Mack Reed

Veteran Online Consultant - UX/IA, Design & Community

Greater Los Angeles Area

Current
  • Information Architect / Business Analyst at speakTECH
Past
  • Consultant - Community & Editorial Development at Metblogs.com
  • Founding Publisher at LAVoice.org (Sole Proprietorship)
  • Creator at NDA'd project

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Education
  • Rhode Island School of Design
  • Brown University
Recommended
Mack has 11 recommendations 11 people have recommended Mack
Connections
271 connections
Industry
Online Media
Websites

Mack Reed’s Summary

Architect for Web Content/Community strategy | Editorial Design | Launch Specialist | Award-Winning Journalist

- Eleven years in audience-driven Web content architecture, Web/print design, launch, production and editorial management
- Seventeen years in print journalism and photography
- Deadline experience blended with innovation and long-range plan execution
- Creation and management of consistent editorial voice

Mack Reed's skills and experience span every facet of Web and print publishing, from high-level market strategy and social engineering to the hands-on work of designing editorial voice and information architecture.

As a staff writer and columnist at the Los Angeles Times, Reed wrote page-one stories that broke new ground and won honors from organizations such as the California Bar Association and the Los Angeles Press Club.

As a content manager for Cox Interactive Media, he helped build, design, launch and manage large, complex urban portal sites for Los Angeles and Orange County.

As the communications manager for the NSF's Digital Government program (http://www.digitalgovernment.org), he scratch-built the communications strategy and and multimedia products, and helped pull disparate factions of IT scientists and government folk into a cohesive research community.

As a consultant at Factoid Labs (http://factoidlabs.com), he is busy with a number of projects, focusing on community development, information architecture, user-focused design and other technologies serving the Web 2.0 boom.

In his work as an information architect and business analyst for speakTECH, He has worked with some of the web's biggest brands, including MySpace and NewsCorp.

He is deeply plugged into the continued evolution and innovation of the information economy, and welcomes the opportunity to chat with you about revitalizing your old content- or community-driven business - or helping you to launch a new one.

Mack Reed’s Specialties:

Editorial strategy, information architecture, launch specialist, interface design, graphic design, online community development

Mack Reed’s Experience

  • Information Architect / Business Analyst

    speakTECH

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

    March 2008 — Present (1 year 5 months)

    - Developing user experience, information architecture, community design and content strategy across a broad array of applications and web products, for clients ranging from startups and non-IT clients to IT-category-leaders and dominant media- and community-aggregators.

    (Translation: Brainstorming and architecting cool next-gen web apps for busy, high-profile companies like MySpace and others too secret to name ... just yet.)

  • Consultant - Community & Editorial Development

    Metblogs.com

    (Online Media industry)

    January 2006 — September 2008 (2 years 9 months)

    - Managing the editorial "captains" of Metroblogging's 53 urban weblogs around the world
    - Developing and fostering widespread use of best practices for building audience
    - Coaching captains in recruiting, retaining and building the loyalty of unpaid authors
    - Mentoring individual captains on the process of growing stakeholder audience loyalty, establishing editorial standards and maintaining QA
    - Shaping editorial voice for a broad variety of cities, cultures, and nations in a corporate milieu that actually values the absence of restrictive editorial policies

  • Founding Publisher

    LAVoice.org (Sole Proprietorship)

    (Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Online Media industry)

    November 2002 — January 2007 (4 years 3 months)

    - Established a blog-based publication and online community that publishes daily news and opinion by people who write well and passionately about Los Angeles, regarding culture, freeway life, environment, media, neighborhoods and the political power structure.
    http://LAVoice.org

  • Creator

    NDA'd project

    (Online Media industry)

    2006 — 2007 (1 year)

  • Consultant - IA/UX

    speakTECH

    (Online Media industry)

    2007 — 2007 (less than a year)

  • Senior Computer Consultant / Digital Government Communications Manager

    USC Information Sciences Institute

    (Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Online Media industry)

    January 2002 — August 2005 (3 years 8 months)

    - Developed complete internal/external communications strategy for NSF's public-policy/IT research program - http://www.diggov.org/
    - Designed, built, and launched an online toolset to enable collaboration among more than 200 of the nation's top computer scientists and government data experts
    - Developing additional tools, including a database of digital government research projects and personnel
    - Designed, built and editing content for:
    o NSF Digital Government Research Program (http://www.digitalgovernment.org)
    o Center for Research on Unexpected Events (http://www.isi.edu/crue)
    o Digital Government Research Center (http://www.dgrc.org/)
    o USC's Information Sciences Institute (http://ai.isi.edu)

