Connector Spotlight: Kelly O’Hara

From Angelfire to Tripod, Kelly’s been involved in some OG web products. Now she’s putting her wisdom to use as Connected’s Senior Marketing Manager. Oh yeah, it’s also her birthday. [Editor’s note: well, it was her birthday at the time of publishing.]

Tell us a bit about the project you’re working on.
There are lots going on at the moment. Currently, I’m working on account-based marketing (ABM) campaigns to generate interest with prospective clients, namely a direct mail package that includes one of our favourite books, a Connected Playbook, and a letter of introduction from one of our senior team members.

Where were you before joining Connected?
Before Connected, I was consulting on content and product marketing at Uberflip. After that, I moved to Guestlogix, where I was a Product & Content Marketing Manager.

Sounds like you know the tech world well. Any fun products you’ve worked on?
Funny you should ask, because I actually started as a Product Manager, and then made my way to marketing. At Lycos, my first job out of school, I had a hand in a variety of products, such as Lycos Email, Lycos Hosting, Angelfire, Tripod, and their latest website builder, Zeeblio. Dyn (where I also worked) does DNS, email delivery, and internet intelligence, and at Uberflip, I worked on their content marketing software, which won me the “Most Reliable” award, haha. At Guestlogix, finally, I was involved with the flight attendant point of sale software, back-office solution, and passenger application.

So tons of products, in other words. Did any of them stand out for you?
At Guestlogix I did “voice of the customer” research, where I conducted a ride-along with Southwest from Chicago > Denver > Orlando to see how our product worked onboard, gathering feedback from flight attendants along the way. Our flight into Florida was the day a major hurricane was supposed to hit. So that was “fun.”

Haha, sounds like it. So what about Connected? What do you like about working here?
As a marketer, it’s an interesting shift from marketing a single product to marketing an entire company. Essentially we are marketing our people, and I’ve enjoyed the new challenges that that brings. I also love how innovative and intelligent the people are here at Connected. It makes my job easier 🙂

What advice would you give to someone just starting?
Join a bunch of Slack channels. There are so many little #clubs and #interestgroups it’s easy to lose track. Oh yeah, and join the soccer team (please).

What song is on repeat while you work?
I can’t pick one song, so let’s just sayyyyy… everything by Run the Jewels.

What about hobbies?
I recently started practicing hand-lettering, I enjoy taking dance classes (even though I’m awful), and I like to run. I’ve completed a bunch of races, including two Ragnar Relay Races(24-hour, 200-mile relay runs), two marathons—Rock & Roll Raleigh Marathon and Chicago Marathon—and a bunch of halfs. I’ve lost count of how many I’ve done but one of them was at Disney World and another at Disneyland.

How else do you like to disconnect?
My boyfriend and I started having tech-free Sundays: we put our phones in a drawer and spend the day doing anything that isn’t screen-related. We take our dog Maggie on a long walk, find a coffee shop we haven’t been to, and do a lot of reading. Beyond that, I really enjoy heading out of the city. Last year we went to Prince Edward County.

What product do you wish you’d created and why?
Haha, well, those contraptions that clip to a dog leash and hold a roll of waste bags are pretty smart. I used to think they were dumb until I got a dog and realized that, unless I had the bags clipped to the leash, I would never remember to take one when going for a walk.

Haha, what about a software product? Unless your dog leash connects to the cloud…Haha, touché. Well, the fitness app ClassPass, which gives you access to different gyms around the city, and the companion app ClassPass Go, which gives you at-home workouts, are both great. The first one gets me to try different classes around the city, while the second one lets me keep working out in this horrible winter we’re having, without having to leave my home.

Anything else we might not know about you?
I’m from Boston. Well, Beverly, which is near Salem… plus I can wiggle my ears.

How do you like Toronto then? What’s your favourite food spot?
Wvrst. My go-to order is the Berkshire pork sausage with a side of duck fat fries. And I really love their cider flights.

Aside from restaurants, Trillium Park near Ontario Place is a gorgeous part of the city. Maggie’s #1 spot. Anywhere with a lot of squirrels, really.

Stay tuned for more profiles about the great people here at Connected.