J. David Hobbs

Unique Skills and Techniques

• Developed a model, the six steps of handling content during a migration, for analyzing possible steps in handling content during a migration (first developed in 2011).

• Developed a model, depth scales, for breaking down potential functionality to be implemented (first developed in 2013).

• Advanced data visualization capabilities, including custom front end visualizations in D3 and backend processing of data.

• Bring advanced algorithms to bear in content analysis, in particular for near duplicate analysis.

• Apply product management principles to managing digital website presences.

• Deep experience in breaking down large rollouts into phases and processes for higher success.

• Approach for making large-scale decisions about content, without requiring wasteful line-by-line analysis of all content.

• A method for driving executive decision-making workshops to align senior management on critical elements of digital success.

• Techniques for rationalizing data about content across multiple sites and systems, for instance to test hypotheses across these systems.

• Methods of using a graph database for content analysis, including for uncovering the pervasiveness of taxonomy facets and values.

• Reframe conversations around structured content and taxonomies, balancing complexity and maintenance.

Experience

Digital Transformation Consultant

Advise clients on maximizing the success of major changes to digital presences such as global suites of sites. Provide this service in primarily three ways:

• Define early strategies that look broadly and long term for maximum impact that are also implementable.

• Advise during implementation and ongoing change.

• Plan content migrations and rollouts.

Clients include Biotechnology Industry Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Center for Global Development, Center for Internet Security, Heritage Foundation, Jackson Laboratory, Library of Congress, Marriott International, the MBC Group, McKesson, Novartis, Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Resources for the Future, Thomson Reuters, World Bank, World Health Organization, and World Resources Institute.

Senior Consultant

Provide management consulting on web operations management, including web strategy, governance, execution, and measurement. Also, steer client CMS selection and adoption processes for major web sites, including framing and defining complex requirements, including unique content re-use, sub-site standardization, systems integration, measurement, and auditing needs.

Clients include Environmental Protection Agency; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (of NIH); the American Society of Civil Engineers; the Office of the Comptroller of the Department of Treasury; Delta Dental of Virginia; and Realtree.

Web Publishing Product Manager

Product managed the custom content publishing system that hundreds of users across all major groups of the World Bank use to manage over 1,000 World Bank external and intranet sites and publish content in over twenty languages.

CTO and Managing Director

Project managed development of technically complex sites such as the World Bank Research site. In addition, concurrently played a variety of management roles including: portfolio manager (maintaining the profitability of half the company projects), team manager, and CTO (in particular improving the quality of managed hosting).

Systems Engineering Project Manager

Project managed a dial-up IP and an internet-based fax product from project start to stable production environment. Responsible for Y2K certification. Modeled worldwide fax delivery in Excel for capacity planning. Interfaced with marketing, sales, sales engineering, installation, training, technical support, and server / network operations. Ran regular international and vendor conference calls.

Volunteer in Chad

Taught basic management techniques to an agricultural cooperative of 1,000 members (including helping to keep their profit and loss records in Chadian Arabic and French), a collection of neighborhood water committees, and a trash collection group.

Software Engineer

Programmed the graphics (in C and X Windows) of a multi-layer mapping system used for oil exploration. Introduced user interface design to the team’s rigorous waterfall process.

Education

MS, Computer Science

Wrote (with Ron Arkin) "Dimensions of Communication and Social Organization in Multi-agent Robotic Systems," published in Animals to Animats 2, 1993

BS, Computer Science

Wrote (with Ben Shneiderman) “Design, implementation, and evaluation of automatic spelling correction for Unix,” published as Computer Science Technical Report, 1989

Resources developed

Content Chimera

A radically different type of tool for content discovery and analysis of complex digital presences. The tool is something of a business warehouse for content, combining ETL, data visualization, and spidering in one tool optimized for content.

Website Product Management

Managing change to websites over time, treating them as products that remain coherent and high quality.

Website Migration Handbook v2

The only handbook covering large web site migrations from vision to implementation