LinkedIn: Christina Wodtke

Current

Principal Product Manager at LinkedIn
Founder at Cucina Media
Author at New Riders Publisher

Publisher at Boxes and Arrows

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Past

Owner at Wodtke Consulting
Partner at The Management Innovation Group
Sr. Director of Design, UED Search and Marketplace at Yahoo

Partner at Carbon IQ
Sr. Information Architect at Hot Studio
Information Architect/Manager at The Egreetings Network

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3 more...

Education

Kansas City Art Institute

Recommended

18 people have recommended Christina

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

Christina Wodtke’s Summary

A relentless instigator, Christina founded Cucina Media to help little publishers compete with the big boys. Previously, she cofounded The Management Innovation Group (http://www.mig5.com), devoted to making companies more humane. She also founded Boxes and Arrows, an online magazine of design; founded the Asilomar Institute of Information Architecture; wrote the bestselling “Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web”; and has spoken on the topic of the human experience in information spaces at conferences worldwide.
Prior to founding MIG, Christina was director of design for Yahoo! Search and Marketplace where she led design work in the revival of Search, and the reinvention of Shopping.

Christina Wodtke’s Specialties:

innovation in product design, crafting product vision, information architecture, management, brand and design, negotiation, content strategy, building design teams, search, navigation

Christina Wodtke’s Experience

Principal Product Manager

LinkedIn

(Internet industry)

2007 — Present (1 year)
Founder

Cucina Media

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

July 2005 — Present (2 years 11 months)

Cucina Software is a small webware company specializing in helping small publisher play with the big boys. Our first product is in early beta, and is called Public Square http://www.publicsquarehq.com. As a start-up cofounder, my role includes a myriad of responsibilities, from legal paperwork to project management to business planning to icon design. And it's darn fun.
Author

New Riders Publisher

(Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Publishing industry)

October 2000 — Present (7 years 8 months)

Author of the best selling book, Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web. Published in 2001. http://www.amazon.com/Information-Architecture-Blueprints-Christina-Wodtke
Publisher

Boxes and Arrows

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

October 2000 — Present (7 years 8 months)

As Founder/Publisher, I oversee 8-15 volunteer editors at any given time, as well setting the editorial vision with the cheif editor, decide on new features and areas for us to branch out into, and generally try to keep the design magazine thriving.
Owner

Wodtke Consulting

(Internet industry)

2001 — 2007 (6 years)
Partner

The Management Innovation Group

(Partnership; 1-10 employees; Management Consulting industry)

August 2004 — January 2006 (1 year 6 months)

I help companies understand how to better take advantage of emerging technology and design trends; organize creative teams for greater productivity and innovation; and envision breakthrough businesses and product lines that mesh customer desire with company need.
Blending futurism, a customer-customer centered approach and strategic planning with agile processes, I work with companies to prototype new competencies while realizing inherent value in current strengths.

Clients included The New York Times, Rodale and NetAp.
Sr. Director of Design, UED Search and Marketplace

Yahoo

(Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; yhoo; Internet industry)

August 2002 — July 2004 (2 years)

Managed User Experience Design Group (30 people) for the Search and Marketplace Division of Yahoo Inc. User Experience Design includes User Research, Interaction Design, Visual Design and Web Development. Search and Marketplace consists of Web Search, Shopping, Maps, Yellow Pages, Travel and Autos (plus assorted smaller properties) Responsibilities include resource allocation, hiring, budgets and schedules, providing creative direction to visual and interaction design, determining direction for research planning and strategies with user researchers, and forming a front-end code strategy with web development.

Key accomplishments include the redesign and launch of the new Yahoo! Search, a critical element of the re-positioning of Yahoo! as a major search player and the redesign of Yahoo! Shopping, which reinvented it from a shopping mall model to a comprehensive search and compare site.
Partner

Carbon IQ

(Partnership; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

December 2000 — August 2002 (1 year 9 months)

Practicing user experience designer and managing partner. User-centered design processes included interaction design, information architecture, user research, usability testing, heuristic analysis and related methodologies such as persona creation, scenarios, participatory design and cognitive modeling. As partner, activities including project management, team formation and managing (including interviewing and selecting freelancers and vendors, negotiating contracts, timetables and budgets) client relation management and evangelism, publicity, marketing, as well as public speaking and writing (see below). Clients included Shockwave, McDougal Littell, Sprite and Wells Fargo.
Sr. Information Architect

Hot Studio

(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

June 2000 — December 2000 (7 months)

Acted as lead architect on projects. Determined the structure and user experience of a project by translating client business requirements and user needs into functional requirements for large, complex web-based projects. Responsibilities included defining site functionality, navigation, and interaction, as well as analyzing user tasks and creating scenarios, developing personas, analyzing business requirements and researching competitive analysis/best practices. Client contact for architecture issues; managed writing and usability testing resources. Client work included Snapfish, Return Path and Schwab.
Information Architect/Manager

The Egreetings Network

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

December 1997 — April 2000 (2 years 5 months)

Responsible for overall site flow, as well as interaction design for new projects. Created interface and interaction designs. With merchandising team, responsible for product categorization and labeling. Applied usability testing learnings to site to refine interface design, and identified new areas for study. Ran discount usability tests. Designed interaction for re-architecture of site with emphasis on personalization and customization based on user state. Developed wireframes and blueprints for re-architecture, along with interaction designer. Managed a team of 6 usecase analysts and interaction designers.
Previous roles at Egreetings included running the Web Developement team and before that content management for the card catalog.