Christian Crumlish

Author of The Power of Many: How the Living Web is Transforming Business, Politics, and Everyday Life). <http://thepowerofmany.com/>
Curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library.
I founded Mediajunkie.com, a digital media agency that consults with creative talent to help them produce and distribute their work across multiple media formats and advises social media startups on their go-to-market strategies.
I am on the board of directors of the Information Architecture Institute, and helped found East Bay for Democracy (I host the CivicSpace site for the group). I am also on the advisory committee for MAPlight.org, and am an advisor for NewAssignment.net.
I've consulted in the arena of web-application design and development for such Fortune 500 companies as FedEx, SanDisk, Schwab, Kodak, Sprint, Visa, and Sun, among others, generally on matters of web strategy, information architecture, interaction design, content strategy, content development, information design, interfaces / user experience process flows, and knowledge management.
I've written, edited, agented, and published bestselling technical books (from Mastering Windows to The Internet for Busy People).
I like improving user interfaces and I understand the tradeoffs involved.
I can write sparkling copy ... or if you don't want it to sparkle, hey, it won't.

Specialties
Writing, web strategy, user experience design, pattern recognition, customer experience direction, information architecture, digital media production and distribution, communications strategy, content management, social networking, blogging, wiki, knowledge management, interactive design, additional buzzwords available on demand.

Experiences

• Yahoo! : 01/2007 - Present
  Pattern Detective
  I'm a pattern recognizer. As curator of Yahoo's internal design pattern library (and terms library), and of the public pattern library at developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/, my role, in the Platform Design group, involves detecting and discerning effective design patterns, documenting them, promoting them, consulting with product teams internally to leverage these patterns, and evangelizing the pattern library to the Internet community at large.
• The Information Architecture Institute : 10/2006 - Present
  Director of Technology
  I am an elected member of the board of directors of the IA Institute. My portfolio gives me responsibility for the Institute's technical infrastructure, including its web presence and backend management systems. I am also involved in the planning and organization of the Institute's annual IDEA conference.
• Mediajunkie : 01/1998 - Present
  Founder
  Mediajunkie is a digital media agency. We provide consulting and production assistance in the development and distribution of digital media objects and applications, primarily on the world wide web.
  
  Recent clients include 5ive, Media Melon, Apple Computer, and Peter Seebach. I am on hiatus from the web development aspects of this consultancy because I have taken a position at Extractable. I am still representing literary clients and our Creative Director, Arthur Crumlish, is leading the firm's web and interactive design practice.
  
  More info at Mediajunkie.com.
• Sole Proprietorship : 06/1986 - Present
  Writer
  I am first and foremost a writer. Most of my other skills proceed from there.
• Extractable.com : 06/2005 - 01/2007
  Director of Strategic Services
  Web strategy consultant and user experience designer specializing in information architecture, content-management strategies, and related matters. Clients include Fortune 500 package delivery services, payment solutions, international software and hardware vendors, statewide trade unions, and international industrial suppliers. Primary work products include interaction designs; user interface wireframes; content inventories; taxonomy, metadata, and user-role/task matrices; strategy briefs; sitemaps, and nomenclature standards.
• Waterside : 02/1998 - 07/2005
  Literary Agent
  I represent a small, select group of writers, mostly technical people. I do their book deals and negotiate rights for other sorts of licenses.
  
  This ties in with my interests in publishing, writing, and electronic media.
  
  What I like best about being an agent is that networking and schmoozing are in the job description.
  
  I am not seeking new clients at this time, although I would be happy to refer writers to my colleagues at Waterside when appropriate.
• Dean for America : 2003 - 2004
  Volunteer
  I volunteered for the grassroots East Bay for Dean organizaton, set up the Oakland for Dean site, contributed to the open source DeanSpace project, participated in the Tech4Dean community, was precinct captain in Oakland, helped East Bay for Dean transition to a Democratic Party club called Easy Bay for Democracy, and set up and hosted the EB4D website.
• Open Publishing : 01/1992 - 11/2003
  Owner
  Formed as an entity for accounting purposes corresponding to my business as a writer, Open Publishing has also branched into ventures such as new media consulting, nanopublishing, and e-book publishing.
• Enterpulse : 10/2001 - 04/2002
  Senior Information Architect
  Enterpulse (Third Millennium Communications, Inc., based in Atlanta, Georgia - or rather Decatur) acquired Groundswell's assets, including me. While there I worked primarily on Visa projects and helped refine the CRM practice. I have done some contract work for Enterpulse since leaving their full employ in 2002.
• Groundswell : 03/2000 - 10/2001
  Senior Content Manager
  I led Groundswell's content practice. (Groundswell was originally known as Behrman IC.)
• Sybex : 08/1988 - 12/1992
  Editor
  I started at Sybex in 1988 as an editorial assistant in the special projects group. Many of the innovations our group pioneered - printed endpapers, "fast track" chapter summaries, iconic marginal notes, and so on - were quickly adopted by our competitors.
  
  After a few months I became an assistant editor, overseeing the revision of several titles, such as THE ABC's of TURBO PASCAL. I was subsequently promoted to copyeditor, and then editor, and ultimately to developmental editor, in which role I also did acquisitions. I developed and edited such titles as MASTERING WINDOWS, MASTERING WORDPERFECT, and MASTERING WORD. I also created the four-color QUICK & EASY series, and wrote the pilot book in the series, WORD QUICK & EASY to demonstrate the format. Books I edited sold millions of copies in total. I left at the end of 1992 to pursue freelance writing fulltime. (Sybex is now an imprint of Wiley).

Education

• Princeton University : September 1982-01-01 - June 1986-12-31
  A.B., Philosophy, September 1982 — June 1986
  Graduated sine laude, thesis in philosophy of language:
  "Is Metaphor Necessary for Communication?"
  Activities and Societies:
  Terrace Club, Nassau Weekly, Nassau Lit, Tone-Ales, Rugby Football Club