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r e f e r e n c e s
References from clients, employers and employees:
"Christina Cheney is one of the best , most thorough and reliable people I have ever hired. She joined my Internet company , Studio Verso, at the ground level and played a key role in delivering our largest projects on time and on budget. Christina was personally responsible for accounts like Lucent, Sony, Office Depot, and countless others. She took a particular interest in strategy and branding, helping us raise the value of our services to clients. Her work helped us position the company for acquisition by KPMG. She knows she can count on my support for a long time to come because she earned my respect and admiration. I'm proud of what she's accomplished."
- David Siegel, Founder, Studio Verso
"I am extremely impressed with your team, both personally and professionally...so is the rest of my organization. It is a tribute to your leadership. "
- Michael Parsells, CEO, Executive World
"Christina is a kick-ass, skilled, iron fist in a velvet glove, smart amazing account manager with a pinpoint business eye."
- Mary Lukanuski, IA Consultant
"Christina Cheney is one of the great sources of both insight and practical experience in the success of the Internet. She is one of the bona fide founders of the discipline of strategic Internet management, and, because that discipline is still in its infancy, it is still too rare to get to work with people like Christina who really know not only what they are doing, but why they should be doing it when it comes to truly strategic initiatives.
She gets people to really collaborate. I have seen many professionals in the fields of visual design, interaction design, information architecture, user analysis and marketing research, project management, technical analysis, engineering, QA and management really educated and energized by working with Christina.
She has worked, from the beginnings of the Internet, on projects in all areas: consumer and intranet, heavily branded and highly functional, commerical and non-profit, small and large. Whatever she worked on, she did something major--she was a major player who not only saw everything that worked and everything that didn't, but pushed past any status quo assumptions to get to the bottom of what was happening, why it was happening, and where that was leading things."
- Jay Fienberg, Information Architect, CSAA (worked for Christina at Simmedia)
"When I first interviewed with Christina she showed me some of the work and her process, and I was very impressed. After about 1 hour of talking with her, I came right out and said 'I never say this in an interview, but I really, really want to work here.' After that brief dialogue, I sensed in her what 99% of employers, or managers, or bosses, all seem to lack. Simply put, it's true integrity, coupled with vision and style. Christina manages to bring about great success and positive results for those who work with her.
She believes passionately that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to learn or to do. She brings tremendous amounts of energy, insight and clarity to a project. She listens, she's open, she has great judgment and makes smart, balanced decisions. She inspires others to work hard, because she works just as hard with them to achieve the goal and the common good. She makes work feel like fun through her humor, style and grace, and constant acknowledgement of others."
- Paul Shannon, Senior Producer, MBC (worked for Christina at Simmedia)
"It has been a great pleasure working with Christina and the team at Simmedia. The input, recommendations and creative support was outstanding. I particularly appreciated the insight you brought to the table as it pertained to developing our user models, which laid the foundation for our future efforts in regards to personalization. It was refreshing to work with someone who listened and gave pointed suggestions rather than follow the cookier cutter approach of one site fits all."
- Wendy Wilson, VP Ebusiness, JP Morgan Chase
"Simmedia has a rare understanding of both the user's needs and the backend requirements; the interface they created for our procurement application was both user-friendly and easy to integrate."
- Grady Hall, Internet Director, fob.com
"The design Simmedia developed has charm and still addresses that brand problem of being seen as a tech brand. It does it! Plus, the new items listing makes this a truly useful site, not just window dressing. And your layout makes the content feel agreeable and accessible. Plus, it makes us do the right thing with that content: Keep it short, punchy, clear."
- Bob Lindstrom , Project Consultant, IDG Books
"Christina Cheney is one of those truly dynamic speakers who engages her audience. Her ability to transform her unique knowledge of digital design and functional strategy and implementation into an easy to understand and compelling story is powerful. With Christina, often difficult and abstract concepts that leave most of us confused are explained so well that no matter what your background is, you really walk away having learned something from her. That is something I cannot say for the majority of presenters out there."
- Scott Van Valkenburgh, Dir Business Development, SAS
"Christina Cheney has the instinctive ability to understand and provide insights on the key issues concerning her audience. She is extremely adept at adapting her extremely valuable experiences to situations in diverse world markets in different stages of their evolution. Time and money well spent indeed."
- Shael Sharma, Chief Knowledge Officer, Mphasis
Christina Cheney is an outstanding instructor in the San Jose State University Professional Development (SJSU-PD) E-Commerce Management (ECM) Certificate Program. She typically ranks in the top 90% of faculty. The students love her and spread good news about her to each other. Christina stays on top of the subject matter and brings real-life examples to her lectures. This coupled with good complementary training material and an enthusiastic approach makes her a valuable asset to our program.
- Mitchell Levy, Founder and Program Consultant for the SJSU E-Commerce Certificate Program
"This class was excellent! Christina had much more relevant information to current industry trends. "
- San Jose State University student
"Loved it! I will take all of Christina's classes! "
- San Jose State University student
"Christina Cheney was my favorite instructor in the E-Commerce Management Certificate program at San Jose State University. She has invaluable insight into the industry and is able to convey concepts and ideas in an compelling and entertaining way. I was on the edge of my seat!"
- San Jose State University student, Leonardo Soto
"I just wanted to congratulate you and thank you once more for the classes. Your insight in the issues is very valuable for the company I am starting. "
- San Jose State University student
"Simmedia's design approach was fast, effective and elegant. Their insight into our business requirements helped us to deliver our hosted Customer Service applications on schedule. "
- Taraneh Derak, CEO, Yube
"I wanted to make sure that you knew how strongly we felt about the gorgeous design you came up with for our website. While we may have "visions" about what we want our company to be and the role we are to fulfill, it takes a truly gifted and talented team to be able to translate that vision into a reality that conveys our feelings, emotions and purpose. It is a very difficult task to be able to meet a customer's requirements, especially when they themselves don't even know what they want. I just want to say "thank you" for coming up with a brilliant design that works on so many different levels but most importantly "connects" with what we are trying to do with our company. It's been a great collaborative experience!"
- Mable Yee, Ceo, Kiracom
"BigBow worked with Simmedia to design and develop our e-commerce website. We had a challenging logo which the Simmedia design team skillfully integrated into a successful online brand and a seamless user interface. We were impressed with Simmedia's methodology and their attention to detail. Simmedia helped us manage a very aggressive timeline and enabled us to launch an outstanding website on time and on budget."
- Ann French, former VP Marketing, BigBow
"Because we're an ASP, the business problems we address involve both our customers and their customers. Simmedia's design approach was very effective and their insight into our business requirements helped us to deliver our hosted Customer Service applications on schedule. In addition, our customers really enjoy working with the well thought out screen designs and application flow that Simmedia designed for us."
- Kent Laux , Director, Product Marketing, Yube
christina@christinacheney.com (310) 457-3007