Colleen Gray

Colleen has had a love affair with the web ever since she signed up for her first AOL Instant Messenger account. Back then, though, there was an element of forbidden love about it – her parents would only allow her 30 minutes a day of online time. Little did they know she would become a full-time fanatic.

As a project officer, Colleen serves as a strategic advisor to clients, regularly advising them on social media, stakeholder engagement and collaboration, usability design, online and email marketing, and the strategic use of websites, mobile technology, blogs, wikis, and other online communication tools. She supports all aspects of project delivery, including organizational and stakeholder research, target audience analysis, communications campaign planning, functional requirements definition, business objectives identification, web analytics, and platform evaluation and selection. Her passions are strategic planning and collaboration, and she spends much of her time at Forum One helping government agencies, nonprofits, and foundations to think strategically and to align their short-term activities with their long-term mission objectives. Colleen is certified in Google Analytics, so she is empowered to not only help organizations develop effective strategies, but to also measure their performance and increase their impact.

Before joining Forum One, she worked for Precipia Systems, a knowledge-management consulting company specializing in government solutions. She spearheaded the company’s marketing practice and worked with clients to conceptualize and implement strategies and technology to enhance information sharing.

As a student at McDaniel College, Colleen spent far more than the parent-sanctioned 30 minutes daily online, becoming increasingly fascinated by human behavior and persuasive technology. This curiosity motivated her to pursue a multidisciplinary academic path; she graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in social psychology and digital communications. While pursuing her degree, she also participated in proposal writing and public relations internships. She draws on this unique background to help clients with the "people" factors and the interplay of communication, collaboration, and technology.

Colleen holds a Master's Certificate from Georgetown University in Project Management, and is currently pursing her PMP certification from the Project Management Institute.

Colleen may spend a lot of time plugged in, but she also has a multitude of offline hobbies – from playing soccer and softball, to taking road trips, to searching for the best brunch venue in DC. She is active in the community, belonging to the Ladies of DC, National Defense Industrial Association, Women in Defense, Young Consultants of DC, and District Trust Charities.

You may not know: Colleen was in a hair commercial when she was eight years old.

Her RSS feeds include: BBC News, Daily Beast, The Week, Economist, Mental Floss, TechCrunch, TMZ

Her tags: Animal lover, Athlete, Hopeless romantic, Marketer, Optimist, Strategist, Wine lover, Writer/Editor

Connect:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/graycolleen
https://twitter.com/graycolleen