"Everything Your House Desires"sm
OurHouse.com was built to be the premiere home improvement site on the Internet. OurHouse offered over 40,000 home improvement products, home improvement and home management services, as well as information on completing fix-up projects for every room of the house. They were the e-commerce partner for Ace Hardware. Ace has over 5,100 stores and has been helping American consumers with their home improvement needs for over 75 years.
Tom Tresser was employee #17, hired in September, 1999 and worked at OurHouse until March, 2001.
I had a great time as part of the merchandise and marketing
team, led by Gary Briggs, one of the four founders of the
company.
Some of the projects I worked on:
WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
Managed
a team of catalog copywriters and helped to enhance
our online product catalog as we added thousands of new products
to the site. Wrote basic administrative material for the
site: About Us, Privacy Policy, First Time Visitor's Guide,
FAQs, 110% Guarantee, etc.
CUSTOMER LOYALTY
I
authored a number of proposals for innovative business-building
and merchandising initiatives, such as OurHouse
University, The Wired Home, The Earth Friendly Home and
The Accessible Home. A special initiative was OurHouse Radio,
a concept for an original weekly one-hour streaming media
show containing news, music, entertainment and promotions.
Listen
to the demo I wrote, produced and announced.
It has news, music, an interview with Mr. Fix-It and a guest
announcer from OurHouse’s technical staff. This a 11MB
audio file that will download and then play using your
media player. Thanks to the folks at AudioSpark.
BRANDING
Championed
and managed the publishing and marketing of company's first
book, "Mr. Fix-It's 101 Answers to the Most Commonly Asked
Questions About Repairing Your Home," by Lou Manfredini.
This was the first product sold by OurHouse -- several weeks
before they went live! Lou became our spokesman and
brand ambassador, appearing as a regular contributor to The
Today Show and USA Today Weekend. Visit
Lou's website
PROMOTIONS
Worked
on developing promotions and copy for OurHouse.com's sponsorship
of the 2000 Citrus Bowl.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS
Developed
a community affairs capacity for our company: connecting
to local civic and industry-related organizations, drafted
proposal for a charitable giving policy and encouraging employees
to take leadership roles in community organizations. Served
on the Digital Divide Committee of the Mayor's
Council of Technology Advisors -- wrote a proposal to
create a network of neighborhood technology centers in Chicago. This
proposal has received a $3 million grant and is being
developed by the Information Technology Resource Center.
Interested
in learning more about the Digital Divide and efforts to
solve this problem? The
Digital Divide Network is a good place to start.
Read an essay
on the Internet and social change.
BRICKS-AND-CLICKS
Part
of a team that worked to roll out interactive kiosks, or
Home Solutions Stations, in a limited number of Ace retail
stores. Created training materials (including the Pocket
Pal, designed to fit in the vest of the store associates)
and built a web site, www.kiosksupport.com, to assist with
the deployment.
