Tom Coates Email & Phone Number

San Francisco, Ca, Us

New product development, design and product consultancy for a variety of clients including: Jawbone, Nokia, Weiden & Kennedy, Massive Health, Lanyrd, Burner & Scenery.video. Work includes:- leading design (as part of Product Club) for a caffeine-tracking app for Jawbone which was downloaded over 500,000 times in the first month;- multiple engagements with Nokia including work on using their data, algorithms and machine learning to produce live and automatically-generated city guides and location-collection and sharing apps;- leading design for the health-start-up Massive Health including creating the designs for the first and second versions of The Eatery project;- consultancy for Weiden & Kennedy on projects relating to Nike;- being a start-up advisor for the conference start-up Lanyrd, which sold to Eventbrite in mid-2013;- new product development work (concept, design and positioning) for phone privacy app Burner;- new product development and design work for collaborative video-editing product Scenery.video

Co-founded Verse Communications to build an open and radically decentralized and humane alternative to Facebook (named Planetary) built on the Secure Scuttlebutt protocol with the business model focused on supporting content producers via Patreon/Kickstarter-style patronage or paywalls. Secured $1.2m in pre-seed funding from Bloomberg Beta, Upside.vc and others to build out the first version of the app.• Co-developed the project's pitch, positioning, audience and business model• Took the project from idea, through funding and implementation to large scale beta release• Developed and ran the product roadmap and co-engineering managed • Responsible for user and audience research, naming & trademark, and branding processes• Designed the information architecture and visual design of the application and website• Wrote user rules, privacy and abuse and moderation policies specific for decentralized software

San Francisco, California, Us

Acquired into Eero to support their exploration into smart-home products and to work on their second major product line after wifi, which was to be a whole-home safety and security system codenamed 'Hive'. Worked as the product lead on the software side of the Hive project, working to define and implement the software experience alongside the Head of Product, Head of Design and Head of Hardware.

Co-founded the company looking after all the product and design functions from its creation in June 2014 to its acquisition by Eero in 2017. This included product strategy, information architecture, visual and interaction design on both web and iPhone app. Engaged in extensive business development, fundraising pitches, partner relations. Ran legal side of the company, handling everything from founding the company to business contracts and patent submissions. Managed relations with branding consultancies and design contractors. Handled PR. Thington was a concierge for smart homes and offices that helps people control all their devices, share access with their friends and find new ways that their things can work together. As seen in the Financial Times, Daily Mail, Buzzfeed and many others.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

When the location-sharing project Fire Eagle graduated to the Mapping team, my responsibilities shifted to running Yahoo's User Location Strategy - focusing on ways to capture user locations and use it to enhance Yahoo's services and advertising. As part of this work, I took over as PM of the LocDrop universal User Location storage platform for Yahoo, working with a team in Bangalore India to deliver a location-focused data store. I was also responsible also for a Universal Location Widget that allow access to LocDrop-stored locations across Yahoo's services.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Yahoo Brickhouse was an incubator inside Yahoo charged with developing new product ideas with small teams. I was brought in after about a year to develop the product ideation process and act as 'Head of Product' for the team, as well as to develop and run the Fire Eagle location-sharing project from idea to launched beta through to GA. Also responsible for advising on project directions and potential acquisitions.

Sunnyvale, Ca, Us

Looking after a small rapid prototyping and tech evangelism / internal consultancy team in London concentrating on social software/media and web of data-related things. Developing product ideas through to fully functional prototypes. Prototypes included Yahoo! Fire Eagle and projects concerned with media sharing that received patents. Also co-organised the London Yahoo/BBC Hack Day with Matthew Cashmore of the BBC.

London, England, Gb

Ran an R&D team at BBC Radio and Music Interactive. Initially focused on exploring potential areas of product development within the department, I moved on to writing the strategy for a team of 120 and jointly running the 20+ person Programme Information Pages project with R&M from initial concept through to the roll-out of Radio 4's site - co-running the project with a representative of Central New Media. Projects through the initial period included work on broadcasting Java Applets through Digital Radio, creating new social experiences around online media and creating new services for the recognition and bookmarking of songs through mobile phones. The Programme Information Pages project had a life of its own after I left and eventually became /programmes/ - the BBC's complete repository of information about broadcast programming. In addition to this work inside the department, we were also responsible for representing the forward thinking work we were doing outside the department and the BBC, at conferences and elsewhere.

• Developing ground-breaking geo-coded community site UpMyStreet Conversations• Designed the social software, user-interface/navigation and moderation components of the system• Led the team of programmers and designers from rough concept through to beta and full release versions of the site• Managed the nascent community and trained other staff in the long-term management of the site• Worked with commercial teams to develop business applications

London, England, Gb

The BBC was engaging in a 'culture-change programme' and they wanted to develop an in-house idea management system and discussion forum, and brought me in to develop it.• Developed three intranet components for the BBC's 'Making it Happen' culture-change programme.• Led small teams of in-house/freelance designers, programmers and editorial staff throughout the process• Developed a bespoke forum designed to encourage positive debate across the organisation, aid knowledge-sharing and connect staff to information on the intranet• Designed and managed the production of a workflow-based ideas-management system• Restructured, redesigned and re-coded the existing static site to make it a useful parallel information resource.

• Writing for bbc.co.uk/films and the Time Out London Guide• HTML and design work for Avoid, Areas - working on sites including cabe.org.uk and designcouncil.org.uk• Developing site architecture, UI and design for a proposed network of sites teaching English in Europe and Africa for DSC• Site editor: thecelebnetwork.com / EMAP New Projects - helping to develop a prototype community site designed to create content for use in a proposed parallel TV series, and co-designing smaller sites for Heat magazine and J17.

London, England, Gb

Production & Design:• Managing department's project-based production schedule.• Design and build of new web templates for London and all other international city guides. Also Travel, Tickets & Shop sections and feature/supplement-based micro-sites.• Design / Management of all house ads and ad codes• Developing search-engine / directory strategiesCommunity:• Working with consultants to develop user-generated content systems for timeout.com/shopping - moderating subsequent content.Editorial:• Editing, writing and/or proofing web content.• Maintaining site, shop, tickets and city guide home pages• Preparation and distribution of syndicated content to clients.

London, England, Gb

Updating the "This Month" sections of 33 city guides daily, translating print city guides to online versions. Running in reviews, listings and articles from Time Out Magazine, maintaining home pages and features for timeout.com and neonlit.com

London, England, Gb

Researching and compiling film credits for the Time Out Film Guide. Reformatting, subbing, proofing and writing reviews. Editing 60-page "London Life" guide - compiling listings, writing/editing/commissioning reviews, producing picture lists.

Postgraduate Certificate, Periodical Journalism

Phd, Classics

Ba Hons, Classics