MeetingoftheMinds.org

A digital platform supporting publishing, reports, events, and programs for the non-profit organization Meeting of the Minds.

As the Director of Product for Meeting of the Minds, I worked on MeetingoftheMinds.org for 10 years.

When I joined in 2012, the company had already established itself as a source for thought leadership and events in the urban sustainability space, and was seeking to increase its impact and revenue potential by building a digital platform and establishing a formal marketing strategy.

Situation

My first task, and something I continued to iterate on for the next 10 years, was to build the company’s website. The requirements for the creation of the company website included:

A website that could be built and maintained entirely by staff, as no budget existed for a web development team to build it.
Visually, the website needed to be able to compete with other organizations in the urban sustainability niche, which included well-funded foundations and venture capital-backed start-ups.
The information architecture needed to be adaptable to the organization’s changing programs and events.
As an organization focused on thought leadership, the website would need to be able to accomodate long articles, PDF reports, videos, and events.

Task

Information Architecture

Through a variety of 1:1 stakeholder interviews and user surveys, I collaborated with leadership to design an information architecture that included eight high-level topics. These topics were a useful construct upon which to base our information architecture, align our team internally, create consistent messaging externally, and to better understand our users. I designed the brand’s color pallette and iconography to reflect these eight topics, and I wove them into the taxonomy of the website.

Users

The Meeting of the Minds audience was a cross-sectoral, cross-disciplinary group of leaders focused on the future of sustainable, equitable cities. They ranged from politicians and city executives, to private sector vendors, to philanthropic funders, to non-profit and civic rights leaders. The diversity of perspectives and breadth of expertise were unified by an interest in emerging technology, best practices, and innovative urban initiatives. To best understand our users, we served frequent surveys our audience, conducted 1:1 interviews, collected quantitative data that reflected preferences for topics and format, and constantly adjusted our approach to best match the user needs and our business objectives.

Over the years, I developed a framework for website design that was based on five foundational questions:

Who is the user?
Where is the user?
What is the user trying to accomplish?
What is the main business objective?
If we are unable to accomplish our main business objective, what is the minimum acceptable business outcome?

Today, we’d call this standard UX design, but at the time this was a unique way to frame the product development process. The answers to these questions informed every aspect of the design of MeetingoftheMinds.org, and contributed to the success of both the platform and the organization as a whole.

I built the website using Wordpress, and relied on a UI design system that was part of the DIVI Wordpress theme. I customized sections of the website, as needed, using CSS, HTML, PHP and (sparingly) JavaScript modifications.

I owned all aspects of the website, including all of the copywriting, all visual design, and all server-side webmaster duties. I was also responsible for all digital marketing related to the property, which included a publishing platform, robust email marketing strategy, LinkedIn ads, and active social media channels.

Action

Wireframe

Final Production Page

At the end of my tenure, Meeting of the Minds had a custom website with over 1,000 pages, 600+ guest authors — as well as a CRM with 60,000 contacts, 30,000 active email subscribers, and durable branding. We’d increased revenue by 500%.

Results

You have come to this page in my portfolio to better understand my design process and skills, which I hope the above context has given you. A collection of screenshots of webpages is unlikely to give you a good understanding of whether these were the right designs, or whether they employed an effective digital strategy. Nevertheless, I do want to provide you with examples of production-grade webpages that I designed and deployed, and I hope the following screenshots give you a sense my aesthetics and experience.

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