Meet Simon, Ayokay’s director of web development! Simon has been with the team for a year now and oversees all things web. We sat down with him to get to know him a little more and understand what brought him to the company.
Q&A with Simon
Q: What is your position at Ayokay and how long have you been here?
A: My position here at Ayokay is the director of web development and I’ve been here for about a year. My day to day involves overseeing all web efforts, making sure that they are moving along and up to the Ayokay development standard.
I also am responsible for ensuring client satisfaction via the support desk, making sure that our clients are taken care of and that their requests are replied to and resolved in a timely manner.
Q: What drew you to working at Ayokay?
A: Largely the social impact of the organization. I really love that we are focused on nonprofit entities. That’s kind of how I’ve lived my life in marketing previous to working here at Ayokay. I love helping entities that make a local impact as well, especially if you can help a community that needs it. That’s just icing on the cake for me. Our social impact and the “Marketing with Purpose” tagline really drew me in, but everything we do for AIDS Walk, Pride and all of our out-in-the-world stuff is really neat and strums my heartstrings.
Q: What’s one thing that you wish people knew about your job?
A: That it’s not just sitting in a dark room and typing code on a computer. There’s a lot more to being web team lead: It’s interfacing with the client, understanding client needs, distilling their needs down into actions, making sure that we’re meeting all of their goals, finding success for the client, and making sure everything looks pretty while we’re doing it.
I’m not just sitting there coding all day. There’s a lot of human interaction and strategy that goes into our work that doesn’t necessarily even touch code, like UI, UX. All of that is just as important as clean code and having a nice framework to work off of.
Q: How has working at Ayokay expanded your professional skills?
A: I’ve never overseen a team this large, and expanding into app development is not something I’ve done previously. I’ve always had a focus on web development, specifically WordPress – so being able to expand into other CMSs has been very neat. Also working with some bigger clients and making stuff that serves an internal purpose to companies – like process and communication methods – has not really been something I’ve done before. It’s more systems building than just website building.
Q: Volunteering seems to be a major source of fulfillment for you. Can you share how volunteering enriches your life and how that positively impacts your role as director of web development?
A: Volunteering to me is community building. Going back to the local impact thing, I want to improve my immediate community and how people live in Indianapolis. Also, there’s a concept in Judaism called tikkun olam, which means “healing or repairing the world”. As humans, we’ve done a lot of good in this world – but we’ve also done some not-so-good things, and people suffer as a result. So whatever you can do to help people that need it, or just be there for your fellow man, you should try to do that.
There’s also the feel-good aspect to it, too. Being out in the world and doing good makes you feel good. But it’s mainly the local impact for me. It’s a great opportunity to meet people that you wouldn’t meet otherwise.
It’s just really cool to be able to learn from someone who might be in a different situation than you, and what most would call “normal”. One of my favorite people to talk to is an avid reader who consumes several books a week. I recently got whooped by a guy in chess – he beat me in like four turns. I’ve met people who have lived on the road their entire lives. I’ve met people who have experienced some addiction issues or financial issues that have landed them in less than ideal situations. Learning from them, hearing their experiences and growing from every conversation is a really neat thing you wouldn’t expect.
I think volunteering positively impacts my role because I view each member of my team as an individual, and I understand that they are unique in not only their interests and values, but the way that they work. Being able to meld the interests of the organization with the interests and workflow of the person is challenging at points, but can be very fulfilling when you’re able to achieve both goals and help your team grow professionally alongside the organization.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
A: First of all, I’m married to a lovely woman who is my best friend, and I’m lucky to say that. We don’t get sick of each other and spend pretty much every day together. Otherwise, I have three cats and a dog, a fish, and a rabbit – so I spend a lot of time caring for them.
I also enjoy video games, although I have kind of a love-hate relationship with video games. There are periods where I do nothing but game and then there are periods where I don’t touch a computer or gaming console. It swings violently.
I love creating things. I think that’s just a general, overarching interest for me.
I play guitar, and banjo has been the newest thing. I’ve cut my teeth on double bass and cello in a classical setting and I fell in love with string instruments generally speaking. So anything with a string, I love to pick up and fiddle around with.
I also produce music – of all sorts of genres, nothing really specific. I like to see if I can make music in different genres. It’s a creative flex for me. I hear some weird, electronic dance music genre, and say to myself “let’s see if I can’t create something similar to that.”
I also enjoy culinary things, like brewing. I make mead and beer. I just like playing with microbiologies, fermenting things, pickling… I haven’t done kimchi yet, but I really want to do kimchi soon.
I love gardening. I have as big of a garden as I can for my condo, where we grow all sorts of edible things. Everything from mild peppers to the hottest peppers that you can get your hands on. I also grow hops for brewing, various vegetables, things like that.
But yeah, the shortest synopsis I could give you is that I love creating things I can share with my friends and family.
Autumn is Ayokay’s Marketing Operations Manager and oversees all client marketing work with a particular focus in digital advertising, social media, and email marketing. When she’s not juggling various client projects, she also supports internal marketing efforts to spread the word about how Ayokay can help their organization.
