
Social Software Architect — Community Designer — Front-end Engineer — Founder, Protagonize.com
Vancouver, Canada Area

Social Software Architect — Community Designer — Front-end Engineer — Founder, Protagonize.com
Vancouver, Canada Area
Nick Bouton is a user experience developer and online community architect based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. He has over 11 years of experience in software and web application design and development, and is passionate about creating and growing online communities.
Nick is responsible for front-end development of web solutions at Habañero Consulting Group, which includes interaction and interface design and development, establishing look and feel, and ensuring usability. A dynamic developer, Nick has extensive experience developing rich internet applications (RIAs) using AJAX, Web 2.0, and client scripting. He works primarily with the .NET Framework, as well as various open source platforms.
In addition to his position at Habañero, Nick is the founder of Taunt Media, a consultancy that sponsors, develops, and nurtures several community-driven collaborative website properties including Protagonize (www.protagonize.com), a collaborative fiction-writing community. Nick majored in Computer Science at UBC, and studied Java development at BCIT. Prior to beginning work at Habañero, he held a variety of positions including as development lead for OpenRoad Communications’ enterprise 2.0 intranet, ThoughtFarmer; as a software engineer at Versatile Mobile Systems, and as technical lead for Tribal DDB Canada in Vancouver.
General:
- Community application architecture & management
- Social network design
- Custom collaborative platforms
- Technical project management
- Database design and implementation
- Work with several commercial and open-source CMSs and portals
- Custom intranet development
- AJAX / Web 2.0 technologies
- Public speaking
Software Development:
- .NET (VB, C#)
- J2EE
- PHP
- Perl
- XML, XSLT
- SQL, Transact-SQL, PL/SQL
- HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript / AJAX
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)
February 2008 — Present (1 year 10 months)
- Developed highly usable presentation layer solutions on a variety of platforms utilizing advanced layout and scripting technologies
- Worked effectively with multi-disciplinary teams including customer stakeholders, project managers, business analysts, designers, developers, testers, and systems personnel
- Participated in all phases of the software development lifecycle
(Privately Held; Internet industry)
January 2008 — Present (1 year 11 months)
Taunt Media was established in Vancouver, BC, Canada on January 1st, 2008, and was founded by Nick Bouton. Taunt was created in order to sponsor, develop, and nurture several community-driven collaborative web site properties in a variety of fields.
Our first project, Protagonize, is an interactive fiction site that was launched in late December, 2007.
Taunt Media has several other sites in development — watch for progress updates on our blog (www.tauntmedia.com) as each site progresses.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
August 2006 — February 2008 (1 year 7 months)
- In addition to existing development role for OpenRoad, acted as product manager and development team lead for OpenRoad’s ThoughtFarmer software product
- Planned, organized and maintained the product development roadmap and release schedule
- Acted as internal product expert and evangelist
- Defined and specified product requirements
- Took new features from design concepts through implementation and into production and optimization
- Performed sales engineering tasks such as traveling to remote client locations to install and configure the product, as well as provide support and maintenance
- Directly liaised with potential customers and existing clients in both a technical (primarily) and sales capacity
- Collaborated with development team to drive new feature development and properly support existing customers
- Provided accurate and detailed estimates for future development tasks
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)
August 2002 — February 2008 (5 years 7 months)
- Acted in a software development and team lead capacity on a variety of mid-to-large-sized projects, participating in all aspects of the software engineering life cycle
- Acted as product development lead for OpenRoad’s ThoughtFarmer intranet/portal product
- Developed large-scale solutions for clients such as Intrawest Placemaking, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the Ministry of the Attorney General’s Court Services Online, the British Columbia Securities Commission, Navigata Communications, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, NetEffects Ltd., and Volunteer Vancouver
- Extensive design and implementation of projects with the Microsoft .NET Framework
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; TSX:VMS; Information Technology and Services industry)
June 2001 — August 2002 (1 year 3 months)
Formerly: evolutionB Information Inc.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; NYSE:OMC; Internet industry)
July 1999 — April 2001 (1 year 10 months)
Promoted from previous position with Palmer Jarvis DDB Digital (company re-branded as Tribal DDB Canada.)
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; NYSE:OMC; Internet industry)
May 1998 — June 1999 (1 year 2 months)
Associate's Certificate , Java Programming , 2000 — 2002
Major , Computer Science , 1996 — 1998
Coursework towards a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science. Additional coursework in Mathematics, Classical Studies, Art History (contemporary & classical), Graphic Art, and English literature and writing.
International Baccalaureate (I.B.) Programme 1993 — 1996
XML Intensive & Certification , 2000
ColdFusion Certifications , 1999
Advanced ColdFusion Development, October 1999
Fast Track to ColdFusion, June 1999
Co-organizer & Sponsor, BookCamp Vancouver 2009 Unconference (#bcvan09)
Member, Vancouver User Experience Group (VanUE),
Member, Vancouver .NET Users Group (.NETBC),
Vancouver AJAX Users Group (VanAJAX),
Guest, The Lab with Leo, SocialCamp