Tim Slavin

Current

• Chief Wrangler/Founder at RedWrangler.com
• Editor and Publisher at ReachCustomersOnline.com
• Technical Writer, Business Writer, Web/Email/SEO Consultant, Programmer at Owl Hill Media, LLC

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Past

• Contract Software Development Manager, Programmer, Internet Marketing Consultant at Alliance Manufactured Homes
• Contract Internet Marketing, Webmaster, Web Professional at TheFineArtofFamily.com
• Webmaster, Technology Strategy & Implementation at Society for Technical Communication: Phoenix, AZ Chapter

• Contract Technical Writer at DoubleClick
• Contract Technical Writer at SanDisk
• Contract Speechwriter, Business Writer at Wolters Kluwer
• Director, Content Management at Reuters
• Manager, Internet Marketing at Oxford Health Plans
• Manager, Technical Publications at Reuters
• Principal at Documents by Design
• Legal Secretary at NBC
• On-Air Promotion Production Assistant at Showtime

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9 more...

Education

• University of Michigan
• University of Oregon, Eugene
• Jesuit Novitiate, Montecito, CA

• Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, CA

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1 more...

Recommended

7 people have recommended Tim

Connections

99 connections

Industry

Internet

Tim Slavin’s Summary

Tim is an award-winning writer, technologist, and entrepreneur. His combination of business, creative, and technical skills make him a perfect fit for organizations who need people who work well with all disciplines. He understands first hand how business, technology, creative, and support people can mix to make great products and services.

As a communicator, Tim helps businesses communicate effectively with their customers and stakeholders. He has written technical documentation, online help, speeches, articles, email newsletters, and press releases. He also works as an internet marketing expert creating web sites and email and search marketing campaigns.

As a technologist, Tim has 14 years experience with web sites and web applications, from business planning and documentation to information architecture, interface design, usability testing, database design, software programming and management, user acceptance testing, rollout, promotion, and analysis of results.

He has worked as line staff and management with profit/loss responsibility, as well as hired and managed staff and consultants.

Finally, Tim is passionate about teaching and public service. Whether teaching clients, writing a detailed how-to article for his blog, or helping his non-profit clients do internet marketing, Tim believes strongly in sharing knowledge, helping others succeed, and giving back to the community.

Tim Slavin’s Specialties:

technical writing and technical editing, content management, lead management, online help creation, web content creation, documentation, processes and procedures, web blogs, web publishing, marketing communications, software documentation, usability, information architecture, interface design, internet strategy, presentations, database design, software programming

Tim Slavin’s Experience

• Chief Wrangler/Founder

  RedWrangler.com

  (Privately Held; Internet industry)

  September 2006 — Present (3 years 3 months)

  Red Wrangler helps web professionals manage their clients and workflow. It also lets them provide their clients easy to use tools to publish web pages, manage their Contact Us page leads, and store logins for carts, control panels, blogs, and other services, all in one place online.
  
  Responsible for creation of company and online application. Developed and executed a business plan, managed software development of application as well as designed the database and helped with programming, designed the information architecture of the application, wrote marketing copy for the brochure site, help provide support for subscribers, among other tasks.

• Editor and Publisher

  ReachCustomersOnline.com

  (Internet industry)

  November 2002 — Present (7 years 1 month)

  Writer, editor, and publisher of ReachCustomersOnline.com, a popular resource for web professionals and anyone interested in low-cost and no-cost internet marketing tools and services. The blog ranks highly with Google for several important internet marketing topics lightly covered elsewhere, for example, how to code HTML email newsletters to work across all email software.

• Technical Writer, Business Writer, Web/Email/SEO Consultant, Programmer

  Owl Hill Media, LLC

  (Marketing and Advertising industry)

  April 2002 — Present (7 years 8 months)

  Owner responsible for creating and updating marketing materials in a variety of media, from print to online. Clients include Outdoor Life Network, Wolters Kluwer, Alliance Manufactured Homes, PanAmSat, DoubleClick, among others. Please see selected clients, work descriptions, and recommendations with "Contract" in title above/below this entry.

• Contract Software Development Manager, Programmer, Internet Marketing Consultant

  Alliance Manufactured Homes

  (Real Estate industry)

  July 2007 — September 2009 (2 years 3 months)

  Responsible for the design and development of a web-based business intelligence software tool. Includes working with client to develop business requirements, document requirements and functionality, manage software programmer, create initial database design, create information architecture and interface design, do backup programming, and work with the client for user acceptance testing and training. Technology is PHP5 and MySQL.

• Contract Internet Marketing, Webmaster, Web Professional

  TheFineArtofFamily.com

  (Luxury Goods & Jewelry industry)

  October 2004 — September 2009 (5 years )

  Responsible for helping with a variety of roles and tasks for this ecommerce site and MRKPhoto.com. Includes converting page design to search optimized HTML and CSS, consulting on software tools, helping with search optimization, and creating then launching seasonal versions of their site.

• Webmaster, Technology Strategy & Implementation

  Society for Technical Communication: Phoenix, AZ Chapter

  (Writing and Editing industry)

  September 2006 — August 2009 (3 years )

  Oversee selection of technology to meet chapter goals to acquire and retain members. Includes analysis, selection, implementation, and training of technology to publish the chapter website, deliver regular emails to members, and store key chapter documents. Redesigned chapter website that will shortly include a member directory and community blog.

• Contract Technical Writer

  DoubleClick

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

  April 2004 — April 2008 (4 years 1 month)

  Since 2004, responsible for helping create and update various technical documentation for their DART for Advertisers and DART for Publishers products. Includes writing and editing of documents, as well as helping prepare documents for localization. Tools included Framemaker, MadCap Flare, RoboHelp, among others.

