Alex Ball Email & Phone Number

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Baltimore, Maryland Area

As part of Mindgrub's WordPress development team, I work to build out effective, performant sites to the highest coding standards. We're so good at WordPress, in fact, that in 2019, Mindgrub became a WordPress VIP partner.Mindgrub unlocks human potential. We partner with our clients to create technology that people love to use, and that positions our clients as leaders in their industry. Since 2002, Mindgrub has led digital transformations for global leaders including Exelon, NASA, Wendy’s, Under Armour, Yamaha, Crayola, University of Maryland, The Smithsonian, and Discovery Communications.Mindgrub has deep expertise in marketing, strategy, design, and engineering. This expertise allows us to build award-winning campaigns, web and mobile experiences, and digital solutions that make peoples’ lives better, their jobs easier, and helps their businesses thrive.A member of the Inc. 5000 for eight years running, Mindgrub is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland with offices in New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Look, I love doing design work from the ground up. But in the majority of the projects I’m presented with, it’s not in the client’s best interests to pay for a complete bespoke design when they could purchase a great-looking and well-constructed theme for a fraction of the cost and use the leftover budget for deeper development and enhancement of their site. So as much as I like rolling up my sleeves and doing pure design work, I’m often compelled to steer people in a direction that maximizes their budget, even if it minimizes my design time.Case in point: I built Centofante.com using WordPress with an off-the-rack theme. Built around a searchable database of more than 15,000 magazine covers, this site uses a number of custom plugins, hooks, and actions to process data on saving and updating and returns lightning-fast results even when searching thousands of records. Did I mention this was built with WordPress? I like to push the limits of what people expect from WP. The client was thrilled to spend most of his budget on the database search, with an emphasis on performance, and use a modified prefab theme.

- Experience as a manager, supervising the web team’s production assistant- Helped oversee two separate major site migrations to Drupal—one from WordPress, the other from a static ASP site- Helped manage and contribute to a comprehensive theme and layout redesign, contributing direct content and feature development as well as acting as de facto project manager for external Drupal shop’s participation.- Led regular development work on Drupal and WordPress sites- Trained colleagues and other users on Drupal and WordPress systems, from casual users to administrators, and created documentation materials.- Responsible for domain and DNS management- Increased the efficiency of the email and landing page workflows using Bootstrap, third-party tools, and custom-built solutions.

- Successfully rescued publication’s website from a suboptimal, proprietary CMS and switched to Drupal.- Designed and developed a custom Drupal theme.- Leveraged scalability of Drupal to handle increased site traffic.- Performed a complete site redesign to accommodate increased content and create additional advertising opportunities.- Created and managed web-only content in order to complement print content and drive site traffic.- Single-handedly managed all day-to-day website-related tasks, as well as reporting to senior management on Google Analytics reports, site statistics, and strategic long-term thinking.- Set up and administered MailChimp and worked closely with marketing department to implement and use.- Implemented online advertising and trained sales team in principles of online advertising, using DFP as platform.- Developed custom microsites for company-related events and initiatives.- Routine server management.

- Was responsible for copyediting and proofreading all magazine editorial content, as well as final printer proof checks.- Managed house style guide, updated and created rules when necessary.- Wrote long-running bi-monthly “Big Wheels” car review column.- Authored multiple cover stories, including “Power Schools,” which generated landmark reader discussion and feedback.- Contributed writing to most large annual cover stories, including “Best of Baltimore,” “City Guide,” and others, as well as contributing to most list-type service pieces.

B.A., English, Writing

High School

Activities and Societies: Literary magazine, Speech and Debate Team, Tennis