Mad Hatter Technology

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Marketing Meets Technology Mad Hatter Technology specializes in digital media and technology solutions.

Developing for the Internet since 2001, the Mad Hatters are a team of passionate and experienced technology professionals dedicated to the design and development of high quality systems to solve modern marketing and communications problems.

In 2010, Mad Hatter Technology followed in the footsteps of Google and many technology companies and moved into the Tannery District.

We are happy to join in on the tech madness and have a wonderful warehouse space within the Tannery Technology Hub. We work alongside great people at associations and companies large and small, who are passionate about developing and cultivating innovation through the power of technology.

Mad Hatter is proud to call Waterloo Region home, and we work, live and play in the heart of Canada’s Technology Triangle. As a proud member of Communitech, we benefit greatly from the energy and ideas of the people, partners and friends we have within our technology friendly community.

Less than an hour west of Toronto, Ontario, a short hour and a half from the airport in Buffalo and three hours from Detroit, we are in the epicenter of Southwestern Ontario and just fifteen minutes from the 401.

While many of our competitors have favourite technologies, we continue to be platform agnostic for two reasons.

Firstly, we must always continue to learn and keep pace with technological innovations, which provide new marketing and communications opportunities for our clients.

Secondly, while solution scenarios for different projects may be similar, each client also has unique needs, and we must align ourselves with technology partners and products, which best fit the business and strategic objectives of our clients.

We treat the business of the technology decisions for our clients with the same care and passion we do our own technology strategies and choices.

Mad Hatter Team We’d like to introduce a few members of our client services team.

Mike Sage, Technology Director

A graduate of the University of Waterloo computer science program, Mike gained his development discipline and protocols from one of the most highly esteemed computer science programs in the world. In addition to comprehensive network administration experience, Mike’s programming skills and experience have evolved into a proficiency in front and backend development including HTML5, CSS3, java, XML, MySQL, SQL, PHP, JQuery, database development and systems integration.

A lead software developer for several companies in Waterloo in his early years, Mike was also a strategic alliance developer for Research In Motion working on mobile applications and systems integrations for Ticketmaster, Dominoes, Pizza Hut and Toys R Us. Mike continues to impress with his leadership skills and uses his experience to mentor, guide and direct all Mad Hatter technology developments. In addition to a key role directing programming, Mike has become senior technology consultant and a trusted advisor for many technology savvy corporations such as Nuvation, the Centre for International Governance and Innovation and the Balsillie School of International Affairs.

Melanie Witzell, Marketing Director Melanie provides technology consulting, marketing planning, branding strategy and creative direction for many public and private corporations.

Work with international brands, medium-to-large sized private enterprises and start up ventures, provides Melanie with a vast breadth of engagements.

Earlier work with a web services company created a foundation of experience in corporate B2B software solutions, online portals, auction and exchange technology. These early online trading and bidding marketplaces were complex, multimillion-dollar software platforms, which evolved into some of the first commodities marketplace exchanges across North America and Europe. Converging with this auction work were B2B and B2C projects in new media marketing solutions and content management systems for multinationals, which led to a career directing and facilitating combined marketing and technology solutions.

Client work includes interactive web and online campaign strategies for DuPont Canada & US, RCA Canada, Chemtura Corporation, Dimplex North America, Novartis & Syngenta Canada. A University of Waterloo science graduate, early undergraduate studies comprised of genetics and biotechnology, however, it was post graduate studies at the Wilfrid Laurier University School of Business, which led Melanie into sales with an Internet service provider (ISP), launching a career in technology. Recent projects include work with the Greater Toronto Airport Authority, Christie Digital, the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier.

Thomas Ang – Mobile Strategist Undergraduate studies for Thomas centred on mathematics and computer science at the University of Waterloo. Early postgraduate work included a role programming video games at Electronic Arts, prior to returning to the University of Waterloo for a master’s degree in algorithms and complexity theory. While completing his graduate studies, Thomas was in the first wave of students to live in VeloCity, UW’s revolutionary incubator residence.

VeloCity was where Thomas discovered his passion for technology businesses.

Learning under the guidance of mentors from large corporations like Rogers and Apple, as well as from organizations like Communitech and The Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship & Technology Centre, Thomas excelled in his place among the student technology entrepreneurs. While at VeloCity, Thomas began a business developing mobile applications for other companies, including a startup that went on the receive $3 million in funding and another which exceeded 50 million monthly active users over all of its apps. Thomas excels at understanding the needs of his clients, developing strategies to meet those needs, and then communicating those requirements to the development teams.

Asim Siddiqui – Business Analyst

After graduating from the University of Toronto in 2004 with a degree in Computer Science, Asim quickly advanced to working for multinational companies in Information Technology. A Systems Administrator for HewlettPackard, Asim found himself in high demand and moved on to become a Systems Programmer for Ryerson University. Asim’s proficiency in the management of systems and data led him to become a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Research In Motion. Working with and reporting to senior level management, Asim developed intelligence reports for a vast array of departments and systems, condensing disparate data into mission critical dashboards crucial to operations and key management decisions.

