Workshop 1: Inception Defining your users, your brand & your goals
April 30th & May 1st
Learn The Groop’s entire brand driven, user experience process to building and launching a successful online business, website and digital platform.
Workshop 1 will cover:
- User Definition
- Brand Strategy
- Feature Prioritization
Whether you are an entrepreneur with a startup, a freelancer with a client project or an executive with a digital initiative these workshops will be invaluable. Through Workshop 1: Inception, you will gain an understanding of who you are, where you want to go and what you need to build..
Jamie Oliver won last year’s TED Prize granting his wish to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity. The Groop took part in fulfilling this wish by designing the Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution website.
At this years TED Conference Jamie Oliver revealed the website and showed just how much the movement has grown. We were invited to join in on the festivities, speeches and presentations; let’s just say ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. We watched presentations by speakers such as Bill Gates, listened to performances by artists such as Jason Mraz, tested out the new 3D Gran Turismo and of course visited Jamie Oliver’s Mobile Teaching Kitchen. Check out photos from TED 2011 below:
February 10th, 2011, 7:30 am to 9:00 am
Akasha Restaurant
9543 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232
Meet the Panelists
Pete Mauro: Product Development Leader at Savings.com
Pete Mauro leads a world class product development team at Savings.com and helps fellow entrepreneurs at Lean Startup LA. He has 12 years experience bringing web, social media, mobile and PC products to market. He joined Savings.com in September 2008, focusing on consumer products, marketing and PR. Prior to Savings.com, Pete co-founded SceneTag, a social media company dedicated to creating the largest online collection of movie and TV quotes. Previously he managed product development and content licensing for Warner Bros. Mobile. Prior to that, Pete launched consumer products for several early stage tech startups including Event411.com and Cloud 9 Interactive. During his career, Pete has worked with popular entertainment brands and properties such as Looney Tunes, Harry Potter, The Matrix, The OC, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Nickelodeon and Disney.
Christopher Stauffer: CEO of Stauffer New Media Development
Christopher Stauffer has an extensive resume including experience as a CTO and managing teams of developers on all types of web projects from java-based mobile phone apps to advanced LAMP systems to senior level database management and configuration. His career began at Deloitte Consulting and since then he has contracted with companies like Toshiba, Nestle, Sony Music, Lexus, Fun Mobility, Fox, Associated Production Music, and InfoSpace where he has been managing mobile content storefronts for cellular phone service companies.
Tony Wong: Founder of Pointman Project Management and Leadership
Tony Wong is an innovator in the field of Software Development Project Management. Prior to founding his own consultancy, Tony was the Director of Project Management for Neudesic, one of Microsoft’s leading .NET professional service firms. Tony’s other industry experience includes senior level PMO Director, program management, project management for Disney, Toyota, Ogilvy, CAA, Fidelity National Financial, Honda, LSI Logic, Nestle, Weider Publications, Nissan, Bank of America, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Apple Computers, Honda, Lexus and many, many others.
What is it?
An educational breakfast with a panel of industry experts sharing their experiences with the challenges of launching websites and digital products.
Who is it for?
Executives, project managers and entrepreneurs alike who need to know how to take their digital projects from Idea to Execution to Launch. How do you prepare for launch? How do you get users to adopt your product? And how do you learn, iterate and create a lasting, successful product?
What will I get?
You will get your questions answered by guest experts from some of LA’s top media and entertainment companies. They will share an insider’s look into the best practices of launching, releasing and iterating successful websites.
Round of applause for our Executive Breakfast panel and all of you who attended Groop Skool’s Executive Breakfast. Thank you to everyone who participated as we answered your questions about project management, technology, brand strategy, design and more. If you missed out take a quick look at some of the highlights from the breakfast below!
Our featured panelists include:
Julie Glassman: Creative Director and Founder of BRAND JP Bedoya: Sr. Director of Product and User Experience at Citysearch Tony Wong: Founder of Pointman Project Management and Leadership
So remember:
It’s not about you! Define your brand and website in the eyes of your users. Align the interests of your team; work together towards a defined goal. Have a single product manager. Remove as many people out of the decision making process.
