Mike Pell "...very insightful perspective on
the future of user interfaces"
pell@futuristic.com -- Jakob Nielsen
Woodinville, WA leading authority on web usability
425.890.1610 cell
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QUALIFICATION HIGHLIGHTS
Extensive experience and
demonstrated success in a wide variety of roles over a 20 year career in the
software industry -- including key individual contributor positions in large
corporations, executive management for small VC-backed startups, and two
entrepreneurial efforts.
Most Recent Work - At Microsoft, designed the user experience, visuals and interaction
model for the next-generation of Desktop Search for Windows Live and also the
Microsoft Outlook 2007 search feature set.
Rare combination of talents -- business-savvy
technologist, maverick designer, charismatic leader
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Business: Deep customer empathy, strategic thinker, bizdev,
marketing and sales experience
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Design: Portfolio of highly innovative work in Search UI,
3D user interfaces, Mobile Services and Search UX
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Technology: Began career as Software Engineer; comfortable
writing code or rapid prototyping
Proven track record throughout career of shipping
highly successful software products
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Key contributor
to development of industry leading products including Acrobat 1.0 and Outlook
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Demonstrated
ability to effectively manage across multi-discipline software development
teams
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Shipped products
in several categories: desktop applications, enterprise web apps, mobile
services
Extremely Versatile; Broad Skillset
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As comfortable
in front of customers and users as driving internal development efforts
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Recognized as a
world-class software designer and rapid prototyper (using both code and
artwork)
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Strong
management skills: people, communications, team dynamics, mentoring, hiring,
recruiting
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RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
Microsoft Corporation
Product Designer /
Program Manager
December
2001 - present
Windows Live Search
Desktop – (FILTER) Product Designer
for this next generation Desktop and Federated Search client application.
Influenced and worked across many groups within the company to drive innovation
and also integrate the best pieces of Office 2007, Windows Vista and Windows
Live user experience to deliver a compelling new customer experience.
Responsibility and accountability for all facets of the UI, Visuals and
Interaction model. Also served in the role as UX Program Manager to work
closely with Dev to get the best implementation possible of the feature set.
Microsoft Outlook 2007 – As PM, drove the design and delivery of a
dramatically new Search experience for the next version of Microsoft Outlook
(2007). This is the area of greatest resource investment for the coming release
both people-wise and technology-wise, and will be the flagship feature.
Complete responsibility and accountability for all UX facets of the feature,
including customer field research, requirements gathering, existing problem
analysis, scenario identification, user experience and interaction design, spec
writing and reviewing, usability studies, security threat modeling, and driving
the on-time development effort across several multi-disciplinary teams. Also
responsible for partner relationship management with over a dozen teams across
Microsoft to unify the next gen search user experience and technology. Three patents
filed on Search-related innovations.
MSN
Strengths
(As pointed out by Microsoft management in employee reviews)
Vision, Rapid
Prototyping, Demos
"You have an uncanny
ability to translate ideas into visual representation and definitely a skill that
many teams within Microsoft can leverage. This was exemplified in your work on
providing substance to the (product) vision. In particular, your demo was very
well done." -- from 2003 Annual Review
Passion for great UX
"Your UX
contributions, both as an individual contributor and as a team lead, were your
greatest contributions over the course of the review period. Your evangelism
has raised the team awareness of UX and your ownership of the UI elements was
very strong" -- from 2002 Annual Review.
External partner
relationship management
"You did a good job
handling (major partner) issues. Ensuring they had an appropriate outlet for
discussion of website issues was critical for our business, and you did a great
job owning the problem. I particularly appreciated your maturity in dealing
with what was often a difficult customer." -- 2002 Annual Review
People Management
"As a manager, you
did a nice job handling your direct report who can admittedly be difficult at
times."
-- from 2002 Annual
Review.
Key Accomplishments
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Shipping a lot
of high impact software within a short period of time
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Learning a
rigorous methodology for designing and developing software
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Defining product
innovations in the mobile and search spaces
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Building a large
network of contacts across Microsoft and external partners
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WildTangent, Inc.
Sr. Director,
December 2000 - October
2001
Recruited by CEO, Alex St.
John, to create and run the Enterprise Development Group within WildTangent
after a funding round lead by Accenture to push WT’s technology into the
- Worked directly with
Accenture, Microsoft, WaMu, Time, Boeing, SAS and Siebel on
- Formulated and drove
the Microsoft .NET strategic plan for WildTangent
- Developed toolkits and examples
of integrating Microsoft Office XML data with interactive 3D graphics
- Drove the initiative to
ensure WT technology is VisualStudio.NET, C# and VB.NET compatible
- Managed the Solutions
Engineering team within the Business Development group
- Responsible for
execution, deployment and master scheduling of the WildTangent Game Channel
initiative
- Managed all external
Distribution Partners relationships with HP, Shockwave.com, GameSpy, GamePro
- Successfully launched
Game Channel in the
Reason for leaving: VCs refocused the company solely on Games;
Defeated purpose of joining
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Futuristic Design, Inc.
Chief Executive Officer
March 2000 - December
2000
Pell founded and
self-funded this software startup to bring his concepts for "Dimensional
Communications" to market. The goal was delivering a web-based tool to
uniquely combine rich media, 3D, speech and audio in a form that brought an
order-of-magnitude leap in effectiveness when conveying dynamic information and
processes within e-business systems.
