Tom Dolan ­ Curriculum Vitae Contact 75 Woodlands Avenue, London E11…

Tom Dolan ­ Curriculum Vitae
Contact
75 Woodlands Avenue, London E11 3RB
Tel: 020 8989 2947 (h), 07932 042614 (m)
Email: tom@leaningforward.com


Overview
An enthusiastic, widely experienced expert in combining technology, great content and
worthwhile interactivity at a senior level. Excellent editorial judgement from over ten
years in online, mobile and interactive TV, working on productions from Children In
Need to Staying Alive, EastEnders to Top of the Pops, European Top 20 to NetAid.
People and project management skills date back a solid career in mainframe-based
industrial IT. Strategy and R&D experience has now been supplemented by over three
years of commercial work on internationalised online and mobile properties.


Major Skills
Creative Leadership ­ managing and advising producers in both new media and TV.
People Management ­ have managed teams of 10-15 staff in multi-project environment.
Project and Production Management ­projects include MTV AAA, Starzine and NetAid.
Technical Infrastructure ­ systems and workflow planning for IT, Web, mobile and TV.
Editorial Research & Development ­ blue-sky work with technology and creative teams.
Business Admin ­ sponsor liaison, contract preparation, budgeting, financial management.
Internationalisation ­ planning productions for multi-territory and multi-character-set
implementation, across diverse organisational structures.
Systems Analysis ­ transforming business requirements into technical specifications.
Information Architecture and Usability ­ user-centred product design.


Employment History
MTV Networks ­ Jan 2004-present ­ Senior Manager, Mobile; Project Manager
Manage multiple complex cross-platform projects at bleeding edge of mobile and web
technology, using both internal and external resources.
· Development of Load2 pitch, project specification and workflows
· Planning of infrastructure for scaleable mobile service delivery
· Seek partners, negotiate prices, support agreements, specifications with providers,
    supported by LBA team to ensure contracts protect MTV and sponsor
· Communications with client and regions on status of projects
· Working with commercial team and IMP to develop product menu and new
    project costings
· Specification and project management of Nokia "Starzine" moblogging service
    involving eight resource teams
· Managing complex internal and external production resources on "AAA" project,
    reconciling differences to ensure delivery; providing motivation and creativity in
    contractually challenging conditions
· Specification and project management on initial build of "Load" portal for Motorola
· Redesign and rebuild content-managed version of "Staying-Alive" site across ten
    languages, including Chinese and Russian instances
· Prepare pan-euro moderation policy involving broadcast standards and legal teams
· Sponsoring project to ensure full Unicode/UTF-8 capability in TIPS content
    management tool
· Line managing and advising production staff on Starzine, AAA and Staying-Alive
    projects
London Weekend Television/Granada ­ Nov 2003-Jan2004 ­ Interactive Producer
Devise and plan web and mobile content for "I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here!"
· Assess sponsor requirements and reconcile with editorial and revenue demands
· Investigate and plan production information flows across globe
· Produce detailed report including wireframes and project plan for Victoria Real
· Also produced `Emmerdale' site for itv.com, working with remote TV teams.

