Ed Dowding
Business and product development for the web-based enterprise. Creative, intelligent, fast learning, experienced consultant and entrepreneur. Skilled and experienced in web technology, business process integration and administration.
| Headline: | Entrepreneur |
| Work status: | Living The Dream |
| Website: | http://www.onlinepersonalassistant.com |
| Industries: | Cleantech, Computing, Education, Internet, Lifestyle, Nanotech |
| Skills: | Business, Design, English, Entrepreneurship, French, Human-Computer Interaction, Languages, Leadership, Management, Negotiation, Public speaking, Spanish, Web design |
| Interested in: | Advising startups, Brainstorming, Consulting opportunities, Finding business partners, Finding cofounders, Finding team mates, Getting press, Giving back, Growing my group, Helping friends, Helping members of my groups, Joining a startup, Meeting new people, Mentoring, Offering Expertise, Participating in a competition, Partnering with other groups, Professional opportunities, Promoting my startups, Providing services to startups, Receiving feedback, Recruiting for my startup, Trading services |
| Tags: | assistant, consultancy, consultant, development, entrepreneur, government procurement, incubation, online, personal assistant, security, web |
| Schools: | University of Edinburgh |
FEATURED STARTUP
Online Personal Assistant
Online Personal Assistant
“It’s like a to-do list which does itself!” -- Would you like to be able to ask someone to find you new business, market your services, handle customer care and support, do research, find suppliers, manage appointments and functions... it's all here!
- Startup type: Company
- Status: Active
- Stage: Growth
FULL BIO
Full CV at http://eddowding.com/cv/
WORK EXPERIENCE
| Employer: | CitySafe Ltd. |
| Position: | Product Manager, CTO. |
| Time period: | January 2004 - December 2008 |
| Description: | CitySafe's pioneering and user-friendly approach defined and filled a market for integrated emergency response. Within three years of active business, CitySafe provided not only London's emergency notification systems, but also the incident response and coordination application in use by all 33 of her boroughs.
My own company was contracting to CitySafe, then a one-man operation, for a year before the launch. The launch came 2 months earlier than scheduled, necessitated by the attacks on the city on 7 July 2005. From the company's inception I was responsible for the technical growth and stability of our products and their design and usability, in addition to all user-training, account management, sales presentations and support in both the commercial and government sectors. The company's rapid progress is due to a passion for systemic and strategic thinking, and an ability to manage limited resources with great effect. Thus I have developed and embedded products that serve clients' diverse priorities and objectives, whilst meeting varied regulatory requirements and budgets. Notable Achievements * Created a mission critical application in daily use by the emergency services and local authorities * Managed the Government procurement process, including Prince2 project management * Recruited an excellent team of developers, and retained them when times were lean * Ensured all applications were compliant with regulatory requirements * Worked with SysAdmins to ensure comprehensive locational redundancy * Runner-up in the bid to deliver all the UK's emergency training, a process which included government procurement compliancy, Catalist partnering, and final presentations to the board * Setup and managed client liaison and feedback groups * Performed needs analysis with public sector clients, established working protocols and business process workflow, and created and delivered products to meet their requirements and exceed their expectations * Created free online business resilience training programmes using Moodle and Drupal * Award winning innovation Project approaches * Frequent clear communication * Business driven, agile development * Frequent, phased iterations * Strcutured client feedback sessions * Nurture participation and innovation from all levels |
| Employer: | Exclusive Analysis |
| Position: | Sole Technical Contractor |
| Time period: | January 2002 - December 2005 |
| Description: | Working with another startup, I turned a spreadsheet into a market-leading intelligence analysis application, aggregating data from over 500 news sources and analysing it to create global risk-contour maps for use by the insurance industry.
* Pioneering global risk maps -- designed Flash app to allow clear visualisation of an abundance of complex data * Statistical risk modeling -- establishing how best to represent data, and ensuring the risk model can fairly represent the impact of everything from imprudent economics to truck bombs. * Simple intuitive user interface -- minimised the training load on the company, and allowed clients to quickly adopt the service into their daily routine * Data mining -- comprehensive and geographic search allows analysts to support reports with detailed information * Enabled rapid growth -- the easy-to-use system allowed the team and their clients to focus on their core competencies, and not the technology. In less than two years they were able to grow from a 2 to a 40 man company with a global network of intelligence analysts. * Managed outsourcing -- as the project grew, more of the work was outsourced under my sole responsibility |
| Employer: | Usology |
| Position: | Internet application consultancy and development |
| Time period: | January 2000 - December 2005 |
| Description: | Formed as the online media arm of IodineMedia, Usology started out creating interactive kiosk CD-ROMs, delivering online video-based media training, and tracking distribution of viral marketing.
As my programming (PHP) skills increased I tackled more and more complex sites, but quickly realised my forte lay in working with clients to establish their requirements, and managing outsourced programmers to deliver high quality, affordable sites and applications. |
| Employer: | IodineMedia |
| Position: | Film and digital media production. Founder |
| Time period: | January 1998 - December 2001 |
| Description: | Taking advantage of a revolution in digital media production, I formed a partnership with writer / director Michael Keillor. We specialised in fast turn-around concept projects for the advertising industry (with frequently less than 24 hours from commission to delivery), and as the internet spread, moved in to comedic viral videos.
We also won a number of awards for our drama work. |
| Employer: | WhyNot? |
| Position: | Freelance Management & Leadership trainer |
| Time period: | January 1997 - December 1999 |
| Description: | Having started out filming the events for this management training and team-building company, I quickly moved into facilitating exercises and reviewing performance with the teams. This was a fantastic insight into the world of team work and objective performance analysis. |
| Employer: | Reuters |
| Position: | Consultant |
| Time period: | December 2007 |
| Description: | Whilst working with CitySafe, I was seconded to Reuters Innovation Labs to create and develop an idea based on risk management and crowd intelligence.
This gained them £250,000 internal funding - one of only a handful of products from the lab to receive support from the board. This product has now launched as Reuters Insight |
| Employer: | Prospect Magazine |
| Position: | Website development |
| Time period: | December 2005 |
| Description: | I designed and delivered a complete content and subscription management system for Prospect Magazine.
It was required to integrate with Quark, their desktop publishing application, and handle a large number of subscription permutations and processing. The site also includes classifieds and paid advertisement systems. It received excellent feedback and strengthened their offer to subscribers. |
EDUCATION
| University: | University of Edinburgh |
| Time period: | 1996 |
| Degree: | Psychology, MA |
INFORMATION
| Sports: | # World-record holder for fastest dragon-boat across the English Channel (smashing the previous record of 7h45m to complete it in 3h30m) and raising £100,000 for charity
# Keen skier, mountain biker, runner # Quadrathelete |
| Clubs: | HSE First aid |
Ed 's Startups (1)
View all-
Online Personal Assistant
“It’s like a to-do list which does itself!” -- Would you like to be able to ask someone to find you new business, market your services, handle customer care and support, do research, find suppliers, manage appointments and functions... it's all here!
Ed is Following (1)
View all
Ed 's Contacts (10)
View all-
Stephanie Bouchet
Marketing Connoisseur with over 10 years of marketing expertise developed in world-beating start-ups & blue chip corporations in the digital media, telecom & entertainment industries. Proven track record includes: Joost, Skype, BT and Warner Home Vid
-
-
Neel Mistry
TMT Research Manager @ Expert Network Provider, Gerson Lehrman Group, London
-
