Manager, Services Content Development

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Itasca, IL)
Oct 2016 – Present  Employment

As Manager, Services Content Development I extend, promote, and lead the documentation strategy that serves to create best-in-class user assistance for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) digital products. 

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Key accomplishments include:

• Leading the team in creating six new Help systems in less than five months -- all ahead of schedule and within budget. 

• Providing more than 1 million teachers, administrators, and students just-in-time assistance within the first year of the implemented strategy. 

• Honing cross-functional partnerships to yield an increase of single-source content and a decrease in content redundancy and resource consumption by more than 50 percent.

• Creating a Help solution that yielded a 40 percent drop in login calls to the call center within its first month of implementation.

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Lead Instructional Designer

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Rolling Meadows, IL)

Jun 2014 – Sep 2016  

As the Lead Instructional Designer I led the design, development, and promotion of program documentation to support teachers and administrators using Houghton Mifflin Harcourt assessment and clinical products.

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Key accomplishments included:

• Meeting all milestones on time with exceeded projected outcomes.

• Realizing a 45 percent reduction in time-on-task and an average cost savings of $230/deliverable for more than 160 deliverables.

• Instituting a documentation styles and standards performance-support system that served to promote continuity in content development approach, style, and branding. 

• Reducing content errors and inconsistencies by more than 60 percent as a result of managing version control policies and procedures.

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Contract Instructional Designer

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt -- Riverside Publishing (Rolling Meadows, IL)
Jun 2011 – May 2014  

As a contract Instructional Designer, I provided instructional design and technical-writing support for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

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Projects included:

• Producing both paper-based and digital documentation for Riverside’s flagship products, the Iowa Assessments™ and Cognitive Abilities Test™.

• Collaborating with assessment authors, product development, and research in analyzing, designing, and developing test administration and coordination documentation that supports the assessment life cycle (adopt, plan, administer, finalize, and interpret).

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Education Manager, North America

BrainLAB (Westchester, IL)
Oct 2005 – May 2011  

As Education Manager, North America, I promoted and advanced navigational knowledge and system utilization nationally by designing, implementing, and managing exceptional training programs and course materials for BrainLAB customers, both synchronously and asynchronously.

 

Key accomplishments included:

• Ranking #1 in education and training by MD Buyline for six consecutive quarters.

• Increasing novice-to-intermediate proficiency while reducing training costs and timing by 35 percent.

• Receiving International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) Accredited Provider status, which is a a rigorous process that involves extensive hands-on evaluation by the IACET Commission.

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Technical Communicator/e-Learning/Instructional Design Contractor

Independent Consultant (Chicago, IL)
1997 – 2005  

Provided instructional design, technical communication, and eLearning support for organizations including Hewitt Associates, Discover Financial Services, and RR Donnelley. 

 

Instructional activities included:

• Utilizing instructional design and consulting skills to conceptualize, design, and develop creative and forward-thinking eLearning, instructor-led, blended, and micro-learning experiences for various comprehensive human resources and insurance training programs. 

• Determining instructional strategies and developing measurable objectives for designing and assessing sales-training deliverables; included conducting needs analyses, training proposals, instructor-material repositories, participant job aids, PowerPoint presentations and learner-maintenance materials. 

• Creating statements of work, proposals, and request for proposal (RFPs) that clearly articulated learning and development needs for each project (resources, learning objectives, output milestones, budget, and timeline). 

• Managing complex relationships with cross-functional stakeholders and subject-matter experts (SMEs) in environments with short deadlines and high business impact.