Mike Lowndes

Current

Online Architect at Which?

Past

Interactive Media Manager at The Natural History Museum
Web Manager at The Natural History Museum
Departmental Lecturer at Human Anatomy Department, University of Oxford

Lecturer in Neuroscience, St Catherine's College. at University of Oxford
Postdoctoral Research Assistant at Human Anatomy Department, Oxford University
Postdoctoral researcher at St George's Hospital Medical School

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Education

The Open University
Bangor University

Recommended

2 people have recommended Mike

Connections

199 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

Mike Lowndes’s Summary

@_mikeL_ (twitter)

Experienced operational website/intranet manager and technical strategist with considerable development team lead, project, stakeholder and supplier management skills. Strong user focus. Very broad knowledge - a technical generalist with depth in core online tech, which comes from managing the full web lifecycle for over 12 years.

Forward thinking with active interests in content management, web application usability and the practical use of emerging online technologies such as ajax, microformats, and the semantic web.

I'm moving towards more technical-strategic roles in online business, educational or NFP organisations.

Sectors: HE, Cultural, Publishing, ecommerce.
Topics: nature / natural history / neuroscience (wide biological knowledge).

Mike Lowndes’s Specialties:

Front end: SEO, IA, design, standards, access/usability, css/xhtml.

Apps: high level sol. architecture (mostly Java, MVC, SQL, web services), enterprise architecture (Zachman, TOGAF), SOA.

Semantics/KM: semantic web, folksonomies/long tail issues, intranet portals.

CMS: Interwoven, Percussion, Typo3, Drupal, Joomla!

Solaris/RHEL: Apache, Tomcat.

Analytics: Summary Pro, Google Analytics, Omniture, Ultraseek.

Project and Progr. management: Prince, DSDM.

Mike Lowndes’s Experience

Online Architect

Which?

(Non-Profit; 201-500 employees; Publishing industry)

April 2007 — Present (2 years 8 months)

Putting together the jigsaw of online services required to make Which? the best site in its sector.

Starting with a monolithic platform, 'decoupling' has been my Mantra at Which? It seems to be working out so far.

Launched the redesign of Which?'s site, July 3 2008.
Launched a new ecommerce site, Sept. 2008.
Trivial but transformational: RSS and social bookmarking, Oct/Nov 2008
Interactive Media Manager

The Natural History Museum

(Educational Institution; 501-1000 employees; Museums and Institutions industry)

November 2003 — April 2007 (3 years 6 months)

Operational manager of the Museum's website and intranet and technical team leader during a period of expansion from 8 to 20 team members, a major redesign and second generation CMS.

Contributed significantly to the wider community via the Museums Computer Group and Museums and the Web conferences.
Web Manager

The Natural History Museum

(Educational Institution; 501-1000 employees; Museums and Institutions industry)

February 1998 — November 2003 (5 years 10 months)

Beginning as a singleton Web Manager / webmaster I took the Museum's site through several significant upgrades inlcuding two complete redesigns, its first Content Management System, plus many microsites and web applications. By 2003 I had a team of 3 and we were subsequently integrated with the gallery New Media team to form Interactive Media.
Departmental Lecturer

Human Anatomy Department, University of Oxford

(Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Research industry)

October 1997 — February 1998 (5 months)

While in this role, developed and ran the Department's first website.
Lecturer in Neuroscience, St Catherine's College.

University of Oxford

(Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Research industry)

September 1994 — February 1998 (3 years 6 months)

Carried out tutorials, term exams/marking etc.
Postdoctoral Research Assistant

Human Anatomy Department, Oxford University

(Higher Education industry)

November 1994 — November 1997 (3 years 1 month)

Voxel-based 3d visualisation of human anatomy (brain, head and neck, hand) for use as research aid, surgery aid and educational reference.

While in this role I developed an intranet for medical students, learning the fundamentals of running unix and windows based websites. Also created the Department's first website (c. May 2005)
Postdoctoral researcher

St George's Hospital Medical School

(Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Research industry)

November 1991 — October 1994 (3 years )

Research into learning and memory and the pathways involved in long term memory and imprinting, plus teaching, tutoring and supervising med. students. Included a memorable month's work in Gabriel Horn's lab in Cambridge. If anyone remembers me from then - Hi!

Mike Lowndes’s Education

The Open University

PhD , Learning and Memory - Neuroscience , 1987 — 1991
Bangor University

BSc , Biology , 1984 — 1987

Additional Information

Mike Lowndes’s Websites:

Mike Lowndes’s Interests:

Semantic web, Interoperability, user-centric design. I sometimes push Drupal as a solution to life's ills. So far, Vince Smith appears to have caught on. Electric guitar, blues and rock, conservation and environment, walking, tennis, cycling (like I ever have time...).