is is being deployed as a template
for all future pages.
Tektronix
was looking for a better way to communicate with their customers, increase
response rates, pre-qualify leads so the sales team did not waste their
efforts and build intimacy by educating leads with useful materials on
products specific to their needs. Additionally the marketing department
wanted the application to provide better reporting that program owners
could access easily and view the progress of a given campaign. It was with
these requirements that the Dialog Manager was created.
The application was developed so that questions would
occur in a sequence and these questions had "intelligence" in that based
on their responses to a given question the questions would branch and
customize itself based on these responses. I also developed the application
so that it was multilingual, which enabled us to create Dialogs in English,
French, German, Italian, Russian as well as double byte languages such
as Chinese (simplified and traditional), Japanese and Korean.
The Dialog Manager was recently featured in the book Emarketing
Excellence by Dave Chaffey, where he described the Dialog Manager
is ...
... a novel form of e-mail marketing to create greater intimacy with its customers. This uses technology that generates a dialogue with the e-mail recipient rather than completion of a simple online form...The questions are carefully tuned so that different customers see different questions and are offered different whitepapers according to their interests. With these 'skip patters' the average respondent sees around 8 questions although their may be 20 [or more] in total.
I am assisting a project for the NIH as a part of a $275K grant awarded to the Pacific Institute for Ethics & Social Policy.
The grant will mix research and public education with the hopes of creating a pilot program involving collaboration between religious communities, genetic scientists, and educational institutions, with potential for becoming a national model.
The first year of this project will include the Institute and grant participants working with 10 religious communities in Portland for eight sessions in the fall of 2005. A web presence will be created for the groups to use and public lectures will be offered by people from around the country involved with the grant via electronic media. The following year, sessions with religious organizations will continue until the culmination of the research is presented and shared at a conference at Pacific University in 2007 for religious educators on genetics and policy making.
As part of a $15K grant awarded to the Pacific Institute for Ethics & Social Policy from the Verizon Foundation, I am assisting with online learning and multimedia tools for an e-literacy project to work with disadvantaged youth in Hillsboro.
Building on the success of a pilot summer program, the Pacific Institute will do research, develop curriculum and provide internship opportunities for MAT students at Pacific to work in housing projects with youth and computers donated by Intel. The goals of the program are to provide extra curricular academic assistance, promote computer literacy, and enhance the image of law enforcement among disadvantaged youth. Most of the children the program will attract will be between fourth and eighth grade. The program aims to involve 500-800 youth the first year and 800-1,200 the second year.
I
was the Web Manager for Pacific University for two and a half years. My
primary goal was to convert a static HTML site to a dynamic standards compliant
site with decentralized content management while still maintaing central
control of site structure. There was also a strong emphasis on implementing
clean visual design that reflected its forward thinking and
to increase brand awareness throughout all sections of the site.
In 2003 the Pacific University website won three awards including a Gold award for student recruitment from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In October 2002 the News & Events section won Macromedia Site of the Day.
In addition to the design and development of the Pacific site, some of my key accomplishments also included:
Technologies: XHTML,
CSS, ColdFusion MX, Java, JavaScript MySQL, PostgreSQL, XML, XSLT, Flash
MX
In
addition to redesigning the core Pacific website, it was necessary to allow
the various professional schools and colleges to have a unique look and feel
in order to better communicate with their constituents. I developed the system
so that it was easy to provide a unique look and feel to different sections
of the site by dynamically switching the styles. By utilizing the advantages
of XHTML/CSS based design as much as possible it allowed for a greater amount
of separation and design, which meant fewer headaches in the future if a redesign
is called for. Using CFMX on the backend also enabled the entire navigation
system of the site to be rendered from an XML backbone so that navigation
changes could be reflected site-wide in a matter of seconds.
The College of Education site won a Gold award from CASE in 2004 in the "Student Recruitment" category for the visual design, layout and content of this section of the site. In addition to the site redesign I implemented an aggressive eMarketing campaign that increased site traffic and tripled site inquiries over the course of three months.
Technologies: CFMX, MySQL, PostegreSQL, XML, XSLT, XHTML, JavaScript, CSS
I
currently serve on the advisory board for the Pacific Institute for Ethics & Social
Policy. The Institute exists to further the educational and service mission
of Pacific University through collaboration with citizens interested in matters
of broad public concern, matters which raise serious ethical, legal, and social
policy questions. The focus of the Institute varies from issues regarding
genetic research, the powerful need for security and the equally powerful
need for personal freedom and social justice, to the ever expanding role information
and communication technology plays in our lives.
In addition to serving on the board I manage and maintain the Institute's web presence and work with the Director on developing strategies to expand the reach of the Institute through the use of technology.
Technologies: CFMX, PostegreSQL, XML, XSLT, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript
Hawaiian Rainbows LLC is
based in Hilo, Hawaii and approached me to develop a website and a brand for
their investment projects. The scope of the project included a website to
cover the various investment opportunities that they offer as well as developing
an online auction site for selling tropical fruit from their orchards.
In addition to doing the web design, database design and programming I also developed the logo and other brand components which are still currently being used in their current incarnation.
Technologies: ASP.NET, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript
The International Sake
Institute LLC required a website that would both educate and American consumers
about sake (Japanese rice wine). The site included numerous articles on sake,
recipes, cocktails and educational videos featuring the Institute's founder.
In addition to educating the site also featured a “Sake Shop” which was developed and customized with secure payment gateway, order tracking and real-time credit card authorization.
Technologies: ASP, Windows Media Server, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript
Working at Eye
Velocity I started a graphic designer and worked my way up to a developer,
project manager and ultimately managed the graphics department. The focus
of my responsibilities was to coordinate a team of graphic designers and
color specialists in the development of interactive vehicles for use in
web, software, print and interactive projects. Our clients included Ford,
Dodge, Subaru and Toyota. In addition to the graphical work we mapped images
to vehicle data for use in proprietary systems that would allow customers
to customize their vehicles with OEM and after market accessories for their
vehicles.
In addition to my main responsibilities I developed internal tools that linked various data sources within the organization to increase productivity by the designers in my team. I also developed tools and site prototypes, as well as responsible for corporate presentations implemented in Flash and Director.
Technologies:
MS SQL Server, ASP, PhotoShop, Flash, Director
It has been a while since I played anything, but a few years back I played guitar for a Sylvias Ghost while in college. We released three albums one of which was a enhanced CD through a local label.