We just got back from the kick off party for Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution in New York City and we had a blast. Got to know our collaborators on the Food Revolution project and of course meet Jamie Oliver. This is a great project for a great cause and we’re excited to be redesigning Jamie Oliver’s web site and be helping with the strategy behind the movement.
Jamie Oliver’s wish is to build a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and to empower people everywhere to fight obesity. We aim to design a site that inspires it’s users, brings out the activists in them and helps them start their own revolution.
Jamie was also on the cover of this month’s 944 magazine. We’re excited to see the revolution take off. See pictures of the party below.
I would like to personally invite you to Groop Skool’s Executive Breakfast, Digital Execution: Getting Websites Made. It will be on Thursday, December 2nd at Akasha in Culver City. It’s going to be a great discussion with amazing food and I hope to see you there. To register please follow this link:
Hitting delays? Project going over budget? Miscommunication among your team? These and many other problems stem from 3 obstacles that exist in the execution phase of building a website.
Join us for our second Executive Breakfast:
Digital Execution: Getting Websites Made
Thursday, December 2nd
Obstacle 1:
Team Alignment
Team members from different disciplines have very different interests when building a website. Without understanding what motivates them, you will not be able to gather consensus and align your team towards the goals of your project.
Obstacle 2:
Scope, Time & Money
Just about everyone struggles with estimating scope, time and money. Without careful planning and a clear project roadmap, you will find yourself in a world of chaos micromanaging every task, overworking your team and going over time and budget.
Obstacle 3:
The End Product
Often you will end up with a product that falls short of what you first envisioned. Functionalities can change, be compromised or sometimes left out all together. How can you keep your project on track and make sure your end product meets the needs of your users?
Groop Skool Executive Breakfast
Digital Execution: Getting Websites Made
Thursday, December 2nd
7:30 am to 9:00 am
Be sure to join us at Akasha in Culver City for our second Executive Breakfast, Digital Execution: Getting Websites Made. A panel of industry experts from companies such as Citysearch, Pointman Project Management and Leadership and more will be sharing their insights into designing and building websites.
Sign up now and be automatically entered into our raffle to win an Apple TV!
Akasha Restaurant
9543 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232
What is it?
An educational breakfast with a panel of industry experts sharing their experiences with the challenges of executing a digital project.
Who is it for?
Executives, project managers and entrepreneurs alike who need to know how to take their digital projects from Idea to Execution while avoiding breakdowns, miscommunications and delays.
Who are the panelists?
Tony Wong: Founder of Pointman Project Management and Leadership
Julie Glassman: Creative Director and Founder of Applied Branding
JP Bedoya: Sr. Director of Product and User Experience at Citysearch
What will I get?
You will get an amazing breakfast with our panel from some of LA’s top media & entertainment companies to learn how to gather a buy-in and a consensus between your business, creative, technology and marketing team members. You will get tangible, actionable tools to streamline the execution process to build relevant, successful digital products on time and on budget.
If you missed out on Groop Skool’s Executive Breakfast Series: “Digital ADD” Breaking Through, then don’t worry you’re in luck! Below is our Groop Skool Video #4 which will recap the event in three parts.
Thank you to all who joined us this morning at our Executive Breakfast Series: “Digital ADD” Breaking Through. We would also like to thank our awesome panel:
Mike Macadaan: VP, User Experience at MySpace JP Bedoya: Sr. Director of Product and User Experience at Citysearch Noam Dromi: COO of TempleHome Charles Erdman: User Experience Designer Adrian Sexton: Co-Founder and CEO of New Medici
Their insight and experience with user driven product development really gave our discussion depth and value. We hope we left you with the tools and knowledge to create your own digital products that break through the clutter and really engage your users. Below you can find our workbook which contains those handy tools. You may use them to help define your users and direct the brainstorming and development of your digital products. Stay tuned as we will be having another Executive Breakfast in the month of November, we hope to see you there!
