Mary-Lynn Bragg

Products, Projects, People and Process


Menlo Park, California

+1 (650) 249-4622

marylynn@gmail.com

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My Bio

Download my complete resume

Work History.

Senior Product Manager
Information Express / ThinkLoud, Inc.
(since June 2012)

Previous Roles:

ThinkLoud, Inc. (was Reviews.com)
> Product Manager - May 2005-June 2012
> Project Manager - June 2001-May 2005

 

Information Express
> Project Manager - Sept 2001-June 2012
> Operations Manager - Oct 1998-Sept 2001
> Marketing & Training Librarian - Jan 1998-Oct 1998

 

Owner

BrightLight Services
(since 2010)
Consultant services to small businesses and entrepreneurs: Business coaching, project management, operational support.
Learn more @ getbrightlight.com

 

Previous Positions Elsewhere

Knight Ridder Information / Dialog,
Project Manager
(Aug 1997-Dec 1997)

 

Knight Ridder Information / KR SourceOne,
Research Librarian
(July 1996-Aug 1997)

 

Education & Certifications.

Certified ScrumMaster, 2012
University of Western Ontario, MLIS, 1996
Queen's University, Hons. BA, 1993
Software & Tech Skills.
HTML/CSS, XML, basic SQL
Salesforce, Basecamp, Trello
Quickbooks, Freshbooks
Word, Excel, PPT/Keynote

In small companies, job titles don't particularly convey the breadth of responsibilities someone might have. My current title is "Senior Product Manager" but before that I had a set of business cards that read "Secret Weapon" as my title. It sounded kind of silly (though was extremely popular at conferences) but it actually made a lot of sense: I was often called in to manage projects or tasks that didn't fall under a traditional title and that needed some extra help. Often, if I was brought in, my job was to clean something up and bring it to completion, untangling messes and setting up simple systems for others to use. I enjoy that kind of challenge but am still relieved to have a more traditional title right now. However, it should be clear: traditional product management duties are just part of what I'm responsible for on a daily basis.

Learn more about my experience with what I call the 4P's...

Products (Product Management)

  • Product owner: documentation, scheduling; training and communications development; signing off on all releases.
    • Consult with programming teams on technical requirements;
      with editorial and data operations groups to ensure content consistency;
      with marketing on product descriptions as it relates existing functionality of products.
  • Product evangelist for international sales agents: travel to and present product at sales meetings and conferences in US, Asia and Europe, as well as virtual training sessions; work with marketing to develop location and event-specific materials.
  • Determine pricing and service levels, negotiate contracts and sales quotes.

Projects (Project Management)

  • On Computing Reviews, managed launches of:
    • Reviews.com to ThinkLoud, Inc. corporate name and domain transition (2012)
    • CR’s API (2011), sales agent module and revisions to alerting system (2010)
    • IEO’s ‘iFill’ instant fulfillment service and document archive (2010-2011)
    • CR Hot Topics and Recommendations additions to platform (2005)
    • CR Reader’s Module interface re-design (2004)
    • Computing Reviews online (2003) – new online publication with full backend electronic publishing software platform
  • On IEOnline, managed launches of:
    • iFill - instant fulfillment service and archive (2010-2011)
    • iDOI - instant DOI link fulfillment (2009)
    • Quosa XML pickup and order integration (2009)

People (Client Services & Training)

  • Client services and implementation to current roster of 20-25 IEO customer accounts representing approximately 3000 end-users: evaluate needs and identify opportunities; set up platform configurations and customizations based on requirements; meet regularly to discuss upgrade options, ideas and suggestions for improvement and to present training; resolve escalations of problems or questions that affect current operation and customer satisfaction.
  • Final point of escalation for operational queries from external stakeholders: editors, reviewers, registered users, library administrators and general public.
  • Negotiate licensing contracts with 10 publishing partners; ensure compliance with licensing and subcontractor contracts; compile and distribute all required reporting related to contracts.
  • Conduct onsite and virtual training sessions; developed supporting materials.

Process (Operations Management)

  • Management of 4 operations staff responsible for the technical operation of both products:
    • Day to day operations for online table of contents service (3 staff; 200 client companies; 25,000+ user base) and online computer science journal (400 subscribing institutions, 1000+ reviewers, and 20+ academic editors plus 5-7 in-house staff).
    • Final point of escalation for operational queries from external stakeholders: editors, reviewers, registered users, library administrators, publishers/content providers and general public.
    • Backup on direct site updates using CSS/HTML/SQL within ColdFusion and Perl-programmed systems; cross-trained on data loading and production systems; draft simple XML DTDs for sending data to partners.
About Where I Work

Founded in 1999, ThinkLoud (formerly Reviews.com) is a New York-based publisher of reviews focusing on academic and professional literature. Its flagship publication is Computing Reviews, published jointly with the ACM.

Information Express (IE) has become the leader in finding innovative solutions for institutional document delivery needs. IE is the document provider of choice for a host of U.S. Fortune 500 companies and major academic institutions and serves the needs of more than 1,000 corporate clients representing approximately one million end-users through its IEOnline customized order management platform.