MTV Networks Europe ­ Mar-Oct 2003 ­ Pan-European Web Producer
Deliver localised sites as part of European and Global commercial sponsorship deals.
· Specify and produce ten sites for MTV Mash using ATG Dynamo CMS
· Develop content and user journeys to enhance sponsor brands and messages
· Integrate regionalised website with sponsor's mobile content shop
· Plan architecture for `Euro Top 20' supporting interactive on-air elements
· Introduce creative and process management, improving morale and productivity
BBC Fictionlab / iD&E ­ Nov 2000-Feb2003 ­ Head of Interactive Development
Manage and Develop Drama and Entertainment business for interactive TV and
emerging platforms. Champion interactive narrative and entertainment formats.
· Exec EastEnders Digital Cable service with extensive cross-platform content reuse
· Exec BBCi Entertainment Broadband portal, introducing new cross-team workflows
· Exec BBCi iTV entertainment loops service
· Coproduce `Top of the Pops' Xmas multiscreen application on Sky
· Exec EastEnders KiT (Hull interactive TV) service, working with DG's office
· Devise and exec BBC's first iTV drama ­ John Godber's "Thunder Road" on KiT.
· Manage cross-discipline brainstorms and workshops, managing development budget
· Successfully pitched and won 11 projects in BBC's first eTV commissioning round
· Represented BBC iD&E at external events; liaison with MIT Medialab Europe
· Mentored Canadian web and TV producers at Banff `Interactive Screen' conference
· Recruited a diverse team of 10 and managed to highly productive collaboration
BBC Music Entertainment ­ March 99-Oct 00 ­ Category Producer
Set up new business unit developing key Music and Entertainment brands online.
· Produced UK end of `NetAid' webcast from Wembley, working with UK and US TV
    and online teams and technology providers to plan editorial and infrastructure.
· Produced pan-UK sourced webcast for BBC Children In Need 1999.
· Produced RealMedia-centric site for `Ozone' ­ in hindsight a DVD on the web.
· Creative management of teams producing `TOTP' and `Music Live 2000' sites.
· Also produced sites for projects ranging from `Later...' to `Generation Game'
Freelance ­ January 97-Feb 99
Working on web and other projects. Web by reputation, some IT and PR via agency.
· Produced site for BBC Two arts strand `The Works' ­ the oldest non-news content
   still available on BBC website
· Produced website for PR companies Portfolio, Metrica and Network Plus
· Produced touchscreen demo of UltraNVS aircraft antinoise system for Farnborough
   airshow, and adapted to Java environment for web.
· Media Evaluation for clients from Abbey National to RNLI, Avon to Netscape
Charringtons ­ April 91-March 96 ­ IT Strategist
A wide variety of systems design and MIS projects in IT, Marketing and Finance teams.
· Migrate core business systems (200,000 customers) to new platforms and software.
· Informix DBA and Unix system administrator for business-critical systems.
· Extensive SQL data analysis for finance, marketing and sales teams.
· Planned and implemented EDI-based billing service for account card holders.
· Training and user support at all levels.
· Created intranet and CMS to replace in-house newspaper.
Special Interests
Technical speculation                   Mass-market interactivity
New community spaces                    Cross-platform journeys
Editorial concept integration           Guru/producer matchmaking
Distributed content storage             Audience-performer feedback
Non-latin character sets                Device fragmentation and convergence
Coaching staff                          Technical-editorial liaison


Business Training
Several BBC management courses. Fully trained as a Systems Analyst, Unix Systems
Administrator, SQL Programmer and Informix DBA. Scenario planning. Other Technical
training includes XML and Flash.


Academic
1980-87 - St Edmund's College, Herts. 14 O, 2 AO, 3 A levels and 1 S level.
1987-90 - University of Warwick (attended Applied Maths Degree, with units in Music)


Technical Skills
Graphic design and other multimedia tools ­ Photoshop, Flash, Director, Premiere,
Media Cleaner, Homesite, Dreamweaver, Notepad, vi.
Web programming (11 years) ­ HTML, WML, JavaScript, Java, Perl, PHP, JHTML, ATG
Dynamo, JSP
Database development and design (13 years) - MS Access, Informix, Paradox, FoxPro
Business application development (14 years) - C, Visual Basic, UNIX Shellscript, Perl
A wide variety of operating systems -Windows, MacOS, and several flavours of UNIX


Personal Details
Mobility:                            Full clean driving licence since 1990.
Date and Place of Birth:             11th June 1969, London
Marital Status:                      Married. One daughter. Three cats. It's great.


Interests
I compose music in a keyboard-filled home studio I have built myself over many years,
and am also finally studying classical piano.
I'm a keen weblogger and photoblogger, and was a juror for the 2004 interactive
BAFTAs thanks to my knowledge of interactive drama.
My NotCon'04 talk "Shit, I'm A Manager", introducing people-management skills to
highly technical people, has been downloaded thousands of times, and is now a
recommended read on the BBC's leadership programme at Ashridge Business School.
I'm learning to speak Mandarin and read Simplified Chinese; Arabic is next.
Any remaining time is spent with my family or indulging my passions in the kitchen ­
cookery and wine.