Our Panel for Wednesday night: Maria Lee, Jonathan Firestone, Dave Burke

[Thom Haller]

Maria Lee

Maria Lee, MBA, PMP, is a consultant with over 15 years of hands-on web development and project management experience. Ms. Lee specializes in delivering Web social discovery and collaboration solutions, such as FCC’s Mobile Broadband Test, Broadband.gov, and OpenInternet.gov. Previously, she was a Practice Lead at Computech, Inc., a government solutions and information technology consulting firm headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. She was also a Client Director at iXL Inc., an Internet consulting firm in San Francisco, where she worked with dot com organizations and Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Lee has been a member of the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) and was co-chair on the Applied Innovation Committee. As co-chair, she led the committee work groups in providing a forum for addressing the business value and the application of innovation through education and collaboration between government and industry. Ms. Lee has presented at numerous events and co-taught classes at Graduate School USA about information architecture for the Web. She has a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Yale University and an MBA from Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University. Ms. Lee can be reached at mlee...@gmail.com.

Jonathan Firestone

Top industry UX and CX professional with over eighteen years experience guiding companies, associations, and government agencies toward measurable business improvement via innovative re-envisioning and architecture of their products, offerings, digital strategy, and overall customer and user experience.

Currently engaged with the United States FAS/GSA program to redesign the methodology and ultimate user experience surrounding GSA Advantage suite of applications, one of the largest e-commerce sites in the world.

Key accomplishments
• Created a new intranet-based user experience for the National Geographic Society, including enhanced social media and community-based collaboration tools, with portions delivering real-time strategic and logistical information about ongoing global projects.
• Pioneered Modular Experience Design, a methodology combining Agile and Lean processes to deliver products that are comprehensive, consistent, componentized and rapidly built. This methodology incorporates customer-centric product planning, design, semi-automated documentation, UX testing, development and communications strategy.
• Spearheaded the re-architecture of all of SAI Global's web properties and products. Created a long term customer-facing approach to digital strategy that encompased all global business units, including new acquisions, based on extensive user research.

Dave Burke

Dave is the vice president of user experience at APCO Worldwide StudioOnline. In that role he leads the UX practice in the creation of interactive products for clients around the globe.

Prior to joining APCO, Dave was Director of Online Experience at Corporate Executive Board, a worldwide leader in strategic research and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies. Before that he was with The Washington Post, where he built the company's first UX practice, and was responsible for creation, enhancement, measurement, and support of numerous Washington Post interactive products and communities.

With a background in marketing, user experience, creative, and technology, Dave Burke focuses on bridging disciplinary gaps to create interactive products that delight both users and business stakeholders