Elbert Hideki McLaughlin
350 Prince Arthur West, Montréal, Québec, Canada H2X 3R4
email: elbertmcl [at] yahoo.com
professional summary

Internet veteran with nearly a decade of product development, software engineering and management experience. Significant interest in elegant user experiences, large-scale e-commerce and content management systems, and innovation in online content sharing and digital media rights management.

experience

Managing Director, Strategy and Development
People Like Us Communications | Montreal, Quebec		 Mar 2007 - Present

Responsible for PLU Communications' business development roadmap, senior manager of PLU's technology and production teams, and chief strategy consultant advising clients with their online product development and internet marketing efforts.


Vice President and Cofounder
WEBCARGO.net | Montreal, Quebec		 Apr 2003 - Present

Chief Architect, Engineering and Product Management lead. Spearhead the development of new features, manage customer feedback and requests, management of software development through production release. WEBCARGO.net provides secure online delivery and distribution of large digital media assets via the web.


Consultant, Product Management
OPENDESK CORPORATION | Montreal, Quebec		 Aug 2002 - Jan 2003

Focused on feature refinements and usability improvements for flagship product, Opendesk Workspaces. Managed requirements gathering and specifications for the product development and engineering teams. Performed competitive analysis, gathered feedback from customers and end-users, incorporated feedback into the product development life-cycle. Opendesk is a provider of OEM email, calendaring and PIM solutions for multi-lingual workspace collaboration online and via wireless devices.


Consultant, Technical Product Management
BEMUSIC, BERTELSMANN | New York, New York		 May 2002 - Oct 2002

Re-designed the software architecture and streamlined user interfaces for several internal prototypes and product demos relating to online digital music delivery. Team lead for defining system requirements, managing the technical implementation and deployment of prototypes through multiple release cycles. Bemusic is the online music division of Bertelsmann AG.


Consultant, Applications Architect
OXYGEN MEDIA | New York, New York		 Oct 2000 - Oct 2001

Served as software architecture lead and product development advisor during a year-long transition to migrate all web properties to an enterprise caliber, asset managed, dynamic content publishing system. Defined software development best-practices and editorial content publishing workflows, and coordinated concurrent engineering efforts in New York, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco. Oxygen Media is a cable television network and internet destination for women.


Consultant, Product Management
MYPLAY INC | Redwood City, California		 Jul 2000 - Sep 2000

Shaped business development and marketing ideas into tangible requirements, championed product vision, authored product design specifications and managed the development of new features through deployment. Delivered numerous site enhancements, system optimizations, and partnership launches requiring technical system integration work. Myplay pioneered the online mp3 music locker space and was acquired by Bertelsmann in 2001.


Director of Application Development
SKYMALL.COM | New York, New York		 Feb 1999 - Mar 2000

Managed the engineering teams that built and maintained the SkyMall e-commerce web site and stand-alone applications. Co-architected a distributed, multi-tier middle-ware transaction engine, hired and managed the web presentation layer engineering team, coordinated development efforts in New York and Phoenix, AZ, managed the build out of the development, staging and production environments, setup a software release cycle and managed the build, QA, acceptance and deployment of weekly software releases. SkyMall, best known for its in-flight shopping catalogs, was acquired by Gemstar in 2001.


Lead Developer, Advanced Technologies Group
Technical Producer, Music Community Sites
N2K INC / CDNOW.COM | New York, New York		 Mar 1997 - Feb 1999

Programmer and technical lead for N2K's flagship music artist and e-commerce web properties. Integrated collaborative filtering into the e-commerce platform for personalized recommendations, built and maintained community message boards and chat systems, implemented streaming audio frameworks for live concert "web-casting" and radio streams, built numerous administrative tools, developed a client-server software "bridge" to enable content presentation via enhanced-CD media combined with live web content. N2K merged with the online music retailer CDNOW in 1999, and was subsequently acquired by Bertelsmann in 2000.


technologies

Programming Languages and Tools
Java, Objective-C, C, Perl, Unix Shell Scripting, AppleScript, CVS, VSS, StarTeam, Numerous IDEs.

Web Application Development
Client-side: HTML, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript, VBScript.
Front/Middle-tiers:   ASP, JSP, PHP, XML-RPC, SOAP, Dynamo, WebObjects/EOF.
Back-end: Oracle, SQL Server, OpenBase, MySQL, Interwoven.
Servers: Apache, IIS.

Third Party Solutions Integration
Ad Serving: AOL Ad Server, Double-Click.
Analytics: Accrue, Analog, InsightFirst (RealMedia), Webalizer, WebTrends.
Search Services: Google, Inktomi, Verity.
Caching Services: Akamai, Savvis, Speedera.

Media Applications
Photoshop, Illustrator, Director, Final Cut Pro, Logic Audio, Pro Tools.

Productivity Applications
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, Outlook, Project.

Operating Systems
Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Windows NT.


education

M.A. McGill University (1997) | Montreal, Quebec
Music, Media & Technology (MMT) Graduate Program: Computer Applications in Music.

B.M. Oberlin College (1995) | Oberlin, Ohio
Technology In Music And Related Arts (TIMARA) and Classical Piano Performance (double-major).


personal

Fluent in Japanese, beginner level French, avid international "shoestring" traveler, accomplished musician, composer for independent film and theatre, independent audio producer and sound engineer, scuba diving, snow boarding and sushi addict.


(references available upon request)