Aaron Rutledge

Current

Founder at POKE
Founder at Mere Oblivion
Founder at Tweakbench

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Past

Founder at Inertia Beverage Group
User Experience Director at Agency.com
Senior Interface Developer at Acadaca Internet Solutions

Lead Integration Engineer at Enzyme Digital

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1 more...

Education

Rowan University

Recommended

13 people have recommended Aaron

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

Aaron Rutledge’s Summary

Aaron Rutledge is a Founding Partner and Innovation Director of POKE New York - a leading digital strategy, content, marketing, and business development company. POKE blends creativity and technology to deliver innovation and results for brands, clients and partners in a wide variety of categories and industries.

His professional background and experience spans 12+ years of technical planning and development, user experience consulting, and digital strategy for agencies and clients alike. He has created solutions for clients including Chevron/Texaco, Gucci, Goldman Sachs, Coca-cola, Eurasia Group, British Airways, Mellon Financial, Cushamn & Wakefield, Beringer Blass, Sony, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, Snickers, 3M, CNN, Discovery Networks, BT, and HP/Compaq.

Aaron actively participates in New York City based innovation circles, attending various meet-ups, leading workshops, and teaching small classes to help foster creative use of technology. Aaron has also lent his strategic insights to numerous brands in the wine industry, speaking for the two past years at a major technology symposium in Napa.

Outside of the office, Aaron continues to innovate in the crossroad of technology and creativity. He owns and operates Tweakbench, one of the leading freeware audio software brands, leads experimental game design for indie publisher Mere Oblivion Game Studios, and is an avid participant in podcasting, blogging, and social networks related to creativity and emerging technologies.

Aaron Rutledge’s Specialties:

digital strategy, technical direction, innovation, user experience design, game design, digital marketing tactics, seo consulting, audio synthesis, web development

Aaron Rutledge’s Experience

Founder

POKE

(Privately Held; Marketing and Advertising industry)

May 2007 — Present (2 years 3 months)

I lead a team of versatile technical and creative people, to create innovation and results for our clients. I oversee technical planning, user experience design, and contribute to all digital strategy for all of our clients.
Founder

Mere Oblivion

(Entertainment industry)

April 2006 — Present (3 years 4 months)

I design and develop indie games for PC & XBLA
Founder

Tweakbench

(Computer Software industry)

June 2002 — Present (7 years 2 months)

Tweakbench is my own full-circle project. I imagined and developed all the software, developed the brand, did the marketing and web work, and evolved the UI design. I have succeeded in creating a profitable business based on a free-software model, while still enabling tens of thousands of people to express themselves through music.
Founder

Inertia Beverage Group

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

September 2002 — October 2008 (6 years 2 months)

Initial concepting, design, and prototyping of the RE:Think Engine, e-commernce and digital marketing platform for the wine industry. Helped grow the company from inception to its current position, which I actively consult on as a partner. I continue to offer IBG strategy and recommendations on direction in emerging platforms and relevant technologies. After July 2004, I reduced my role to periodic strategic advice, and emerging platforms consultant.

For more information see: http://www.inertiabev.com
User Experience Director

Agency.com

(Public Company; 201-500 employees; Internet industry)

March 1999 — April 2007 (8 years 2 months)

Assume an internal leadership role in the realm of UX as both a discipline and a craft. Understand target audiences' needs, tasks, and goals and translate them into creative concepts. Conduct user research, concept testing, and usability testing when applicable. Develop user personas and scenarios to clarify results of user research and focus the team's design efforts on the needs of key users. Design & develop prototypes for demonstration of concepts to clients. Develop and document user experience specifications for our interactive work.
Senior Interface Developer

Acadaca Internet Solutions

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

March 2004 — May 2004 (3 months)

Presentation layer development for SEO focused projects. Working alongside a lead designer, and several backend developers for integration on a custom Java code-generation infrastructure.
Lead Integration Engineer

Enzyme Digital

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

March 2002 — September 2002 (7 months)

Lead presentation layer developer on small to medium size business e-commerce projects. Focus on quick turnaround, and code reuse.

Aaron Rutledge’s Education

Rowan University

Computer Science, Graphic Design 1995 — 1997

The CompSci program at Rowan was my first glimpse into the true science behind computers. Algorithms, data structures, a full SGI IRIX lab, and some great professors really helped propel me into my career; sooner than they expected. Meanwhile, my work in graphic design, photography, and digital imagery prepared me to fuse the two skillsets into something that few schools even attempt to teach.

Activities and Societies:

doom lan guys, the robotic arm guys in the corner of lab b, building servers in pizza boxes, i think i wrote a worm that randomized the color schemes in the windows lab.. can't recall now.

Additional Information

Aaron Rutledge’s Websites:

Aaron Rutledge’s Interests:

computers, video games, the internet, technology, math as art, math as music, physics, new things, old things that are new again, trends, memes, other stuff.