- Wrote the business
plan, created investor presentations, and prototyped the web-based software
- Recruited a senior team
of former colleagues for key executive positions
- Attracted a highly
successful Advisory Board of Silicon Valley executives
- Validated the business
model and service offering with high-profile, paying customer (nVIDIA)
- Formed alliances with
strategic industry partners, and briefed leading analysts
Reason for leaving: Combined efforts by joining well-funded
WildTangent, Inc.
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Fuel RTM, Inc.
Chief Technical Officer
(acting)
October 1999 - March 2000
Fuel Real-Time Marketing
(RTM) was a successful high-tech marketing communications and advertising
agency. Clients included Microsoft WebTV, Sony Playstation, Seagate, CurrenEx,
Asera, NVIDIA and Inventa. This thirty person firm consistently did top notch
work and attracted top
- Member of the executive
management team during the transition from Ad agency to e-service provider
- Contributed to the
overall strategic thinking for taking the business into its new market
- Part of the sales team
that went in to pitch for new business, and wrote several client proposals
- Responsible for all
technology-related aspects of client projects during this time
- Primary technical
contact for all client meetings and ongoing project work
- Responsible for
developing the methodology and process for internal project deployment
Reason for leaving: Consulting position served as a funding
bridge for Futuristic Design
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Promptu Corporation
Director of Operations
April 1998 – Sept 1999
Promptu was a
venture-backed Internet startup that was spun out of FCI Communications in May
1999. The company delivered a comprehensive enterprise solution for Channel
Partner Management through a web-deployed ASP model. Customers included leaders
such as Apple, Shell, 3Com, Oracle and Logitech.
- Key member of the
executive management team that attracted venture capital funding
- Concurrently managed
engineering, web production, creative, project mgt and support groups
- Deployed the processes
and methodologies that made projects profitable for the first time
- Drove the company
toward more progressive and efficient organizational structures
- Primary customer
contact and project manager for several web-based applications and public
websites
- Hired and retained key
personnel and converted all contractors to full-time employees
Reason for leaving: Left to startup own company, Futuristic
Design, Inc.
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Newfire, Inc.
User Interface Architect
/ Program Manager
May 1996 - February 1998
Newfire was a
venture-backed Internet startup that created groundbreaking 3D online game
technologies before Quake even existed. Based on a unique playback engine and
toolset, Newfire enabled online games to be played within standard web browsers
using Java and VRML 2.0 standards. This was way ahead of its time in both
business model and market space in '96.
- Recruited out of Adobe
Systems to become employee number one (after the company founders)
- Responsible for cross
functional management of Engineering, QA and Product Marketing
- Designed, programmed
and usability tested all aspects of user interface for 3D software products
- Created product
specifications, visual designs, user experience and working prototypes for all
products
- Art Director for early
company image, marketing collateral, website artwork and 3D game demo
- Worked closely with
Marketing and Sales on demo prep, trade shows and press events
Reason for leaving: Startup ran out of money after two years
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Adobe Systems Incorporated
Computer Scientist /
Engineering Manager
March 1990 - April 1996
Pell was a key
contributor on the original tiger team that designed and built early prototypes
of Acrobat in 1990. In fact, he was the first and only Macintosh engineer on
the Carousel/Acrobat project for the first year and a half. After working as an
individual contributor UI Designer and Engineer on v1.0, Pell assumed an
Engineering Management role during the 2.0 development process, which focused
on installation and localization. Left Adobe in 1996 to join a VC-backed Web 3D
startup founded by an Acrobat teammate.
- Member of the original
product design team and first engineer assigned to Adobe Acrobat in April 1990
- Pioneered the use of
Multiple Master font substitution technology in early versions of Carousel
- Principal user
interface designer for Acrobat 1.0 UI (Macintosh and Windows)
- Programmed major UI portions
of the Acrobat 1.0 viewer application and installer
- Created a dynamic
language sensing Installer for the entire Acrobat product line in seven
languages
- Formed and ran the
Acrobat Release Engineering Group for MacOS, Windows and Unix platforms
Reason for leaving: Joined newly funded startup with Adobe
teammates doing Interactive Web3D
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Software Engineer
August 1989- March 1990
- Helped design and code
the award-winning TypeAlign utility which was brought to market in 3 months
- Worked on the prototype
of DisplayTalk Mac (Display PostScript programming environment)
- Forged a relationship
with Pixar to work on 3D text utilities, which directly lead to their release
of Typestry
Reason for leaving: Company acquired by Adobe Systems, Inc.
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Beyond, Inc.
Founder, Chairman
Sept. 1985- July 1989
Pell co-founded this
software startup in 1985 to design and publish Macintosh utility software. The company
successfully launched and sold its product for five years, and was later
acquired by Dubl Click Software.
- Conceptualized and
wrote the clever user interface enhancement, MenuFonts, in 1986
- Managed daily
operations, customer support, marketing, production, documentation, advertising
- Successfully raised
angel funding for the company through a private placement stock offering
Reason for leaving: After running a software business for 5 years
in the
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EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science in
Systems Engineering candidate
August 1981-Sept. 1985
Originally went to
college to study Graphic Design (graduated in the Art Honors program at
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