  • Content Manager, Senior Producer, News Producer

    Cox Interactive Media

    (Public Company; 201-500 employees; Online Media industry)

    October 1997 — October 2001 (4 years 1 month)

    - Helped conceive, design, build, launch and produce two major regional portals (OCnow.com and LAinsider.com - archived at http://factoidlabs.com/portfolio/interactive/lainsider/)
    - Drove three complete interface overhauls across more than 6,000 pages
    - Produced innovative Web products including 150-page L.A. County Neighborhoods Guide, Disaster Guide, live So.Ca. traffic maps and message boards on LAPD and LAUSD
    - Grew Orange County audience to 81,000 unique visitors & 404,000 pageviews/month in Year 1
    - Grew Los Angeles County audience to 200,000 uniques &am- p; 2.3 million pageviews/month in Year 1
    - Oversaw content partnerships with KFWB.com for news at LAinsider.com, and with Anaheim Sports, Inc. for production of AngelsBaseball.com and MightyDucks.com
    - Advised CIM's Bay Area portal staff on content, site layout and editorial strategy
    - Guided content conception, page design and launch of CIM's Las Vegas portal

  • Content Manager

    LAinsider.com

    (Online Media industry)

    2000 — 2001 (1 year)

  • Staff Writer, Columnist

    Los Angeles Times

    (Public Company; 201-500 employees; TRB; Newspapers industry)

    March 1990 — October 1997 (7 years 8 months)

    - Helped launch the Ventura County edition
    - Covered city government, defense contractors and breaking news, from the Northridge Earthquake and the Rodney King verdict to the California AIDS Ride and the Burning Man Festival
    (samples: http://factoidlabs.com/portfolio/writing/)
    - Wrote a weekly column on SoCal freeway life
    - Won the California Bar Assn. Award for an expose' on the shortage of Death Row appeals lawyers
    - Won Ventura County Press Club awards for coverage of gang culture and disastrous 9-day wildfires

  • Reporter

    Philadelphia Inquirer

    (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; KRI; Newspapers industry)

    January 1987 — March 1990 (3 years 3 months)

    - Covered criminal courts, city government and general assignment in northern Delaware
    - Won the National Mental Health Assn.'s Silver Medal for exposing overcrowding and mistreatment at a major mental hospital

  • Staff Writer

    Philadelphia Daily News

    (Online Media industry)

    1985 — 1985 (less than a year)

Mack Reed’s Education

  • Rhode Island School of Design

    Photo studies , Advanced photography , 1980 — 1981

    B&W and color photography, printing and processing, stereography, landscape, portraiture, night imaging, infrared and all other manner of sanctioned dabbling and dilettantism

    Activities and Societies:
    Studied with Burt Beaver and Will Manon (sp?)

  • Brown University

    BA , American Studies , 1977 — 1981

    Activities and Societies:
    Brown Daily Herald, Brownbrokers, Diman House, late-night SilverTop runs

Additional Information

Mack Reed’s Websites:

Mack Reed’s Interests:

Digital culture, information architecture, UX design, online community development, global citizen journalism, the reincarnation of print publications as information companies, less and better government, multimedia, music, mountain biking, pop culture, sailing, Burning Man, high comic books and low literature, transgressional art, wickedly off-color humor, outsider culture, reckless mechanical experimentation, DIY illumination, joystick diversions, quality time of every stripe and the occasional exquisite single-malt. Oh, and heavy little objects. Ask me some time.

Mack Reed’s Groups:

The WELL, Los Angeles Press Club, BarCamp Los Angeles, Web405

  •    WELL community
  •    Brown Alumni Association
  •    User Experience
  •    Brown University Alumni of Los Angeles
  •    The Philadelphia Inquirer Alumni Association
  •    Los Angeles Times Alumni
  •    LAUX (User Experience Los Angeles)

Mack Reed’s Honors:

National Mental Health Association, 1987 Silver Medal, newspapers over 100,000 circulation for expose on severe overcrowding at Haverford State Hospital

Various Ventura County Press Club awards 1993-1995 for coverage of gang violence and natural disasters

California Bar Association 1996 Silver Award for expose on the shortage of Death Row appeals lawyers

Los Angeles Press Club, 2004 Best Weblog (2nd place) for LAVoice.org
Los Angeles Press Club, 2005 Best Group Weblog (1st place) for LAVoice.org

Mack Reed’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

  • career opportunities
  • consulting offers
  • new ventures
  • expertise requests
  • reference requests
  • getting back in touch

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