Today I’m starting as a TEKsystems consultant at Adobe, as a digital program manager for their flagship product, Photoshop on Adobe.com. Holy cow — am I excited to join the company whose software made me excited about the possibilities of working digitally as a young graphic designer at the School of Visual Arts! Later when I worked in visual effects, I used Photoshop to composite elaborate photo illustrations imagining what completed shots might look like for bid presentations, and had the title, Photoshop Supervisor, at one point in my career before I segued to web design. To be providing digital program management at Adobe for this segment of the website feels like coming full circle in my career.

It’s truly a delight to be on this new adventure!

Photo by mymind on Unsplash

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The past several months, I’ve worked as a creative and digital program manager on some interesting and challenging programs, and so I thought I’d share some of my accomplishments at Robert Half.

Most notably, I had the pleasure of leading program and project management for creative and UX elements for Robert Half’s annual Salary Guide, working with a crack team of talented folks who transformed the guide from a print piece to an all-new, dynamic digital experience. From the amazing creative and UX teams, to the development and analytics teams, to our product team and my program management colleagues on the PMO, a lot of talent from all over of the world worked in collaboration on this global project over several months.

I’ve used this invaluable guide over the years both as a hiring manager and as a job seeker. Go into your next salary negotiation with real confidence. Pick your specialization and explore projected salaries and current trends that are shaping the hiring landscape and your career’s future right now. Get all the numbers worth knowing today!

I’m also proud of my work in support of an internal project with Robert Half Global Creative to create an identity system for the BELONG Employee Network for LGBTQIA employees and allies at Robert Half. It has been featured alongside other inhouse design projects, in Graphic Design USA as a 2021 American Inhouse Design Awards Winner. Sponsored by Robert Half, this awards program celebrates the innovative and inspirational work of design creatives across the country. Winners were chosen out of a record pool of over 6,800 entries! Explore the awards showcase to learn about the many and varied ways in which inhouse creatives advance the mission of and build value for their companies, institutions, brands, products, services, and causes. Congrats to the whole design team for their superior work!

Finally, shortly after starting at Robert Half, I joined a global brand refresh program midstream to lead program and project management for 19 creative projects. 130 marketing assets were updated with a refreshed logo with the Talent Solutions descriptor. I reported daily status of each team’s progress to executive leadership, while streamlining processes and finding new ways to surface portfolio-level data on easy-to-read dashboards.

It’s quite satisfying to look back on the breadth and depth of the work I’ve contributed during a very busy several months at Robert Half. I’ll be moving on to a new, rather fantastic opportunity soon… more on that in an upcoming post.

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This month I’m quoted in Project Management Institute’s PM Network magazine, in a “Voices” feature in which the editors asked the project management community about correcting bad habits in teams.

Voices: Straight and Narrow

Ticking the Boxes

“We juggle many things under pressure, so it can be easy not to scrutinize the details before submitting work for internal review. I created a production checklist to ensure quality when updating or creating a new webpage. New team members are required to submit a completed checklist as part of the production process until they learn the ropes. And more seasoned team members can use it as a guide as needed.”

—Deirdre Spencer, PMP, senior digital experience project manager, Simpson Strong-Tie, Pleasanton, California, USA

You can read the entire piece the March/April 2021 edition of PM Network.

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After six and a half years with Simpson Strong-Tie’s digital experience team, this week I’ve started a new opportunity at Robert Half Corporate, joining their Marketing PMO as a Senior Project Manager. The prospect of working more broadly on marketing program and portfolio management within a dedicated project management office is exciting, indeed, and I’m quite looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and getting to work.

A big thank you to my Strong-Tie family for the years of collaboration and camaraderie with some pretty amazing colleagues. I’m proud of our work together and grateful for this chapter of my professional journey.

On to new adventures!

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Working remotely during a pandemic has had its challenges, but did not slow things down for the Marketing department at work. It was a busy year, indeed, collaborating with the external communications team and our product marketing managers on the strategy for and development of myriad campaign landing pages and customer email communications in support of digital campaigns.

