Continuing our series of ‘Meet the Team’ blogs here’s Warren, our gentle giant and leading edge front end developer. With many years experience coding innovative creations, Warren is the go-to guy for building interactive email within the company.
Inquisitive and experimental by nature, he loves nothing more than getting his teeth into new responsive email template challenges, searching for new and interesting ways to make HTML emails just that extra bit special. When he’s not working he’s a music and gaming enthusiast which further fuels his techy passion and creativity. Here’s what he had to say during his interview:
Q: What’s the best bit about your job?
The freedom it offers! Being able to experiment with code, trying out new tools and techniques is what drives me. My job is so varied, one minute I could be working on a website or landing pages, the next focussing on building an automated email nurture track, data manipulation or report creation – there’s never a dull moment.
I particularly enjoy being able to influence projects from the initial ideas stage right through to final reporting and analysis. And I love the fact that my opinion always counts, it really boosts self-worth.
Q: What’s it like working with the 1973 team?
Just great! Everyone works so well together, we make an awesome team. We have a complete mix of skills, experience and backgrounds so we all bring something different to the pot. If I have a challenge, there is always someone available to spare a few moments to brainstorm ideas and offer advice, that’s why we’re such a close-knit team.
1973 is a smallish team and that’s what makes it so inclusive. We’re not treated as a number, we’re treated as valued individual, something you rarely find in big corporates.
Q: What projects are you most proud of?
There are 2 projects that immediately spring to mind which I really enjoyed building. I felt immense pride when I saw the end results, receiving fantastic feedback about the quality and the complexity of the coding involved.
The first was for a large global client campaign, an interactive email titled ‘Say Yes to the Drive’, a spinoff from the TV programme ‘Say Yes to the Dress’. At the time this was really cutting-edge and ahead of the game, involving an interactive shopping cart allowing recipients to select a product and colour from within the email, before proceeding to checkout with the selected item automatically being added to their cart online.
This took a lot of work, but people were wowed by it. We even presented it to the techy geeks at the annual 2016 Litmus conference to explain the workings of the email and the thought processes behind its development. Their reaction is something I will always remember as a proud moment and confirmation of my skills.
The second was a ‘super cool’ project for our own marketing purposes, an animated and interactive Christmas email. This took our learnings to a new level, allowing email recipients to turn on\off various elements within the email including falling snow and flashing lights. It was really nice to produce something with our own brand name on to shout about and demonstrate what we actually do.
Q: What’s next for your role?
One of my hobbies outside of work is co-presenting a radio show. To do this well I’ve had to refine and accomplish effective ways of communicating with a very diverse audience and I am looking to bring in my newfound skills to benefit 1973. The plan is to deliver technical focused webinars and training sessions to benefit all those interested. Whether it be a freelancer, SME or large organisation, if they’re looking to enhance their technical coding know how, this is for them – watch this space!
In addition, as the company expands my role will become more technical enabling me to develop into a more senior role, sharing skills and expertise as well as supporting and guiding more junior members of the team.