Asim is a highly organized and charismatic leader who inspires with his expertise, strong moral ethics and professional values. As an entrepreneur and in his spare time, Asim founded WizeNation, a location-based bulletin board aimed at connecting local online communities together. At Mad Hatter, Asim uses his ability to accurately document scope and specifications, combined with his abilities in data and analytics, to play a key role in making sure development teams hit key milestones, specifications, timelines, and budgets.

Experience

Challenge With almost 1000 employees providing public services to our region, the Waterloo Regional Police Services website needs to align with the vision of the executive office, management, key partners and stakeholders.

The solution needs to provide immediate mass communications to the general public and the media, and address the needs of the individual divisions and branches, which all provide vastly different services.

Fresh Advice With limited resources internally for website administration, one technology solution can push information to multiple channels. New creative can help position the organization to attract and recruit new talent to the region.

Mad Idea With so much information to push out daily, social media is integrated to include an automated push to a twitter channel, while RSS automates news feeds, and the video Vault integrates the You Tube channel. The “How Do I?” and “Help Me Find” help users navigate a large site and Google translate creates multilingual website. The site was built in accordance to disabilities compliance. The public relations team has the ability to publish quick e-bulletins with the integrated mass mailing solution, all within the same system.

Sweet Success "The team demonstrates tremendous skill in guiding us through the complicated process of setting up our website, by drawing out important information about our vision for our organization, how we want to be perceived by our clients and how to improve our marketing using the internet."

Olaf Heinzel Media & Public Affairs Waterloo Regional Police Service www.wrps.on.ca

Challenge The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), and international think tank on global governance needed a complete overhaul of its primary website, requiring specific content management programming expertise.

Fresh Advice Mad Hatter developed related sections for the homepage, feature sections, events and videos. Tag clouds were developed and coincided with complex database driven publication and archive sections.

Mad Idea The system was developed in such a way so as to employ custom views and modules to filter articles from vast data repositories, which built significant efficiencies. The subsequent data management and views provided from the system were the highlight of this custom development work.

Sweet Success Work with the Centre is ongoing and now also involves the evolution of the online solution for their African portal. www.cigionline.com www.africaportal.org

Challenge Nuvation Research Corporation required a B2B focused website which would service the vast array of audiences within the ecosystem of electronic design services.

Fresh Advice Let’s engage your team of senior executive and sales directors to provide insights on prospects, competitors and partners in the marketplace. Sales intelligence and feedback will be valuable to the development process.

Mad Idea A specific area known as the Garage was created to allow engineers an area to view projects designed in the after hours. Innovation often happens during the time in which you are allowed to play with ideas and tinker with technology, and the garage allowed for these projects to be profiled.

Sweet Success The project included a brand “refresh� complete with identity development and guidelines documentation. The site redesign organized massive amounts of data, which needed to be easily navigated. We merged blog modules with a more traditional web layout to create a unique space for the Nuvation online community and its key stakeholders. The result was an easy to navigate, visually appealing website serving multiple audiences and key stakeholders. www.nuvation.com

Challenge The Balsillie School of International Affairs needs to deliver a website for the launch of The Armageddon Letters. With worldwide publicity and attention for this time sensitive launch aligned with the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, Mad Hatter was trusted to deliver the transmedia project to the Internet.

Fresh Advice With the creativity of this project being just as important as the user interface design, jQuery and javascript should be implemented wherever possible to a create fluid and entertaining website experience.

Mad Idea The project will consist of the book by James G. Blight and graphic novels by Andrew Whyte. Filmmaker Koji Masutani, director of Virtual JFK, is leading this transmedia project.

Sweet Success Launching in September 2012, the online account of the Cuban missile crisis will have John F. Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro blogging in ‘real time’ marking 50 years since the world stood still and watched its fate unfold in the hands of these three nations. www.armageddonletters.com

Marketing Meets Technology While our roots are in web services, the Mad Hatter technology lab expands the use of technology well beyond the World Wide Web, and below are some of our key services:

Mobile Application Development

Search Engine Optimization

Social Media & Intranet Platforms

Marketing Automation

Content Management Systems

Interactive Digital Display Technology

Custom Application Development

Web & Application Hosting

We align with marketing and communications strategies and find ways to make campaigns more manageable with marketing automation, and more interactive with mobile applications. We integrate digital media into communications solutions, design content management systems, create portals, develop intranets and integrate social media platforms.

There are many technical terms for what we do -- mass mailing systems, interfaced databases, customer relationship management software, search engine optimization, digital marketing channels -- but at the heart of it all, we provide new strategic marketing, communications and marketplace solutions powered by technology.