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Biography
Welcome to my little corner of
cyberspace. My name is Anthony
Hand. I graduated in the spring
of 1999 from the University of Michigan School
of Information with a Master's degree in Information
Science.
In January, 2007, I joined a tiny mobile software startup called iSkoot in Cambridge, MA. Yes, "iSkoot" is a silly name, but the cool thing is that you can not only see your list of buddies on your cell phone, but you can also press your phone’s green “Call” key and talk to them immediately — even if they’re sitting in front of their PC halfway around the world. All thanks to the magic of Skype. (And hopefully soon, some other IM service partners…) That’s pretty cool!
Before iSkoot, I used to work in Nokia’s Enterprise Solutions group, specifically on software for the Mobile Solutions Unit (MSU). The products I worked on at MSU included Intellisync Mobile Suite, an email and enterprise communications product, and Intellisync Call Connect, a PBX-to-your-mobile-phone product.
Previous gigs were at answerthink Consulting Group in Boston and Argus Associates in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
"What is a User Experience Designer?" you may ask. Good question! My "cocktail party" answer is that I design software for mobile phones from a wide variety of different manufacturers. I've designed "mobile experiences", as a former boss once said, for software that works on Nokia S40, S60, UIQ, Windows Mobile SmartPhone and PocketPC, Palm OS, BlackBerry, and Java (J2ME). My job is a lot of fun overall. iSkoot makes software for a bunch of different devices and we keep a growing library of devices in the office. So I can put my SIM card into a Motorola RAZR today, a Nokia E61 tomorrow, a Sony-Ericsson K610i for the weekend, and a BlackBerry 8800 next week. What can I say? I’m a tech geek and I love it!
In Master's school, I studied Human-Computer Interaction. My interests lie in cross-platform mobile user interface design, information architecture, software evaluation, usability, user interface design and prototyping. For the past several years, I've really enjoyed focusing on designing sofware for mobile phones. Please see my updated resume.
Vanity,
Vanity, Vanity...
In June 2007, I gave a day-long
workshop on the topic of cross-platform design for mobile phones, sponsored by the local Boston chapter of the Usability Professionals Assn. and held at Bentley College. I'm planning on repeating
the workshop in October at DocTrain East, a regional conference for technical writers. In the not too distant past, I gave a talk
on the Kano Model to the Boston chapter of the UPA at their spring
2004 mini-conference. That was a lot of fun and I look forward to more
public talks as the inspiration strikes.
The School of Information alumni magazine wrote an article about my internship at the World Bank. It's a nice article, so I've posted it here (with permission) as the magazine doesn't post their articles online. I like to call the photo they took my "glamour pose" -- everyone at school says I look like I'm posing for a men's clothing catalog. All I can say is that of all the poses I did, I have no idea why the editor chose this one for some reason. Frustrated fashion photographer, perhaps? Or am I dreaming?
Personal
History
A
little biographical information about myself:
I grew up on a farm in the quaint little village of Onsted in the Irish Hills of southeastern Michigan.
I graduated from James Madison College
at Michigan
State University in 1992 with a degree in International Relations
and Russian Language, and an unofficial minor in Japanese studies.
Then I moved to Washington, DC, and worked for Youth For Understanding International Exchange. YFU is one of the three largest high school exchange student organizations, sending kids hither and yon to more than 30 countries around the world. I worked as an Admissions Counselor helping American kids through the applications process.
In the summer of 1993, I flew off to Japan on the JET Program. After my time with JET finished, I spent three months in the summer of 1996 jetting around the world. I traveled around Asia, Europe, and a few points on the American East Coast. In January 1997, I moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and worked for the University until starting a full-time graduate program in the fall of 1997. I returned to Washington, DC for a summer internship in 1998, and then returned to the University of Michigan to finish up grad school. After graduation, I worked for Argus Associates in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for just under a year as an Information Architecture consultant. (Unfortunately, Argus closed its doors in 2001.) In March of 2000, I decided it was time for a change of scenery and took the job offer with answerthink in Boston. After surviving about halfway through the dotcom crash, answerthink laid me off in 2002. Since then, I've started my own software company, FloSpace. I worked for awhile at MassHealth to pay the rent.
In the summer of 2004, I joined SavaJe, a startup company attempting to make an operating system in Java to compete against the likes of Windows Mobile and the Palm OS. When SavaJe started collapsing, I jumped ship to Nokia in the fall of 2005. Nokia was a great place to work and I learned a lot. Working in the mobile industry is fun -- and it helps that I love technology gadgets!
Your comments and suggestions for improving this little web site are welcome and encouraged. Please contact me at anthony@handaweb.com.