Miber is a Mexican plumbing parts manufacturer that needed a new website to better communicate their status as a leader within their industry; the site was launched in September of 2008.

 

I was hired to take charge of creating their new site. They wanted a design which communicated a clean/modern/industrial "look" that better reflected their underlying business and brand, while also making it very easy for their customers to access critical product information.

 

Old Miber site.	New Miber site.

Bethe Mexico is a real estate development company that hired me because of their interest in broadening their horizons with investments in IT.

 

From July to September of 2008 I worked closely with the company as an IT and sales consultant to plan, develop and implement a range of IT solutions.

 

The first solution we successfully carried out was the development of a point of sale (POS) platform that integrated hardware, software, training for their employees and a product catalog.

 

Three other solutions were identified, discussed and generally planned but were finally not developed because of managerial decisions:

• Set guidelines for and oversee the deployment and control of the POS platform to all current and future retail outlets.
• Leverage the Internet through a complete web presence overhaul including new information architecture, design, content, promotion strategies and more.
• Develop the Internet as a sales channel through an integrated e-commerce solution.

One of the main challenges I faced was working with management to join business goals and opportunities with practical IT solutions that they could understand and measure.

From May to July of 2008 I joined the Coscatl team as a web and marketing consultant. The company offers outdoor organizational development consultancies to other companies.

 

The goal of my work with Coscatl was re-planning and consolidating a disparate marketing plan into a new streamlined strategy with a new website at its core.

 

The new site's design and marketing copy was developed by me to fulfil the objective of making the company appear more "corporate" or "polished" without losing the friendly image they had come to be known for. The site was successfully launched on the 25th of June 2008 with sales leads rising steadily thereafter.

 

After launch the team and I continued to manage and improve the website (primarily through SEO) as well as optimising and monitoring sales leads and conversions coming through the site. I also spent some time helping them to study the feasibility and development stages of new products and services they were interested in offering.

Old Coscatl site.	New Coscatl site.	'Other Services' page.

Viralo.com was a spanish-language blog a friend and I started in the summer of 2006 as an experiment to learn about the ins and outs of blogging as well as to try and pinpoint the shared attributes of 'viral' content.

 

During the planning stage we carefully defined the image, theme, language and tone of the blog. Within a strict writing schedule we posted about quirky, funny or interesting topics in categories ranging from art and movies to society and technology. We drew a lot of inspiration from boingboing.

 

The blog lasted approximately 6 months and at its peak received more than 200 daily unique visitors. I learnt a lot about blogging and was constantly surprised by what content became popular.

Viralo.com logo created by me.	Viralo.com blog.

Amikoo.com was a Web 2.0 Social Network startup aimed at College Students in Mexico which hoped to compete directly with Facebook. The site was considerably influenced by fellow Social Networks Bebo and the original Xuqa.

 

From idea to launch, I was the driving force behind Amikoo. I acted as founding partner, project manager, application designer, web designer, as well as brand, marketing and PR manager.

 

The project started at the beginning of 2006 with meticulous research into all aspects of the venture, followed by the writing of the business plan. After some difficulty in finding the right people to work on the project and securing the right funding, we moved on to the development stage in the first quarter of 2007.

 

The development stage was strenuous, marked by over 6 month of complicated interactions between the feature requirements and designs put forward by me and the programming challenges faced by the 2 expert coders hired to build the application.

 

The software was developed from scratch using open-source tools including php, smarty, ajax, subversion, debian linux, and others. After many setbacks and missed deadlines we launched in July 2007.

 

Following launch we focused on improving the site and listening to customer feedback. I concentrated my efforts in implementing a web marketing and web PR strategy aimed at getting kids to sign up and use the site. The cornerstone of the marketing strategy was viral or word of mouth marketing, supported by a strategic combination of link building, email marketing, SEO, press (including magazines, newspapers and blogs) and an in-house development blog to accelerate the viral "spread".

 

Amikoo suspended operations in the first quarter of 2008 owing primarily to underwhelming performance in new user registrations.

 

Causes for this were:

 

a. Facebook launching their f8 applications platform.

b. A very crowded and quickly consolidating Social Networking market.

c. Barrier to new registrations caused by the "all my friends are already on another site" syndrome.

d. Investor support was withdrawn after registered user targets and other milestones were ultimately not met.

e. Timing.

 

Despite Amikoo not gaining serious traction as a social networking platform, it was a successful proof of concept with a small fan base that correctly implemented many Web 2.0 principles.

 

Some site highlights:

• Gift shop with virtual currency called "koo". The idea was to develop the shop into a micropayment platform similar to those prevalent in Asian social networks such as CyWorld.
• User uploaded and maintained public media gallery. Each item in the gallery was a widget or other embeddable content which we called "Kubos". Users could rate and comment on these as well as add them to their profiles with one click.
• Amikoo introductory video titled "Amikoo te va a Encantar" (You're going to Love Amikoo).
• Secret admirer/crush feature. You could try to "fish" for someone you fancied, then if the other person "fished" you back a "connection" would be made.
• Public pages for schools and cities to discuss topics, publicize events, vote on polls, share media and carry out other "socializing" activities.

Amikoo Home Page.	User Profile.	"Kubos" media and widget gallery.
Gift Shop. Gift concepts developed by me. Graphic design by David Leonardelli.	Newspaper clipping about Amikoo with an interview of me, from the Reforma newspaper.	Amikoo Logo. Created by Swiss designer David Pache.