• Contract Technical Writer

  SanDisk

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; SNDK; Semiconductors industry)

  October 2004 — July 2006 (1 year 10 months)

  Responsible for creating and updating consumer user guides and quick start guides for the Cruzer thumb drive and early Sansa MP3 players. Also included creating a book design in Word for other SanDisk divisions to use.

• Contract Speechwriter, Business Writer

  Wolters Kluwer

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; WKL; Publishing industry)

  April 2002 — June 2004 (2 years 3 months)

  Responsible for helping with writing projects, including two speeches for senior executives and a report for the North American CTO that documented the electronic form technologies and capabilities used in different divisions of the company.

• Director, Content Management

  Reuters

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; RTR.L; Financial Services industry)

  June 2000 — April 2002 (1 year 11 months)

  Worked with health information client to optimize their web content management technology and editorial processes. Helped define the business case and initial database product for an internal startup. Also wrote requirements and test documents for exception workflow web site for CTO. Programmed prototype website in Classic ASP/SQL 2000.

• Manager, Internet Marketing

  Oxford Health Plans

  (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; OXHP; Insurance industry)

  February 1999 — June 2000 (1 year 5 months)

  Rebuilt the marketing team that supported use of their websites to communicate with customers and staff. The new internet site won a prestigious CIO.com 50/50 Best of the Web award, as well as health care industry awards. Managed writing of B2B and B2C marketing materials such as direct mail, ads, call scripts, articles, and news items. Managed development of a style guide for their web sites. Managed focus groups and usability testing for internet site.

• Manager, Technical Publications

  Reuters

  (Public Company; 5001-10,000 employees; Internet industry)

  March 1995 — February 1999 (4 years )

  Managed documentation and a small software development group that supported the Reuters Dealing Forex software product. I was tasked to use multimedia to meet the information needs of Reuters global staff who installed and managed their software. Also involved in early grass roots use of internet technologies within Reuters, for example, creating a prototype online community for their far flung technical writing groups and a demonstration html training class with a teacher in London, students in London, the US, and New Zealand, and 50 plus online observers spread worldwide.

• Principal

  Documents by Design

  (Information Technology and Services industry)

  March 1990 — March 1995 (5 years 1 month)

  Wrote, illustrated, and designed technical and business documents for Qume, Colony Capital, and other companies. Designed non-fiction books for RGA.

• Legal Secretary

  NBC

  (Public Company; GE; Broadcast Media industry)

  January 1989 — March 1990 (1 year 3 months)

• On-Air Promotion Production Assistant

  Showtime

  (Privately Held; Entertainment industry)

  June 1985 — January 1989 (3 years 8 months)

  Managed production details for roughly 100+ promos produced monthly by ten staff and freelancers; each promo went through five or six steps (e.g., initial idea, initial script, video editing, audio editing) Wrote 300+ ten second next ons monthly for two years

Tim Slavin’s Education

• University of Michigan

  BA , English, Journalism, American Poetry , 1980 — 1982

  Studied primarily English and History but also took five graduate courses in the School of Journalism, including a one week seminar with Flora Lewis of the New York Times.
  
  Won a Jules and Avery Hopwood Award for four short stories about Marsden Hartley, the American painter. Past Hopwood winners include Arthur Miller, the playwright, among others.

• University of Oregon, Eugene

  N/A , English, Journalism , September 1978 — May 1980

  Activities and Societies:

  Transferred to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to compete for the Jules and Avery Hopwood Award.

• Jesuit Novitiate, Montecito, CA

  September 1977 — December 1977

  Activities and Societies:

  Studied to enter the Jesuit religious order, long enough to experience the 30 day silent retreat and realize that, for me, married life with children and a mortgage would pull a lot more from myself. Not to mention age me a lot faster.

• Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, CA

  High School September 1973 — May 1977

Additional Information

Tim Slavin’s Interests:

Hiking, photography, poetry, opera, any kind of music, travel, technology toys, kids, programming, art, fonts

Tim Slavin’s Groups:

Society of Technical Communicators, Arizona Internet Professionals Association (AZIPA), National Association Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)

•    eOffice
•    Society for Technical Communication
•    Inbound Marketers - For Marketing Professionals
•    Bellarmine College Preparatory Alumni
•    Showtime Networks Alumni
•    AZIPA - Arizona Internet Professionals Association
•    Web 2.0
•    Bright Ideas & Entrepreneurs
•    University of Michigan Alumni
•    The Content Wrangler Community
•    Club ex-Reuters
•    The New Yorker
•    Social Media Marketing
•    Tablet PC & Touch Enthusiast
•    Reuters Worldwide
•    Tweeple
•    MarketingProfs
•    Social Media Club
•    STC Phoenix

Tim Slavin’s Honors:

CIO.com 50/50 Best of the Web in 2000 for work on the Oxford Health Plans website, plus a few health care industry awards for the site.

Jules and Avery Hopwood Award for four short stories about the life of American painter Marsden Hartley. Past winners include Arthur Miller, the American playwright, as well as many other published writers, screenwriters, and poets.

Distinguished Chapter Service Award from the Phoenix Chapter of the Society of Technical Communications, for helping to choose, integrate, and train members to use email marketing, project management, and web publishing technology to promote chapter activities. (June 2008)

Tim Slavin’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• consulting offers
• new ventures
• expertise requests
• business deals
• reference requests
• getting back in touch