Divine was a massively funded "incubator" for high-tech companies. It was started by tech billionaire, Andrew J. "Flip" Filipowski and a Board of Directors that included William Wrigley and Michael Jordan (yes, the basketball player). In 2000-2001, Divine acquired 52 companies (over 50,000 people), including Web Design Group, Inc.

It was a good idea except that only two of the companies they bought were profitable - Web Design Group and one other small firm. After the market crashed, and Divine's IPO fell flat, there was no way to stop the bleeding. They shed 30,000 employees in a year and eventually folded in 2004.

I worked for Divine's marketing and professional services group, originally formed to serve the interactive, brand and marketing needs of their larger acquisitions (mainly enterprise software companies). Despite the carnage around us we managed to drum up plenty of interesting work from new and existing clients.

ROLES:

Developed e-commerce architectures and strategies for business-to-business and business-to-consumer applications.

Managed a 20 person creative team developing interactive web sites for demanding clientele.

Wrote and delivered client reports and creative briefs.

Participated in sales pursuit.

Art direction, interface design and programming.

Produced corporate brand and marketing materials.

Involved in focus group studies and usability testing.