Here are some examples of campaign landing pages and customer emails that I’ve provided direction for.

Brand Awareness, Product Marketing, and B-to-B Campaign Landing Pages

Examples of brand marketing landing pages

Pages from the Outdoor Accents Decorate Hardware microsite

B-to-B marketing landing pages

Product marketing landing pages

Customer Email Marketing

Monthly newsletter and product marketing emails

The post A Look Back at 2020 appeared first on Deirdre Spencer Design.

I’ve been working on end-of-year reports and marveling over the resilience and productiveness of my team in the face of some very challenging circumstances. I really look forward to working with them in person again (actually, some for the first time!) sometime next year during better times.

Tomorrow marks my 5th anniversary on staff at Simpson Strong-Tie, and although this was the weirdest, toughest year in so many ways, the excellent people we work with in Marketing and the ways we support and collaborate with each other made all the difference.

Thank you, and here’s to a better 2021!

Photo by Weston MacKinnon on Unsplash.

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Through Creatives for GA, I’ve had the pleasure of volunteering my professional skills in support of Black Girls Vote, nonprofit organization with a community that inspires Black girls to use the political process to improve the quality of life for their families and the collective community.

Between now and the GA runoff on January 5, they’re distributing several thousand Party At The Mailbox Atlanta boxes full of election swag, local goodies, and voter education—and they are free! What a joyous way to celebrate and get people excited about voting.

If someone you know in Georgia might like a Party at the Mailbox of their own, point them to PartyAtTheMailbox.com/Atlanta.

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In a previous post, I mentioned that, just for fun, I’ve been taking a four-course UI/UX design certification through California Institute of the Arts. I’ve just wrapped up the second class in the series, UX Design Fundamentals. We’re currently sheltering in place due to the COVID pandemic, and having moved through the “Baking Bread” and “Playing Animal Crossing and Minecraft” phases of the pandemic, my family is now in the “Setting Up a Fancy Goldfish Aquarium” phase (specifically, Ranchu goldfish, if you were curious: they’re super cute). So for this class, it seemed only appropriate to focus on my new hobby by designing an accessible aquarium water test reader app.

This course went into more depth, focusing on planning, testing, researching, and mapping our apps. We were to choose a concept that solved a real-life problem for its users. While we developed the logic of our apps, we also developed the visual look and feel. Finally, we created clickable prototypes using XD.

Here’s the premise for my app, AquaSee.

AquaSee

Aquarium Care Made Clear

AquaSee is an accessible aquarium water test reader.

Weekly water tests keep home fish tanks healthy by detecting changes in conditions so they might be fixed promptly. AquaSee is an app for the color blind, vision impaired, or those new to aquarium keeping, that uses a phone’s camera to match the color of water tests for pH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates, to their resulting reading. Having trouble seeing subtle differences in test water color shouldn’t be a cause for concern. Test your fish tank’s water with confidence, and keep your fish healthy.

AquaSee Functions:

• Scan freshwater or saltwater test kit results for pH, ammonia, nitrites and nitrates
• Indicate the test result based on the water color in the sample
• Keep a record of your tank’s readings over time and allow users to log water changes, introduction of plants, fish, and other notes
• Make recommendations for action based on water conditions, the size of your tank, and other variables

App Goals:

• Political: Make pet fish care accessible to all (vision impaired, new to the hobby)
• Beneficial: Keep pet fish healthy
• Educational: Educate fish owners about how to care for their fish’s environment
• Functional: Make weekly pet fish chores easier and fun

Similar Apps:

• Tetra My Aquarium—Build your own tank by species type or water type. App provides water care, diagnosis and solutions for tank water.
• Spark Water—Water Test Strip Reader. Automatically reads the test strip and delivers hassle-free and instant results to your phone screen.
• My Fish Pal—No More Soggy Notebooks. Replace pen and paper aquarium logs with an advanced app.

