Mark Bernhardt
Business Analyst, Experience Architect, and Small Business Owner in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Mark Bernhardt
Business Analyst, Experience Architect, and Small Business Owner in Kenosha, Wisconsin
Man at Work
I'm a career student/practitioner of how customer service, design, PR, social media & Web support brand.
I enjoy looking at a need or a problem and coming up with a creative solution. I invest in the relationships formed with clients–and in helping them, in turn, establish and nurture relationships with their customers and clients. I've shared conference and dinner tables with (E/S)VPs and directors of major corporations, as well as with local entrepreneurs who have big aspirations. There was a time, for a decade or so, that an auto/home/life/health insurance mailing you received from one of the name brands in the US likely originated from software-as-a-service I built or managed—or both. (You're welcome.) I've also built an intellectual property lifecycle management system, from ideas to patents, for a multi-national company based right here in my hometown.
I got started on the Web as an undergraduate, when a mathematics professor led a seminar for his colleagues and asked if I'd like to join. That day I created my first page and I was hooked. As a grad student, I built a small website on the physics department's subdomain and populated it with office hours, quiz previews/averages and other helpful resources for my students. After grad school, I devoured books and whatever else I could find on user interface and user experience design. Opportunities in those first 18 months took me from Manhattan, Kansas, to... well, that other Manhattan.
Life's Work: Life, Itself
Speaking of big aspirations, I've devoted time away from work to a passion for music, especially as a fan and friend to indie musicians. I greatly admire the singer-songwriter-storyteller type and have helped with promotion—social and grassroots—both before and after release. I've also successfully helped fund new releases.
I cook, I hike, I write, I travel, I experience life. I live by the motto, "Love is. Love does. Be Love." There's much more to my story, one I would tell over coffee or wine.
[And yes, "doohicky" is a technical term. Ask me when we meet for that drink. Toon by JC Little, The Animated Woman.]