Bruce Curtis
Product requirements, user manuals, documentation, and business plans are my specialties. I bring a wide range of industry and international experience and attention to detail without sacrificing high-level concepts and goals.
Local Availability: Available to meet locally in the Austin, Texas area; travel worldwide; and work remotely.
Media Experience
Print, Web, Braille
Biographical Note
I have more than eight years' experience writing product requirements and user manuals in a variety of subject areas. In addition, I've written several business plans for which I also developed the business concept and model and financial projections. I recently advised Pearson Education on a new online product, wrote the product requirements and content for sample pages, and supervised the design of sample screenshots.
Fields in which I have particular expertise include education data, online record exchange, printing, prototype development, building/construction trades, braille, and nonprofit organizations.
As Director of Product Management and Marketing at the National Transcript Center (NTC), a company offering online exchange of electronic transcripts, I wrote, edited, and proofread a wide range of items (see below), often turning technical and data-intensive content into plain English. I also performed extensive and highly successful search engine optimization (SEO).
I studied engineering and history at Columbia University and later earned an MBA with high honors from Babson College (ranked #1 for entrepreneurship by U.S. News and World Report 17 years in a row).
My international experience includes studies in Kenya and France; work in Sri Lanka, Haiti, and China; and extensive personal travel throughout North America, western Europe, and south Asia. In addition, I have worked with developers in India and factory managers in China throughout much of my U.S.-based experience with writing and project management.
I have advanced language skills (but I'm not fluent) in Spanish and French.
Published Writings
Fourteen user guides and ten product requirements documents for online education data portals being developed by the Wyoming and Alaska Departments of Education (2008-2010).
Initial product requirements and draft/supervision of sample screenshots of a new online service from Pearson Education (2010).
A technical architecture document for the National Education Data Model (NEDM), a project of the U.S. Department of Education (2009).
Three product requirements documents, all print and online marketing copy, and all press releases for the National Transcript Center (2006-2008).
Extensive documentation (and supervision) of production requirements for a collection of books (including a tactile board book), cassettes, a custom-made plush animal, and other items for both Perkins School for the Blind and BrailleInk. (2001-2008).
Three activity guides (editing and proofreading only), one resource guide, all print and online marketing copy, and several grant proposals for Perkins School for the Blind (2001-2005).
Business plans for BestDebt (an online credit card debt marketplace, 2000-2001), BrailleInk. (nonprofit publisher of children's books with both print and braille, 2004-2005), and the National Transcript Center (2006-2008).
Hundreds of mathematics and accounting questions and explanations for QuestGen, an online assessment tool (2000-2001).
Feature article in Ventures, published by ACCION International, describing my microfinance work in Haiti (2000).
Analyzed and summarized a large-scale client survey for Fidelity Investments (2001).
Contact Details
Bruce Curtis, Austin, Texas, USA
Phone: 512-535-8152
__________________
Writerfind home page