Potential Users:

• Red-green color-blind goldfish hobbyist dad in his 30s who loves his fish and wants them healthy
• Vision-impaired, lifelong saltwater fish owner in her 60s, who wants to be confident that her readings are accurate
• Teen-aged girl who is new to keeping fish and learning the ropes of tank care for her guppies and tetras
• Middle-aged yellow-blue colorblind dad who needs accurate water readings for his family’s beautiful living room showcase tank, now that his kids have gone to college and can’t help interpret the readings

Target User Profile:

• Hal is a 35-year-old home goldfish tank enthusiast, finding them fun and soothing to watch. His kids enjoy them too.
• He has 2 Pearlscale goldfish and a few Mystery snails in a 30 gallon tank, which needs weekly maintenance.
• He is red-green colorblind, making reading his weekly water tests challenging unless a family member can help read the results.
• He cares about keeping the fish healthy and wants to track and catch water issues early so his fish have the best chance of living many years.

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Well, I had to join the “Rise up. Show up. Unite!” campaign masterminded by Jessica Hische when I learned about it yesterday. Much more fun to design than to doom scroll. Free free to use and share them if you like them, and if you’re a designer and would like to participate, check out the guidelines and see some gorgeous other designs.

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I usually have a creative side project going on outside of work. I knit, I draw and paint, I write, and sometimes I conjure a design project just to work on things not related to my day job. This summer, I started a four-course UI/UX design certification through California Institute of the Arts. I’ve been working on user interface and user experience design for websites and web apps for over twenty years, so I’m certainly not in need of certification, but I thought it would be fun to see what they’re saying about it at art school these days, and that taking the classes would give me a loose framework to play around with some design.

In the first class, Visual Elements of User Interface Design, we focused on ideation for a mobile app, mood boards, simple pattern library, and a couple proof-of-concept mock-ups. I kept my concept lighthearted and fun, and chose a summer theme we can all agree on: ice cream.

Here’s my project brief, describing of the main activity and function of the app and defining the audience.

IceScream!

A neighborhood ice cream truck finder, for ice cream fans young and young-at-heart, that turns your phone into the quickest way to find cool, refreshing ice cream near you, anytime.

No need to scream—you’ll never miss the ice cream truck again!

IceScream! not only uses your phone’s location services and maps to show you where the ice cream trucks in your area are right now, it also aggregates crowd-sourced data to predict your favorite vendor’s daily route. See menus and even order in advance from select ice cream trucks!

Looking forward to the second course in the series, UX Design Fundamentals.

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This month I’m quoted in Project Management Institute’s PM Network magazine, in a feature about maintaining motivation in teams through “leadership, empathy and strategic thinking.”

Spark Empowerment

Personnel Accountability

“My team and I have frequent discussions about continual improvement of process. They are stakeholders in their own work, and I want them to own that and feel pride in their accomplishments. When things could have gone better, we document lessons learned so the whole team can benefit. When things go well, we celebrate by showcasing accomplishments at team and department meetings, and with giving notes of appreciation.”

—Deirdre Spencer, PMP, senior project manager, digital experience, Simpson Strong-Tie, Oakland, California, USA

You can read the entire piece by Tessa D’Agosta in the March/April 2020 edition of PM Network.

Photo by Devin Avery on Unsplash.

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Recently I had the pleasure of talking with the team at Smartsheet about how we in Simpson Strong-Tie’s Marketing department use their tools to make the company’s workflow more efficient and to simplify project management and execution.

Though it all started with Marketing looking for ways to plan and track product launch marketing projects, Smartsheet is now used company-wide for a wide variety of purposes. It’s been essential in developing solutions for streamlining the production of go-to-market marketing tactics by three key teams—print, communications, digital—to simplify and improve workflow.

We’ve really widened the scope of who we’re supporting with Smartsheet solutions and trying to simplify people’s lives by using automation, notifications, and cross-sheet linking.

Read the Customer Story here.

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